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Voice-controlled devices and utilities are growing more popular as smartphone and cloud technology become more robust. Apple’s Siri, Android’s Google Now, and Windows’ Cortana digital assistants are all powered by voice recognition, and Amazon entered the fray with voice controls for its Amazon Fire TV technology. Amazon’s latest voice-controlled technology offering, the Amazon Echo Bluetooth speaker and virtual home assistant, raises the stakes even further. Echo was released in 2015 to mixed but mostly positive reviews, which emphasized the future potential of the device. Amazon Prime members could buy Echo for just $99, while normal Amazon customers had to pay $199.Currently, Echo’s functionality is simplistic, but useful. The device is always on, but requires its ‘wake word’ to prime it for interaction – the only two choices are “Alexa” or “Amazon” at the moment. You can ask Echo questions, have it play music, create a to-do list, or get the weather. Echo can also play a digest of the biggest news stories or play reports of specific issues that users ask to hear. The Echo companion app allows you to customize settings, keep a record of your queries and the answers to those queries, and view the shopping and to-do list items that you’ve previously dictated to Echo. Amazon is also developing a developers’ kit to allow developers to create Echo apps, which are likely to make it even more multi-functional in the future.Echo is a move by Amazon to enter the voice-controlled technology space, but it also has potential as a “smart home” appliance, which is a growing market. Echo might someday be able to integrate with your home appliances, adjusting the temperature, locking and unlocking doors, and turning lights on and off. Amazon might envision a future where Echo is a kind of “hub” where you can manage and connect with all of the smart appliances in your home in one centralized location.Echo lacks a battery option and has to be plugged in to function, limiting its portability. It’s also able to glean information from Wikipedia, but not from Google or other search engines. That will likely change in the future as both Amazon and Echo’s developers gain more familiarity with the device. The speaker quality is also limited, with testers reporting distortion at higher volumes. Users report that Echo experiences some confusion with queries that don’t fall within its narrowly defined specifications, although Echo also learns from its mistakes and adapts to the types of queries you most frequently make.It’s not currently clear how Amazon uses the information it gleans from users’ questions and commands, or whether there’s any capacity for storing things you say that aren’t directed at Echo itself. From Amazon’s perspective, the Echo could be an invaluable new tool for learning more about its customers, with an ability to generate heaps of granular data about the routines and preferences of each individual user.On the other hand, privacy advocates have ample reason to be concerned about a device that can quickly transmit your every word to the cloud, where it can be stored along with the rest of Amazon’s trove of your personal information and used to make product recommendations and generate marketing materials. However, Amazon notes that any users uncomfortable with the collection of their data can simply go into their “History” using their Echo app, and delete queries either individually or in bulk, which will also delete the information from Amazon’s servers.At this point, there’s no telling what the Amazon Echo of 2020 will look like compared to the launch version of 2015. It could be a staple in homes across the country, or it could flame out like the Amazon Fire phone long before then. Amazon seems poised to commit the necessary resources to ensure the former.

1. What functionality does Amazon Echo display during the video?

2. What kind of technology does Amazon Echo use?

3. Why does Amazon Echo make sense as a hub for home appliance automation?

4.What might be some privacy concerns involving Echo? Are these well founded? Why or why not?

5. Why is releasing a developers’ kit for Echo important for Amazon to keep pace with services offered by Apple, Google, and Microsoft?

Answer 1

1) Functionality that amazon echo uses are its Bluetooth speaker and virtual home assistant which can do several things like playing music, reciting news, creating a to-do list.

2) Amazon Echo uses voice-controlled technology. the echo also comes with a companion application that can be used to change setting and excess to-do list, etc which one has dictated to echo.

3) Amazon Echo uses voice recognition technology which can be used by a developer to make applications for home electronic devices, Amazon Echo can be used as a centralized hub to control all the electronic devices in the home like lights, doors, adjusting temperatures. all the devices connected to amazon echo can be controlled by it.

4) Amazon echo stores all the voice data which include personnel information it is stored in a cloud server from where it can also be stolen and if this data is not deleted from amazon server can be used by marketing companies to make a recommendation for products influencing consumers.

5) Echo developer kit can be used by the application developer to innovate new application which can be used to integrate with other electronic devices also this can be used to make echo better. currently, google apple Microsoft is not working on these fields this will make it advantageous against them in the market.