“Currently, in Brentwood (Northern CA), it’s 101° and sunny! ” That’s my Google Assistant talking. I’m sitting in my home office surrounded by three Amazon Echo™s, two Oontz Angle 3™ wireless speakers (GREAT sound, ridiculously low price), and a small, white Maltese named Danny. It occurred to me that I haven’t written for a couple months and that’s NOT OK!
So, what am I going to espouse today? More tech for Seniors? Sure! How about VFI (voice first interface). I have seen the future and it’s here NOW! (Well, I haven’t just seen it – I’ve talked to it and it’s talking back to me!) Amazon Echo (Alexa) now has a “chat” mode that is initiated by saying “Alexa, let’s chat.” Amazon is sponsoring a University competition to create “chat” for Alexa and, even at this early stage, it’s fascinating and engaging.
Alexa will acknowledge your request to chat and then get a chat bot for you. The chat bot asks what you’d like to chat about and then begins casual conversation about any number of topics. It’s very real, give and take, conversation. Gone are the one-off interactions of a few months ago when Alexa couldn’t string together two requests, one after the other and only responded to the request at the moment. Now, she’s chatting!
Give her a try: “Alexa, let’s chat” nad be prepared to be blown away!
Next up: Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and the differences between them!