Echo has Zoom

Good to see broader, business oriented capabilities.

Amazon’s Echo Show 10 now has Zoom

For those pandemic-fueled video calls

By Ashley Carman@ashleyrcarman in TheVerge

Amazon’s bringing Zoom compatibility to more devices. The company announced today that it’s making the Echo Show 10 devices in the US compatible with the popular video calling software. Users who have their calendars linked up to the Alexa will have their meetings started automatically while people who haven’t done that can say, “Alexa, join my meeting” or “Alexa, join my Zoom meeting” to join one. This is the second Echo Show to gain Zoom access; the Echo Show 8 started supporting the videoconferencing platform in the US in December.

The Echo Show 10’s camera tracks users as they move throughout a room, meaning callers can see the screen no matter where they sit or stand. Presumably, this functionality will work with Zoom, putting it on par with other competitor devices like the Facebook Portal and Google Nest. Google pulls Zoom meetings from users’ calendars while Facebook allows its Portal camera to track users around the room so that they’re always in frame, just like it does with Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp calls. ...  "

Designing the Echo

 Fast Company looks at the design and redesign of the Amazon Echo since 2014.  Thoughtful examination of how complex consumer design works.

Why Amazon radically redesigned the Echo

You may be ordering one for Black Friday. But why is it shaped like that? ... 

Amazon Refreshes Echo Lineup

Amazon Echo Moves forward, looks to be a considerable update.

Amazon refreshes Echo lineup with new custom chip 

By Stephanie Condon for Between the Lines | in ZDNet

The updated smart speaker lineup also features a sleek new design and new capabilities for kids. Meanwhile, the new Echo Show 10 features a screen that follows you as you move throughout a room.

Amazon on Thursday unveiled a refreshed lineup of Amazon Echo smart speakers, featuring a new, custom chip that will help the AI-powered assistant Alexa respond to commands more quickly. The new devices also include a new design and new features for kids.  Amazon also unveiled the Echo Show 10, a smart speaker with a screen that can follow you as you move throughout a room.  

"In processing, milliseconds matter," Miriam Daniel, VP of Amazon Echo, said during a virtual event hosted by Amazon's Devices and Services team. 

"Imagine asking Alexa to turn on the light, and there's a slight delay," she explained. "Our team worked really hard to shave off hundreds of milliseconds" in Alexa's response time. 

The new devices include a new  AZ1 neural edge processor -- a new silicon module purpose-built to run machine learning algorithms on the edge. It works with new neural speech recognition models that run on the AZ1.   "Together, they make all commands faster on the new Echo," Daniel said. 

The new devices have been redesigned with a spherical shape and a fabric cover, and they come in three colors. Like the Echo Studio, the new devices automatically adapt to the acoustics of a room. 

They also include a built-in smart home hub and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) support, and it also serves as an Amazon Sidewalk Bridge. Sidewalk is a low-bandwidth network that uses BLE and the free 900 MHz spectrum to control devices. The protocol is part of Amazon's effort to spur the development of low-cost IoT devices that don't rely on a cellular connection. As a Sidewalk Bridge, the new Echo devices extend the range of your connected Sidewalk devices.   .... " 

Turn Your Echo into a Phone

Been placing calls via Alexa for some time, this seems to close the loop.  This seems to open the loop for new kinds of skills that direct, handle, record, manage incoming calls.   A little like Google Duplex?  New abilities for business assistants?  I have an AT&T number so may try this as part of my smart home capabilities.

I saw there are a number of posts here about how Google Duplex links with the Google Assistant ....  so examining that as well.  See the 'Google Duplex Tag' for those posts.

Amazon’s new Alexa partnership lets you link your AT&T number to turn your Echo into a phone

‘Alexa, answer the phone’

By Chaim Gartenberg   @cgartenberg in TheVerge

Amazon is rolling out a new partnership with AT&T today that will let customers link their phone numbers to their Alexa account, allowing them to both make and receive phone calls via their Alexa devices. ... "

Alexa now has an Everywhere Intercom

Been a long-time user of Alexa as an intercom, but you had to select a destination.   Now this new capability is nice, specially useful if you have a large multi-floor house or connected outside space.  Previously you could broadcast, but only one-way.   I could also see this as a means of asking the opinion of people in the house, as is shown in the example, and recording them in a list.  Maybe a business use?   The latter is not done automatically now. 

Now all your home’s Alexa devices work like an intercom  in Engadget

Amazon's 'Drop In' feature now works across the entire house.
Amazon Alexa users can now use the “Drop In” feature to talk with all of their Echo devices at once, Amazon announced on its blog. Previously, Drop In messages could only be sent to one other Alexa-enabled device at a time -- a user with an Alexa device in the bedroom could “drop in” on a device in the kitchen and have a two-way conversation.

Now, you can use a device to send a message to all Echo devices in the house at once. This could be helpful with asking group questions like, “Does anyone want anything from the grocery store?” according to the Amazon blog. To start a group Drop In conversation, you can ask Alexa to “Drop In everywhere.”  ... " 

Update:  Later I read that they have also added an 'Everywhere' option to the reminder feature,  'Set a reminder at 5 PM to dress for dinner' ... Everywhere'

Alexa Presentation Language Released

Has been around now for a year,  worth looking at as to how capabilities that link voice, text and animation can be constructed.  Still need more ways to sweeten the actual intelligence provided.  Worth an examination as to the approach Amazon is using.

Alexa Presentation Language Now Generally Available: Build Multimodal Experiences that Come Alive with Animation
Arunjeet Singh

Today we are excited to announce that Alexa Presentation Language (APL) is generally available. APL enables you to easily create visually rich Alexa skills for devices with screens and to adapt them for different device types such as the Echo Show, Echo Spot, Fire TV, LG TVs, and the Lenovo Smart Tab. Adding visuals and touch can enhance voice experiences and make skills more engaging and interactive for customers. With the general availability of APL, we addressed key known issues you raised to enable specific use cases and addressed feedback from the public beta.

We believe that the emergence of voice user interfaces isn’t an incremental improvement to existing technology; it marks a significant shift in human-computer interaction. That’s why APL is designed from the ground up for creating voice-first, multimodal Alexa skills.

Over the past year, we have launched many different tools and resources to help you build skills that include text, graphics, slideshows, animation, and video content. There are thousands of multimodal skills across different categories. For example, the winner of the Alexa Multimodal Challenge, Stuart Pocklington, created Loop It, a skill that lets you choose from a variety of audio loops to create your own track. The skill makes use of TouchWrappers to allow users to navigate by touching the screen. Customers can see images for the sun, clouds, and other conditions when interacting with Big Sky, a skill that uses APL’s ability to adapt content to adjust layout and information density based on the device display size.

As APL approaches its 1st birthday, we want to highlight some important benefits, tools and features you should be aware of so that you can build rich, interactive skills. .... "

Kids Echo

Now, with a 2+ old granddaughter, who has learned to interact vocally with an Echo, an interesting development.  Is it child abuse, as some have suggested?    How should privacy be differently addressed?

Amazon’s new Echo Dot Kids Edition comes in blue or rainbow colors  in TheVerge
Based on the third-generation Echo Dot

By Dan Seifert @dcseifert    .... "

Echo Devices now Support Skype Calling

In further indication of a link between Microsoft and Amazon,  Voice and Video Skype calls can now be made-hands free on Echo devices.  I frequently use Skype for international communications.  Signed up for this and it worked well.  Another move towards Echo for business scenarios.   Text messaging is not yet available, but is coming.

You can now make Skype calls on Amazon Echo devices   By Bruce Brown in DigitalTrends

Just in time for the holiday season, Microsoft and Amazon announced that you can now ask Alexa to make Skype voice and video calls on Echo devices.

In all, 34 countries will soon be Alexa and Skype-enabled. Skype support for the Alexa platform is available now in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Support for other countries will be coming soon, according to Microsoft.

You can use Alexa-enabled devices such as the Echo Plus or Dot to make hands-free Skype voice calls.  ... "

Microsoft is Selling Alexas

Just started looking at updated Cortana and how it integrates with Echo. Still minimally.  Makes sense for Cortana to be the ecosystem wing to best support Office solutions. 

Microsoft is selling Amazon Echo speakers in its stores in Engadget
It's continuing to shift away from Cortana as a mainstream assistant.  by Jon Fingas, @jonfingas

Microsoft's deepening relationship with Amazon's Alexa now extends to its stores. WalkingCat and others have noticed that Microsoft is carrying both the new Echo Dot and the regular Echo in its online and retail stores. The company isn't just supporting Alexa, then -- it's encouraging you to buy into Amazon's ecosystem.   ... "

Alexa Wants to Simplify the Skill Experience

Some 50K skills, but many of them rather pointless. Now if only they could only work together to create something very useful. The unworldliness of all this will cause it collapse.   Not to say the basics of playing music, managing lights and cameras isn't useful and even fun.   But you can't just continue to chop the basic pieces up into smaller ones. 

Its not much different in Google Home.  There I found I could ask questions of the assistant in German,  but she insisted on answering with snippets in English.    I want things that can talk, converse, do useful things when they work together or with people.  Insightful and coherent, so I come out of the interaction a little smarter.   I would take a few hundred skills, if they were the right ones.  So when are we planning delivery?

Amazon wants Alexa to figure out how to fulfill users’ without help from Skills   By AJ Dellinger in Digitaltrends

Amazon’s wildly popular voice assistant Alexa has managed to make herself invaluable to many people because of the wide range of abilities available through Alexa Skills. Now, Amazon is reportedly getting ready to kill off the feature — well, kind of — in favor of a system that will simplify the experience for users.  ... " 

Amazon Alexa Connects with 20K Devices

Impressive.  But what is more important, the ability to be a working part of an IOT, or to be further along creeping towards conversational intelligence?   In the latter, I believe that today Google Assistant is ahead.   I have both installed and being used.   And they are connected to some twenty devices in my smart home.    Also more impressed with the support Amazon gives to skill developers.  Thus probably their being advanced in the skill count. Though they do pay too much attention to quantity rather than quality of skill results.   Send me skills that advance conversational intelligence, and can be connected with other skills to dive that.    More from IFA show: 

Amazon’s Alexa now works with 20,000+ different devices  by Duncan Riley in SiliconAngle

 Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa everywhere strategy is paying off. The company said Saturday that its smart assistant now works with more than 20,000 different devices.

Daniel Rausch, vice president of Amazon’s Smart Home group, revealed the number to an audience at the IFA tech show in Berlin Saturday along with a number of other insights into just how well the strategy has been working.

Just this year, Rausch is reported as saying, “Alexa has sung Happy Birthday millions of times to customers, and she’s told over 100 million jokes.”

Rausch said that Alexa-enabled devices have grown from working with an already impressive 4,000 devices at the beginning of the year to more than 20,000 devices while at the same time brands working with Alexa nearly tripled, from 1,200 to 3,500.  ... " 

Echo Mod for Sign Language

When I saw this, appeared that this is a hard thing to do, and apparently the range of signs and capabilities are still limited, but a remarkable possibility.  For Echo devices that include cameras, the system detects and interprets sign language.

This Amazon Echo mod lets Alexa understand sign language
‘If voice is the future of computing, what about those who cannot speak or hear?’   By James Vincent   @jjvincent  in theverge

Hospitality Experiment by Marriott and Alexa

I know of several other hospitality experiments going on, its a natural direction.  Distinguishing, but will it save a hotel labor and resources?   What skills could do that?  Examining Alexa for Hospitality.

Amazon and Marriott Want to Modernize Hotel Experiences  By Lisa Morgan in Informationweek.

The hospitality industry wants to make travel experiences as "friction-free" as possible. Amazon and Marriott are advancing that concept by placing Amazon Echo speakers in hotel rooms so guests' desires can be fulfilled with mere utterances.

Amazon and Marriott International will start modernizing hotel stays this summer with Amazon Echo speakers that feature Alexa for Hospitality. Forget about bulky in-room binders and hotel service extension codes, including the front desk. Just sit back, relax and tell Alexa what you need or want.

"We think travelers will love having a voice-first experience during their stays at hotels," said a Marriott International spokesperson. "This will enable travelers to access local and hotel information, as well as play music and control smart home products [including] lights, thermostat, TV, [and] blinds." .... " 

Amazon Expands Alexa PC Designs

Amazon’s new all-in-one and laptop designs could get Alexa into even more PCs  By Shannon Liao @Shannon_Liao in TheVerge

‘Amazon has just announced four new designs for PC manufacturers to work off of, which could make it easier to integrate Alexa in more PCs. The new Windows 10 PC designs have been pre-tested and are “final-product designs.” They include far-field microphone arrays so that Alexa can hear you from across the room, and they're powered by Intel processors.

The four designs are made by Taiwan-based manufacturers Wistron, Compal, and Quanta. Wistron has an all-in-one PC with a 27-inch 4K display. It also includes a 1080p webcam with an infrared sensor, four microphones, and two stereo speakers. In addition, Wistron developed a convertible notebook that has a 15.6-inch 4K touch display, an HD camera, eight hours of battery life, four microphones, and two speakers. .... " 

In Skill Echo Purchasing Enabled

Will be interesting to see how this may enlarge the base with more and more complex assortments of skills.  Now the incentive has been extended.    Will this compete with general smartphone App capabilities?  Much detail at the link. Now claiming in excess of 40K Skills.

Make Money through In-Skill Purchasing

Sell Premium Content to Enrich Your Alexa Skill Experience
When developers and content creators build delightful skills with compelling content, customers win. With in-skill purchasing (ISP), you can sell premium content to enrich your Alexa skill experience.

ISP supports both one-time purchases for entitlements that unlock access to features or content in your skill and subscriptions that offer access to premium features or content for a period of time. You define your premium offering and price, and we handle the voice-first purchasing flow. We also provide self-service tools to manage your in-skill products, and optimize their sales performance over time. Today, you can make money through both ISP and Alexa Developer Rewards. .... "

More in Fast Company:      The voice platform’s new in-skill options for letting people buy content, subscriptions, and physical goods fill a long-standing gap in its capabilities ..... " 

Webinar on the topic.

Alexa to Sport a Bigger, more Conversational Brain

A good direction, needs to be continued.   Some very interesting details in the blog post.

Alexa’s bigger ‘brain’ is getting new skills, natural conversation, and memory  By Clayton Moore in DigitalTrends

The digital assistant Alexa is about to get smarter and potentially easier to use, according to a new presentation at the International World Wide Web Conference in Lyon, France. The platform will soon be able to remember information you have instructed it to keep handy, enjoy more natural conversations without having to voice the “Alexa” prompt, and merge commerce recommendations into everyday exchanges.

These evolutionary changes were detailed by Ruhi Sarikaya, the head of the Alexa Brain Group, in a developer blog post that gave more context to the announcement. The department’s primary mission is to make Alexa smarter and more engaging, while making it easier for users to access tens of thousands of Alexa Skills, and training the assistant to retain and utilize contextual information. .... "

More Alexa Lamps

They are everywhere now, and lamps and light fixtures are a convenient place for more.   The introduction of a reference design should make it easier yet.

More Alexa-enabled lamps are coming
By Ashley Carman   @ashleyrcarman   in TheVerge

I’m sure you’ve always wanted a lamp with Amazon’s Alexa assistant built in, and Amazon wants to make sure companies can sell you one. Today, the Alexa maker announced the first reference design for a smart lamp that includes a microphone, speaker, and support for Alexa. Amazon approves and tests third-party white-box solutions, so hardware sellers know the design is reliable.

This particular lamp design comes from an ODM called Adition. It features two microphones, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, and support for multiple music services. It also illuminates in a warm light with the ability to dim. Companies will be able to take this design, tweak it, and quickly bring an Alexa-enabled lamp of their own to market.  .... " 

Amazon Announces Improved Skill Development

Alexa Skill Management API and Alexa Skills Kit Command Line Interface Enables Faster, More Automated Skill Management : Alexa Blogs   by Shiraz Datta

Today we are excited to announce the general availability of Alexa Skill Management API (SMAPI) and Alexa Skills Kit Command Line Interface (ASK CLI) with new capabilities to programmatically create and manage your Alexa skills. SMAPI is a set of API operations, and ASK CLI is a command line application that leverages SMAPI to create, update, test, and submit Alexa skills. With ASK CLI, you can automate your skill management and testing workflow, making skill updates faster and more automated.

SMAPI also enables tool builders worldwide to integrate their systems directly with the Alexa Skills Kit, making it easy for developers to manage their Alexa skills in systems they already know and trust. Further, tool builders can build on top of the Skill Management API to bring the Alexa skill creation workflow into their systems. A growing number of companies like PullString and Storyline are already taking advantage of the SMAPI.   .... "

Kuri Update and Future

The updated newsletter for the Kuri home robot includes extensive new information.  Very nicely presented. The system is now scheduled for shipment this month.  It costs $799 plus shipping and handling.   Expensive.  Still have not seen any extensive operational tests written about. 

The idea of having an attentive,  crawling device with camera and a voice of sorts,  that can learn your home and play with the kids and pets, is fascinating.  Emphasizes the mobile picture-seeking and taking capability.   Assume it would have at least the minimal conversational intelligence of assistant devices.     It uses a 'beep' language code to signal.  Will it ultimately allow skill apps to be written for it?   Not now.

Can it replace the far less expensive and now common stationary devices like the Echo or Home?  Is the movement very useful, or will it just get in the way?  It does not seem to be able to fetch or carry things.  Is voice + movement  enough to engage?  What do we expect from a home robot?  Is movement without robot hands or skills useful?    Is friendliness, which they push in their newsletter,  worth the high price?  Revealed that it uses an IOS 10+ App only to run, which is still not yet available. Newsletter includes a more extensive FAQ.  Look forward to seeing more operational tests.

Google Home Adds Intercom

Been using a similar function in Amazon Alexa for some time, its a popular function in the Smart Home.   Especially if you have a larger space.  Only makes sense if you have have more than one device. Google has added some clever and humorous functions to the intercom.    Always thought Amazon was ahead in making such assistant functions more 'human' and engaging, nice to see Google Home Advancing here.   More below.

Stop yelling across the house — use your Google Home as an Intercom instead    By Lulu Chang  in DigitalTrends ... "