How Amazon Will Put Alexa Everywhere
It’s no secret that Amazon wants to crush the voice assistant competition, but now we have a better idea how it plans to do it.
Amazon's vision: Priya Abani, director of Amazon Voice Services, tells Wired that “you should be able to talk to Alexa no matter where you’re located or what device you’re talking to … We basically envision a world where Alexa is everywhere.” Car, bulbs, fridges—the lot.
The risk: Amazon quickly opened up Alexa for third-party developers—but if third-party Alexa devices suck, users will be put off Alexa, period.
The solution: Wired says Amazon now “offers seven different development kits for a few hundred dollars apiece, each with a specific product type in mind.” Wanna Alexa-ify a gadget? Buy a kit and you’re experimenting with voice control inside 30 minutes. Amazon also built a robot called JR to test third-party devices and give feedback to manufacturers.
Deep Dive
Artificial intelligence
Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora
The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.
Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.
Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.
Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario–like games from scratch
Genie learns how to control games by watching hours and hours of video. It could help train next-gen robots too.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.