Amazon Echo Club

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Will you please post a link to the Black Friday thread? I looked for it but can’t see it. I’m probably staring right at it but not seeing it! Or if it is an old thread from years past I may have set it to be ignored.

Sure; it's a stickied thread in the Deals Forum:

Black Friday 2019

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Thanks, I didn't realize that the thread was already up. Denial, I guess. What I'm really looking for is any kind of deal on the new Oasis. A slim hope, I know.

I added you to the Wish List in the Black Friday thread.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Sure; it's a stickied thread in the Deals Forum:

Black Friday 2019

Thanks! I looked there but apparently my old eyes couldn't see it. I should've drank more coffee first!

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I added you to the Wish List in the Black Friday thread.

Thanks! I'm seriously hoping that IF it goes on sale, the sale happens in Canada as well, given that it's a nuisance to have to go south to collect it from my US account. But just getting a bit of a discount on it will help. My current Oasis (1st gen) no longer has a functioning touch screen on the far left edge (where Home is when buttons are on the right) and I really need to replace it.

[cc_in_oh]

I'm tempted by the $60 Echo Show in today's deals. Is there any way to use one in the kitchen to display my own recipes?

Thanks...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

I'm tempted by the $60 Echo Show in today's deals. Is there any way to use one in the kitchen to display my own recipes?

Thanks...

Wait on the Show. It'll be $50 during Black Friday.

I have a Show 5 and use it mainly for music and audiobooks. It'll display recipes, but I don't use that feature and have no idea how you'd upload your own recipes.

[cc_in_oh]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Wait on the Show. It'll be $50 during Black Friday.

I have a Show 5 and use it mainly for music and audiobooks. It'll display recipes, but I don't use that feature and have no idea how you'd upload your own recipes.

Thanks for the info - I'm guessing I could send-to-kindle in rich text or Word and it could display it. But it would be nice if it could just retrieve from a set of bookmarked links.

BTW if anyone wants to make some money, develop an app that searches for recipes only from a set of preselected sites like food.com, allrecipes, taste of home etc. Then my search for buffalo wings wouldn't return 50 pages of hits topped by the latest vegan recipe from some new-age housewife's blog...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

Thanks for the info - I'm guessing I could send-to-kindle in rich text or Word and it could display it. But it would be nice if it could just retrieve from a set of bookmarked links.

BTW if anyone wants to make some money, develop an app that searches for recipes only from a set of preselected sites like food.com, allrecipes, taste of home etc. Then my search for buffalo wings wouldn't return 50 pages of hits topped by the latest vegan recipe from some new-age housewife's blog...

YW

I just did this on my Show 5:

"Alexa, show me recipes for buffalo wings"

She returned 25 recipes that you scroll right to left:

• Food Network
• Food Network
• Allrecipes
• Allrecipes
• Simple Recipes
• Food Network
• Allrecipes
• Serious Eats
• Epicurious
• etc

[tubemonkey]

"Alexa, ¡Hola!"

Alexa can now speak Spanish in the U.S.

Customers in the U.S. can now access Spanish language and Multi-lingual mode on supported Echo and Alexa Built-in Devices. And developers can now build skills, and devices with Alexa Built-in, for Spanish speaking customers across the country.

The experience includes a brand-new Spanish voice for Alexa, local knowledge, hundreds of skills, and more. Customers in the U.S. will be able to switch to “Español (Estados Unidos)” via the Alexa app, then ask in Spanish to play their favorite music, get the news and weather, control their smart home, set reminders, or enjoy skills from brands including Univision, Telemundo, and more.

In addition, customers in the U.S. can now switch between English and Spanish with Alexa in Multi-lingual mode. If you ask for the weather in English, Alexa will reply in English, and if you speak in Spanish, Alexa will understand and respond in Spanish. Multi-lingual mode will also be available in Indian English and Hindi in India and Canadian English and French in Canada.

[tubemonkey]

"Alexa, happy birthday"

As we celebrate Alexa's fifth birthday, we're looking toward the future.

November 6 is an important day for Amazon: Alexa’s 5th birthday. Like any birthday, this milestone gives us an opportunity to celebrate the many ways Alexa has impacted customers’ lives, and look ahead to what’s next.

The introduction of Alexa five years ago was a pivotal moment for artificial intelligence—it brought voice-first technology out of the lab, and now tens of millions of customers use Alexa each month.

When we started working on Alexa, the technology didn't even exist. While voice computing was not new, our vision for it—affordable, always-ready, far-field technology that’s functional even in noisy environments—was different. Amazonians have spent years inventing to solve hard science and engineering problems so that we can execute against that original vision. Today, their work in leading-edge technology like deep neural networks, transfer learning, active learning, and unsupervised learning (more on that here)—combined with investments in cloud computing, customer experience, and a world-class hardware team—means we can deliver truly ambient computing experiences that make customers’ lives easier, more convenient, and more fun.

Five years ago, Alexa only knew how to do 13 things; today she can do so much more, from planning a night out to identifying grocery items for visually impaired customers, and has more than 100,000 skills from developers. At launch, she only spoke one language; today Alexa can tell jokes or share the latest news in 8 languages and 7 language variants. We launched with Alexa available on one device; today there are hundreds of products with Alexa built-in, from cars and smartphones to PCs, headphones, and wearables—and customers can choose from more than 85,000 Alexa-compatible products. There are now hundreds of thousands of developers building for and with Alexa, and the Alexa flywheel is helping to generate billions of dollars for the developer and device-maker community.

more...

[tubemonkey]

Alexa's Monthly Roundup | October 30, 2019

Alexa is always getting smarter, and we’re here to help keep you up to speed. Check out some of our favorite updates happening with Alexa. In addition, you can view a summary of Alexa feature announcements made at our fall devices event last week.

New Alexa Devices

• The all-new Echo, Echo Dot with clock, and Echo Buds started shipping to customers this month.
  
• Bose released the Portable Home Speaker, which features Alexa Built-in and allows customers to move their music room to room from around their home and even outside.

New Features --> see article for list

[DiapDealer]

Me: "Alexa, turn off the lights."
Alexa: "Shuffling songs by Sade."



I'm more than satisfied with my general Echo(s) setup and the control of various things around the house. It all works fairly consistently for me. But every now and then, she just blows my mind with something completely off the wall!"

[tubemonkey]

Almost no one is buying Google smart speakers anymore

Amazon is still #1 with nearly a 37% market share while Google plummeted to 4th place.

In the third quarter, Google’s share of the smart speaker market basically fell off a cliff, plummeting from nearly a third of the market to only around 12%. That’s one of the findings of the newest Canalys report that’s been published and which offers an overview of the market worldwide during the quarter, which was a time when (barring Google’s performance) millions of people were continuing to buy new smart speakers and displays. From Amazon, mostly, which grew its share of the market almost 70% compared to this point in 2018.

Among the results, according to Canalys, a strong Prime Day this year, as well as back-to-school shopping campaigns, helped Amazon sell 10.4 million speakers during the quarter and continue to pull away from the pack.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Me: "Alexa, turn off the lights."
Alexa: "Shuffling songs by Sade."

You just don't have what it takes to control Alexa. You need a parrot

[OtinG]

Interesting news article on BuzzFeedNews titled “Her Amazon Purchases Are Real. The Reviews Are Fake.” It discusses how 3rd party sellers on Amazon pay people to buy their products and then write 5 star reviews as verified buyers. The jerks who do this buy the items with their own credit cards to get “buyer verified” attached to their reviews, then the 3rd party seller reimburses them once the 5 star review is posted. I think we have suspected this garbage all along. Personally I never trust reviews on any retail site as they tend to seem rather manipulated. Even legitimate reviews are often ridiculous. We see an irate customer mad because UPS trashed their package so they give the item a bad rating. We see idiots who order the wrong thing because they have their head up their backside, but they blame the seller. And of course, we have the sellers who scam the system to inflate their product ratings. One thing is for sure, you can’t trust the numbers and you have to read each review to judge whether it is fake, stupid, nonsensical, are actually helpful.