{"id":57718,"date":"2018-01-31T05:45:05","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T05:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=57718"},"modified":"2018-01-31T05:45:05","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T05:45:05","slug":"amazon-teases-new-voice-for-alexa-in-super-bowl-ad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/amazon-teases-new-voice-for-alexa-in-super-bowl-ad.html","title":{"rendered":"Amazon teases new voice for Alexa in Super Bowl ad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon teases new voice for Alexa in Super Bowl ad<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Is Alexa about to get a new voice? That’s the big question behind Amazon’s newest Super Bowl ad.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a teaser video posted over the weekend the popular digital assistant appears to have “lost her voice,” news that shocks the world as well as Amazon founder\/world’s richest man\/actor Jeff Bezos.<\/span><\/p>\n

“How is that even possible?” a befuddled Bezos asks a group of Amazon employees. The employees try to calm their leader by saying that they have replacements ready, but Bezos, demonstrating his acting range, does not appear convinced.<\/span><\/p>\n

The teaser then fades to the trademark Amazon “smile” and the date “2.4.18” when the full ad, and the answer to this giant question, will be revealed.<\/span><\/p>\n

It remains to be seen if Amazon is just using the ad as a lighthearted way to boost awareness for Alexa or if it is indeed the launch of a new feature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alexa has certainly been getting out of late \u2014 so far she can switch to British English and also German.<\/span><\/p>\n

The British Alexa sounds a bit like a newsreader on the BBC, though she keeps to Fahrenheit rather than Celsius when she’s talking about the weather. She seems to understand American English well enough, though she did have a spot of trouble with the word “football,” which she took to mean soccer.<\/span><\/p>\n

German Alexa is, as you might expect, precise and proper. Amazingly, she understood rusty high school German quite well, happily giving the weather in San Francisco in response to an attempt at “Alex, wie ist das Wetter?”<\/span><\/p>\n

Hopes for further practice were crushed when it turned out you could ask her, “Alexa, what’s the weather?” in English and she’d respond in perfect German. Turns out she’s totally bilingual.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even more excursions are coming. Alexa already does Canadian and Indian English, but not in the United States. And while she speaks Japanese in Japan, she can’t bring herself to do so here. All three should be available to U.S. customers in the long term.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for what might come out of her lost voice, most bets are on a little transgender shift, with Alexa’s new voice turning out to be a male one. Alexa’s main rivals, namely Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Google’s Assistant, can already switch effortlessly between male and female avatars depending on the user’s preference.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though there are certainly possibilities for other types of voices out there. Popular navigation app Waze has let users use celebrity voices for years, currently offering the soothing sound of Liam Neeson, as their navigation guide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year the app introduced a new feature that lets users record their own voice which it will then turn it into voice navigations, a route Amazon may possibly go down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amazon declined to comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Either way, the timing couldn’t be better for Amazon given that Apple is releasing its rival smart speaker, the $349 HomePod, later in the week. If it is a new feature then Amazon continues to show how much more advanced Alexa is than Siri. If it’s just an elaborate gag then the company has a counter to Apple’s marketing push for HomePod.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/tech\/talkingtech\/2018\/01\/30\/amazon-teases-new-voice-alexa-super-bowl-ad\/1079255001\/<\/span><\/p>\n

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