Hello everyone. Thanks for tuning in again. Let's get started with another
video here about the Amazon Echo series and your Amazon Alexa enabled devices.
Now if you do have one of those devices go ahead mute the mic cause I am going to use
that keyword a number of times here through the video. Let's get going.
The first thing we're going to talk about this week isn't the best thing for
those of you with an Echo device. Now we have a report of someone whose
conversation was actually sent to one of their contacts in their Alexa list.
It was done without her actually requesting that. Now
of course Amazon's come right out and they've investigated, they've looked at
it, they've done everything possible that they can, and of course they're going to
correct this in the future. But with that in mind, what I'm going to do is prepare
a video that shows you how to protect your privacy as best you can
right now with your Alexa enabled device and your Amazon Echo series of devices. So stay
tuned to the channel for that. Amazon has proved something that...I wasn't too sure of
how this was going, because I haven't made a lot of purchases through my Echo Dot
devices. What actually happens, and this is proven through a study now, is
that people with an Echo or an Alexa-enabled device will actually spend 29%
more than your average customer on the Amazon ecosystem or the Amazon website.
That's an amazing statistic. It says people are buying into actually using
just their voice to purchase products through their Echo devices. I will say
that this next update is nothing short of amazing when you think about it from
a programming standpoint. Now I don't know if Amazon actually has this much
processing power, but they say they do and they're starting to utilize this.
It's called the CanFulfillIntentRequest() and developers now can utilize
that. What that means is when a user asks something of Alexa,
this piece of code will allow Amazon to reach out and basically pull that skill
forward and give it to the user and say "hey this might
fulfill what you're asking for." I'm sure they're going to trigger both the
skill, or even just a suggestion to go and install the skill, and then it will
let you do that I'm sure. But the processing power behind something like
this, when we think about the millions and millions of skills that are going to
be on this system, that's pretty incredible stuff. Speaking of skill
development, Amazon continues to develop their developers network.
They're now paying in the UK and Germany. They're paying extra money to developers
of kid-friendly skills. So if you're one of those developers, and you're looking
for somewhere to produce a skill, go produce a kid skill in the UK or Germany.
Right now you're going to make a little extra money. This next thing is
functionality that I really love. I've been looking for this for a long time.
What it's going to cause you to do is continue to integrate your contacts with
your Alexa app and your Alexa device. Now what you can do is schedule meetings and
on top of that you can move meetings, and that's a really important component here,
and it's available on all kinds of calendars including your Gmail, your G
Suite, Microsoft Office 365, and Microsoft Exchange. Now on to a couple of new
devices getting integrated with Alexa, the first one is the Motiv ring. We
already had some integration there, but we're getting some more so you can
actually now ask Alexa through the Motiv skill your current steps, your
current calories, a number of current pieces of information. So that means your
Motiv ring is basically communicating in an essentially instantaneous
fashion back to Alexa. On top of that Hisense actually has an air-conditioner
now for about $400 USD. It is Alexa compatible, and you can turn on and
off your air conditioner today with Alexa. And then what might kind of
tweak some people into getting an air conditioner is now you can schedule
it, and I think that's a really important differentiation for people. If you've
been paying attention to the LG thinQ set of devices they have a set of
TVs that have been getting really good reviews. They have a lot of smart
functionality within them, they have the Google Assistant on board, but now what
they've announced is that they're getting Alexa support. You're going to
be able to change channels, change the volume up or down, and a number of other
functions, so they now have dual support for both of the big smart home voice
assistants here. That's great news for those of us with an Echo device. There
you go, that was a ton of updates really quickly here for those of you with an
Echo device or an Alexa-enabled assistant. I think the functionality is really
moving forward really quickly with Amazon here. They're doing a great job
keeping pace with Google, and even keeping pace with expectations. It's been
amazing. So thanks everyone for watching. We'll see you next time.