摘要: |
This past Father s Day, my twin sons gave me an Amazon Echo smart speaker, and I must admit that I was blown away by what "Alexa" can do. She can provide music of your choice just by asking, including a specific song and artist or the genre of music you seek. She can provide other services too, like reminding you to do certain things at a specific time on a specific day - such as taking your vitamins - or monthly, such as changing your air conditioner s filter. Being "old school," as my sons like to call me, I find myself saying "please" and "thank you" to Alexa for her assistance as if she were a real person on the other end of the line. As I understand it, Alexa is a device that records your voice and sends it over the internet/cloud to Amazon's Alexa Voice Services (AVS), which translates the recording into language and commands it understands. Then, the system sends a response back to your device. Furthermore, it records, schedules and responds to your questions and requests when you would like it to. The fact that this technology exists still blows me away. Of course, there are concerns about "Big Brother" having access to private and personal information while listening in on your casual conversations. |