Amazon Alexa is an intelligent personal assistant developed by Amazon Lab126, and was popularized with the launch of Amazon Echo and Amazon Echo Dot . The interaction with this device is produced by voice commands that allow us to play music, make to-do lists, set alarms, transmit podcasts, play audiobooks as well as provide meteorological, traffic and other real-time information such as news.
Alexa can also control several smart devices that are used as a home automation system, so it has been an important step in the simplest use of any home automation device. Most devices that integrate with Alexa allow you to connect the device using an activation word (such as Echo); Other devices (such as the Amazon application on iOS or Android) require the user to press a button to activate Alexa's listening mode. Currently, interaction and communication with Alexa is only available in English and German ... although it will reach more languages.
Alexa from Amazon takes advantage of a voice synthesis dialing language specially designed to help developers make the voice of Alexa sound more natural. Today, that language is being updated and adding five additional Alexa voice tools.
New SSML tools allow Alexa to whisper, change speech emphasis, take advantage of prosody, smear words as if they were swear words on cable TV, and read things in addition to written text, which could be useful for Alexa Can comment on the commitments or tasks developed in different Apps. The new tools have their own variables, allowing developers to play with a wide range of different options for Alexa's voice.
Innovation in Alexa's voice tools
The Whisper tool is quite simple; It just makes Alexa whisper. For its part the Expletive tool works the same way, but instead of speaking the dialogue more smoothly, Alexa simply emits a beep sound effect. For its part, Sub tool lets you define what Alexa will say in the Skill code, while the plain text will read something else. This can be useful for devices with screens, where a user can read content while Alexa speaks.
The case of the Emphasis tool comes in the none, moderate and strong variations, which are self-explanatory. There is also a reduced option for the Emphasis tool, which will reduce the emphasis on a word or phrase by speaking quieter and faster. The new final tool in the set, Prosody, allows developers to control the pitch and speed of Alexa's voice. When used with the volume tool, you can use it to customize the speech exactly as the developer wants it.
Alexa from Amazon offers more possibilities for developers
These new Alexa voice tools integrate seamlessly with the impressive existing catalog that Alexa's skill developers have at their disposal. Along with existing SSML tools, these new skills provide developers with an unprecedented level of freedom in personalizing Amazon's Alexa voice, and the opportunity to make it sound as human as possible. Interestingly, they are developing just after Google announced a new bot for voice synthesis, called Tacotron, which integrates and automates most of these new features and some others, through the magic of learning machines and neural networks.
Greetings from the depths of the bytes.
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