What is Amazon Alexa? Amazon Alexa Review

Function

Alexa is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, playing podcasts, playing audiobooks, as well as providing weather, traffic and other real-time information such as news.

use

Most devices with Alexa allow users to activate the device using a wake word (e.g. Echo);

Other devices, such as the Amazon mobile app on iOS or Android, require users to press a button to activate Alexa's listening mode.

Supported devices

Smart speakers: Amazon echo, Amazon Echo Dot, Amazon Tap, Amazon Echo Look, Amazon Echo Plus, Amazon Echo Show, sonos, etc.

TVs and media boxes: Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Element 43-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV

Phones and tablets: Amazon Fire and Fire HD, Huawei Mate 9, HTC U11, TCL Xess tablet,

Moto X4, Moto Smart Speaker;

Laptops and Desktops: Asus Zenbook and VivoBook laptops, HP, Lenovo ThinkPad X1, Acer Aspire, Acer Aspire All-in-One Desktops

Smart Home: Amazon Dash, ecobee4, Ecobee Smart Thermometer, iDevices Switch, etc.

Wearables and headphones: OV headphones, Lynx robot, iMCO CoWatch, etc.

Cars: Ford, BMW (all 2018 models), Mini (all 2018 models), Toyota (all 2018 models), Lexus (all 2018 models), Garmin Speak, Muse by Speak Music

Others: Roger (app), Amazon iOS and Android apps (music playback only), EchoSim (web version), etc.

Alexa Skills Kit

Alexa Skills Kit is a set of interfaces and tools for Amazon's voice service Alexa, which enables developers to easily create voice functions.

For example, if you are using the smart home system of Crestron, you can enable the skill plug-in Crestron Home Automation for SmartHome. When enabling it, you need Oauth account authorization. In this way, the Echo speaker will know how many Crestron devices are connected to your home, and then you can control them by voice.

History and Evolution

In June 2015, Amazon launched the development kit for its voice service Alexa and officially opened up Echo. Device manufacturers can use the Alexa API provided by Amazon to enable their devices to support Alexa.

Amazon's smart voice assistant was originally named Echo. In August 2015, in order to distinguish it from the speaker itself, Echo was renamed Alexa, the same name as a website analysis tool owned by Amazon.

In September 2016, Amazon launched an annual competition called the Alexa Prize to encourage American college students to develop a robot that can chat on a specific topic for more than 20 minutes. The winner will receive a $2.5 million prize from Amazon.

In January 2018, Amazon announced that it would update the Alexa voice service into the Alexa App and officially open it to everyone.

As of February 2018, Alexa is available in 38 countries.

In April 2019, all US Alexa device users will be able to listen to music using the Amazon Music service, regardless of whether they have purchased an Amazon Prime membership.

In May 2019, Amazon's Alexa Guard feature was finally launched nationwide after being announced in October and launched in an invite-only beta in December.

In August 2019, Amazon launched a new feature for its Alexa smart assistant that allows users to choose its talking speed. Just say "Alexa, speak slower" or "Alexa, speak faster" and you can ask Alexa to speak slower or faster.

In September 2019, Amazon announced new Alexa capabilities, including a multilingual mode that enables it to speak English and Spanish in the United States, French in Canada, and English in Canada.

In October 2019, Amazon has launched a new feature for its Amazon virtual assistant Alexa that will allow users to pay bills using voice commands.

In November 2019, Amazon announced a partnership with medication management company Omnicell to launch a new Alexa skill for people who take medication. To use the new skill, users only need prescription details to set medication reminders and request prescription refills using voice.

Exposing privacy

There have been several reports of privacy concerns about the Alexa voice assistant. In April, it was reported that the team at Amazon responsible for reviewing Alexa user commands had access to users' location data and, in some cases, could easily find their home addresses.

While there is no indication that Amazon employees with access to the data are tracking individual users, two members of the Alexa team said Amazon is giving unnecessarily broad access to customer data that would make it easy to identify device owners.

Amazon Alexa laughs

According to foreign media reports, many foreign users have recently responded on social media that devices equipped with Amazon's personal virtual assistant Alexa will automatically emit inexplicable weird laughter, which scares many people. Especially at night, when you don't make any voice wake-up calls to the speaker, it immediately gives people goose bumps.

References

• 1. Alexa function description: Amazon official website [reference date 2018-03-01T16:00:00.000Z]
• 2. Amazon launches new feature to change Alexa's speaking speed: Mobile Home [cited on 2019-08-05T16:00:00.000Z]
• 3. Amazon reveals privacy concerns again: Alexa will store personal data indefinitely and users cannot delete it manually: Qianzhan.com [cited on 2019-07-04T16:00:00.000Z]
• 4. Amazon Alexa gets smarter, allowing users to pay bills with voice commands: Ai Technology Network [cited on 2019-10-13T16:00:00.000Z]
• 5. Amazon Alexa alarm function launched in the United States: NetEase News [cited on 2019-05-15T16:00:00.000Z]
• 6. Amazon launches free music service for Alexa devices: ebrun [cited on 2019-04-15T16:00:00.000Z]
• 7. Amazon launches new Alexa feature to set medication reminders for users: Tencent [cited on 2019-11-26T16:00:00.000Z]
• 8. The rebellion of artificial intelligence? Why does Amazon Alexa laugh for no reason? : Electronic Design Technology [cited on 2018-03-06T16:00:00.000Z]