Amazon Releases A Speaker That Talks to You!

You know what I woke up thinking this morning?

“Boy I wish I had a speaker that would also tell me traffic conditions, remind me to buy groceries and generally be a PA, all the while streaming my favorite hits and that I can voice control!”

And I believe that Amazon was secretly listening in on my private thoughts (again) because guess what Amazon just released?

She’s called Echo and she will talk to you. If Echo sounds familiar, perhaps you might be thinking of her older sister from a different father, Siri. And if you’re thinking that this is a little left-field coming from Amazon, you’re right. We’d expect this kind of shenanigans from say, Google, but here we are with a high-tech speaker with Siri stuffed into it.

To be fair, I am rather intrigued and would totally get one for myself. If only just to have a speaker that sounds good that is also small enough to be portable. Let’s be honest here, I still haven’t mastered the art of talking out loud to my phone, I’m not sure if I’m going to get around to yelling in the general direction of my speaker.

But the possibilities are there. At least with Echo you are (I presume) in the privacy of your own home where talking out loud to inanimate objects cannot be judged. Currently available for purchase by invitation only. Prime members get to buy it for a special price of $99, instead of its regular $199.

Echo is always connected to the cloud, so it gets up-to-date information on the weather, news, music and whatever else you ask it. It uses a built-in voice recognition technology to ‘hear’ you from across the room and can even understand you while music is playing. The speaker also produces 360-degree audio so you can fill an entire room with music.

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