Amazon’s voice controlled computer, the Amazon Echo, is now available for preorder. The new device ships July 14th and has a price point of $179.99. The newest advancement from Amazon functions like Siri or Cortana, but with a little bit more reach and clarity. The Echo uses an 360 degree omnidirectional microphone to capture voices from all over a room and dual downward-firing speakers to fill a room full of your favorite music.
The computer may be called the Echo but it’s Alexa who you will be addressing. Alexa is the name of the device’s internal computer and she can tell you jokes, play you music, give you news, and help you with your homework. Also, Alexa is always on. Another thing, the Amazon Echo gets smarter the more you use it. It adapts to your speech patterns and vocabulary using a central brain built in the Cloud.
Alexa can use your homes built in Hue lights to control the lighting with your voice and it can connect to your smart phones and tablets. Amazon also promises to keep adding features and capabilities. Early reviews guarantee that it’s much more than a Siri clone and the video demonstrations put out by Amazon show something quite unbelievable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQn6aFQwBQU
It seems that the future is now. It’s only a matter of time before someone falls in love with Alexa a la Her. After that Alexa will turn sentient and flick the lights on and off and add things we don’t want to our grocery lists.
The complete technical specs can be found here, where you can also pre-order your newest robot overlord.
Are you down for having the Amazon Echo in your home or are you having visions of Skynet. Let us know in the comments below!
