Heena Sharma Blog

  US technology firm Amazon on Thursday announced a new version of artificial intelligence based Echo speakers in the price range of Rs 4,499 to Rs 9,999 a unit. The company at a global virtual event claimed to have reduced voice response of Alexa devices by hundreds of milliseconds using new electronic chips. "Our team really worked very hard to shave off 100s of milliseconds from Alexa response time. They invented a new AZ1 neural edge processor. It is a new silicon module that has been purpose built to run machine learning algorithms on the edge," Amazon Devices head for India Parag Gupta said. "We also built new neural speech recognition models that run on Az1. Together they make speech responses faster on Echo Dot," he said. The company started pre-booking Echo Dot priced at Rs 4,499, Echo DoT with clock for Rs 5,499 and Echo with 9,999 which will be shipped to customers later this year. Read More

Alexa and Fire TV devices are constantly improving over time and now on Monday the company announced that a user can connect their Echo devices with their Fire TV . This allows a user to build a variety of immersive, wireless speaker configurations for living room set-up, including 1.0 and 2.0 configurations and, for owners of Echo Sub, 1.1 and 2.1 configurations as well, the company said in a statement. To use the new update a user need to tap on the devices icon in the Alexa app on the lower right-hand side and then tap the "+" icon on the upper right hand side. Tap "Set Up Audio System" from the popup and then tap "Home Theatre" on the next screen. Select Fire TV device and then "Next" to name your new Home Theatre system. Select the Echo devices like to use as speakers - one can set-up two speakers, plus an optional Echo Sub. Read More

Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening. Sometimes, someone is. Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers. The team listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices. The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa’s understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands. The Alexa voice review process, described by seven people who have worked on the program, highlights the often-overlooked human role in training software algorithms. In marketing materials Amazon says Alexa “lives in the cloud and is always getting smarter.” But like many software...

If you’ve ever wondered if your phone is spying on you, you’re not alone. One of the most hotly debated topics in technology today is the amount of data that firms surreptitiously gather about us online. You may well have shared the increasingly common experience of feeling creeped out by ads for something you recently discussed in a real life conversation or an online interaction. This kind of experience has led to suggestions that tech firms are secretly recording our private conversations via smartphones or other internet-connected devices such as smart TVs, Amazon Echo or Google Home. Or that they are reading our private messages even when they are supposedly encrypted, as with Facebook’s WhatsApp. If this were proven to be true, it would reveal a huge conspiracy that could do untold damage to the tech industry – which makes it seem somewhat far-fetched. But recent revelations about the degree to which Facebook users’ data has been shared certainly won’t help to convinc...

The company said the partnership will start this summer at Marriott's select properties and the service will be available by invitation to other hotel chains Technology News : Amazon.com said on Tuesday that it has partnered with Marriott International to help increase guest access to amenities with Alexa, through its voice-controlled device Echo, in an attempt to expand its presence in the hospitality industry. Alexa for hospitality would assist in providing services ranging from ordering room service to requesting housekeeping or calling the concierge for dinner recommendations without picking up the phone. The company said the partnership will start this summer at Marriott’s select properties and the service will be available by invitation to other hotel chains. Several media reports had said that Marriott had tested both Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa to select what was best suited for its hotels. Marriott did not comment specifically on Apple, but said...