Amazon Alexa

Who would have thought that one day Amazon Alexa would make it all the way to the moon and beyond? The familiar AI found in many Amazon devices will now be part of its most important mission yet, this time aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft. As a collaboration between Lockheed Martin, Amazon, and Cisco, many engineers are working towards integrating Alexa into deep space missions. Lockheed Martin, alongside the other companies involved, detailed the development in a blog post.

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Lenovo has added a new, more affordable smart clock to its line-up, with the Lenovo Smart Clock with Alexa Built-in delivering Amazon's virtual assistant to a nightstand. The new connected clock also supports a number of new smart docking accessories, so that owners can add features like a wireless charging pad without needing more cables or power adapters.

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Every so often, we'll hear of dumb and sometimes dangerous internet challenges that have caught on with the teenagers of the world. As if eating Tide pods or swallowing spoonfuls of cinnamon wasn't enough, there's apparently a new one making the rounds that challenges the brave and foolhardy to touch a penny to the partially exposed prongs of a plugged-in phone charger. One parent learned about this challenge in a rather alarming way, as Alexa suggested it as a challenge to her 10-year-old daughter.

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Amazon has officially launched its Alexa Together service, a new subscription-based option for caregivers and anyone who wants to keep tabs on the vulnerable people in their life. The new service revolves around Amazon's IoT devices and its Alexa voice assistant, enabling caregivers to see when their elderly parent, for example, gets up in the morning, pop in for quick chats, and more.

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Smart speakers and other AI assistant devices are incredibly convenient, particularly for those times you need quick information without pulling out your phone or tablet. Using these devices on a regular basis can be a bit awkward, however, as every request and command must start with the wake word -- something Amazon's Conversation Mode addresses.

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iRobot is upgrading the Alexa support in its latest Roomba robot vacuums and Braava robot mops, building on existing voice control with task-specific commands and hunches. The new features allow owners to request an spot-clean job - such as "Roomba, clean around the kitchen table" - rather than loading that job via the robot's app.

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Just in case you felt that Amazon didn't have a hand in enough of your daily life, they've made an air quality monitor. The Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor works with Alexa and tells you the contents of the air you breathe. This device will connect with all of your Amazon smart home products to enable an all-encompassing monitoring and voice-commanded environment for you and your family.

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Amazon knows you're probably skeptical about "Alexa on wheels," but it's making its Astro robot anyway. Announced today, the latest iteration of the retailer's smart assistant cuts the cord completely - well, for as long as the battery lasts, anyway - in a way the rotating Echo Show 10 could only dream of, though there's still an uphill struggle if Astro is to convince us that it's a household necessity.

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Amazon has unveiled its first robot, Amazon Astro, combining Alexa on a motorized platform that can roam around the home. Astro has a pop-up periscope camera on top, a moving screen on the front, and a cutesy expression to make it more appealing to families.

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Amazon just announced that they've teamed up with Disney to create a new Alexa-based system called Hey Disney! This new system creates a "custom assistant" with Amazon's brain, ambient computing, and Disney's intellectual property to create a cross-brand powerhouse. This new service will work "alongside Alexa" with some devices in the near future.

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Amazon is switching on local voice recognition processing, promising users of some of its latest Echo smart speakers and smart displays that they can have their Alexa commands avoid the cloud completely. The new feature, announced at Amazon's big hardware and services event today, taps into the retail giant's homegrown AZ1 Neural Edge chipset.

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Amazon's big Alexa, Echo, and Ring event may not be until next week, but some of the surprises in store - including a brand new form factor for the company's smart speaker - may already have been leaked. With previous years to guide us, Tuesday's event on September 28 is likely to be one rapid-fire announcement after the other, spanning everything from the smart home, to security, to automotive tech.

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