Amazon Echo Club

[ApK]

Originally Posted by sgmoore

"About 4 feet and 11 inches" which I think gets a pass.

But for the second it replies
"From answers.com. The area of a circle with a DIAMETER of 7 inches is 38.48 square inches."

The emphasis is mine and not Alexa. So whilst the answer is factually correct, it isn't what I asked and so that is a fail.

I thought it might be that she has trouble understanding my Northern Ireland accent, but she didn't have any issues when I asked her what radius meant.

OK, the 1.5 meter thing may have been a glitch on my end, but listen to the attachment to hear how she answers the circle one:

[sgmoore]

Weird. It is almost like 'she' doesn't realise the difference between diameter and radius.

I was previously using my Alexa device and it gave the same answer whether I said a radius or diameter. But I just tried asking the Alexa app on my Ipad. She ignored the inches part, but gave the correct answer in both cases.

[tubemonkey]

Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

Smart display will soon default to showing ads after three hours

In September of 2023, Amazon announced the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition. It looked just like the regular Echo Show 8 smart display/speaker but cost $10 more. Why? Because of its ability to show photos on the home screen for as long as you want—if you signed up for a $2 monthly subscription to Amazon's PhotosPlus. Now, about a year after releasing the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition, Amazon is announcing that it's discontinuing PhotosPlus. That means Echo Show 8 Photos Edition users will be forced to see ads instead of their beloved pics.

As per The Verge yesterday, Amazon started sending PhotosPlus subscribers emails saying that it will automatically cancel all PhotosPlus subscriptions on September 12 and will stop supporting PhotosPlus as of September 23. PhotosPlus, per Amazon's message, "makes photos the primary home screen content you see on your Echo Show 8 and includes 25 GB of storage with Amazon Photos," Amazon’s online photo storage offering. Users can continue using the 25GB of Amazon Photos storage after September.

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[tubemonkey]

Alexa AI Expected to Roll Out in October

Amazon's revamped Alexa with generative AI to roll out in October

Alexa's 'Remarkable' overhaul is now expected a bit later than originally planned. Here's what we know so far.

While there's been much talk surrounding Amazon's generative AI-powered overhaul of its voice assistant, Alexa, and its expected subscription fees, we've heard little from the e-commerce giant about a launch date. New reports indicate it's expected to launch in October and confirm that a subscription will be required.

The new and improved Alexa with gen AI should launch in just over a month, a delayed drop from what was expected earlier this year when reports indicated it would launch in September. It will be a paid alternative voice assistant to the "classic Alexa," which Amazon refers to the currently available free version in internal documents obtained by the Washington Post. The report indicates that a subscription to the new virtual assistant, dubbed "Remarkable Alexa," could cost as much as $10 a month.

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After a decade of free Alexa, Amazon now wants you to pay

Would you pay for a less dimwitted digital assistant?

Amazon is about to find out.

The Washington Post’s Caroline O’Donovan reported that Amazon is planning to sell a paid subscription for an artificial intelligence-revamped version of Alexa that could cost as much as $10 a month.

Among features of the subscription Alexa, expected in October, are recipe suggestions based on your family’s dietary restrictions and AI summaries of the news. Caroline reported that you’ll still be able to use the current version of Alexa without a subscription fee.

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[John F]

The article says there will no be no charge for the current Alexa, and I hope that is true. I get enough unasked for suggestions as is, I'm not looking to pay for more.

"The report indicates that a subscription to the new virtual assistant, dubbed "Remarkable Alexa," could cost as much as $10 a month."

I plan on sticking with the "Unremarkable Alexa".

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by John F

The article says there will no be no charge for the current Alexa, and I hope that is true. I get enough unasked for suggestions as is, I'm not looking to pay for more.

"The report indicates that a subscription to the new virtual assistant, dubbed "Remarkable Alexa," could cost as much as $10 a month."

I plan on sticking with the "Unremarkable Alexa".

Same here. I'm not about to pay extra for AI services I'd never use. My Echos only get used for audiobooks, music, news, weather, alarms, and timers; and none of the services require AI to function.

"Unremarkable Alexa"

[tubemonkey]

Amazon's Remarkable Alexa will reportedly run on Claude AI

It'll arrived in October ahead of the holidays, according to five internal sources.

Amazon's next-gen "Remarkable" Alexa assistant will be powered by Anthropic's Claude AI, cost $5-10 per month and arrive in October ahead of the holidays, five sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The company originally planned to use in-house software for the new chat assistant, but it reportedly struggled with latency issues, taking up to six or seven seconds to acknowledge a request and reply, one source said. By contrast, Claude — a rival to Google's Bard, ChatGPT and others — performed better.

Amazon didn't confirm the story, but said that it uses language models from partners as well as its own. "When it comes to machine learning models, we start with those built by Amazon, but we have used, and will continue to use, a variety of different models — including (Amazon AI model) Titan and future Amazon models, as well as those from partners — to build the best experience for customers," a spokesperson told Reuters.

>>> skip <<<

Remarkable Alexa (still an internal codename only) reportedly won't be offered as a Prime benefit and users may need new devices to run the upgraded AI properly. Any monthly fee is likely to be a tough sell to consumers, as Amazon will continue to offer its "classic" voice assistant for free. In any case, the company's plans could still change if the updated voice AI fails to meet internal benchmarks, Reuters' sources said.

[Byrdie]

Fingers crossed they don't get the bright idea to take some of regular Alexa's functions away and hide them behind a paywall to "encourage" Smart Alexa subscriptions.

[tubemonkey]

Google’s Gemini AI vs. Siri and Alexa: Which One Stands Out?

Let’s break down their strengths, weaknesses, and what makes each one unique

Google’s launch of Gemini Live is a big move in the AI assistant space. This new AI is available on Android devices for Gemini Advanced subscribers, with support for iOS coming soon. With its advanced conversational abilities, Gemini Live is designed to compete head-on with Siri and Alexa. But what makes it different? And how does it compare to these established digital assistants?

General Voice Search Statistics

The current landscape of voice assistants is led by some major players:

Apple's Siri: 36% of people use Siri as their primary digital assistant.

Amazon Alexa: 25% of users turn to Alexa for voice commands and queries.

Microsoft Cortana: 19% still prefer Cortana, despite its declining presence.

Other Assistants: 1% of users employ various smaller, lesser-known voice assistants.

These numbers highlight the stronghold of Siri and Alexa in the voice assistant space. Can Google’s Gemini Live carve out a significant share?

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[OtinG]

In the case of so-called home assistants like Siri and Alexa, I feel like “AI” stands for “artificial insanity”! I spend so much time arguing with them that I could save a lot of time just going to the apps and manually initiating a home routine. Neither Alexa or Siri are all that bright. At least Siri isn’t always trying to sell me something like Alexa, but Siri is ten times dummer than Alexa.

[ApK]

What happened to to Google's current Assistant in that survey? Presumably a huge portion of Android users still use that.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ApK

What happened to to Google's current Assistant in that survey? Presumably a huge portion of Android users still use that.

I was wondering that, but I assume that it is 19%, as the others don't add up to 100%.

[tubemonkey]

The Amazon Echo graveyard

The Echo ecosystem has seen its fair share of failures while trying to popularize Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant.

>>snip<<

Although the Echo smart speaker has endured, many other Echo spinoffs, accessories, and variations have not. They were either too weird, too redundant, or too ahead of their time to survive longer than a few years before being quietly disappeared from Amazon’s online store.

Let’s take a look at the Echo products that failed to win consumers over or failed to convince Amazon they were worth keeping around.

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[CRussel]

They got one of them wrong -- the Echo Wall Clock. Hangs in the kitchen near the stove, and can be seen from anywhere on the main floor. Don't care about the clock part, but the ability to see how much time is left on my kitchen timers is very useful. Especially because I can have multiple timers going while I'm cooking.

[tubemonkey]

The Alexa Skills revolution that wasn’t

Ten years ago, Amazon imagined a future beyond apps — and it had the idea basically right. But the perfect ambient computer remains frustratingly far away.

The first Amazon Echo, all the way back in 2014, was pitched as a device for a few simple things: playing music, asking basic questions, getting the weather. Since then, Amazon has found a few new things for people to do, like control smart home devices. But a decade later, Alexa is still mostly for playing music, asking basic questions, and getting the weather. And that’s largely because, even as Amazon made Alexa ubiquitous in devices and homes all over the place, it never convinced developers to care.

Alexa was never supposed to have an app store. Instead, it had “skills,” which Amazon hoped developers would use to connect Alexa to new functionality and information. Developers weren’t supposed to build their own things on top of an operating system, they were supposed to build new things for Alexa to do. The difference is subtle but important. Our phones are mostly a series of disconnected experiences — Instagram is a universe entirely apart from TikTok and Snapchat and your calendar app and Gmail. That just doesn’t work for Alexa or any other successful assistant. If it knows your to-do list but not your calendar or knows your favorite kind of pizza but not your credit card number, it can’t do much. It needs access to everything, and all the necessary tools at its disposal, to get things done for you.

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