Pogue: Amazon's Alexa is Like the Jetson's Version of the Home Phone

I don't know that there are any Amazon Echos here in Thailand. Presumably they would work here or anyplace else in the world providing you spoke to it in English. Amazon has managed to captured 70% of the market for this digital assistant/speaker. Google Home has the other 30%. Microsoft will be coming out with a similar device called Invoke, using Cortana, in the September time frame. Whether Apple will even launch an appliance of its own remains to be seen. Here's what David Pogue says about the Amazon Echo.

For what was originally supposed to be a mail-order bookstore, Amazon (AMZN) sure is doing a lot of trailblazing.
I mean, Amazon came up with the idea for the Echo—the cylinder that serves as a sort of Siri for the home—all by itself. It invented that product category, putting Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung into the awkward position of being copycat followers.


Now that more than 10 million people have Echo devices, Amazon has just taken another trailblazing step: With a free software update, it has turned them into hands-free speakerphones. Calling Chris is as easy as saying “Alexa, call Chris” from across the room, even if your hands are goopy with flour or you can’t find your phone.


https://www.yahoo.com/tech/amazons-alexa-calling-phoneless-home-phone-131238959.html


-Bill