Image credit: Venturebeat.com
In a presentation under its hood in Seattle today, Amazon announces and debuted nearly a dozen new products, ranging from next generation versions of smart speakers like the Echo Show and Echo Dot to a microwave, smart plug, and Echo subwoofer, to Echo Auto for cars.
With all of that, a whole lot of new features were announced for both the consumers and the very precious developers who are the driving force of this IT industry creating experiences for Echo-enabled devices.
Here’s a quick recap of features you might have missed at the event.
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New music release notifications
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Soon Alexa will be able to hear you to follow an artist to get their notifications whenever they drop any new single or album.
Among all the news it’s understandable if you have missed this new feature, but this may very well be my favorite update of the day. It’s gonna be so much awesome when Alexa will tell you that your favourite singer or people have dropped a new album or single so that you can be the first one to hear it as soon as possible and since playing music continues to be the most popular way to use a voice-enabled smart speaker, it’s an example of the kind of proactive notification people won’t mind receiving.
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Routines for kids
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In April, Amazon put on the table its Echo Dot for kids and provided the Freetime service for the parents to configure the speaker in a way that they want for their children. For kids routines are also introduced to customize commands having multiple actions with a single utterence. So, parents can select music, timers, personalized messages, and other actions for bedtime or routines before or after school. Routines for kids follows the introduction last month of new skills for kids and the Alexa Gadgets Toolkit for companies to incorporate Alexa into their toys.
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Alexa Guard
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Alexa Guard is a tool that uses and harnesses the listening power of Echo speakers to alert people when the sound of some of the special events like breaking glass or smoke or carbon monoxide alarms are heard. As the name suggests it is also able to connect with existing home security systems from Ring and ADT in order to send alerts to them too.
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Alexa Skills Kit Music Skill
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Alexa has been restrictive to very limited number of the most popular music streaming services, but the smart speaker in large part responsible for more people listening to music will open its doors to any music streaming service with the ASK Music Skill. The ASK Music Skill launches first with Jay-Z’s music streaming service Tidal.
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Enhanced video control
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At this very event Amazon introduced partnerships with top companies like Hulu and NBC as well as the Fire TV Recast, its first ever dedicated digital video recording device that is able to play television through antennas across your home. The new services mean you can now say “Alexa, tune to ESPN on Hulu” or “Alexa, show me my recordings” to see the items you have recorded on your Fire TV Recast. Recast can also go mobile with apps for Fire tablets or iOS or Android smartphones.
Newly introduced services are much of a improvement on the first-generation Echo Showing video abilities, which were just limited to things like Twitch and Food Network videos, undercut still more when, a month after launch, Google rescinded support for YouTube. Addeitionally video support was also made available for hands free help cooking dinner.
To compete with Google this new video showing capability is the tool for Amazon to compete, which has outsold Amazon in global smart speaker sales worldwide for the past two quarters, according to Canalys numbers.
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Alexa Presentation Language
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The Alexa Presentation Language (APL) from now onwards will allow developers to build skills that will connect with televisions using Fire TV, Fire tablets, Echo Show, and Echo Spot in the coming months, as will the Alexa Smart Screen and TV Device SDK. Sony smart TVs and Lenovo tablets have also announced support for visual experiences with Alexa. APL is a JSON-based language so it will include text, audio, video, and HTML 5. The APL is available today in preview.
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Doorbell API
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With the API being the core components in communication of software over the internet for data exchange and now you will be able to answer your doorbell and can communicate with the people at your main door using the Alexa Doorbell API. The Doorbell API will be an integral part of the Smart Home Camera API and will be made available for manufacturers later this year.
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Multiroom music
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With all the new devices tThe new Hub, Link and Link Plus were also introduced today and mainly used to enhance people’s listening experience with an Echo speaker, but there is a twist with an upgrade to multiroom music support, now speakers with Alexa inside, such as those from third-party manufacturers like the Polk Command Bar and Harman Kardon Alert, now they can also respond when you ask Alexa to play music in a room of your specific choice or as part of a group. Stereo sound between multiple speakers was also introduced today.
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Alexa is becoming a better conversationalist
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Handling multiple requests at a single time will be much cooler and here it is going to come soon so Alexa will understand when you say “Alexa, add nacho cheese, tortilla chips, and chili to my shopping list” or “Alexa, play Pandora at volume 8.”
Routines will also become very much easy to use and will be able to do more, with location-based triggers so as you pull into your driveway, the lights come on and your podcast starts to play. Smarter routines were introduced a week after Siri Shortcuts were introduced for iOS 12. Alexa will also soon be able to tell you about activity in your email, so you can say “Alexa, do I have emails from Karen?”
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Hunches
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Another awesome way to Alexa smarter. With the Hunches, Alexa will now have the power to tell people information based on what it knows from connected sensors or devices in your home. For example, if you say “Alexa, good night,” in response Alexa might say “By the way, your living room light is on. Do you want me to turn it off?”
Previous year, Alexa started to roll out Briefs, a way for less talking and simply hearing an affirmative sound instead. Alexa is eventually getting better about being conversational with features like follow-up, but being smart about when to speak up is key to a better experience. Hunches seems to be going down the right path.
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Whisper mode
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How cool it will to hear your Alexa whispering when in reeurn when you whishper to it and will in turn whisper back. That’s awfully helpful in those moments when you’re trying to speak to your intelligent assistant but your kid or spouse is asleep nearby. Amazon and Alexa developers have been able to make the AI assistant whisper for some time now with SSML tags, but Amazon VP of device and services David Limp said the new feature is powered by deep neural nets to understand when a person is whispering.
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Skype video calls
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Skype as we know has become a very important aspect in communication for corporate world and focusing on that the new 10-inch Echo Show will be able to play a lot more video, and will be able to make phone or video calls with Skype.
This builds upon the partnership between Microsoft and Amazon, which brought Alexa to Windows 10 PCs and Cortana to Echo speakers last month. How cool is this swapping of AI assistance is which now supports different platforms. Skype has been downloaded more than a billion times, and last year Microsoft reported the service had more than 300 million monthly active users. That’s a big improvement on the DropIn feature in the Alexa app that started from zero in the first-generation Echo Show. Pretty simple math: When more people have the software for video calls, it just makes it that much more likely that people will actually utilize the service.
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