Alexa In Canada: Amazon Alexa And Echo Skills, Tips, And Tricks For Canadians

Voice in Education See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Avatars for Loved Ones with HereAfter See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Co-Hosted by Ian Utile See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Deals on Alexa, Echo Devices, Smart Home, and More See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An interview with Nicholas Sawka, AJ Wool, and Benjamin Falvo See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

New Echo, Echo Show 10, Echo Dot, and Dot with Clock See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Canadian Experience with the Country Manager of Amazon Alexa Canada See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How to Create Personalized Skills without Coding See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, Teri welcomes James Vlahos, Founder and CEO at HereAfter, a company that uses conversational AI to help people save and interactively share life stories so that they never have to lose the voices of people they love.Welcome, James!HereAfter is an AI platform designed to allow people to have spoken "conversations" with loved ones who have passed away, based on voice recordings taken while they are still alive. The conversations are made possible by platforms like Amazon Alexa. James is also the creator of DADBOT, a veteran tech journalist for The New York Times, and author of “Talk to Me: How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think” His book addresses the economic, cultural, and psychological impact of conversational AI and how it’s altering our traditional perception of human consciousness.His Tech JournalismHe wrote about diverse technology oriented topics, from the HyperLoop to businesses using smell to lure customers into making purchases.From 2015, he develope

In this episode, Teri welcomes Dr. Steven Arkonovich, a professor of philosophy at Reed College by day and a leading Alexa skill developer by night.Welcome, Dr. Arkonovich!Dr. Arkonovich began developing Alexa skills in 2015 before the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) SDK was even released and is best known for having the top-rated Alexa skill for weather. Big Sky has over 2,500 reviews and a 4.5-star rating. That puts Big Sky in the top 20 for skill reviews overall and number one in the weather category. He comes on to talk about his experience in creating skills for Alexa and Bixby, and his award winning skill, Big Sky.Philosophy Professor to Voice Technology EnthusiastA combination of trying to put off doing a research project and an Achilles tendon injury is what ultimately led him into developing an interest in voice technology, He was confined to a chair for a long time and so he was looking for things to do.He got an Alexa device early on and he liked the technology. He kept hacking around with it to have i

In this episode Teri welcomes Nick Sawka, an independent Alexa skills developer and the developer behind Historical Voices.  Welcome, Nick!Nick is a 19 year veteran of the U.S coast guard who started skills development back in 2017, and a graduate from University of Phoenix with a Bachelor's Degree in Business management and Operations. He’s an independent developer who also develops for Voice Skills Inc., a company based in San Antonio.Getting Into VoiceNick began as an Amazon Prime member dating back from 2005 and when Alexa first came up he ended up calling them and he received an invitation link. He went ahead and bought it and that was his first step into what he believes is the future. He always had an interest and urge to explore coding and computer programming despite having a degree in business management.During Nick’s military career he would build databases and in time, he began to look up skills that used session management. Finally, he decided to take the leap to create Alexa skill

In this episode, Teri will talk about some SEO tips that were shared at a livestream that he had with some members of Northern Voice.They had a great discussion about how skills work, how they are invoked, and how to make sure that an Alexa skill is found in the skill store. This episode will be very resourceful if you’re looking to develop an Alexa skill or you already have one, and you’re looking for some SEO tips to get it out to the market.Invocation Phrase Versus Skill NamesWhen one enables their skill on Alexa, they have to have an invocation phrase because smart speakers are always waiting for that wake word (Alexa).Alexa skills are like apps. The way we have to open an app in our smartphone to interact with it, is the same way we have to open an Alexa skill with our voice. For example, to go into DetectiveX, you can’t just say, “Alexa, diffuse the bomb” You have to say, “Alexa, open DetectiveX”, and then begin to interact with it.In the Amazon skill store, a skill is listed with its name and the invoc

In this episode, Teri welcomes Arianne Walker, the Chief Evangelist for Alexa Auto at Amazon, where she helps educate automakers and device makers about voice.Welcome, Arianne!Prior to joining Amazon, she was head of automotive industry strategy at Oracle Data Cloud where she helped automotive marketers discover and implement the best possible audience strategies for their marketing efforts. Her automotive background began at JD Power, where she spent a dozen years providing direction on automotive marketing industry trends.Getting Involved in VoiceIt all started from the auto industry for her. When she heard about the position of Chief Evangelist for Alexa Automotive, she was immediately attracted to it.The idea of having a great voice assistant in the car was amazing for her, and she feels the car is the most appropriate place to use a voice assistant because it strips away the complexities and minimizes distractions.She learned a lot since joining Amazon and she’s all about the consumer perspective of thin

In this episode, Teri welcomes Clint McLean, the founder and VUI designer of Budgie, a Toronto-based startup voice app design studio.Welcome, Clint!Budgie develops and markets Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice apps. They have five skills/actions that are currently published with more in development. Clint leverages a variety of experiences from both his creative and business background to create high production value voice and multimodal experiences. Their most famous skill at Budgie so far is Detective X, a high-production choose-your-own-adventure-style game built into a Hollywood narrative, and Clint will talk all about it and so much more.Journeying into Voice TechnologyWhen Alexa became available in Canada, he was in a place where he felt burnt out on most of his creative outlets, and so he got his first smart speaker immediately they were available and starting experimenting with voice apps.He realized the potential that it had and found it very exciting, but he didn’t know how to code, so he

In this episode, Teri will give us an update on routines, one of his favorite features with Alexa.Routines is one of the most powerful features that anyone can use with Alexa. It brings the level of home automation to an entirely near level and Teri will take us through all the different settings that we can currently set up for a routine in Canada.What is a Routine?It is something that you can set up so that when you trigger Alexa either with a single verbal utterance, or set it up to happen automatically at certain times on certain days of the week, Alexa can go through a number of different functions all sequentially without pausing between them.For example, Teri has a morning routine set up so that when he says to Alexa, “Start my day”, she goes through a number of different things. She tells him the news for the day, tells him his commute time, the weather, taps into his flash briefings, and then puts on the radio.Setting up a RoutineGo into your app, click on the menu button (the hamburger icon), there

In this episode, Teri welcomes Mark Tucker, an Alexa Champion, Bixby Premier Developer, the current Senior Architect of Voice Technology at Soar.com, and the creator of the revolutionary Alexa game, Number Spies.Welcome, Mark!Mark Tucker is a software developer and architect with over 25 years’ experience. He started his voice-tech journey in 2016 when there were only 4,000 skills in the Alexa Skills Store, and has worked at 2 startups creating innovative voice experiences for customers. Mark finds time to create his own Alexa Skills and Bixby Capsules, and is the organizer of the Phoenix Alexa Meetup and the Phoenix Chapter of the Ubiquitous Voice Society.He has spoken at conferences including the Phoenix Mobile and Emerging Tech Expo, The Alexa Conference, Voice Summit, and Project Voice. Mark is the creator of Speech Markdown which he released as open source and can be found at SpeechMarkDown.org. He enjoys finding ways for non-profits to benefit from voice-first. He has a passion for family, voice technol

In this episode, Teri does a live interview with Ian Utile, the founder and CEO of Attention Live, a live streaming podcast platform he has created for YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Apple iTunes, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Microsoft Cortana. Welcome, Ian Utile!Ian is an innovative strategist, business development executive, entrepreneur, optimistic tech futurist, and keynote speaker. He is also the co-founder of Kukui Corp, a company ranked by Inc 500 as the #1 fastest growing private organizations in San Jose (#76 in the US). He specializes in starting software tech companies and is a partner in different non-tech projects.He is the founder of WMVAI (We Magnify Voice for Attention and Influence), a B2B SaaS platform to automate posting content to Amazon Alexa which will in future include Google Home/Assistant, Microsoft Cortana, Apple Siri, and Samsung Bixby. His hobby is supporting large international non-profits. Teri did this live interview with Ian because they’re discussing live aud

In this episode, Teri welcomes Drew Cosgrove, an Amazon Alexa Games developer and publisher.Welcome, Drew!Drew spent 25 years in IT but felt he needed to get back to coding, the love of which had drawn him to technology in the first place. When Amazon introduced Echo in the UK, he was a senior IT architect and he knew he’d found just the opportunity he needed to sharpen his skills, and build a rewarding new career as a voice developer. Working in management felt like he was getting farther away from what he really loved to do, so he began looking for a way to get back to his technical roots, and that’s when Alexa appeared.He actually did far more than revive his coding skills; he left the corporate world to work for himself as an Alexa skills developer. In under two years, he has published 30 engaging game skills for Alexa in several languages, attracting over 65,000 active monthly users. As the winner of multiple prizes in the UK’s monthly Alexa contest, Cosgrove says building skills for Alexa has changed hi

In this episode, Teri will share some of his favorite skills that we can all use at home particularly while we are self-quarantining at home. Enjoy!We are living in very challenging times right now with the COVID-19 pandemic, and we are all spending more time at home than ever before which has led to an increased use of voice assistants. Teri will talk about the five skills that his family uses on a regular basis. They include games and many other ways that they use Alexa for entertainment.And The Teri Fisher Top Five Skills Are:#1 - Question of the DayThis is super fun and the best trivia skill so far in Teri’s opinion.It works by asking the user a multiple point question and then keeps track of how the user is doing, gives them points, keeps track of the users streaks, and so much more.It's a very fun way of learning some random facts.When someone gets their question right, the skill gives them a bonus question. It even has badges that users earn.There are lots of gamification aspects to the skill that

In this episode, Teri will share his thoughts on voice and why he believes that voice is the next operating system. He will be using his drums to illustrate some of the concepts by using them as voices. Enjoy!The Evolution of TechnologyTechnology has evolved from a keyboard as a way to interface with the computer, to a mouse, and then to a touch screen. Now we are getting to a point where we can speak to a computer.There are five main reasons why Teri feels that voice will be the next operating system and he will use a concept based on the five letters of VOICE to explain that.V for VersatilityAccording to Teri’s concept, the V in VOICE stands for Versatile. This means that when one is using their voice, they can do multiple things at once. For example, one can use their voice while driving, cooking, or doing a host of other tasks. That kind of versatility is a key concept of voice.Teri will play some very entertaining drum beats, and while we are listening, we should note the fact that each of us w