Amazon is expanding its program that directly pays Alexa developers in cash for building valuable, quality voice apps to new markets in Europe: France, Italy, and Spain. Originally launched in the U.S. in 2017 for those developers building game skills, the Alexa Developer Rewards program has since expanded to include a broader selection of Alexa […]
View More Amazon expands program that pays developers for top voice apps to France, Italy & SpainCategory: voice
Alexa skills top 80,000 after a big Alexa-powered holiday season
Amazon had a record-breaking holiday quarter, with revenue of $72.4 billion and profits of $3 billion, but it’s not making much money off its top-selling item, the Alexa-powered Echo Dot. While the e-commerce giant said the device was its 2018 holidays best seller across all products, it also reminded investors on yesterday’s earnings call that […]
View More Alexa skills top 80,000 after a big Alexa-powered holiday seasonNPR turns comedy game show ‘Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me!’ into an Alexa and Google voice app
NPR is turning its popular game show program “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” into a voice application for smart speakers, including both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant-powered devices. The new app lets listeners play along at home by answering the fill-in-the-blank questions from this week’s news – just like the players do on the NPR podcast […]
View More NPR turns comedy game show ‘Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me!’ into an Alexa and Google voice appAlexa gets a professional ‘newscaster’ voice for reading the day’s news
Amazon already gave Alexa the ability to whisper, and now it’s rolling out another way to change the assistant’s speaking style – it’s giving Alexa a “newscaster” voice. Starting today, when U.S. customers ask Alexa “what’s the latest?” to hear the day’s news, Alexa will respond using a voice that’s similar to how a professional […]
View More Alexa gets a professional ‘newscaster’ voice for reading the day’s newsAmazon upgrades its Fire TV Stick with the new Alexa Voice Remote
Amazon is giving its Fire TV Stick an upgrade. The company announced today it will now ship the Fire TV Stick with the new version of the Alexa Voice Remote launched last fall. The remote allows users to control other devices besides their Fire TV, thanks to its support for both Bluetooth and multi-directional infrared. […]
View More Amazon upgrades its Fire TV Stick with the new Alexa Voice RemotePandora launches a personalized voice assistant on iOS and Android
Pandora today announced the launch of its own, in-app voice assistant which you can call up at any time by saying “Hey Pandora,” followed by a request to play the music or podcasts you want to hear. The feature will allow you to not only control music playback with commands to play a specific artist, […]
View More Pandora launches a personalized voice assistant on iOS and AndroidRazer integrates Amazon’s Alexa voice controls and haptic feedback into its gaming platform
Razer, the company that makes high-end hardware and software specifically tailored to gaming enthusiasts, is adding new voice and touch features to its platform to bring it into the next generation of computing and take the Razer gaming experience to the next immersive level. Today at CES, the company announced that it will be integrating […]
View More Razer integrates Amazon’s Alexa voice controls and haptic feedback into its gaming platformIn-car infotainment and driving blur with Honda’s ‘Dream Drive’
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Honda wants to turn time spent in the car into an opportunity to shop, play, and get things done —even if you’re in the driver’s seat. Honda calls this in-car experience the “Dream Drive.”
In a Honda Odyssey minivan, John Moon, managing director of strategic partnerships at Honda Innovations, showed off the new concept platform in the car’s infotainment system for drivers and passengers.
First on the driver side is a custom-made Honda app for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Moon said 2 million Honda cars already have the phone-connected infotainment systems in them. So this is a way to offer a customized “Honda” experience on those screens. Read more…
More about Games, Augmented Reality, Apps And Software, Honda, and Voice
The number of Alexa skills in the U.S. more than doubled in 2018
Amazon Alexa had a good year as a developer platform – at least in terms of the number of voice apps being built for Alexa, if not yet the monetization of those apps. According to new data published today by Voicebot, the number of Amazon Alexa skills in the U.S. more than doubled over 2018, […]
View More The number of Alexa skills in the U.S. more than doubled in 2018Noa’s new Alexa skill has human narrators read news from NYT, FT, Economist & others
News junkies who want something more in-depth than Alexa’s Flash Briefing now have a new option for listening to the day’s news – as well as features and other reporting – right from their smart speaker. A company called Noa has just launched an Alexa skill that uses human narrators to read you the news from […]
View More Noa’s new Alexa skill has human narrators read news from NYT, FT, Economist & othersSmart speakers hit critical mass in 2018
We already know Alexa had a good Christmas – the app shot to the top of the App Store over the holidays, and the Alexa service even briefly crashed from all the new users. But Alexa, along with other smart speaker devices like Google Home, didn’t just have a good holiday — they had a […]
View More Smart speakers hit critical mass in 2018Alexa gains support for location-based reminders and routines, calling features and more
Amazon Alexa is gaining new capabilities, including support for location-based reminders and routines, the ability to call local businesses by voice and the ability to check your email, hands-free, on supported Alexa devices, among other things. These features were previously introduced this fall at Amazon’s Echo event in Seattle, alongside a host of other capabilities […]
View More Alexa gains support for location-based reminders and routines, calling features and more