Amazon is beginning to ship a new device called echo. Essentially, from 
everything I have been reading it’s a voice assistant, similar in 
functionality to Siri on iOS. The Echo is not, however, a phone, tablet 
or a standard windows, Apple or Android computer. It’s just a box which 
allows you to communicate with Amazon’s voice assistant to get time, 
date, weather as well as asking it to play your stored music, set alarms 
and even ordering stuff, presumably all through Amazon. Because it’s not 
a phone, you don’t need a carrier. You just plug it in, connect it to 
your Wifi (I assume) and start talking to it. It has several 
microphones, allowing it to hear commands from across a room. If our 
smartphones didn’t have voice assistants I’d find the concept far more 
appealing. While Amazon has the right idea in coming out with an 
all-purpose computer that responds entirely to your voice, I don’t think 
people are going to really take to it but time will tell. The device is 
$199.00, and for prime members it’s $99.00. It’s not ready for prime 
time as Amazon is only allowing people to place orders by invitation 
only at this time, although it is beginning to ship. You can get more 
info at
http://www.amazon.com/echo

-- 
David Goldfield,

      Founder and Peer Coordinator,
Philadelphia Computer Users' Group for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Feel free to visit my new Web site
http://www.DavidGoldfield.info/


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