Get ready for a more human Alexa: Amazon plans to add all sorts of new features to its voice assistant, including the voice of Nick Fury himself, Samuel L. Jackson. Yes, starting soon, you can get an Alexa that's ready to tell you about how it's sick of these frickin' snakes on this frickin' plane.
Other new Alexa features include a multilingual mode for bilingual households. Pairings will include Spanish and English in the US, French and English in Canada and Hindi and English in India.
Alexa Communication for Kids allows children to talk to each other, provided that a parent approved. Alexa's Hunches feature is also getting upgraded, with the ability to alert you of impending technological need ("running out of printer ink" is included).
Celebrity Alexa voices, starting with Samuel L. Jackson
Neural TTS (text to speech) is the technology that Amazon's using to shake up Alexa's voice, because sometimes we'd all rather talk to (and hear) a more familiar-sounding voice.
This initiative starts with Samuel L. Jackson, so you can have Jules Winnfield himself tell you about the weather, recite jokes and help you set the mood right with the perfect tunes. Of course, Amazon's delivering an explicit and a non-explicit version of Jackson's voice.
After the event ended, the Amazon webpage for procuring the Sam Jackson voice pack went live and revealed that it will cost $0.99 to get the actor's recognizable voice on your Echo.
Available later this year.
Deleting Alexa's memory is getting easier
In addition to pre-existing commands that will delete the things you've told Alexa recently, Amazon's adding a new feature to have your Alexa auto-delete its memory. You have two options: automatically trash recordings older than 3 months or after 18 months.
Available now.
Alexa knows when you're upset
If you're anything like me (sorry if so), you've gotten annoyed when Alexa doesn't work right. In response, Amazon's adding a new feature called Frustration Detection so Alexa can try to adjust when it realizes you're upset with it, like one of your family members or coworkers would, if they could tell you're peeved.
Available at the beginning of 2020.
Why, Alexa, why?
If Alexa behaves in ways you don't expect or understand, you can just ask why. With a simple "Alexa, why did you do that?" you'll hear the digital assistant explain its actions. I look forward to using this the next time I botch a command.
Available later this year.
