Amazon updates their Echo voice assistant and speaker to add direct read of Audible books
This has been a big request. Earlier, people had to pair phones or tablets with bluetooth to have their Audible books read through the convenient and very clear Echo speaker system.
Amazon's wording:
' Listening to audiobooks from your Audible library is easy. Here's how:
- Start any book you own with "Alexa, read [Audible book title]"
- Resume the current book you're reading by saying "Alexa, read my book."
- Control playback with "Alexa, go back/forward."[You can, of course, also pause it as needed.]Echo also supports Whispersync for Voice, which allows you to seamlessly switch between reading and listening with your eligible Kindle books. You can read on your Kindle, tablet, or smartphone and then continue listening on your Echo, right where you left off. '
While Amazon is offering "complimentary extended samples from popular titles and a free trial," there are ongoing monthly Kindle Book specials that feature inexpensive Audible narrations paired with some of the Kindle books featured at larger discounts for the month. The product page for that month will sayk, "Add narration for a reduced price of ____ when you buy the Kindle book."
For June's specially discounted Kindle books ($1.99 to $3.99), you can find the listing of 104 Kindle books that are paired, for June, with reduced-cost Whispersync for Voice here. (In March there were only 53, so they seem to be expanding these.)
And for those who want to try a free Audible example with a free Kindle book to see how Whispersync works, here's the only one available currently.
Here's the help page for using Whispersync with more information.
Amazon's latest Echo features that allow you to escape its semi-walled garden
The Verge's Josh Lowensohn reported, in early May, on the Echo's new ability to work with Twitter, Gmail, and Evernote, "...plus a few others, thanks to the If This Then That" ("ITTT)" feature. I'm repeating this section for those who had no interest in the Echo at the time but may be interested in some of the newer features.
Lowensohn mentioned the recent updates already reported here, "things like Pandora, traffic reports, sports scores, and support for Belkin's WeMo and Phillips's Hue products" and describes the new features' capabilities:
' ... the IFTTT 'recipes' for Alexa let you send your shopping and to-do lists out to third-party services like Google Drive, Evernote, and Todoist
... There are 54 combinations in total. Enabling them requires signing up for IFTTT, then linking it up with your Amazon account. You also need to go through the motions of activating the various third-party app channels, and approving your accounts there so IFTTT can link everything up behind the scenes. Some of the really good examples so far are:
. Adding your Echo shopping list items to Evernote
. Sending someone a short email with your voice
. Sending someone an SMS with your voice
. Adding Echo shopping list items to the iOS Reminders app
. Adding Alexa to-dos to Microsoft's OneNote '
See the Verge's full article for illustrations and more details on what's involved in using the feature.
Amazon Echo was recently updated to control Wemo switches and Philips Hue smart bulbs in the home, to turn lights on or off in named rooms or to dim or brighten them.
Pandora was added, in May (in addition to iHeartRadio and TuneIn radio features).
The updates are coming quickly lately with more meat to them, and Amazon's obviously serious about making it a key device, as Boston Business Journal's David Harris pointed to Amazon's dedicating an entire floor of its Cambridge, Mass. Kendall Square office "to working on the Echo" and is still recruiting more staff for it, with "a hiring event on May 14, 2015 for roles that run the “gamut of distributed systems, speech/voice recognition, and big data.”
My own use of the Echo
I'm music and info-oriented, so while the device is not super knowledgeable about the universe, I tell 'Alexa' to "Wiki [subject]" which has it go to Wikipedia to read me the first couple of paragraphs, and then it sends the rest of the article to my tablet (or phone). This is helpful when I'm not near my computer and think of something. It's also good for adding to my Echo Todo and/or Shopping lists when I think of things in the kitchen, and I can just say "Alexa, add [whatever] to my todo list" [or to my shopping list].
For music, I ask it to "play playlist [name]" and I get about an hour of my favorite music, depending on the genre I feel like listening to. If interested in an artist, I ask it to play [artist] from Prime (which is free Amazon music for Prime members) or I ask it just to "play [artist] and it asks if I want to listen to the musician on iHeart Radio or Prime, sometimes it chooses TuneIn. I signed up for Pandora but haven't used it with Echo yet. The local classical music station sounds surprisingly good on it, though this isn't true of some other stations.
The speaker is very clear, is loud enough that I can't use it at max for most material, has more bass than I thought it would for its size, but it's best with really well-recorded tracks. If the treble range is edgy, it's very edgy on the Echo. I'd like loudness compensation added in the next version for late night listening at lower volume.
It's great for my kitchen where I have no speakers and no computer. They've added news-sources for flash news but I'm waiting for them to allow direct-access to specific sources instead of my having to say "Next" a few times when not interested in the current source.
I really like that I can control the volume by just saying "alexa, louder" or "alexa, not so loud" when I'm working in the kitchen. Or asking it, "what's playing?" or "who's singing?" and it tells me the artist and album. If you like a track, you can of course buy it (but you need a confirmation code to do it), and I've added a lot of good, free Prime tracks to my library while listening, by just saying "add this to my library."
Others are interested in being able to get current sports scores or scores for ealier games, and in getting traffic reports, when we give it starting and ending addresses. (I haven't used it, as I have lifetime traffic status and recommended alternate routes on my Garmin Nuvi, which is a bargain for what it does, well.)
A post on the Kindle Forums mentioned that TuneIn offers a lot of nearby scanner stations if you use the Echo app to enter, in the Search field at the top,
'fire and police' -- but it doesn't work well by voice. Just a curiosity. TuneIn offers local, national, and int'l radio stations (music, talk) with clear, easy access.
What's struck me most about the Alexa voice is that its answers are often lightning fast, which I wouldn't expect when it needs to go to the servers, access whatever, and then get back to me with an answer, and even then the speech is so natural, I have found myself saying, 'Thank you.'
I also found that I sort of enjoy ordering something around :-) ... "Do this, do that, get me this, or that. What, you don't know? Take a class, get trained!"
I do shut off its hearing often, by pressing the microphone icon down, because I don't want it to waste electricity waiting for the word-string 'alexa' to fly by so it can say "Your command is my wish."
I often just use the remote and press the mic and talk without needing to say her name. She tries to obey, does what she can, and then stops listening for anything unless I press the remote button. When will Amazon give us a male voice that takes orders from us?
Echo now does Google Calendar
This is one I waited for, except that i started to use a small printed calendar lately. Why? I don't know, but it's sort of convenient :-)
I had a bit of difficulty finding out how to do the linking, but finally found this help page on how to link your Google calendar to Echo, and its instructions are very clear.
Richi Gupta, with octafinance.com has good details on what you can and can't do with Google calendar, from Echo.
Some Echo tips from the Kindle forums
' Beauty Fool says:
Wow... I just discovered you can get the latest episodes of various NPR, APM, etc shows by simply asking for them.
Case-in-point: "Alexa, play Splendid Table."
Reply: "Getting the latest episode of The Splendid Table from Tune-In."
+++
romper says:
If you ask, "what's the weather or forecast" she will give you only today's weather. Ask "what's the extended forecast" she will give you the next 7 days...
+++
Cheryl Jones says:
as for the weather you can ask her for 10 days. so you can ask for the weather next sat or the weather for may 30 etc. or you can ask if it will rain next sat.... '
Recent mainstream reviews from mainstream tech writers who use it quite a bit
• "Five months in, it's the most used gadget in my home" - James Kendrick, ZDNet, May 15, 2015
• "It sucks. It's awesome. It sucks. We want two more" - David Gewirtz for DIY-IT - May 21, 2015
• "Amazon Echo review" - Margaret Dornbusch - Gadgeteer, May 31, 2015
• "Amazon Echo talks to Google Calendar (and you)" - (more tips) David Gewirtz for DIY-IT, June 1
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Thanks for this post.
ReplyDeleteI don't "listen" to books -- so I don't have an Audible account, but it occurs to me that for those who DO like to listen, Echo support for Text To Speech (TTS) would be just as valuable as Audible support (though perhaps not as remunerative for Amazon :grin). TTS might be especially pleasing, if it's Alexa who does the reading (:grin).
I have my Echo in my bedroom, but as Alexa has become my goto shopping maven, I've put the remote in the magnetic holder, and put that on my fridge in the kitchen -- so as I notice groceries I need, I can pick up the remote and ask Alexa to add the item to my shopping list. Previously, the remote had been in the bedroom, and I used the volume up/down buttons quite a lot. I miss that because when Alexa is playing music, you really have to shout to get her to hear your volume adjustment requests. The ability to have more than one remote associated with an Echo would be a plus. In addition to the kitchen, and bedroom, I'd like to put one in my Home office.
As I was reading this post, and thinking about how I use Alexa, it occurred to me that Amazon ought to get in bed with some car companies, and add Echo functionality to the entertainment/electronics packages found in modern cars -- not only to make phone calls, but for voice interface with the in-car GPS & mapping, satellite radio, and other in-car entertainment capabilities.
Also as you know I'm heavily MS-centric -- so the Google calendar is not of much use -- I did go to see whether there was an IFTTT channel for outlook.com, or for MS Office more generally -- no such luck. MS has just published the "Office Graph" which is a programmer accessible list of all the features, and data handled by the full Office package. Over time this will enable a lot of 3rd party add-ons to Office, but probably not until Office 2016 (which is currently in preview). MS has released something called Delve as part of Office for enterprises which begins to leverage the Office Graph.
I'll pass these on via the Echo feedback channel soon.
Edward, thanks for your ideas - you've been using the Echo for quite some time. Two innovative things: Amazon found an interesting way to partially fund effective beta development (users who bought it) and made the feature and bug-fix requests very public (in the Kindle Community Forums in several busy message threads), and actually paid attention to the requests, producing features actually much requested by forumners -- and some of the less-complex features wanted were provided fairly quickly. The Echo app feedback is generally given swift attention, even now.
DeleteAs for Text-to-Speech for eBooks -- as ever, the problem is that the Big6 publishers are loath to allow the feature, preferring to 'encourage' people to their Audible versions. At least Amazon has added several more news sources for their flash news but I've been less likely to use it because currently it's not random-access and I have to go to each one in sequence, even if able to 'skip' each current source.
When Alexa reads Wikipedia topics, it shows just how effective that speech algorithm is. For awhile I'd thought most of it must be pre-programmed, but the Wiki readings are instant and very natural sounding. I'm still surprised when Wiki is accessed and reading begins within a second of a request.
I'm surprised that only one remote at a time is possible, at least for now. What tickles me is that many are using the customer-review section for the remote control as a place to talk about their Echos, since there is no Echo-review area yet because here's no normal product-page for it.
While I love the MS Surface Pro 2 and it's my favorite gizmo ever, I prefer Google calendar and email. Office Graph sounds interesting.
Andrys, since you mentioned using a Garmin Nuvi I thought I share a factoid with you, albeit unrelated to Echo.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a smart-phone myself and only use my Garmin for navigation. I did however buy the Fire Phone when it went on sale with the intent of using it as a wi-fi connected PDA. I also bought and installed the GPS Navigation app from Sygic (from the Amazon App Store) and found that the Fire now works well as a standalone GPS. This is not a given with many smartphones, who often connect the GPS functionality to their cell provider (my Fire Phone works as a GPS despite not even having a SIM chip).
What this gives me is a backup to my Garmin, plus a GPS to use while hiking or to just plan out routes. Best of all, it will work under conditions where a cell signal is unavailable (such as my monthly trips thru the Arizona desert).
Posting as Anonymous because I don't have a web-page nor a social media/Google account.
Anonymous, you can always just type a sig name so I can know who is giving such interesting information :-)
DeleteAlso, to write Blogger comments, you can use whatever email address you normally use (which stays private to you) but which then allows you to get a notification that there's a reply to your note.
Sometimes I forget to look at the comments mail folder (since spam notes are 100-1, easily).
But re a signature, maybe Google now insists on creating a google account.
Anyway, I had no idea the Fire phone can do this GPS without cellular access, but that makes sense since Amazon apparently decided to just use the GPS capability and leave it to the satellites. That is an amazingly good choice.
The ability to use it where there's no cell signals is just a terrific feature. Thanks very much for this info, whoever you are :-)
- Andrys
You're welcome and thanks for all your Kindle knowledge and suggestions!
DeleteI didn't see a "Reply as" option that would allow me to use an email address, and I'm one of those Luddites who still doesn't have a gmail account.
Longden Loo (aka LLoo@sbcglobal.net)
Ventura, CA
Longden, thanks for the name. When I've replied to other blogspot.com blogs, I'm usually asked for my email address. Odd! Glad that you did see the response regardless. Thanks again for that really interesting tip on the GPS feature of the Fire Phone working without a SIM card in the phone.
DeleteI signed up for gmail years ago (not google plus until much later and it's not needed for gmail) because of Google's search capabilities that I can use with gmail. If I want to find an email from years ago I can usually find it in a few seconds with the search terms in the advanced search in its mail. That's the best feature of gmail for me, and I actually use another email account (and another server-sending) as the "From:" field in the gmail. I have my actual main email account 'auto-forward' email to my gmail account just to have for searchable reasons or when I want to do email by using gmail's thread-message system when writing to a few friends at once and having the 'conversation' method of reading one subject-title thread, with all the notes on that topic all together in expandable or collapsible form.
Longden, thanks for the name. When I've replied to other blogspot.com blogs, I'm usually asked for my email address. Odd! Glad that you did see the response regardless. Thanks again for that really interesting tip on the GPS feature of the Fire Phone working without a SIM card in the phone.
DeleteI signed up for gmail years ago (not google plus until much later and it's not needed for gmail) because of Google's search capabilities that I can use with gmail. If I want to find an email from years ago I can usually find it in a few seconds with the search terms in the advanced search in its mail. That's the best feature of gmail for me, and I actually use another email account (and another server-sending) as the "From:" field in the gmail. I have my actual main email account 'auto-forward' email to my gmail account just to have for searchable reasons or when I want to do email by using gmail's thread-message system when writing to a few friends at once and having the 'conversation' method of reading one subject-title thread, with all the notes on that topic all together in expandable or collapsible form.
I cannot help thinking that some of this Echo stuff is going to show up on Fire Phone this year (and Fire tablets). I would go as far to say that Echo is probably a spinoff of Fire Phone development, since smartphones need Siri or Cortana or Google Now, and while Fire Phone shipped with a capable implementation of voice assist ('call', 'text', 'get directions', 'ask a question' etc.), it's not as advanced as Echo or its competitors right now.
ReplyDeleteI hope so, Tom. re the Echo stuff showing up eventually on Fire Phone and tablets. 'Alexa' is the most realistic voice-assistant I've heard so far.
DeleteI hope so, Tom. re the Echo stuff showing up eventually on Fire Phone and tablets. 'Alexa' is the most realistic voice-assistant I've heard so far.
Delete