{"id":11879,"date":"2017-07-12T12:37:11","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T17:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therealdaily.com\/?p=11879"},"modified":"2017-07-12T18:57:53","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T23:57:53","slug":"amazon-alexa-15k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/real-estate-tech\/amazon-alexa-15k\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Alexa just hit a milestone, do you know all of its capabilities?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get ready for takeover<\/h2>\n

As AG\u2019s self-appointed correspondent on the robot apocalypse, I note with some interest that Alexa, one of the \u201cclearly named with a supervillain in mind\u201d entries in the ongoing race for consumer artificial intelligence, has passed 15,000 distinct AI skills. I am perturbed. Perturbed, I am.<\/p>\n

Read also: LG unveils their smart fridge, now complete with Amazon\u2019s Alexa assistant<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n

\"bar\"
\nI don\u2019t know about y\u2019all, but I have maybe 15 skills, and this is the best one. Let me be the first to welcome our soft-voiced, bluelit conquerors.<\/p>\n

Ahead by a mile<\/h2>\n

Tripling my troubles is the fact that the closest competitors aren\u2019t even in the neighborhood, with Google Assistant and Cortana chalking up a measly 378 and 65 respectively.<\/p>\n

We officially have a leader in the race for Skynet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More importantly, however, those numbers, collected by VoiceBot but confirmed by the companies, show a trend in AI tech that, for consumers to get the most out of their equipment needs to come in tandem with changes in tech usage.<\/p>\n

Everyone uses technology for different things<\/h2>\n

There were probably different factions glowering at each other around the Lunch Rock over whether hand-axes were better for hunting, hacking or hygiene. What unites us all, however is that pretty much all of us, your humble narrator emphatically included, uses only a tiny fraction of his devices\u2019 various functions.<\/p>\n

Real talk: if you replaced my laptop with a typewriter that played death metal at regular intervals, there\u2019s an excellent chance I wouldn\u2019t notice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet, I am given to understand, computers do other things.<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s insane 15,000 units of functionality are that problem raised by an order of magnitude. Ruts abound in consumer tech, whether it\u2019s \u201cemail, spreadsheet, game\u201d or \u201cnotifications, calendar, selfie\u201d or my own \u201carticle, Tetris, Swedish men shouting at one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s silly enough with a tablet or smartphone, both of which are designed to optimize that behavior.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

AI is an opportunity to break those ruts for good, to run your thermostat<\/a> or chat with your favorite<\/a> Disney character without having to get out of your chair, let alone break workflow.<\/p>\n

Here we are<\/h2>\n

Alexa, Cortana, Siri – seriously, I\u2019m never going to get over the 70s SF names – really aren\u2019t just smartphones that talk anymore. Frankly, they were for a while. But ever since the last holiday, when orders for Alexa in particular went through the flippin\u2019 heliopause, AI has begun to deliver on its promise of a brighter, more interactive, more interesting world.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss it.<\/p>\n

#ExploreAI<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(TECHNOLOGY) AI offers a myriad of possibilities. While it can be extraordinarily overwhelming, don’t just find four things you like and stick to it, but continue exploring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337683,"featured_media":11880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[975,1234,324],"class_list":["post-11879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-tech","tag-ai","tag-real-estate-news","tag-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/07\/amazon-alexa.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337683"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11879"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11882,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11879\/revisions\/11882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}