U.S. – Amazon released Alexa for Fire tablets. The feature will be available for customers as of Wednesday.
Amazon’s Alexa voice virtual assistant has become increasingly popular over the past year. It can do things like as playing music on command, doing web searches and buying things on Amazon.
The system was limited to a handful of Amazon devices, including Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and Fire TV. Finally, the smart assistant app is ready to download for all owners of the 7-inch, 8inch, and 19-inch Fire tablets running on Fire OS.
Unlike Amazon’s Echo speakers, which can recognize shouts from across the room, users will need to press and hold the Fire tablet’s virtual home button to launch Alexa.
What will Alexa do on the Fire Tablets?
Alexa will open any app on the Fire tablet simply by voice command. For example, users can say “Alexa, open Spotify” and the virtual assistant will obey.
The app for devices will also go beyond Echo. It will offer full-screen cards with the information the user asked Alexa.
The system will enable voice commands so people can get news, search information on the web, check the weather or listen to music from services like Pandora.
Users can speak to Alexa in a natural way to get information, like “Alexa, tell me the weather in Los Angeles,” or “Alexa, tell me the score of X game.”
Alexa will read forecast out loud and present the data onscreen, and as for sports, it will show a list of results of all the games of the day.
One of the advantages of Alexa is that it allows ordering and pre-order ing any item inside Amazon’s catalog, and the system will remember choices and preferences.
If the Voicecast feature is enabled in the Alexa app on the tablet, rolling out commands to the Echo will show up the results in both the speakers and the mobile device.
It means users can voice summon Alexa and simultaneously see the visual representation of the request on the tablet’s screens, including the individual cards with detailed information.
Also, the Alexa mobile app can add further “skills” from third parties such as Uber, Domino’s and others.
Alexa is the AI for tablets
Amazon assures Alexa is different from Apple’s Siri and Google’s Assistant because it is designed for tablets first, rather than smartphones.
It means it focus on tasks a person would do at home, such as recipes, timers, and entertainment. For other commands on the go, Alexa can perform a standard web search or direct the user to the Alexa app.
On that regard, Apple and Google have unique interfaces with restaurant and hotel ratings, price ranges and more, and both services integrate the information into their chat apps. Alexa lacks this functionality.
Source: Engadget