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74-612: Amazon Echo , often shortened to Echo , is a brand of smart speakers developed by Amazon . Echo devices connect to the voice-controlled intelligent personal assistant service Alexa , which will respond when a user says "Alexa". Users may change this wake word to "Amazon", "Echo", " Computer ", and other options. The features of the device include voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists , setting alarms , streaming podcasts , and playing audiobooks , in addition to providing weather, traffic and other real-time information. It can also control several smart devices , acting as

148-568: A home automation hub. Amazon started developing Echo devices inside its Lab126 offices in Silicon Valley and in Cambridge, Massachusetts as early as 2010. The device represented one of its first attempts to expand its device portfolio beyond the Kindle e-reader . Amazon initially limited the first-generation Echo to Amazon Prime members or just by invitation, but it became widely available in

222-601: A third-party -supplied Mozilla plug-in called Search Status for the Firefox browser served as the only option for Firefox users after Amazon abandoned its A9 toolbar. On July 16, 2007, Alexa released an official toolbar for Firefox called Sparky. On 16 April 2008, many users reported drastic shifts in their Alexa rankings. Alexa confirmed this later in the day with an announcement that they had released an updated ranking system, claiming that they would now take into account more sources of data "beyond Alexa Toolbar users". Using

296-780: A 100% price reduction on the Echo Dot (from $ 49.99 to $ 0.00). Amazon never commented on the promotion or gave any indication of how many Dots were given away. The third generation Echo Dot, introduced in September 2018, featured a new design with fabric covers, departing from the previous plastic or metal cylinder design. These fabric-covered Echo Dots also incorporated upgraded speaker drivers while retaining their core functionalities, including 3.5mm audio output. In January 2019, Amazon's SVP of devices and services, Dave Limp, revealed that over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices had been sold. The company's earnings reports and press releases also reveal that

370-485: A 2 and 20 percent discrepancy for the latter. The North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL) also identified a discrepancy between male and female voices. According to their research, Google's speech recognition software is 13 percent more accurate for men than women. It performs better than the systems used by Bing , AT&T , and IBM. The built-in microphone in smart speakers

444-511: A Wi-Fi extender, expanding its capabilities for smart homes and offering users a broader range of options. The Amazon Tap is a smaller portable version of the Echo. The Tap can do the many things the Echo can do; however, as it is battery-powered, it is also portable. Initially, the user had to press an activation button on the front of the Tap to speak commands. However, a February 2017 software update allows

518-533: A closed window, from another building across the street, using a laser. Alexa Internet Alexa Internet, Inc. was a web traffic analysis company based in San Francisco , California . It was founded as an independent company by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat in 1996. Alexa provided web traffic data, global rankings, and other information on over 30 million websites. It was acquired by Amazon in 1999 for $ 250 million in stock. Amazon discontinued

592-502: A commonly used word, and the device would react when it was not intended to. Jeff Bezos , the CEO of Amazon, ended up being influenced by Lab126 to change the name of the device to the Amazon Echo and the wake word to "Alexa". The Amazon Echo was originally pitched as only a smart speaker, it was not originally intended to be a smart home hub, as it is now, until after it was launched. As Alexa ,

666-422: A consumer product, it helps catalog users' outfits and rates their looks based on "machine learning algorithms with advice from fashion specialists. The device was initially only available for purchase by invitation-only in the U.S. However, it became generally available on June 6, 2018. Three years later, Echo Look owners received an email from Amazon stating that the device would soon stop working, because Amazon

740-476: A display have access to video calling. In May 2019, Amazon released Alexa Guard. If "Away mode" is enabled and an Echo device detects the sound of smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, or glass breaking, it will send alerts to the Alexa app on smartphones. If the user has professional monitoring, it can send alerts directly to the security provider. It can also switch smart lights on and off to make it look like someone

814-523: A house through other Echos and speakers that are in the "Music Group". Along with multiple groups, an Amazon Echo can hold multiple profiles. Switching between the profiles can allow users to play their music, access their calendars, and use their accounts for shopping, instead of just using one person's. In December 2021, an outage of Amazon's cloud service caused smart home devices to stop working. Amazon Echos are able to make calls and send messages. Users can make calls to another Amazon Echo or speaker that

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888-460: A lower price with improved voice recognition and new colors. The second generation of the Amazon Echo was released in October 2017. This update offered better voice recognition and a fabric covering exterior. Subsequently, other variants of the Amazon Echo have been released. In May 2017 Amazon released the now-discontinued Amazon Tap , a portable, slightly smaller version of the Amazon Echo. Although

962-529: A phone or tablet via Bluetooth . Echo maintains voice-controlled alarms, timers, shopping and to-do lists and can access Misplaced Pages articles. Echo will respond to questions about items in one's Google Calendar . It also integrates with Yonomi, Philips Hue , Belkin Wemo , SmartThings , Insteon , and Wink . Additionally, integration with the Echo is in the works for Countertop by Orange Chef, Sonos , Scout Alarm, Garageio , Toymail, MARA, and Mojio. Questions like "Who

1036-448: A platform competitor to Alexa or Google Assistant, but rather a voice skill to access Microsoft 365 via other voice assistants. As of April 2019, Alexa was the only Cortana-integrated voice assistant, which gave it exclusive access to Microsoft's suite of business applications. In March 2016, Amazon unveiled the original Amazon Echo Dot , which is a hockey puck -sized version of the Echo designed to be connected to external speakers due to

1110-539: A purely analytics-focused company. On March 31, 2009, Alexa revealed a major website redesign. The redesigned site provided new web traffic metrics, including average page views per individual user, bounce rate (the rate of users who come to and then leave a webpage), and user time on the website . In the following weeks, Alexa added more features, including visitor demographics, clickstream , and web search traffic statistics. During this period, Alexa's algorithm had been evolving along with it. Statistics projection and

1184-505: A specific audience subgroup was reluctant to take part in the rankings. This caused some controversies over how representative Alexa's user base was of typical Internet behavior, especially for less-visited sites. In 2007, Michael Arrington provided examples of Alexa rankings known to contradict data from the comScore web analytics service, including ranking YouTube ahead of Google. In 2021 John Mueller from Google confirmed again that Google does not use Amazon Alexa Rank. Until 2007,

1258-520: A study by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America released In March 2020, the six biggest tech development companies, Amazon , Apple , Google , Yandex , IBM and Microsoft , have misidentified more words spoken by " black people " than " white people ". The systems tested errors and unreadability, with a 19 and 35 percent discrepancy for the former and

1332-530: A toolbar; instead, it used data from users that had installed any of a number of browser extensions and from websites that had the Alexa script installed on their webpages. Alexa replaced their toolbar with browser extensions. These extensions were made available for Google Chrome and Firefox browsers. The Alexa browser extension displayed the Alexa Traffic Rank for websites, showed related websites, provided search analytics, and quickly allowed users to view

1406-860: 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 2015, the Echo added the ability to give live sports scores without updating the software version running on the device. The Amazon Echo is able to connect to many different smart home devices. Thermostats, humidifiers, lightbulbs, plugs, dog and cat feeder, door locks, cameras, thermostats, security systems, speakers, WiFi, televisions, vacuums, microwaves, printers, and other smart home devices can now all be controlled through Alexa. Alexa can be used to activate and deactivate all of these smart home appliances, as well as change their settings depending on

1480-715: A white mask, a blue cape, and a blue belt. Amazon initially limited the first-generation Echo to Amazon Prime members or just by invitation, but it became widely available in the United States in mid 2015. In 2016, the Echo became available in the United Kingdom and Germany. As of December 2017, the Echo was available in more than 80 countries: Albania , Austria , Anguilla , Argentina , Australia , Austria , Barbados , Belarus , Belgium , Bermuda Bolivia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Cambodia , Canada , Chile , Colombia , Costa Rica , Croatia , Cyprus ,

1554-526: Is Barack Obama?" are answered by reading the first few lines of the corresponding Misplaced Pages article. Echo devices also have access to "skills" built with the Alexa Skills Kit. These are third-party-developed voice applications which add functionality to any Alexa-enabled device. Examples of skills include the ability to play music, answer general questions, set an alarm, order a pizza or a ridesharing car (e.g., Uber , Lyft ), and so on. The Alexa Skills Kit

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1628-596: Is a collection of self-service application programming interfaces (API), tools, documentation and code samples. Developers can also use the "Smart Home Skill API", a new addition to the Alexa Skills Kit, to extend Alexa's compatibility with cloud-controlled lighting and thermostat devices. All of the code runs in the cloud and nothing is on any user device. A developer can follow tutorials to learn how to build voice-response capability for their new and existing applications. In November 2018, Amazon added Skype calling ability to all of their Echo products. Echo devices that have

1702-417: Is achieved through sophisticated natural language processing algorithms built into the Echo's text-to-speech engine. As with all Alexa devices, the functionality of Echo smart speakers periodically evolves as Amazon releases new software for it. Most new releases 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

1776-503: Is continuously listening for "hot words" followed by a command. However, these continuously listening microphones also raise privacy concerns among users. These include what is being recorded, how the data will be used, how it will be protected, and whether it will be used for invasive advertising. Furthermore, an analysis of Amazon Echo Dots showed that 30–38% of "spurious audio recordings were human conversations", suggesting that these devices capture audio other than strictly detection of

1850-428: Is home. A paid feature called Guard Plus enables other features such as playing the sound of a dog barking when an intruder is detected. The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) allows developers to voice-enable connected products with a microphone and speaker. The AVS enables volume control, audio playback, and speech recognition. The devices have natural lifelike voices resulting from speech-unit technology. High speech accuracy

1924-523: Is in the house by calling the device name. Users can also make calls and send messages to other people that have an Amazon Echo. This is done by connecting the user's contacts to the Amazon Echo. The user's Amazon Echo will call their contact's Amazon Echo. They will be able to have a conversation using the Amazon Echos. Messages will go to the contact's phone, in the Alexa App. The message can also be played on

1998-469: Is not unique to voice assistants; as more and more devices come online, there is an increasing trade-off between convenience and privacy. While there are many factors influencing smart speaker adoption, specifically with regards to privacy, Lau et al. define five distinct categories as pros and cons: convenience, identity as an early adopter, contributing factors, perceived lack of utility, privacy, and security concerns. Tennant et al. explored adoption using

2072-459: Is unknown, even though the work on it has stopped. The Amazon Echo was originally supposed to be called the Amazon Flash. The wake word, the word that makes the device responsive, for the Echo used to be "Amazon". Both of these attributes were disliked by Lab126 , the division of Amazon that conducts research and development and creates computer hardware. Lab126 believed that "Amazon" is too much of

2146-514: The Amazon Echo Look was introduced as a camera with Alexa built-in, for US$ 20 more than the first-generation Echo. The device can provide artificial intelligence outfit recommendations, take photos, and record videos; in addition to the features available on the Echo. It offers Amazon Alexa's key feature plus a camera to take full-length photos and 360-degree videos with built-in AI for fashion advice. As

2220-818: The Czech Republic , Denmark Ecuador , El Salvador , Estonia , Finland , Ghana , Gibraltar Germany , Greece , Grenada , Hong Kong , Indonesia , Jamaica , Kenya , Hungary , Iceland , India , Ireland , Italy , Japan , Latvia , Liechtenstein , Lithuania , Luxembourg , Macao , Malaysia , Malta , Mexico , Namibia , the Netherlands , New Zealand , North Macedonia , Norway , Panama , Peru , Philippines , Panama , Peru , Poland , Portugal , Puerto Rico , Romania , Saint Kitts and Nevis , Serbia , Singapore , Slovakia , Slovenia , South Korea , Sri Lanka , Suriname , Sweden , Switzerland , Taiwan , Tanzania , Thailand , Trinidad and Tobago , Turkey ,

2294-430: The United Kingdom , the United States , Uruguay , Vanuatu , Venezuela and Zambia . In 2018, Amazon and Microsoft jointly announced a solution to integrate their digital assistants so that Cortana , Microsoft's voice assistant, could be called from an Amazon Echo device and Alexa could be called from Windows devices, including PCs. In January 2019, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that Cortana would no longer be

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2368-488: The United States in mid 2015, and subsequently in other countries. Additionally, the Alexa voice service is available to be added to other devices, and Amazon encourages other companies' devices and services to connect to it. Work on the Amazon Echo began in 2011, known as "Project D". It was named this because the Kindle was Project A and the Fire Phone was Project B. The Amazon Echo was an offshoot of Project C. Project C

2442-426: The technology acceptance model and identified factors influencing expected usefulness, ease of use, and attitudes toward smart speaker devices in the context of home care support. The authors describe some of the critical challenges in designing for this context given the potential impact of the voice assistant's personality on someone's perspective of the care situation and a user's desire for intelligent support from

2516-576: The 4th gen Echo was announced replacing the Echo and Echo Plus devices in a new spherical form-factor. The Echo brings the Echo Plus' Zigbee smart home hub with support for Amazon Sidewalk . As part of a holiday promotion, Seattle Seahawks player Marshawn Lynch drove the Treasure Truck around Seattle in December 2016 selling a limited-edition beast-mode Echo with a custom skin. The beast-mode version

2590-461: The Alexa Internet service on May 1, 2022. Alexa estimated website traffic based on a sample of millions of Internet users using browser extensions as well as from sites that had chosen to install an Alexa script.  As of 2020, its website was visited by over 400 million people every month. Alexa Internet was founded in April 1996 by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat . The company's name

2664-495: The Alexa homepage, and the Alexa ranking of the website that the user is visiting. It also allowed the user to rate the website and view links to external, relevant websites. In early 2005, Alexa stated that there had been 10 million downloads of the toolbar, though the company did not provide statistics about active usage. Originally, web pages were only ranked amongst users who had the Alexa Toolbar installed, and could be biased if

2738-465: The Amazon Echo, called the Amazon Echo Dot . This device is an ice hockey puck sized version of the original Amazon Echo released in 2014, and it has the same capabilities. This product was designed to be used in smaller rooms such as bedrooms due to its limited speaker capabilities (size) or to be paired with an external speaker. In November 2016 the second generation of the Echo Dot was released for

2812-510: The Echo Dot has been among the top-selling products on Amazon.com for 2017 and 2018. In September 2020, the fourth generation Echo Dot was revealed with a new spherical design and 30% smaller compared to the 3rd gen Echo. In September 2022, the fifth generation Echo Dot introduced several enhancements, including a new temperature sensor, an improved audio experience with clearer vocals and deeper bass, and cutting-edge ultrasonic motion detection technology. Notably, it also features eero Built-in as

2886-585: The Echo Spot, but with a different design. The device now resembles the look of the Echo Pop, with a 2.83" inch touch screen with a half-circle tinted cover glass and a speaker. Unlike the 2017 version, videocalling and smart home cameras are not available on the device. The device sold for $ 79.99. On September 27, 2017, Amazon announced the Echo Plus , which released on October 31, 2017. It shares design similarities with

2960-479: The Echo is intended to be voice-controlled at the unit, a microphone-enabled remote control similar to the one bundled with the Amazon Fire TV is available for purchase. The remote was also bundled with early units. 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. The top half-inch of the unit rotates to increase or decrease

3034-411: The Echo. The first-generation Amazon Echo consists of a 9.25 inch (23.5 cm) tall cylinder speaker with a seven-piece microphone array . The Echo hardware complement includes a Texas Instruments DM3725 ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 256MB of LPDDR1 RAM and 4GB of storage space. As of July 2017, the first-generation Echo maintained an 83% score on GearCaliber, a review aggregator. Although

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3108-657: The Internet Archive through the Wayback Machine. They were last updated in May 2020, two years prior to the service's closure. Alexa used to rank sites based primarily on tracking a sample set of Internet traffic—users of its browser toolbar for the Internet Explorer , Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. The Alexa Toolbar included a popup blocker (which stops unwanted ads), a search box, links to Amazon.com and

3182-625: The application is free, an Amazon account is required, and setup is not possible without one. Echo devices offer weather from AccuWeather and news from a variety of sources, including local radio stations, BBC , NPR , and ESPN from TuneIn and iHeartRadio . Echo can play music from the owner's Amazon Music accounts and has built-in support for other streaming music services like Apple Music , Spotify , Deezer , Pandora and Sirius XM among others, and has support for IFTTT and Nest thermostats. Echo can also play music from non-compatible music streaming services such as Google Play Music from

3256-485: The artificial intelligence (A.I.) that powers the Amazon Echo, improved, the device became more of a controlling center for smart home appliances. Dave Isbitski, the chief developer evangelist for the Echo and Alexa, received calls from smart home manufacturers to discuss connecting their devices, after the release of the Amazon Echo. But smart home devices had a problem: people were not buying smart home devices because they often required an extra app in order to be used, which

3330-434: The cessation of its website ranking and competitive analysis service, which has been available to the public for more than 25 years. From that day on, it was no longer possible to create accounts or buy subscriptions on the service. The statement first published on its website specifies the total cessation of the service as of May 1, 2022. Existing subscriptions would be available until May 1, 2022, UTC, after which everything on

3404-578: The company donated a copy of the archive, two terabytes in size, to the Library of Congress . Alexa continued to supply the Internet Archive with web crawls. In 1999, as the company moved away from its original vision of providing an "intelligent" search engine , Alexa was acquired by Amazon.com for approximately US$ 250 million in Amazon stock . Alexa began a partnership with Google in early 2002 and with

3478-479: The device. For example, Alexa can be used to change the temperature in a house through a thermostat, turn off the lights with smart lights, put out dog or cat food via a smart pet feeder, and activate the security systems via a smart security system. The user is able to organize these smart home devices by putting them into groups. For example, a user can make a "Music Group" on the Amazon Echo. The Amazon Echo will be able to play music and other media in multiple rooms in

3552-406: The first-generation Echo, but also doubles as a smart home hub, connecting to most common wireless protocols to control connected smart devices within a home. It incorporates seven second-generation far field microphones and noise cancellation, while also supporting Dolby Sound. Smart speaker As of summer 2022, it is estimated by NPR and Edison Research that 91 million Americans (35% of

3626-601: The general public in August 2018. The Look was phased out in 2020. In June 2018 the Amazon Echo Show was released to the public as a device with a 7-inch screen used for streaming media, making video calls and the use of Alexa. The second generation of the device was made available in November 2018 and features a 10-inch screen with improved speakers. In the default mode, the device continuously listens to all speech, monitoring for

3700-570: The go. The second generation of the Amazon Echo Dot became available on October 20, 2016. It is priced lower, has improved voice recognition, and is available in black, grey and white. The Echo Spatial Perception (ESP) technology allows several Echo and Dot units to work together so that only one device answers the request. As of November 2017, the Echo Dot maintained a 78% score on GearCaliber, based on 23 reviews. On August 18, 2017, an Amazon promotion allowed Amazon Prime customers to receive

3774-612: The hot word. There are strong concerns that the ever-listening microphone of smart speakers presents a perfect candidate for wiretapping . In 2017, British security researcher Mark Barnes showed that pre-2017 Echos have exposed pins which allow for a compromised OS to be booted. While voice assistants provide a valuable service, there can be some hesitation towards using them in various social contexts, such as in public or around other users. However, only more recently have users begun interacting with voice assistants through an interaction with smart speakers rather than an interaction with

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3848-572: The option of activating the Tap with an activation word, just like the Echo and the Dot. Some of the limitations of the Tap include not being able to stream music as part of a group and not being able to send announcements to the device. Additionally the Tap does not support "Drop In" feature and as a result cannot be used for two-way voice communication. Amazon has discontinued the Tap. This has encouraged 3rd party accessory manufacturers to make available battery add-on units for other Echo products. In April 2017,

3922-408: The phone. On the phone, most voice assistants have the option to be engaged by a physical button (e.g., Siri with a long press of the home button) rather than solely by hot word-based engagement in a smart speaker. While this distinction increases the privacy by limiting when the microphone is on, users felt that having to press a button first removed the convenience of voice interaction. This trade-off

3996-532: The population over 18) own a smart speaker. A smart speaker with a touchscreen is known as a smart display. It is a smart device that integrates conversational user interface with display screens to augment voice interaction with images and video. They are powered by one of the common voice assistants and offer controls for smart home devices, feature streaming apps, and web browsers with touch controls for selecting content. The first smart displays were introduced in 2017 by Amazon ( Amazon Echo ). According to

4070-409: The rank is calculated from a combination of daily visitors and page views on a website over a three-month period. The Alexa Traffic Rank could be used to monitor the popularity trend of a website and compare the popularity of different websites. The traffic rank used to be determined from data recollected from users that had the Alexa toolbar installed on their browser. As of 2020, Alexa did not use

4144-453: The site would be removed and replaced with an "End of Service Notice". The alexa.com domain is now a landing page for Amazon Alexa products. A key metric published from Alexa Internet analytics was the Alexa Traffic Rank, also simply known as Alexa Rank. It was also referred to as Global Rank by Alexa Internet and was designed to be an estimate of a website's popularity. As of May 2018 , Alexa Internet's tooltip for Global Rank said

4218-450: The smaller size of the onboard speakers, or to be used in rooms such as the bedroom as an alternative to the full-sized Echo. Despite its smaller form factor, the Amazon Echo Dot retains all the core functionalities of the original Amazon Echo, ensuring a seamless voice-controlled experience for users. Additionally, users have the option to enhance the portability of the Echo Dot with third-party external batteries, providing extended usage on

4292-423: The speaker volume. The Echo must be plugged in to operate since it has no internal battery. Echo provides dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) support for audio streaming and Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) for voice control of connected mobile devices. The mainline Linux kernel is able to boot the Amazon Echo since version 5.6. In September 2020,

4366-424: The technology. When configured without authentication , smart speakers can be activated by people other than the intended user or owner. For example, visitors to a home or office, or people in a publicly accessible area outside an open window, partial wall, or security fence, may be able to be heard by a speaker. One team demonstrated the ability to stimulate the microphones of smart speakers and smartphones through

4440-404: The television series Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation . The Echo was announced on Nov 6, 2014 and was initially available by invitation only. It became available to all customers on July 14, 2015. The Echo featured prominently in Amazon's first Super Bowl broadcast television advertisement in 2016. In March 2016 Amazon released a less expensive version of

4514-510: The traditional naming mechanism of naming strictly on generation. They are known as the Echo show 5, Echo Show 8, and Echo Show 15. On September 27, 2017, Amazon launched the Echo Spot , a hemispherical device that has the same functions as an Echo Show. The device has a 2.5-inch circular screen, and looks like an alarm clock. The device sold for $ 129.99. In 2019, the Echo Spot has been discontinued in all regions. On July 9, 2024, Amazon brought back

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4588-403: The two products are similar the Tap is battery powered, portable, and requires the touch of a button in order to enable voice commands. In April 2017 the Amazon Echo Look was released to invitees only, as an Amazon Echo with a built in camera. It was designed as a speaker, that is also handy with artificial intelligence that has smart algorithms to help users pick out outfits. It was released to

4662-475: The use of their technology associated with a large network of certificated websites allowed them to keep ahead of the website traffic metrics around the world. Because of this, many large sites were using it as the main reference for popularity on the internet. On November 6, 2014, Amazon announced Amazon Alexa , their virtual assistant . Amazon already had trademarks for Alexa due to their ownership of Alexa Internet, Inc. On December 8, 2021, Amazon announced

4736-539: The voice platform Amazon acquired from Yap , Evi , and IVONA (a Polish-based specialist in voice technologies used in the Kindle Fire). The device requires one time setup by pairing it with Amazon's Alexa app, which gives the user more control over features. The smart speakers perform well with a "good" (low-latency) Internet connection, which minimizes processing time due to minimal communication round trips, streaming responses and geo-distributed service endpoints. While

4810-463: The wake word to be spoken, which is primarily set up as "Alexa" (derived from Alexa Internet , the Amazon-owned Internet indexing company). Echo's microphones can be manually disabled by pressing a mute button to turn off the audio processing circuit. Echo devices require a wireless Internet connection in order to work. Echo's voice recognition capability is based on Amazon Web Services and

4884-551: The web directory DMOZ in January 2003. In December 2005, Alexa opened its extensive search index and Web-crawling facilities to third-party programs through a comprehensive set of Web services and APIs . These could be used, for instance, to construct vertical search engines that could run on Alexa's servers or elsewhere. In May 2006, Google was replaced by Windows Live Search as a provider of search results. In December 2006, Amazon released Alexa Image Search. Built in-house, it

4958-535: Was a first-generation Echo that responded to a user's commands with Marshawn Lynch's voice, instead of the Alexa voice. In November 2017, a Product Red version of the second-generation Echo was announced as a limited edition item. Another special version of Echo is the Alexa Super Skills Collectible edition, which was given to select Amazon Alexa developers who published five skills between July 22 and October 30, 2017. This special variant comes with

5032-552: Was chosen in homage to the Library of Alexandria in Ptolemaic Egypt , drawing a parallel between the largest repository of knowledge in the ancient world and the potential of the Internet to become a similar store of knowledge. Alexa initially offered a toolbar that gave Internet users suggestions on where to go next based on the traffic patterns of its user community. The company also offered context for each site visited: to whom it

5106-453: Was discontinuing production and sales of the device. Echo Look owners had a device that they could not use. In May 2017, Amazon introduced the Echo Show , which features a tactile 7-inch liquid-crystal display screen that can be used for playing media, making video calls (5 MP front camera), and other features. The Echo Show was offered for purchase at a price of $ 229.99 on June 28, 2017, and

5180-456: Was initially only available in the U.S. A second generation of the Echo Show was unveiled at an Alexa-themed product event by Amazon on September 20, 2018, for release the following month. The new device has a 10-inch touchscreen, improved speakers, and mesh casing. Amazon has released three additional sizes of the Echo Show making them available in 5-, 8-, and 15-inch displays. These devices broke

5254-400: Was not much better than just using the device manually. The Amazon Echo (1st Generation) was initially released in 2014 alongside the voice of the product, Alexa. Alexa is a voice associated with the Amazon Echo that will respond to questions and requests through artificial intelligence. Amazon has claimed that the voice of Alexa was inspired by electronic communications systems featured in

5328-471: Was registered, how many pages it had, how many other sites pointed to it, and how frequently it was updated. Alexa's operations grew to include the archiving of web pages as they are "crawled" and examined by an automated computer program (nicknamed a "bot" or "web crawler"). This database served as the basis for the creation of the Internet Archive , accessible through the Wayback Machine . In 1998,

5402-449: Was stealing traffic graphs for profit and that the primary purpose of his site was to display graphs that were generated by Alexa's servers. Hornbaker had removed the term Alexa from his service name on March 19, 2007. On November 27, 2008, Amazon announced that Alexa Web Search was no longer accepting new customers and that the service would be deprecated or discontinued for existing customers on January 26, 2009. Thereafter, Alexa became

5476-524: Was the first major application built on the company's Web platform. In May 2007, Alexa changed their API to limit comparisons to three websites, reduce the size of embedded graphs in Flash , and add mandatory embedded BritePic advertisements. In April 2007, the company filed a lawsuit, Alexa v. Hornbaker, to stop trademark infringement by the Statsaholic service. In the lawsuit, Alexa alleged that Ron Hornbaker

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