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Whiskey With Alexa!
Voice is going to be HUGE in 2019 and there are more and more usages that companies are discovering every day. One of the interesting ones that we’ve used is from Diageo. It’s available on Amazon’s Alexa and it’s called Talisker Tasting Experience. Once asking Alexa to open Talisker Tasting, consumers will be asked to name the Whiskey that they own. Be that the Talisker Skye, Talisker Storm or Talisker 10 year old Single Malt. Once informed Alexa will begin an audio journey. Consequently drinkers will be taken through an auditory journey of how to taste the Scotch and get to know the richness and complexity of flavours from within the Talisker range. Furthermore after completing their drink, tasters will be invited asked to ask questions about the story of their drink, or flavours of Scotch that they’re interested in.
The final stage invites the taster to ask questions about the story behind their drink or flavours of Scotch they may like to try in the future.
“Talisker is a brand with an extremely rich heritage, produced by the sea on the Isle of Skye. When approaching this project, we were looking to bring elements of this location and the fantastic tasting tours at the Talisker Distillery into people’s homes.”
“Voice is the perfect technology to do just this and provide an enhanced brand experience by putting the consumer, product and brand at the centre of a tasting, in a completely seamless and non-intrusive way.” Benjamin Lickfett, Head of Technology and Innovation at Diageo
Additional Apps
This isn’t the only Alexa based app from Diageo either! They also have ‘The Bar’ which was released in December 2017. However, this app is specifically for the Echo Show. This app will highlight how to master mixology techniques and shop for ingredients. All through voice led advice. Furthermore Happy Hour Amazon Alexa Skill uses voice to provide cocktail recipes. Consequently, the app will even recommend bars to drinkers, specific bars to enjoy a Diageo cocktail.
While, voice is getting really really good and we’re intrigued to find out how Diageo will develop their voice technology. It’s worked really well for the Talisker Tasting Experience and we cannot wait to see more!
Download Talisker Tasting Experience here!
Purchase some Talisker Whiskey here!
Listen to the guys chatting about this by clicking here!
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Alexa Blueprints
Alexa is great and is one of our favourite smart voice assisstants available today! However, would you like it if you could make Alexa, just that little bit more personal? Would you like to make your own Alexa commands? Even your own Alexa, voice controlled games? Now you can with a new feature and website from Amazon! Head over to bluerprints.amazon.com to get started on your very own Alexa commands. Furthermore you don’t even have to know how to code! Plus you can make as many different Alexa skills as you like!
Alexa Blueprints: How To
Alexa Skills are just like the apps you have on your smartphone, but are placed on your Amazon smart speaker instead. There’s already loads available on the Alexa Skills Store! You can download apps which help fit your lifestyle, order a pizza, order a cab even pull down the latest football scores!
Once you start using Blueprints you can use templates that are available to you to create your own personal Alexa skill within minutes! You can create anything that your heart desires. Be that custom games, to-do lists, learning! Furthermore you can get creative with them and make things such as a learning and knowledge skill but make it about your family. Such as a trivia game “Alexa, open My Family Trivia”
There are a whole host of skills that you can make, simply browse the blueprints that are available to you in the following categories:
- Fun & Games
- At Home
- Storyteller
- Learning & Knowledge
What skill are you going to make? Let us know by contacting us via our social media pages, we’re @howtokillanhour across all socials!
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Apple looking to make Siri better!
As we have discussed on the show previously, the most impressive AI helpers are those from Amazon and Google. With Alexa and Google Assistant respectively. However, if you may recall that it was Apple who first introduced us to an AI that can help you in your day to day lives. Siri, was the first out of the gate. Yet, she is lagging behind her rivals when it comes to intelligence. Both Alexa and Google Assisstant can recall a lot more information and specific information. Siri on the other hand, sometimes can’t even answer basic questions. Only answering what you want if you ask her something in a very specific manner. She’s just not as good as her counterparts. With the release of Homepod, the lack of intelligence in Siri is even more obvious. Yet it’s vitally important to get this correctly, now more than ever, because of Homepod’s battle with Alexa and Google Home. That’s not to say that Siri isn’t intelligent, she can answer questions, she just isn’t good enough.
Siri Hiring
So to battle this, the guys over at Thinknum have noticed that Apple have been on a Siri hiring spree. Hiring as much as 161 different positions to help improve Siri. There’s been a steady increase in Siri related job positions since the summer of 2016, however, there’s been a surge, since February of 2018. The positions are for engineers. Engineers that are geared towards helping Siri answer her weaknesses in answering simple general questions. Other positions that are available are for Siri’s Proactive Intelligence. This is basically Siri’s ability to anticipate the type of info that you may need. A further two other positions are for SiriKit developer framework and speech generation. While it may be some time before we see any improvement on a consumer level, this definitely shows Apple’s intent when it comes to AI.
To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!
Amazon’s race to make Alexa smarter
Amazon bosses are now pushing themselves to the limit to make the Alexa speaker smarter.
Dave Limp – the man behind Alexa is not satisfied with the the function of the speaker as it is.
He now has thousands of engineers inside Amazon adding to its capability every day and then another tens of thousands of developers adding to the skills, this means in the coming years Alexa will be significantly smarter that she is now.
Alexa will understand 15000 commands compared to it’s nearest rival which is Google home and that only understands under 400 questions/commands, Alexa will also be able to understand context.
Onyx – Smart Walkie Talkie
As a whole, Onyx is a walkie talkie but with an unlimited range and unlimited channels!
You can send voices messages in real time from one Onyx to another over any distance!
As long as your Apple or Android device is connected to the internet, you can talk anywhere!
The Onyx is ultra lightweight, and clips easily to your top, bag, you name it!
To buy the Onyx click here!
Amazon Echo’s Alexa Top 5 Skills will confuse you!
Here are the Top 5 (out of 10,000) skills:
- Animal Game (You think of an animal, Alexa has to guess it)
- Radioplayer
- The Magic Door game.
- Harmony for Logitech products.
- And Meow? Meow is for cats. (You meow, it meows back!)
MEOW?! MEOW?! What?! – Tech confuses us.
bLaZeR666_uk commented about “Meow” that all their cats “come rushing in to see the “new” cat but can’t find it anywhere! lol”
To buy Amazon Echo products please click here!
To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!
Amazon Alexa BOSCH Game?!
Think you have what it takes to step into the shoes of an LAPD detective?
Join Harry Bosch and members of the cast of Bosch, Season 3 in an interactive mystery. A young woman has disappeared and Bosch has given you one day to find her. Avoid false leads and missteps by making the right “detective’s choice” at each fork in the road.
Featuring Titus Welliver, Analeis Lorig, Christian Gehring, and Erich Anderson.
Now get out there and knock on doors…
To enable BOSCH please click here!
To hear the guys talking about it please click here!
