Amazon recently announced that it will be release the Amazon Echo virtual personal assistant to the public for $179.99. The device was first launched in December 2014 and was offered exclusively to Amazon Prime members for $99.
The Amazon Echo is a voice-activated personal assistant. It works very much like other virtual personal assistant like Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana. The only difference is that Amazon Echo is a standalone device and does not rely on any smartphone device to perform most of its features.
When the Amazon Echo was launched in December 2014, many were not satisfied with its capabilities which is limited only to Amazon-related services and the Bing search-engine. However, the utter lack of usable features forced Amazon to offer the device to developers in order to upgrade it.
According to Time, Amazon Echo can read books from Audible, perform search engine queries, set timers and can even tell jokes. The device is also connected to Amazon Prime Music, this means that it can play any music that is available on the user's Amazon music library or any free music currently available for all Amazon Prime members.
Based on a promotional video from Amazon, the Amazon Echo can also set alarms and can be programmed to automatically read the current news from National Public Radio (NPR) once it wakes up.
Additionally, the Amazon Echo can also function as a Bluetooth speaker for a smartphone. This means that a user who prefers to use other music streaming app like Spotify can directly stream their music to the Echo's speaker.
The Amazon Echo has two "wake words" that activates it once spoken. The device only listens and accesses the Amazon cloud service once it hears either "Amazon" or "Alexa." Amazon promises to incorporate more "wake words" in the future.
According to The Verge, Amazon is currently in negotiation with several hardware developers in order to integrate Amazon Echo technology into their products. Amazon released a press statement announcing that its offering Alexa Voice Service to any interested hardware manufacturer who wants their product to have an integrated cloud-based voice activated service.