Alexa
I attended few sessions by Amazon about its Alexa devices, during last few months. Voice represents next major disruption in computing. These devices provides VUI (Voice User Interface). We had hands-on sessions and interactive QAs. Let me cover some of the relevant URLs and overview in this blog post for readers of "Express YourSelf !"
Comparison
Here is a quick comparison of all major devices:
Comparison
Here is a quick comparison of all major devices:
| Echo Dot | Echo Dot Kids Edition |
Echo | Echo Plus | Echo Spot | Echo Show | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Rs. 4000 | N/A | Rs. 10,000 | Rs. 15000 | Rs. 13000 | N/A |
| $50 | $80 | $100 | $150 | $130 | $230 | |
| Rs. 3341 | Rs. 5346 | Rs 6682 | Rs. 10023 | Rs.8687 | Rs. 15369 | |
| Microphones | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 8 |
| Misc. | Smart hub | 2.5" screen | 7" screen |
Apart from the regular devices from Amazon, few smart cars and smart TVs also have built-in Alexa support. Amazon also launched "Alexa 7-Mic Far-Field Dev Kit" that hardware can be part of any product. One can add display support also like Echo Spot and Echo Show, however it needs to go through rigorous certification process from Amazon.
Comparison of Mobile App with Alexa Skill
Mobile App ~ Alexa Skill
Mobile App icon ~ Invocation Name
GUI ~ VUI
Many mobile apps have Alexa skill e.g ola, goibibo, crickinfo, zomato etc. have alexa skill
How it works
Alexa software has mainly two major components.
1. ASK (Alexa skills kit) to build new skill
2. AVS (Alexa voice service) to integrate with RPi kind of device.
The hardware is quite simple with microphone array and speaker. The microphone array used for noise cancellation. The spoken sentence is divided into :
1. Wakeup word
2. launch
3. Invocation name. It should be two words.
3. Utterance
Steps
step 1. Wake up word can be = Alexa / Computer / Echo / Amazon
This will wakeup the device. It triggered beam forming to listen.
step 2. The utterance (captured audio) goes to cloud
step 3. At cloud real magic happens with
3.1 speech processing
3.2 NLP
step 4. The invocation name is detected. With invocation name, the execution flow goes to specific skill. Now skill has all the logic, algorithm to further understand the utterance, to access cloud service, database etc and finally for the response
Here the front-end is developed and tested with simulator using developer.amazon.com
step 5. As per training model, Alexa translate the utterance to Intent. The developer need to create custom intent, that mapped to function implementation to provide response. Alexa also provide standard built-in Intent, that developer can implement
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/standard-built-in-intents.html
There is a set of built-in intent libraries for various use cases
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/built-in-intent-library.html
In Alexa terms "slot" is like argument to function. Alexa has built-in slot types : https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/slot-type-reference.html
There is many to one mapping between utterances and intent. There is one to one mapping between intent and function
There is many to one mapping between utterances and custom slot. There is one to one mapping between custom slot value and argument value to function.
So one can pronounce "A.C" or "Air Conditioner" still it maps to same enumarated value as argument to function. Such synonymous are detected using "Entity Resolution"
The back-end function can be implemented at any HTTPS terminated end-point or AWS lambda service. The AWS Lambda service, at present, is available only for regions:
1. US east North vergina
2. EU (Ireland)
The professional skill can use session attribute for better user experience and also for data analytics.
step 6. The response can be
6.1 Speech : SSML, Local lingo, TTS, audio stream, small mp3 files
6.2 Cards = title, subtitle (skill name), text (content), image.
Cards are optional. We can use rich text with different font including Unicode at card. It is built using various BodyTemplate and ListTemplate.
The speech output goes to speaker. The card output goes to
1. Alexa Companion App
2. Echo Spot and
3. Echo Show
One can check device capability for including card/video in response.
The Alexa skill can be built using pre-built models
1. Custom: For unique need
2. Flash briefing : For RSS feed
3. Smart Home : For home automation
4. Video : For video application
Questions - Answers
Let me highlights few leanings about Alexa Echo eco-system and the devices
* The Alexa companion app can be connected to only one device. So it is not possible to push same image/content/card to all companion app running on mobile using single Alexa device
* Amazon allows to use same invocation word for multiple skill developed by same/different people. All such skill can be configured for given device. However the skill that is configured last, it will be invoked for the duplicate invocation word.
* It is possible to enable/disable specific app on the device using mobile app
* It may possible to develop smart home device using Raspberry Pi for single user, with skill that is not published. One can use Smart Home pre-built model. Let the Intent invoke code running at Raspberry Pi, that turn on/off home appliances using GPIO pin and relay.
* None of the Alexa devices has built-in battery.
* "Alexa for Business" can have features like allowing access to very specific limited set of skills only.
* Alexa does not have any adult content, so parental control is not needed.
* One can change wakup word and replace "alexa". However still it will be female voice only. The Alexa devices do not support response in male voice.
* Alexa device cannot be used for dictation or speech to text conversion. One can use AWS transcribe service https://aws.amazon.com/transcribe/ for the same.
* One can develop (1) one shot dialogue (2) multi-turn dialogue skills
* To design multi-turn dialogue skills, one can use (1) graph UI or (2) frame UI.
* Alexa can prompt for missing slot
* Amazon is coming up with Notification, that will be triggered by skill to Alexa device. However until the end-user ask to get notifications, the Alexa device will not start talking by itself to inform about notification.
URLs
Now, let's have a look to important URLs
alexa.design/guide : Design of Voice Experience
alexa.design/indiacheckin :Join the Amazon developer community & check in for the event in India.
alexa.design/india : It has details about all meetup, hackathon, webinar, slack channel etc.
alexa.design/codecademy and alexa.design/training : Online learning resources
alexa.design/factskill and bit.ly/2JWxlY9: Getting started with skill development
https://github.com/alexa : Alexa public sample code repository
https://developer.amazon.com/en-in/alexa-skills-kit Getting Started in India
Alexa response can be further enhanced at skill using
1. SSML. SSML is Speech Synthesis Markup Language. More details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_Synthesis_Markup_Language
https://www.w3.org/TR/speech-synthesis11/
Alexa specific SSML : https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/speech-synthesis-markup-language-ssml-reference.html
2. Speechcon https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/speechcon-reference-interjections-english-india.html
Reference
Sohan Maheshwar
@soganmageshwar
sohanm@amazon.com
https://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/alx326applying-alexas-natural-language-to-your-challenges
https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/5b0efd02-0ed0-42d5-b922-5ee594d30a38/new-alexa-skills-kit-template-build-an-alexa-decision-tree-skill
https://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/alexa-bootcamp-skill-building-101
https://www.slideshare.net/RickWargo/how-to-build-an-alexa-skill
https://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/wks403-build-an-alexa-skill-using-aws-lambda-78928075
https://medium.com/tribalscale/getting-started-with-voice-faqs-from-our-partnersby-tribalscales-voice-experts-fd5edec6f042
http://www.smith.co/blog/2017/CAFFEINATED-COMMERCE---EPISODE-3-TESTING-CONVERSATIONAL-USER-INTERFACES
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