Alexa had quite a year. Over 100,000 third-party voice apps are now available from the Alexa Skills Store, up from 90,000 in April 2019 and 80,000 last February. Customers now interact with Alexa billions of times each week across hundreds of millions of devices, an uptick from 100 million devices in January 2019. And Alexa supports more than 100,000 smart home products (from 60,000 in May 2019) from over 9,500 brands as of December.....MUCH MORE
Buoyed by its success, Amazon today announced new partnerships that will substantially extend Alexa’s automotive reach. Alexa is already available in Audi, BMW, Ford, and Toyota vehicles, and starting in 2020, Lamborghini will bring the assistant to its Huracan EVO range. For its part, Rivian will integrate Alexa into its first two all-electric vehicles — the R1S and R1T — as well as its upcoming fleet of 100,000 all-electric Amazon delivery vans.
When the integration is complete at the end of 2020, Rivian owners will be able to ask Alexa to control in-car features like HVAC, windows, opening, and closing the frunk, and they’ll be able to check on gear remotely by accessing their vehicle’s bed camera from screen-based devices like Echo Show and Fire TV. As for Huracan Evo drivers, Alexa will allow them to adjust climate, interior lighting, seat heating, and other functions hands-free.
In related news, Amazon today highlighted a range of aftermarket devices with Alexa built in from JVC, Kenwood, iOttie, and Nextbase. And it revealed that Echo Auto — the cassette-shaped Alexa-powered device that boasts a custom operating system and an eight-microphone array — will launch internationally this year, with availability in India on January 15 and other countries to follow....
I'm not sure why someone would want to tell Mr. Bezos, his minions and third-party app developers where your kid goes to school but people do.
