Tag: alexa
Alexa’s Celebrity Voiceovers Taking a Final Bow: Amazon’s Star-Studded Feature Set to Fade Out
Amazon has announced its decision to retire the celebrity voices feature for Alexa, a service that has been delivering weather forecasts, telling jokes, and much more.
How to Remove Personal Pictures from Your Alexa Echo Show or Look
If you have ever been surprised to see images of yourself showing up on the screen of your Alexa Echo Show or Echo Look, you are probably trying to figure out how to remove those images, and you’re also probably realizing that it’s not easy to find that information. So let us make it easy for you: here is how to delete those personal pictures from an Alexa Echo device.
Amazon Sidewalk Uses Your Alexa Devices to Share Your Internet with Your Neighbors Unless You Opt Out and Disable It
Amazon Sidewalk automatically uses a bit of your wireless network to create a mesh network with nearby Alexa and Ring devices. Amazon is enabling it automatically for all devices (old and new), so you have to disable it if you won’t want your neighbors’ Amazon devices using your wireless network.
Hands On with Echo Loop – the Alexa Ring You Wear on Your Finger
Here is our review of the Echo Loop, plus what to do if you are having a problem connecting to or charging your Echo Loop because it won’t fully charge.
Amazon Announces Alexa-Enabled Wireless Earpod Competitor Earbuds – But are They Really?
Amazon has announced that they are working on Alexa enabled wireless earbuds (Echobuds? Alexabuds? Earechos?), and that they should be available as soon as the second half of 2019 (Alexa enabled headphone and earphones have been around for a while). However, the term ‘Alexa-enabled’ may be misleading.
Amazon Echo Recordings and Fitbit Tracking Used as Evidence in Murder Trials – Smart Devices as Witnesses for the Prosecution
Earlier this week we wrote about what Amazon is recording and storing for their use when you talk to Alexa on your Amazon Echo device. We also told you how to delete those recordings. Today we’re going to give you some real-life examples of how such recordings are being used in criminal proceedings. And of course the same can be true for Google Home recordings, Fitbit tracking, and any other smart device that tracks your movements or records your voice (or both).
How to Remove Skills from Alexa without Having to Go Through the App
Usually we are writing about how to add or enable new skills and party tricks for Alexa to show off with your Amazon Echo. However, it may be that you want to remove skills from your Alexa’s list of skills, and don’t want to have to go through the agonizing 4-step process required through the Alexa app in order to disable each and every skill.
Amazon Echo Alexa Now Lets You Create Your Own Interactive Custom Skills – But There’s a Catch
Amazon has just announced that Alexa can now use custom created skills – meaning skills created by you. Not only that, the Amazon Echo team has made it super easy for you to create those Alexa skills by launching Alexa Skill Blueprints (‘Alexa Blueprints’ for short). Alexa Blueprints are fill-in-the-blank templates that you edit online, in your Amazon account, which, once saved, you access through your Echo. It all sounds so peachy keen. But there’s a gotcha.
Amazon Launches Fantasy Adventure Game on Echo
Remember Zork? Amazon has decided to breathe new life into adventure games by debuting an old-style interactive adventure game on a new-fangled device: the Amazon Echo. Actually, the Alexa adventure game, called The Magic Door, has been around since 2017, however Amazon has started pushing it a bit more recently.
Are the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Siri Making People Less Polite?
Are Amazon Echo’s Alexa, Google Home’s, er, Google, and the iPhone’s Siri making people less polite in general, and making children less polite in particular? Given that none of these personal assistants require any manners, some fear that they are.
Amazon Adds ‘Computer’ to List of Echo Wake Words – Trekkies Rejoice
Trekkies across the country are rejoicing at hearing that as of today Amazon has added a new ‘wake word’ to their Echo’s vocabulary: computer. (The other three options to wake up your Echo are ‘Alexa’, ‘Echo’, and ‘Amazon’.) Here’s how to change your wake word and make your Echo respond to the word ‘computer’.
How to Use Amazon Music Unlimited with Your Echo or the Amazon Music App (and List of Side-by-Side Artists)
Amazon launched their Amazon Music Unlimited (AMU) service just a few weeks ago. This is Amazon’s entry into the streaming music market, to compete with the likes of Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, and Google Music, and maybe even to one-up them with the exclusive Amazon Music Unlimited Side-by-Side feature where the artists talk about their music (we include a list of Side-by-Side artists and music below).
Amazon Echo’s Alexa to Detect Your Moods
An Amazon insider has told MIT’s Technology Review that Amazon is gearing up the Echo to enable Alexa to be able to detect your mood. So, for example, if you are in a bad mood when interacting with Alexa, your Echo will detect that and respond accordingly.
New Tricks that Amazon Echo’s Alexa has Learned in the Past year
It has been exactly a year since we first unboxed and reviewed the Amazon Echo, and Siri’s cousin, Alexa. In that year, Alexa has learned many new tricks (mostly through having acquired new “skills”), as well as having a baby (Amazon Dot) and a low-energy clone (Amazon Tap). Here are some of the new tricks that Alexa has learned in the past year.