Voice Assistants
Listen to the latest audio news in Voice: updates on Siri, Alexa and Google's virtual assistant and innovations and advances in voice recognition and natural language processing, aired on leading talk radio shows and premium podcasts.
Voice in Canada
Fire TV 4-Series Announced
"And today I want to tell you about another new product in the new line of TVs that Amazon has put out. If you listened yesterday to the flash briefing, you know that I talked about the fire TV Omni series, which has hands free voice control. Meaning you actually don't even need a remote. You just talk to the TV. The difference is, of course, with those TVs that require remote. And that is where the Amazon fire TV four series comes in. So what is this? It is a four K ultra high def resolution TV. It's got support for HDR ten and HLG. So that's got great picture quality. And it includes a 43 inch, a 50 inch and a 55 inch model size in that lineup. Of course, it's got a lot of the same Lexi features that you have come to expect. But the difference between the fire TV four series and the fire TV Omni series, again, is that the fire TV four requires the remote, which you can speak to and control XE. And of course, it comes with that. Whereas the Omni one does not even require the remote. You just simply speak to the TV. Now, again, as I mentioned, I am an affiliate for Amazon, and if you choose to use my link then, thank you so much. If you want to check out these TVs, the fire TV four series, you just go to voice in Canada dot CA slash fire TV four. The number four, fire TV four. If you want to check out the Omni series, you go to voice in Canada, dot CA slash fire TV Omni. And that will take you to those TVs. Now, the other thing I just want to mention briefly is the pricing of these. Yesterday I talked about the Omni pricing. But the fire TV four series pricing, the 43 inch is $470. The 50 inch is normally 600, but there is an introductory price right now, which is reflected if you're checking out, which is 460 or 23% off. And then the 55 inch TV is 660. The other thing I forgot to mention is with regards to the fire TV Omni series, the 50 inch also has an introductory sale price. And so normally that one is 650, but the introductory price is 510 or 23% off again reflected at
Voice in Canada
Fire TV Omni Series Announced
"Week, I want to tell you about a new line of products that Amazon has announced. And this is the all new fire TV family. Today I want to focus on their flagship series, which is actually called the Amazon fire TV Omni series. And by the way, if you do want to look at these, I do an affiliate link, you just go to voice in Canada dot CA slash fire TV Omni. Fire TV OMI. So let me tell you about this. Here are some of the key features that this brand new TV series has. First of all, of course, it is Lexi hands free controlled. It's got four K ultra high definition and Dolby digital plus. What does that mean? Okay, so first of all, with regards to Lexi, the TV itself has far field technology built into it, meaning that it can hear you from across the room, just like any other Amazon echo device. What that means is that you can now use your voice to experience TV, but also use a device for music for gaming and a whole bunch of other things that we can get into. You can simply ask Lexie to tune into your favorite show. And she will jump right into the program you're looking for, so that means you don't have to remember a channel. You don't have to remember what streaming, service you don't remember what input device you're using. You can also use your voice to control playback. Closed captions, brightness, manage your TV, soundboard volume, switch inputs, and there's so much more. And of course, you can actually set up routines as well. So for example, you could say Lexi kick off my day and the TV and smart lights can turn on. Lexi can share the weather, for example, can maybe read you your calendar, and then it can just tune in to the news on your buyer TV Omni series TV. The other thing that it does, it allows you to easily connect with other echo devices in your room if you want to do that. So you can create a incredibly high fidelity audio experience with stereo sound as well. There are some other smart features that have been built into this. You can example say Lexi play something and she will start playing you something from your favorite streaming service. You can also say Lexi play TikTok and Lexi is now an integration with TikTok. And it has picture in picture where you can use the TV to view what is going on, for example, at your ring smart doorbell and camera while you're watching TV and of course, you can control that with your voice. And a really nice aspect, of course, is the ability to share video communication through lexy calling and zoom and you can do that by your voice as well. So this TV, this particular TV, the Omni series four K, ultra high def smart TVs come in a whole bunch of sizes, 43 inch 15, 55, 65 inch and 75 inch. I'll just run through those prices for you quickly. The 43 inch is $520, the 50 inch is 650, the 55 inch is 710, the 65 inch is 1050 and the 75 inch is 1400. And again, you can check all of these out at voice in Canada dot CA slash fire TV
Voice in Canada
How to Use a Stereo Pair of Speakers With Amazoon Echo
"As you may recall last week, we covered two of the three different scenarios of how you can combine your echo devices to create some more immersive audio when it comes to your echo speakers. And I want to cover that third option today. The way you would set this up, again, you go into your Lexi app. You click on devices. You click on the plus sign in the upper right corner, then you click uncombined speakers. And the third option that we're talking about today is, of course, a stereo pair slash subwoofer as the Amazon team calls it in the options. This allows you to pair two speakers for stereo and or add a subwoofer for deeper base. So what you do is you click on that option, you then can select up to two speakers and a subwoofer. All those speakers have to be online on the same network and in the same room for that to work. Once you click on that, then you click next in the upper right corner. You then choose. And this is pretty cool. You then choose which of those speakers you want to be the left channel and which of those speakers you want to be. The right channel. And then when you do that, you click next and then you give it a name. So this group of speakers will have a name. That way, when you asked for music, you can use the name of that group to specify that it be played on that group of speakers. You can choose one of the names that are suggested, or you can create a customized name, then you click save, and then you are essentially good to go and that. How you do it? That's a stereo pair with or without a.
Double Tap Canada
Smart Bathrooms: Are They a Smart Decision?
"You told me the other day the your bathroom. You're what do you call the restroom. Cova i have no my bathroom. Nassar bathroom exists. Yes yes right well in your master bathroom yes you've made it super smalls from my understanding. I may have got a little bit farther than i should have. Legal march japanese toilet I do japanese. It's a it's a canadian made. It's called lovie The toilet as you approach it. The seat will open no way allies. Swear it has remote control as a built-in Function which you heat of the heat of the water that speeds up your little touchy Control the intensity of the headwaters so you get a good cleaning it goes battled for all the crevices and you can also control the The extension and the position. that's the For the meal cleaning. Then there's the female cleaning hop today it's Then there's A fan that pulls out the air so that when you're doing something a little bit more odorous gets rid of that for us. It doesn't really comes with. Does that airlock does it. Yeah it's eco-friendly. When you flush it it does it. Expose water in very nicely. Keeps very little water What else does it have. A heated seat so keeps you nice and toasty nice. Yeah that's nice always good. You can control the heat of the seat as well and of course the water and everything else And that's about all that's all the toilet does. Oh that sounds amazing. Thing hang on more. Did i mention the shower. That is controlled by voice so mohan Which is very famous. Zooming of you know taps a system. Could you by mowing the letter. You and it's a whole shower systems in my shower. All you have got the rain shower thing and the handled telephone handle type thing. And i've got a little keypad like little keypad on there. And that keypad connects via wifi network. And there's an alexa skill for that and I can literally say Start my shower. Preset to whatever i do and it will turn on the right thing. It'll get the temperature and it keeps it at the proper temperature of the entire
Voice in Canada
Use Alexa to Set Reminders for your To Do List
"Have you ever had one of those mornings where you wake up and you are just your mind is preoccupied with all the things that you need to do? And suddenly it can help to write those things down and get them on to a to do list. Well, here's an idea for you. You can use Lexie to take some of that. Some of that stuff off your mind off your plate. Basically use the remind me feature if you say Lexi remind me to send an email to my boss at ten a.m. she will do that. And the key thing here is you can actually schedule out your to do list by using the reminders and specifying times. Lexi remind me to phone my dad at one p.m., et cetera and you can set that all up in the morning as you're getting ready and then Lexie will give you those reminders as the day
Voice in Canada
What Should I Wear Today? Let Alexa Decide.
"Have you found that you were wearing the same thing over and over and over again? Well, Lexi can come to your rescue. I don't know if you know this, but Lexi is there to provide some fashion inspiration on a daily basis. You can simply say Lexi, what should I wear today? NG will give you a different idea depending on when you ask, meaning she does have a number of responses to this. I tried it a couple of times. I did get a number of different responses. So I'm not quite sure how many ideas she has, but I suspect she has quite a few. So if you're wondering what to wear today, just say it to Lexi, Lexi, what should I wear today? And she will let you know. And also, interesting fact, one of the statements that I got from her had a Canadian reference in it as well. Her answers are based on our location. So that's kind of interesting
Assistive Technology Update
National Disability Strategy Pledges to Make Homes More Accessible
"Our first story today comes to us from. At today it's titled national disability strategy pledges to make homes more accessible and upgrade job support stirs written by sarah srb and it's about a new program in the uk trying to make housing more accessible commuting more accessible and have better job prospects for individuals with disabilities story talks about the united kingdom's new national disability strategy. This is supported by one point. Six billion pounds of funding and it's focused on improving inclusion in the workplace tackling the disability employment gap and making sure children with special needs and disabilities are at the heart of the strategy. Some of the things that it seeks to do is first of all introduce workforce reporting for businesses and more than two hundred and fifty staff on the number of individuals with disabilities to encourage a more inclusive kind of workplace also launching a new online advice hub available to both the individuals with disability as well as the employer and this is there to provide information and advice on disability discrimination in the workplace and also teach them about flexible work environments individuals rights and the employer's obligations around reasonable adjustments. Or what we call here in the states reasonable accommodations. One thing that i really did like about the story is that it all started off with the united kingdom disability survey and this over fourteen thousand respondents. Now it doesn't really say anything about who the respondents were. But from what i get from the story is it's individuals with disabilities living in the uk. So basically they ask. What are the barriers the you have. What are the things we can do to help you. Because as many folks no assistive technology is a wonderful thing. But if it's not used in the right place for the right reason at the right time is not that great so they really actually reached out to the people and tried to make sure that they can actually get what the folks needed in their hands at the right time
Double Tap Canada
FlickType Pulling iPhone Keyboard App After Continued Rejection Issues
"We're talking about the flick type keyboard right. This is the flicked tight keyboard. Which a lot of people use sean. You know mortar better than i because he used this. You loved it. Yep absolutely so basically allows you to just tap the screen where you think the letter would be. You don't need to find time you're moving your finger around waiting to voice over to say s or whatever it may be you simply tap where you should be on standard quirky keyboard and guesses what you're trying to type and the magic behind is the guests is almost no perfect every time it's so quick to type Can't see the screen. Honestly i use it for so many things and saves me so much time. And i am gutted by this Well at mosman looking at the article from the verge forest this week and mark. What's the problem. Why why is it going away. Because that's what seems to be happening. Well they've had some history where apple been rejecting the app because it requires what they call full access to the device itself. Now this is something that apple has allowed in the past. And there's not a bit an issue but It's been rejected. A couple applets rejected a couple of weeks ago and they've tried reaching out to apple this nine times a week with no success. They feel apple's ignoring their attempts to contact them. And it's something that they've argued in the past and actually got passed at apple said he had no problem. You know. we've we've understand your clarification we're gonna let through. But now after several rejections over the exact same thing they just kind of giving up. They sit apple's just not responding to them and they feel that assist final straw there. They've been this developer. Been pretty vocal about other issues. They've had You know as voice over user. That had a lot of problems in the past with different apps and different temps and they're just tired of the process The the one thing they did notice that the apple watch version is not really going away that will exist In the flick type added self so if you have that you will be able to continue to use that on the apple watch is just. They're not gonna continue putting it out on the devices themselves. So that means that they're just gonna kinda whittle away when it's no longer no longer valid.
Voice in Canada
Alexa Custom Assistant Expands
"I've got one final announcement from the Lexi live event. And this is all about the Lexi custom assistance. I don't know if you are aware of this but relatively recently Amazon announced the ability for brands to create their own custom assistant but using all the technology that has already built through Amazon and Lexi. So this means that a brand pick your favorite brand potentially could create their own unique wake word relevant to their brand. They could have their own voice their own personality their own capabilities. So it really becomes like a custom voice assistant but it is leveraging all of the infrastructure and the framework that Amazon has put in place with Lexi. So I do think we are going to be seeing more and more of this in the future. We're going to hear about brands having their own custom voice assistant and there's a good chance that it will be built on top of the Lexi infrastructure. So stay tuned for example of that. If you hear of any examples of that please into my way I'd love to highlight them for everybody so we can get a sense of what those are like. And I think
Voice in Canada
Voice Interoperability Initiative Expands
"Right Terry here and I've got two more announcements from the Lexi live event a couple weeks ago. Today and tomorrow we'll cover those. The first one today is about the voice interoperability initiative. So the VII program. If you're not familiar with that that is a program that is committed to providing users us with the choice and flexibility on assistance that they interact with to choose what you want to be interacting with in terms of which assistant. So it's very interesting because there's over 90 different members now that are working towards this vision. And some of these members of the initiative include of course Amazon but also Facebook Intel Sonos Garmin and other sort of major brands. So this is very interesting. It's going to mean that there's more options on devices for which assistant you want to speak with. And that's good for everybody as far as I'm concerned. So there you go. They continue to expand that and I think
Voice in Canada
Alexa Conversations Now in Canada
"Is the latest announcement from Lexie live. And this one is specific to Canada, which is great. You may have heard of something called off Lexi conversations, Alexa conversations. And this is a very Advanced way that developers can design their skills to have more natural-sounding conversation with Lexi conversations. Basically is a deep learning based approach to dialogue management. And again, it enables the developers to create natural human like voice experience so you can change your mind on things. So, a good example is, you know, somebody's ordering a pizza and they change their mind in the middle of the order, you know, make that a large instead of a medium Lexi's able to respond to that. And there are so many other aspects to this, that would actually be a little bit too long to get into just in the short flash briefing. But the point of this particular flash briefing is to let you know that this technology Lexi conversations has Been expanded now to include all English locales, and of course that includes Canada. It wasn't available here previously. So this is very exciting. We are going to be seeing more and more skills that allow this natural conversation to have with Lexi. So I will keep you updated when I become aware of specific skills that incorporate this month, later technology of natural conversations, and I look forward to trying that out
Voice in Canada
Customized Pronunciations are coming to Alexa
"To get back to you. A few more features at Amazon announced recently that are coming down the pipe and one of these is called customized pronunciations home. So this is very interesting because the idea behind this is that it allows developers to add custom pronunciations for rare words to their skills and things that you're developing with Lexi. So you've ever listened to a skill or Lexie saying something and she's not quite pronouncing a word, right? This will allow developers to correct that. So, you know, it's not a huge deal in terms of you know, it's not an earth-shattering feature, but I think it is an important part of making Lexi sound more natural and overall improving the experience. So I'm excited to see that and more and more. We're going to see better pronunciation or less and less. We're going to see less errors. So I think that's
Assistive Technology Update
How Does the Envision App Help the Visually Impared Read?
"Start with the envision app and you mentioned this a little bit. But i want to dig a little bit deeper. What all can the app do. So the app is supposedly. The app is available on both ios and android and our teams from the beginning was to always make envision as accessible as possible as many people as possible and so we are one of the very few applications in the space that are available on both android. What the app does so. I think the app does a whole bunch of things but what does really well is eating text. And when i say reading texts i mean leading text of any surface you can imagine could be on product could be on a display at a train station could be opposed to be a document. Envision is able to lead based in more than sixty different languages of pretty much any surface that you can throw at it right back from reading from any surface and vision is also able to the text trump. eds from word files from from textiles files and it also able to export the extra reading ambition in all these different formats as well to read in texas a huge. Plus that envision has and from we have other functionality. Such as being able to teach envision faces of your friends or family members and being able to recognize them. You can teach envision or you can ask invasion discomfort objects around you and vision can describe a scene after picture and also another very interesting. Use that thing that you that users can do. Vision is shared images from outside the envision app within vision and have envisioned that for you as well as you get a memo and what's out for example if you see an image trigger and it doesn't have any x. Which is a bad thing. Everyone should put on images and put and if you see that and if you wanted to leave that stuff you could go ahead and use ambition to do it. And like i mentioned available on ios and android android with available on android six in a boss which makes it an extremely accessible app for people across the
Voice in Canada
Switch From Alexa to Phone With This New App
"Is the latest announcement off. Lexi live again. And this one is a feature that's called send to phone. So what does this do? Well, this allows people customers us to start an experience on Alexi device and then continue it on a mobile phone. So this will also tap into some of the technology known as quick links and the send to phone feature will allow observers to build the ambient experiences that make them useful on both, the Lexi Echo devices or Alexa enabled device and your mobile phone at the same time. So it the idea is Jacob seen this whether you're starting an experience at home and then leaving the house, you can just carry that on on to your mobile phone so this will be a great for that type of use case and I look forward to keeping updated on when we schedule. To see that in action in the real
Voice in Canada
What is Food Skill API?
"Right, Terry here and here's your latest update with regards to the Lexi live. There's so much that came out of this event. I've been doing this for a little while and I saw a few more updates to tell you. Anyway, this one is all about offering food through your Alexa devices. This is a new feature that again, it was just announced and it allows developers to help enable restaurants to be able to quickly create high-quality food delivery and pickup experiences all through voice. It's the same sort of experience that people are starting to have with music and smart home devices. And this this particular technology is called their food skill API and again, it's going to help with the development and enable high accuracy of customer experiences for food delivery ordering Etc. So, once again, I'll keep you updated on when this comes to Canada, and it's great. Lots of functionality being built into Lexi and in the next, you know, in the upcoming months.
Voice in Canada
Request Songs on the Radio With Alexa
"Is a very very interesting feature that Amazon just announced with Lexi life. This is called the wrong song requests kill component. And this is the statement that that Amazon has put out about this. This feature will allow radio DJs to engage with listeners by taking song requests and dedications through Lexi. As an example, they say that iHeartRadio will support this feature and actually saw a demo, this whole literally. What happens is a person can speak to Lexi request a song dedicated to someone and then the DJ on the other end will get that list of requests that are coming in. May be able to play songs and this all happens through Lexi. I am very interested to see how this will actually play out. Once we have this feature, well, baked into the skill or we can act The experienced it but it's very fascinating to me because it opens up this whole new world of interactive voice technology with a brand with us. In this case a radio DJ but it could be other brands that are using these features. So I'm very sad to see where this goes in the future. For now it's called the song requests kill component and home. Again, this is available to developers right now to start implementing in their skills. So I will do my best to keep you updated on this as I learn new aspects about this. But I think this is a very exciting one.
Talking Tech
Amazon Alexa Gets New Voices, Including Actors Melissa McCarthy and Samuel L. Jackson
"This month. Alexa is going to sound a little bit. Different on july fifteenth the tech giant rolled out an update to its digital voice assistant to include a second voice option. As you know amazon's assistant typically has like a feminine sounding voice with this update. You can change that to a more masculine voice setting this all up his quite simple. You just say the assistant's name followed by quote. Change your voice and quote but that's not all there's an additional wake word you can use in place of alexa. That new word is ziggy Basically it works the same way instead of saying the primary name of amazon's digital assistant You can say ziggy instead. If you're a fan of gigi and you've never tried to swap out the wake word and you kind of want to try it out. Anyway you have some other choices to You can use amazon. You can use echo or you can use computer And the way to do this is really simple. Just like with the change. Your voice option. You can make a query to the assistant and say change the wake word to whatever you want Another way to do this too is open up the app for the voice assistant go to the menu. Select your settings than device settings. Then you go to the device that you want to update with this new wake word and then you choose the when you want and that's it now if you don't want either of these options for voices you can actually add a little bit of celebrity flare After introducing an option awhile. Back to add actor. Samuel jackson's voice to queries amazon is much similar offerings featuring actress melissa mccarthy an nba legend shaquille. O'neal so the way it works is you kind of ask them directly as you would amazon's digital assistance. You might say hey shack. Tell me about the weather. Hey samuel Tell me about the news today. And it works exactly the same way and they will read everything in
Voice in Canada
Amazon Announce APL Widgets
"Keeping with some of the highlights from Amazon, a l e x, a live last week, I want to bring your attention a couple of the other features and will be doing this over the next week or so some of the interesting features. So this is something that we're going to be seeing more and more of going forward and this refers to a PL, widgets m, a p l stands for the like c a l e x, a present, a presentation language and what these widgets are. They are available to customers later on this year and it's a way for us customers or consumers to interact with content from the home screen of the echo devices. Obviously with screens so that means that we will be able to visit a widget gallery to find an ad widget to the favorites panel, on the home screen. And as of now, with developers can start to build these features into their skills wage So, look for that. It's going to be a great way. I think for us as consumers to discover other features about skills and other levels of functionality, that can be brought to the devices wage through the developers. So that's the APO widgets and that is something that Amazon just announced. I'm excited to see where this goes.
Voice in Canada
What's New With the Alexa Echo-System 2021
"I want to give you a little bit of an update on the status of the Lexi ecosystem. If you will, as you know it was recently a l e x a live. And as I mentioned previously in the flash briefing, I'm going to kind of do a deep dive into all the different things that were discussed and one of those is an update on all the different stats that Amazon put up with regards to Lexi and the way it goes. So, here we go. I'm going to run through some of the key stats for you. So currently, there are hundreds of millions of Lexi enabled devices out there and customers. That means you and I spoke with, with Lexy billions of times every week. There are now more than 900,000 developers, that are there that are registered developers, and there are more than a hundred thirty thousand off these skills. There are hundreds of built-in products. There are currently more than 140000 Smart Home Products that can be controlled with Lexi, customers have connected more than a hundred years. I'm more than a hundred million smart home devices to Lexi and they're continuing to connect and millions of new devices. Everyone, these numbers are staggering. That's why I'm kind of laughing here. The numbers off of customers that are engaging with skills is growing at 40% year-over-year and some of the strongest categories are music audio games. So it's interesting. I think that I'm engaging more and more with skills. And do you know, if you are to, I'll give you two more little stats here before I sign off today, Lexi's helping to generate billions of dollars for the developers and the device maker community. So it's has a big economic impact as well and the developer revenue from in skilled, purchasing has more than doubled year-over-year. Now, if you're not sure what in skilled purchasing is that wouldn't totally surprise me because it has not been available in Canada until now.
Voice in Canada
Alexa Live 2021 is Today
"Is a big day in a l e x, a world and Lexie world. It is I mean I don't know how many times gonna have to say the word. It is Lexi like 5 today, Wednesday, July 21st. It starts at 9 a.m. Pacific. I spoke about this a little bit of week ago. What is Lexi live? It is an interactive virtual event for Galaxy skillbuilders, Device, makers, startups, and Business Leaders. Eager to learn more about the future of ambient Computing and voice technology. This happens today, it goes on for a long hours. It's basically think of it as an online free conference all about Lexie learning how to optimize it, learning how to take advantage of the technology and just a lot of fun job specs to it as well. So if you are interested in Lexi and I'm assuming you are cuz you here listening to this. Definitely, definitely check this out. Just simply search Lexi. While use the real word, a l e x, a live. And and you'll find it and you'll find the registration button and you will be good to go. Remember it starts at 9. A.m. Pacific
Voice in Canada
Setting Monthly and Annual Reminders With Alexa
"Been diving into some more of the functionality of the Lexi app and in doing. So I actually discovered some more functionality of Lexi herself and with regards to reminders, you may know that you can set reminders by just simply saying that set a reminder for whatever. And then Lexie will ask you when you can actually set reminders now, for monthly and yearly recurring events. So for example, you could say Lexi remind me to pay my rent on the first of every month and she will do that, or you could say, Lexi remind me, my anniversary is wage. Fill in the blank, you know, on a yearly basis and she can do that as well. So, have some fun with reminders. I think it's a really, really great function and hopefully it'll help us to not forget as many of those crucial dates,
Voice in Canada
Share an Alexa Routine From a URL
"You know, we've been talking a little bit about routines and today I want to tell you a little bit how you can share routine. Let's say you come up with a really, really cool routine for your Echo device. And somebody says well how do you do that? You can actually share your routine. The way you do that is you go into your Lexi app, you click on the more icon routines off, click on the routine that you want to share. And then in the top right corner, going to see three vertical dots, you click on that and then you click on share routine. Now it's going to give you a little warning here. It's going to say you are about to create a link to share your 13 people. You share this link with will be able to see details of your routine and use it on their own account. So we do not recommend sharing routines with private information, makes sense to me. Click continue. And then you basically are going to get a link that you can now share. Like if you were sharing anything else on your phone, you can either text it, you can send it an email, you can. You can poem. On social media be like lots of different options there. So, there you go. If you've got some great routines, hey, Sharon,
Voice in Canada
Alexa Live 2021 Is Next Week
"Week from today is sure, here's your warning 1 week from today is Amazon's annual event called Lexie life. Actually it's a l e x, a live. But I do want to say the word here, it is happening Wednesday, July 21st, starting at 9 a.m. Pacific, what is it? It's an interactive virtual event for Lexi skillbuilders device, makers, startups, Business Leaders. And basically, anybody else that is eager to learn more about the future of ambient, lighting and voice technology. I can tell you. There are some great speakers, many of whom I have met personally and there are even some session tracks for skill, builders for industry Solutions off device makers. There is the full schedule online. If you just search, A l e x, a live twenty Twenty-One, you will find the full schedule and you can register there it is a free event and there are going to be a lot of new announcements about various things with regards to Lexi, obviously some features, etc, etc. I can't say a whole lot right now needless to say, you will not be disappointed. There's a lot of new stuff coming out so check out a l e x, a live Wednesday.
Voice in Canada
Set a Routine for Snoring on Alexa
"To get back to you are series here on routines that are based on sound detection. And we talked previously about the dog barking, sound detection and the baby crying sound detection. Let's talk about the snoring, sound detection. And I'm not going to confirm nor deny if that could be an issue in my house. Nevertheless, here's what the deal is routines. Again, allow Lexi to do various Things based on either command or a time, or now sound detection. So you go into your Alexa app, you click on the more icon in the bottom right corner, you click on routines and I click on the plus sign, and then you're going to enter routine name, once you've done that, you click on when this happens. And now you're going to see the sound detection, Baton Rouge there. You can see the snoring option and this will detect snoring sounds during a specified sound. So you click on that. And now you choose where you want to take the snoring, probably it's going to be in the bedroom but your name. So you click on bedroom or whatever you've named your smart device rooms, then you go into the sound detection, snoring settings, and you choose what days you want. This sound detection to be active for and then you click on an action. Now, this is where it gets interesting because you can decide what Lexie does. If Lexie hear somebody snoring and edit, it could be anything really anything that's on this list of routines. So things from what Lexie says to that'd be funny, actually, you could have Lexie say something to changing something on your calendar changing, device settings, setting alarms, you know, maybe waking you up. You could. I mean, there's so much your messaging, you could send a message to someone that smart home. It could maybe turn on light or turn off a light it goes on and on and on.
Voice in Canada
New Sound Detection Routines for Alexa
"A really cool one for you today. I have to give a huge shout-out to Sandtown, as she is known on, on Twitter, and if you're not following Sam trap, just look her up. She sent me a message, and I was not aware of this brand new, but you can now do sound detection routines. Now, he's a beta according to Amazon, but let me explain to you what this is, as you may know when you do routines, you can set up certain things to happen as a result of you saying something or Thursday on a particular schedule. And now there is a new type of trigger for the routines. When you go into your Alexa app and you click on the more button at the bottom and you click on then routines and you click on the plus button to add a new routine. You'll see that you have the option of clicking on when this happens. Now, when you do that, there is a new option. There, there is a sound wave. Action option and this is a Beta release at this point. It says, so in parentheses there, when you click on that, you are able to then setup, a particular routine of that will happen during a specified time frame or a range of times that will result in Lexi triggering something. If Lexie. Here's for example, a dog barking a baby crying snoring or coughing. And so what this allows you to do is now have some automation your home that if any of those sounds happening automatically something happened. So for example, if it hears the baby crying, you can have the lights turn on. If it hears, a dog barking, it could activate a camera or something like that. So there are lots and lots of different things that we can do now with this. So this is really, really exciting
Voice in Canada
Keep Track of Investments with Alexa
"You have stocks that you like to track or do you have Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, Investments? Do you have index funds? You can use Lexi wage to actually keep track of the latest prices of these various Investments that you have, and it's really simple. You just simply ask Lexie, what is the price of, and then fill in the blank. So, for example, wage see what's the price of the Dow Jones like Lexi? What's the price of the S&P Lexi? What's the price of Bitcoin? Or you can even do the same thing with specific company? Stocks, let's see what's the stock, price of Boeing cetera, etc, etc. So there you go. You can get a good sense of, where your stocks are performing. And if you've got a show device, one with a display, you actually get to see a nice little graph to
Voice in Canada
"Let's Have Some Fun" With Alexa
"It's Sunday and that means that we get to answer question from the community and it's a pretty basic question. Someone sent me a message and they simply said, like how can I get ideas off of things that I can do to have more fun with Lexi? So say you don't know what games you want to play or you don't have name of a specific skill or you don't remember the the phrase to invoke the skill of. What can you do? Well, if you're just in the mood to have some fun, you can just simply ask Lexie, say Lexi, let's have some fun and what she will do is she will give you a couple of different options of different times. So, games in different genres, that you might be interested in playing along and you simply answer a few questions and then you're off and running with a game that Lexie has helped you to select that. That she thinks you'll have fun, so, there you go. A fun thing to do. If you're looking for an idea, then just talk to Lexie and say, let's see, let's have some fun and she will guide you through what you need to do to to keep you entertained. All
Voice in Canada
Alexa Commands to Celebrate Canada Day 2021
"Is July 1st and that means it is Canada Day. So happy Canada day, everyone hope you're having a really really fun day. As I like to do on holidays. I want to tell you a couple things that you can say to Lexi to help celebrate here. They are number one, you can say it Alexi, happy Canada Day. And number two, you can say, do you celebrate Canada day? And this one's interesting because normally does she give you a response, but then she goes on to actually play a little bit of Canadian trivia with you if you want to do that. And then the final one is you can say home, sing, O, Canada, and I will tell you who it is, but she has a special guest joining her to help you. Here. They're in addition of, Oh, Canada.
Voice in Canada
7-Minute Workout on Alexa
"Are you finding that you're getting a little antsy being home? I know we're starting to get outside but maybe you want to get a little more into shape. There's a skill. I want to tell you about, which is pretty cool. It's called the seven a workout and all you do is you say, Lexi, open 7, Minute Workout and it's got a number of different exercises. And the whole workout room is seven minutes and you really don't need any specific exercise equipment either, they're all things that you can do using bodyweight are using things that you just have around the house. So, there you go. Looking for an easy way to work out. Now, you got it. No excuses,
Assistive Technology Update
Shane Lowe on Mediate and New Voice Technology
"First of all tell me about mediate as a whole what is it and why is it important so i like mediate because i try to be a really conscious consumer so i am one of those people that believes that we really vote for the companies that remain with our money. So it's really important to me when i when i'm making purchases but also when i pick a place to work because i don't want to work for a company that i feel like is treating its customers and users badly because that just doesn't align with my moral compass so that's the first thing that you should know about me and then you know that that also factors that also reflects on the company because i wouldn't work for the there. Were bad company. The thing that i love about mediate is our focus is on the people that were serving so our goal is to work with users to create solutions to problems that actual people have that actual people want solutions for so we're not trying to create something and then convince you that you need it all of the products that we develop all of the features that we create our directly in response to what people have come to us. and ask for. And i think that makes us you know unfortunately makes us kind of unique in a couple of different markets that we're in because i feel like a lot of times you know either as a blind person or as a college student or even as just a person in the generation that i am in people come to me and tell me hey you know you need this thing and so you should buy it and i. I really have an issue with that approach. Because i feel like a lot of times. I'm not being. i'm not the person be considered. You know it's kind of more about you. Know the bottom line of certain businesses. And so that's really what we're not about where we're here to create something that people want something. People are excited about using something that people would like to us to make their lives more efficient
The Voice Tech Podcast
Fantastic French Startups at Vivatech 2021
"Here with the team at need. Could you please introduce astounds name questionnaire. And i'm the cro accompanied. Those of cook need c and see Cro meaning chief revenue. Right right excellent. okay Could you start by introducing. Kobe tell us what is cognate. What does it do Who your customers. And what problems do you help them. Solve many questions at the time for it. So katie's he's a real time A obeys virtual assistant That is designed to help Inside sales and customer service reps in conversation real time conversation with clients. What the tool does it is. Listen to the conversation. Detect some key wirtz and prompts on the contextual relevant information that direct can use to have better conversations. We're talking about call. Centers is that right Sales rep in a cool center remotely those days right. So it's not necessarily only call centers it can be a you know salesperson that spending also time on the phone I guess it would be face to face at some point when we all wear glasses with mounted reality in front of screen dashboard. That helps agent. Yeah it's from two thirds prompting information during the conversation based on the detection and this information can be additional information to Help him be more precise or use on the recommended work where being for the messaging it can also questions to to Extend the conversation can be on sas to objections or the way to go round objections. It can be many type of question that of content that can help the during the
Sound in Marketing
What Makes Bixby Different with Roger Kibbe From Viv Labs
"This labs is the brain behind samsung bitty. Roger has worked in voice and conversational. Ai strategy execution for quite some time he up some really great points about contextual awareness talked about how big these different from our competition really i think. Two primary ways one we're inherently multi-modal into focus on devices that are not smart speakers all devices that big is currently on have screens. The this means is that when you're building bixby capsule capsules white collar boy sap lexical skills gocha qasem actions. You're building a multi modal experience. Matter of fact you need to. I think there's a lot of voice assistance. Sue have kinda rich support for graphics and multimodality and come out but also on the input with dixie. So if you're asking for input at dixie on the i you can have a form you can have a slider ican buttons. You could interact with it via the screen or your voice really depending on contractually contractually. What works best for you in that situation. I mean i love voice but sometimes tapping button on a screen is better than speaking to things. so it gives you that capability. I love smart speakers. I have smart speakers in my house all over the place. I think they're great. I think we've done wonders with them in industry but if we're going to grow as an industry we're going to kind of move beyond the smart speaker when i mean by that is there's a whole group of people who would never go out and buy a smart speaker but they certainly might go out of by samsung tv and then they bring it home. Knock out this is cool. I can talk to my technology. And now you have a new voice consumer who's now talking to a device. It didn't buy it. Because i voice was kind of just feature of it. But now they discover it and now they get comfortable talking to their technology. And i think that's going to unlock a bunch industry. And i'm super excited about that.
Voice in Canada
Featured Routines to Begin Your Day
"Talk about a routine today. And this is again one of those featured routines follow along here. You go to your Lexi app, you click on the more button in the bottom right corner, you click on routines, then you're going to see featured at the top. You click on that. And the next featured, one that I want to highlight for you today is the begin my day routine. And this is, if you have a Fire TV stick, then this allows you to just simply say Lexi, begin my day. And once you enable this and set it up, it will power on your Fire TV. It'll tell you something new about the day it will report your whether it'll suck. Traffic. And then it'll play your news from your flash briefing. So you get all of that done with that one. Command Lexi. Begin my day. And of course, you can edit and customize all of
Voice in Canada
Fathers Day Alexa Commands
"Hello, and Happy Father's Day 2021. Hope all the dads out. There are enjoying their day and today, we've got some fun commands that you can say. It Alexi just for Father's day off. So here we go. Here are some fun things. You can say, first of all the obvious one you can say Lexi, Happy Father's Day. You can follow that up. With Lexi, who is your dad? You can fall off that one up with Lexie. Do you celebrate Father's Day and last one here for fun is you can say Lexi tell me a dad joke because of course, those never get old do they? And again asked her but asked her that a bunch of times because she's got a whole bunch of questions or jokes for you as well. All