Alexa to Take AI to the Moon

 Like to see this, will follow.  Will conversational AI be good enough by then?  I don't think it is yet. 

Amazon’s Alexa and Cisco’s Webex are heading to deep space on NASA’s upcoming Moon mission

Meet Callisto, the companion of Artemis

By Loren Grush@lorengrush   in TheVerge

When NASA debuts its new massive deep-space rocket for the first time in the coming months, a familiar voice assistant and video teleconferencing tool will be going along for the ride. A version of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant and Cisco’s Webex videoconferencing platform will be included on the flight to space, part of a technology demonstration to see if these tools might benefit future astronauts flying to distant destinations like the Moon and Mars.

The upcoming flight is known as Artemis I, and it’s the first test mission in a series of flights planned for NASA’s Artemis program — an initiative to send the first woman and the first person of color to the surface of the Moon. Tentatively set for March, Artemis I will mark the inaugural flight of NASA’s next-generation rocket, the Space Launch System, or SLS, a gargantuan rocket that Boeing has been developing for the last decade. The SLS is designed to launch people and cargo into deep space, with passengers riding on top of the vehicle in a new crew capsule called Orion, developed by Lockheed Martin.

“A FUTURE IN WHICH ASTRONAUTS COULD TURN TO AN ONBOARD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR INFORMATION”

For Artemis I, SLS will launch an Orion crew capsule around the Moon on a weeks-long flight — the first time the two vehicles will fly to space together. This is a critical test launch, so no people will be flying inside Orion, save for a mannequin. However, the fake passenger will have some machine companions. Lockheed Martin teamed up with Amazon and Cisco to mount a “human-machine interface” in the spot where Orion’s control panel will be in the future. Called Callisto after the companion of Artemis in Greek mythology, the box will have a voice-activated Alexa speaker, with its iconic blue ring light, and an iPad that runs Webex.  .... '

Voicea Acquired by Cisco for Webex

Just Received, we tested the Voicea system last year as a potential means for an 'in meeitng' participant-assistant'.    It seemed to have great potential.   Now it is part of Cisco and Webex as a 'core capability of the Webex Experience' ...

Alyson from Voicea  .....

Dear Customer,
Cisco Systems, Inc. (“Cisco”) acquired Rizio, Inc. d/b/a Voicea (“Voicea”) on September 6, 2019. Since then, Cisco has been in the process of integrating Voicea into Cisco. You are receiving this notice because you are a user of Voicea and accepted the Voicea.com Terms of Service (“the Agreement”). Cisco Webex is the leading collaboration and communications platform for business, and we are very excited to have Voicea services become a core capability of the Webex experience. As part of that ongoing integration effort, Cisco is moving the Voicea services to a Cisco Webex + Voicea integrated offering (“New Offer”).   .... ?


For more see: Voicea: 

Automated Minutes
EVA, your Enterprise Voice Assistant transcribes and highlights your meetings so you never miss a detail. Then, follow-up quickly by sending meeting details to your integrated workflow tools.  ... "