Amazon is taking Alexa “To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Has Gone Before…” The ecommerce giant has added the Star Trek inspired ‘’computer’’ as a wake word to its voice assistant platform.
The new wake word joins the current ‘’Alexa’’, ‘’Echo’’ and ‘’Amazon’’ as commands to get Alexa’s attention.
To change your wake word follow these steps:
- Open the Alexa app
- Open the left navigation panel and select Settings
- Select your device from the menu
- Scroll down and select Wake Word
- Use the drop-down menu to select a wake word, and then select Save. When you change the wake word, the light ring on your device flashes orange briefly.
In the two years since its launch, Alexa has emerged as the go-to voice platform for any connected device. Alexa has progressed from home-helper and office assistant to car buddy. And it’s unlikely to stop there. Amazon is aggressively looking to embed its popular voice recognition into more and more tech products.
At January’s Las Vegas, Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Volkswagen and Ford revealed their new cars will incorporate Alexa. Among other things the system will tell you the best route, weather and traffic bullet-ins, and even if you have enough fuel. Once on the road, Alexa will also access your calendar and confirm appointments to make sure you’re on schedule. However, it still has a long way to go before you can say “Alexa,
Amazon believes the intelligent voice-recognition platform will be central to autonomous cars of the near future. The company eventually wants to use vehicle-to vehicle communication and data sharing. In other words, cars talking to each other.
Alexa already has more than 7,000 applications that link with other manufactures’ equipment. Or in Amazon speak ‘’third-party integrations’’.
The on-line seller’s voice platform has proven itself one of the most reliable around. Unlike other brand’s similar systems, Amazon has solved many of the problems regularly associated with voice recognition.
Amazon fine-tuned Alexa’s ability to recognize commands by limiting it to the (US) English language during the first two years. It has only recently become available on the UK English speaking market.
Amazon claims Alexa’s language capability means it will understand you even if you ask for something in five different ways. Alexa also has far-field microphones with built-in noise cancellation for noisy environments. It is circular so can be used from any angle.
Amazon’s aim, according to its executives, is to ultimately develop Alexa into something you use everywhere you go. Whether walking through the home or on the move microphones, potentially hidden will pick up and answer any question or need. In fact a bit like Star Treks ever-present ship-wide computer.
And if that’s not enough for you, why not out-fit your entire home with a Star-Trek branded custom wall mural?
“The ultimate vision is that this is like a Star Trek computer….and I can just ask Alexa for things. There may not be devices that you can even see,” John Scumniotales, Amazon’s Automotive Alexa managers told reporters at the CES.
“Hailing on all frequencies!” anyone?