The Amazon Alexa voice assistant is popular with consumers, but it’s a major failure for the company, costing it $10 billion in 2022.
Search: Amazon Alexa
How to Play Apple Music Radio and Playlists on an Amazon Alexa Device
Apple Music 1, the rebranded radio station, and playlists can be accessed on Amazon’s Echo dot and other Alexa-enabled smart speakers.
Amazon Alexa App on iPhone Gets Major Revamp
The Alexa app for iPhone is getting a revamp, offering increased personalization and a greater focus on first-party features.
Amazon Alexa Voice Recordings are Stored Indefinitely
In a letter to U.S. senators Amazon said it keeps your Alexa voice recordings indefinitely unless you manually delete them.
In the letter to Coons, Amazon noted that for Alexa requests that involve a transaction, like ordering a pizza or hailing a rideshare, Amazon and the skill’s developers can keep a record of that transaction. That means that there’s a record of nearly every purchase you make on Amazon’s Alexa, which can be considered personal information.
Amazon Alexa HIPAA Skills Come to the Device
Amazon announced six Alexa HIPAA-compliant skills are coming today. They will be for patients and caregivers.
Now Atrium Health patients in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia can ask Alexa to schedule same-day appointments, while Express Scripts members can check the status of a home delivery prescription and can request Alexa notifications when their prescription orders are shipped. Meanwhile, the Livongo Alexa skill lets people check recent blood sugar readings and monitor their blood sugar levels. Other developers or healthcare companies that are interested in adding skills to Alexa must apply to an invite-only Alexa program to participate.
Nothing will go wrong, right?
Vobot, the World's First Smart Clock with Amazon Alexa: $44.99
We have a deal on Vobot for folks in the Alexa ecosystem. It’s a smart clock with Alexa built into it. You can control it by voice, get information by voice, and snooze by turning it over. It’s $44.99 through our deal.
This $2 App Brings Amazon Alexa to Your Apple Watch...Sort Of
An Apple Watch app called Voice in a Can is seeking to satisfy the desires of those who love Apple hardware but rely on Amazon Alexa for its home automation capabilities. As a standalone app, Voice in a Can runs entirely on the Apple Watch without needing to pair with the iPhone. With just a Wi-Fi or LTE connection you ask Alexa to control your home lights, unlock the door, or set your thermostat. However, since Apple prevents third party apps from replacing Siri, you can’t use Voice in a Can to have Alexa make calls or control the audio playback on your watch. It’s by no means a perfect solution, but it’s the best Alexa users have thus far until Amazon and Apple work out an official solution. Grab it now on the App Store for $1.99.
Here's How to Make Amazon Alexa Less Chatty with Brief Mode
If Amazon’s Alexa feels a little too chatty for you, there’s a fix for that. It’s called Brief Mode, and it’s easy to enable.
How to Find Your iPhone with Amazon Echo and Alexa
Lost your iPhone in the house? Learn how to find your iPhone using Alexa and Amazon Echo with our easy-to-follow guide.
Amazon Looks to Give Alexa Capability to Mimic Anybody’s Voice
Amazon is developing a system that will allow Alexa to mimic anybody’s voice with less than a minute of listening to them.
Tell Alexa to Delete Amazon Echo Voice Recordings
Amazon announce that users can delete recordings made by their Echo device via Alexa voice commands, not just the website and app.
Amazon Launches Free Music Tier Via Alexa
Alexa owners can now access some Amazon Music playlists and stations via the voice assistant, with the launch of a new free tier.
Amazon's Alexa is Listening to You - More Than You Might Know
Bloomberg reports:
Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening.
Sometimes, someone is.
The article goes on to explain how Amazon employs thousands of people around the world to listen, transcribe and annotate conversations with Alexa. All in an effort to improve Alexa’s ability to understand human speech. Of course, Amazon has strict policies and the user identities are anonymized. But still… Seriously?
Amazon Aiming to Challenge AirPods With Alexa-Enabled Earbuds
Amazon is preparing to challenge Apple’s AirPods by releasing its own earbud headphones that will have Alexa integration.
Amazon's Super Bowl LIII Ad Won't Trigger Alexa
The adverts are likely to be as big a talking point from this weekend’s Super Bowl as the football. Techcrunch reported on how Amazon stops those ads waking millions of Alexa’s across the country. The procedure is relatively simple if Amazon is producing the advert itself. If it isn’t, but “the audio of a request matches that of requests from at least two other customers, we identify it as a media event,” the company explained. So, come Super Bowl Sunday there should be no incidents like that South Park one.
With its own ads, the company adds a fingerprint of the audio, which is stored on-device. Given the Echo’s storage limitations, additional fingerprints are stored in the cloud, where the assistant can cross-check things before waking. The system generally works pretty well, though complications can occur in, say, a noisy environment (what Super Bowl party has ever been noisy, though?) in which case a longer clip is required to do its job.
Amazon's Big Echo and Alexa Product Launch - TMO Daily Observations 2018-09-21
Kelly Guimont and Bryan Chaffin join Jeff Gamet to look at the new Echo and Alexa products Amazon announced on Thursday.
Amazon Brings Voice Controls to Alexa App on iOS
Users who have trained themselves on Alexa Skills can now use that same self-training on their iPhones and iPads to access the Alexa ecosystem.
Tim Cook’s Political Junket and Amazon’s Master Plan for Alexa - ACM 426
Is Tim Cook running for President? Bryan and Jeff take a look at his recent higher public profile and the political junket he seemed to take through the midwest. They also talk about Amazon’s recent improvements to Alexa and how they fit in with the company’s master plan for the platform.
Amazon's Alexa Calling Feature Works From Your iPhone, too
Amazon’s Alexa Calling feature works great on the Echo and Echo Dot, from the testing TMO staff have done so far. Jeff Butts and Jeff Gamet also took the time to check out how the feature works from the Alexa app on the iPhone. Here’s what they found out, and how you can use it, too.
Alexa Calling: Amazon Adds Voice Calling to Echo, Echo Dot
The just announced Echo Show isn’t the only device in Amazon’s lineup getting voice calling support. A new feature dubbed Alexa Calling is coming to the Echo, Echo Dot, and Alexa mobile app today. For now, the calling features are limited to the Echo lineup and Alexa app, but that could be the first step in turning the devices into speaker phones fro our homes.
Amazon Shopping App on iPhone gets Alexa Support
If you use the Amazon app on your iPhone to shop you can use it to talk to Alexa, too, even if you don’t own an Echo or Echo Dot. The online retailer is rolling out in-app Alexa support for iPhone users over the next week which means pretty much everything you do with an Echo or Echo Dot can happen right on your smartphone.
Who's More Intelligent, Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa?
In the battle of virtual personal assistants, Apple and Amazon have strong contenders. Which one is “smarter,” though, Siri or Alexa? Perhaps it’s too early to really call the race, since both personal assistants keep growing and evolving. Be that as it may, Jeff Butts has put both through their paces, and shares his thoughts.
How to Make Your Amazon Echo Respond to 'Computer' Instead of 'Alexa'
Star Trek taught us years ago that we get the attention of our interactive computer systems by saying, “Computer.” We’re sort of there with Amazon’s Echo and Echo Dot by saying “Alexa” before issuing a command, but it would be so much cooler if we could say “computer” instead. Turns out you can. Follow along to learn how.
How to Enable and Use Alexa’s Follow-Up Mode
Learn how to enable Follow-up Mode in Alexa to enhance your Alexa interactions for an effortless smart home experience.