Amazon Echo

Amazon Echo is a wireless speaker and voice command device from Amazon.com. The device consists of a 9.25-inch (23.5 cm) tall cylinder speaker with a seven-piece microphone array.^[1] The device responds to the name "Alexa"; this "wake word" can be changed by the user (to also "Amazon" or "Echo" at present.).^[2] The device is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic and other real time information. It can also control several smart devices.

Amazon had been developing Echo inside its Lab126 offices in Silicon Valley and Cambridge, Mass. since at least 2010. The device, codenamed 'Doppler' or 'Project D', was part of Amazon’s first attempts to expand its device portfolio beyond the original Kindle Ereader.^[1]

The Echo (initially limited to Amazon Prime members or by invitation) became widely available on June 23, 2015.^[3] Additionally, the service behind it (Alexa Voice Service) is available to be added to other devices and other companies’ devices and services are encouraged to connect to it (using the Alexa Skills Kit).^[4]

Cloud-based processing

Amazon Echo runs on Amazon Web Services. In the default mode the device continuously listens to all speech, monitoring for the wake word to be spoken. The device also comes with a manually and voice-activated remote control which can be used in lieu of the 'wake word'. Echo's microphones can be manually disabled by pressing a mute button to turn off the audio processing circuit.^[1] Echo requires a Wi-Fi internet connection in order to work. Echo's voice recognition capability is based on Amazon Web Services and the Amazon common voice platform it acquired from Yap,^[5] Evi, and IVONA^[6] (a Polish-based specialist in voice technologies used in the Kindle Fire).^[7] Echo performs well with a 'good' (low latency) Internet connection which minimizes processing time due to minimal communication round trips, streamable responses and geo-distributed service endpoints.

Hardware

Amazon Echo unpacked, January 2015

The Echo hardware complement includes a Texas Instruments DM3725 ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 256MB of LPDDR1 RAM and 4GB of storage space.^[8] Connectivity is provided by dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.

The Echo is intended to be voice controlled at the unit, however, a mic-enabled remote control similar to the one bundled with the Fire TV is available for purchase. An action button on top of the unit is provided for user setup in a new location, and the mute button allows the microphones to be turned off.^[9] The top half-inch of the unit rotates to increase or decrease the speaker volume. The Echo must be plugged in to operate since it has no internal battery.

Natural voices

Echo's natural lifelike voices result from speech-unit selection technology.^[10] High speech accuracy is achieved through sophisticated natural language processing (NLP) algorithms built into the Echo's text-to-speech (TTS) engine.

Services provided

Echo offers weather and news from a variety of sources, including local radio stations, NPR, and ESPN from TuneIn.^[11] Echo will play music from owner's Amazon Music accounts and built in support for the Pandora, and Spotify streaming music service was recently added,^[12] as was support for IFTTT (If This, Then That).^[13] Echo can also play music from streaming services such as Apple Music, and Google Play Music from a phone or tablet. Echo maintains voice-controlled alarms, timers, shopping and to-do lists and can access Wikipedia articles. Echo will respond to your questions about items in your Google calendar. It also integrates with Philips Hue, Belkin Wemo, SmartThings, Insteon, and Wink.^[14][15] Additionally, integration with the Echo is in the works for Countertop by Orange Chef, Scout Alarm, Garageio, Toymail, MARA, and Mojio.^[16]

Privacy concerns

There are concerns about the access Echo has to private conversations in the home, or other non-verbal indications that can identify who is present in the home and who is not—based on audible cues such as footstep-cadence or radio/television programming.^[17][18] Amazon responds to these concerns by stating that Echo only streams recordings from the user's home when the 'wake word' activates the device. This is a superficial constraint that Amazon has imposed upon itself. The device is technically capable of streaming voice recordings at all times. Also, Echo will always be listening to detect that a user has uttered the word.

Echo uses past voice recordings the user has sent to the cloud service to improve response to future questions the user may pose. To address privacy concerns, the user can delete voice recordings that are currently associated with the user's account, but doing so may degrade the user's experience using voice search. To delete these recordings, the user can visit the Manage My Device page on Amazon.com or contact Amazon customer service.

Echo determines its location in the user's home by the collection of networks detected including Wi-Fi routers, the signal strengths of these routers, the type of security the routers use, and the registration information provided by the broadband carrier of these devices. Amazon and third-party apps and websites use location information to provide location-based services and store this information to provide voice services, the Maps app, Find Your Device, and to monitor the performance and accuracy of location services. For example, Echo voice services use the user's location to respond to the user's requests for nearby restaurants or stores. Similarly, Echo uses the user's location to process the user's mapping-related requests and improve the Maps experience. All information collected is subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice.^[19]

Limitations

Purchasing merchandise or digital media such as songs, by commanding Echo to buy the song, does require manual intervention—through an alternate user interface—to complete the purchase. Echo has demonstrated hit-or-miss results when asked common questions that users would expect better answers to. Echo sometimes confuses certain homophones.^[20]

The current location of the device is set to Seattle (Amazon headquarters) by default and must be changed manually, but can only be set to a location within the USA. This is different from smartphone-based voice assistants that can get the actual location via built-in GPS locators. This restriction can lead to undesired or seemingly "wrong" results for questions that imply the location such as "What is the weather" (around here) or "Set an alarm for 1000am" (local time here). There are several attempts to circumvent the USA only restriction, particularly by users in Europe and Australia. One such workaround is to set the Echo to a timezone that is exactly 12 hours difference from the local time. For example, if the current time in London is 1130am, the user can set Echo to Hawaii Standard Time, which would be 1130pm. This would enable Echo to report the correct time. There are two undesirable effects with using this method. One is the incorrect AM/PM notation and the second is the incorrect date. Another more sophisticated workaround is by manipulating the data that is transmitted and received by Amazon's servers as described by user "stonewater" on the Un-Official Amazon Echo Forum.^[21] This method produces accurate and desirable results. However, it requires technological know-how with the aid of Request Maker for Chrome to accomplish the task.

Interaction and communication with Echo is currently only available in English.

Software versions

The Echo functionality periodically evolves as Amazon releases new software for it. Most new releases will fix bugs in addition to including enhanced functionality. New releases are pushed to the devices on a gradual basis so it may take several days to a week or more for a particular device to be updated. Because much of Echo's intelligence lies in the cloud, significant functional enhancements can be made to Echo without updating the software version it is running. For example, in April, the Echo added the ability to give live sports scores without updating the software version running on the device.

References

External links

• Official website