Lots of code examples in JS and Java (even though I believe a github repository would have been better than zip archives...), a $100M investment fund, and a real integration with their services and devices. Amazon seems to be really serious about this.<p>When Siri came out, I found myself wanting to build a service using it and got disappointed (even though the reasons not to open the API were obvious), so I'm now happy to see Amazon calling developers with a voice based API. I'd like to see how this will pan out.
The "Alexa" name is starting to get confusing. Amazon already owns something called Alexa, a website/service which provide information about a website's stats and ranking.<p>Worse, Amazon also offers an API/SDK to Alexa via AWS [1], which offers a surprising amount of information about a website that they gather (Global Rankings, regional rankings, standard <META> tag scrapping, DMOZ info, IP/location info, email address/telephone/address and other contact info, bunch more stuff). It's actually pretty amazing, but the API and documentation is terribly out-of-date.<p>This got my hopes up that Amazon had done an overhaul of the Alexa rankings/info API... [sigh]<p>[1] <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/awis/" rel="nofollow">http://aws.amazon.com/awis/</a>
Exited to see these new SDKs for the Echo, using it daily it definitely gives you a feeling for the vast potential of the platform given 3rd party contribution. Using AWS Lambda also makes development of Echo apps makes it extremely easy, it took me only about an hour to get a working prototype of a simple app working.<p>I'm looking forward to attending the Boston amazon developer day this weekend to really dig deep into all the sdks and get some questions answered from the team.
It's not at all clear to me how they're namespacing the invocation names.<p>Do they need to be unique across all skills?<p>Will there be a land-rush on all the good two and three work invocation names?<p>Do I manually select which skills will be enabled for my Echo, and only those invocation names will be accepted? What about conflicts?
I just ordered an echo for my hobby workshop, i'm super excited for this thing. My dream is to be able to import google sketchup models (somewhere) than as i'm working be able to ask it questions about the model.<p>So like, imagine i'm standing in front of a freshly milled piece of oak, and i'm roughly marking out my pieces:<p>"Alexa, What are the dimensions for the top side apron"<p>Even cooler, if i had a camera in there too<p>"Alexa, where did I put my tape measure?"
There's also MindMeld--<a href="https://expectlabs.com/docs" rel="nofollow">https://expectlabs.com/docs</a><p>With Alexa, you have to bet on Amazon winning the IoT game. Amazon is great at ecommerce (mostly because they don't care about making money), but it's not clear they're great at platforms.<p>But if all you want is the functionality of an Echo that you can customize, then go with a well-funded startup staffed by some of the best AI engineers in the world offering similar and often better capabilities, and build your own so you can integrate it wherever you want.<p>That's MindMeld.
> Amazon is investing up to $100 million to support developers, manufacturers, and start-ups of all sizes who are creating unique and innovative experiences designed around the human voice. Whether that’s creating new Alexa capabilities with the Alexa Skills Kit, building devices that use Alexa for novel voice experiences using the Alexa Voice Service, or something else entirely, if you have a visionary idea, we’d love to talk to you.
Still not wanting an active listening device in my own walls, closed source, closed server APIs, not disclosed NSLs received by Aamazon etc etc.<p>Not for me or my family.
Looks like a product of Amazon acquisition of IVONA:
<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/24/amazon-gets-into-voice-recognition-buys-ivona-software-to-compete-against-apples-siri/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/24/amazon-gets-into-voice-reco...</a>
Just sold my Echo after getting little value from it - must admit I was holding out for an API, I think it will be 100x more useful once we see some good 3rd-party integrations.