Features of Amazon Intelligent Voice Service – ALEXA (Part-2)

Alexa, named after the ancient library of Alexandria, is the Star behind making the Amazon Echo devices more than just a Bluetooth Speaker. It makes them a Smart Bluetooth Speaker. Alexa is the intelligent Voice Service developed at Amazon Labs and is a scalable cloud service.

I listed some of the skills of the Alexa in my previous blog. If I have define it more precisely, every skill that Alexa possess is an individual app in itself. Amazon has also released the Alexa Skill Kit to the public, giving a chance to developers to excel in their skill and develop some new skills for their own task for Alexa.

And as I said that Alexa has over 10,000 skills and these skills are divided the categories like Business and Finance, Connected Car, Food and Drink, Health and Fitness, Lifestyle, Education and Reference, Games and many more. I am going to list some more of those interesting skills of Alexa.

List of some more Unique Skills of Alexa

1. Post to Slack –

Slack is a digital workspace that could power your organization by bringing them together on one platform for the work communication and planning. Just link your slack account with the Amazon Account, Alexa could be put to work by enabling the Chat Bot Skill for messaging and collaboration service. You can simply ask Alexa to send a message to all or to a specific person.

2. Talk to a Psychologist –

ELIZA is the computer program that is designed to attempt natural language communications. You could come to a self-realization of yourself with the therapist skill of Alexa. It is not the real substitute of real therapy but could help you out with some minor mind doubts.

3. Check for a data breach –

Security service by Tory Hunt can be accessed as an Alexa Skill. Data breach is always a fear for all of us. Fear that your data might be stolen or your account may get hacked. Through this security skill you could actually ask Alexa to check the specific account for any of the data breach.

4. Check your bank balance –

This skill is available for exclusively Capital One members. Connect your account with Alexa. And Alexa could answer your questions like account balance, available credit, cash on hand, recent transactions and more.

Also Read: 13 Big Time Tech Disasters (Worse than Nightmares)

5. Get board-game rules –

Children are always bad at keeping the games manual safe. And we are not always an expert on all games. Alexa is your savior. Enable the Board Game Answers Skill and it would answer all your questions related to almost all the games.

6. Play games –

If you have Alexa at your home, you would never feel alone again. Alexa could give you a good funny company by playing games with you. It can play games like Rock, paper, scissors; tic-tac-toe; bingo; 20 questions and more.

7. Tune your guitar –

Alexa being a personal assistant assists you in almost everything. Even if you need guidance for playing the guitar. It guides even with the tuning of each and every chord; and plays sample tunes for you to practice. And lets you know whether you played well or not.

8. Hear your Horoscope –

Enable the skill in the Alexa skill set of “What’s my sign” and it will tell you your daily horoscope. A little problem here is that every time you ask Alexa to tell you the horoscopes you would even have to tell the sun sign.

9. Alexa on Fire Tablets –

As mentioned in the previous blog, Alexa can connect to different smart objects in your house and lets you control them through it. There is one more in the list i.e. Fire Tablets. It can play your favorite song or read you audio books. It even gives you the access to play the TV Shows from the Amazon Video.

10. Make your own Cocktail – Bartender

Those cocktails we have at restaurants are just delectable. But we are far from copying them. Well, Alexa guides you again in this department also. The skill is called as The Bartender, which gives you access to more than 12,000 cocktail recipes.

11. Get Help –

You can be in need of emergency even at your home. For suppose you father is ill and alone at home, you can enable the skill Ask My Buddy in the Alexa and save you contact and family members contact in it. In case of emergency your father would just have to call to Alexa and you would receive the message and can reach them for help.

12. Bedtime Story –

When you are completely tired because of your hectic schedule and your children need you to tell them a bedtime story, Alexa can help you in this also. It is equipped with this skill even.

13. Go on an adventure –

There is something for the people who creates their own fantasy world. A skill name The Magic Door can take you to your customizable fantasy world. A good skill to develop the imagination of children as Alexa delivers good sound effects and immersion.

14. Connect your FitBit / Clean your apartment –

Like some other smart devices, your FitBit bands and the vacuum cleaner could also be connected in the Alexa app. Hence, you get the access to control them through Alexa.

15. Find your phone –

Where’s my phone is the Savior skill in Alexa for the people who keep misplacing their phones or forget where they kept it last time. After enabling this skill, this service will call your phone. And when it rings you would get to know where it is. Just make sure the phone is not on the vibrate mode.

As we can observe from the two lists that Alexa has a skill for almost everything we need in our daily life. It is just not a Bluetooth speaker. It is a Smart, intelligent Bluetooth Speaker. As it works as an assistant by remembering you shopping list, task to done, giving you weather updates, flight updates n more. It even work as a Friend by playing with you and listening to your psychological needs. It functions as a deputy manager for your smart devices and as a security guard for the data breaches in your accounts on any websites.

In short Alexa is – “A very Intelligent, voice enabled, smart speaker come personal assistant of your home”.