Amazon.com Inc on Friday boasted that its virtual assistant Alexa is capable of 1,000 “skills,” as the online retail giant bolsters defenses against rivals such as Alphabet Inc’s Google and Apple Inc.
The Seattle-based company said in a blog post that the programs were developed specifically for the voice-commanded Alexa software used in Amazon devices, such as Echo and Fire TV.
Amazon released voice-enabled wireless speaker Echo in late 2014, infusing it with virtual assistant smarts that enable it to answer questions or control linked devices upon command.
A kit lets outside software developers create “experiences,” similar in concept to apps, for Alexa.
Alexa director Rob Pulciani said tens of thousands of developers are learning about and crafting programs that introduce users “to the magic and simplicity of hands-free, voice-driven interactions.”
Amazon is out to put Echo and Alexa at the heart of the connected home.
Alexa’s skills include selecting music, appointment reminders, checking bank balances, ordering food, summoning Uber rides and more.
Amazon has not disclosed sales figures for Echo, but the device appears to be having success in the market due, in part, to beating rivals out of the starting gate.
Google last month unveiled a virtual home assistant device that would challenge Amazon Echo as the Internet giant laid out a future rich with artificial intelligence.
Google Home, about the size of a stout vase, is to hit the market later this year, vice president of product management Mario Queiroz said at the opening of the Internet giant’s annual developers conference.
Home devices will incorporate new Google virtual assistant software introduced by chief executive Sundar Pichai.
“Our ability to do conversational understanding is far ahead of what other virtual assistants can do,” Pichai told a big audience at the conference. “We are an order of magnitude ahead of everyone else.”
Home devices combine machine learning, online searches, voice recognition and more to allow people to get answers to questions, manage tasks, or control devices by speaking naturally, demonstrations showed.
Home will synch with Chromecast devices that allow remote control of televisions or stereo systems, and with “smart” devices made by Google-owned Nest and other companies.
Google did not disclose pricing of Home devices.
“Google Home could be a major force and could also dramatically decrease the sales potential of Amazon Echo,” Moor Insights and Strategy analyst Patrick Moorhead said.
Apple is expected to enter the market with a home assistant device of its own, perhaps unveiled at its annual developers conference taking place later this month in San Francisco, according to rumors swirling ahead of the event.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy