If there is a reason why Amazon’s Alexa is garnering a lot of attention is because of Amazon’s decision to open up the platform to third-party developers. This means that Alexa’s abilities are just limited to what Amazon has decided to give it, but it is open to third-party developers who can now add skills of their own.In fact it might have been a pretty good idea to do so because in a report from WIRED, it seems that Alexa has managed to cross something of a milestone as Amazon is now boasting that its voice assistant software has reached the 10,000 skills mark. This means that Alexa is capable of understanding and performing 10,000 different functions, although whether or not all 10,000 skills apply to you and your needs is a different story, but at least it is there.
According to Steve Rabuchin, who heads up Alexa voice services and skills at Amazon, “We had this inspiration of the Star Trek computer. What would it be like if we could create a voice assistant out of the cloud that you could just talk to naturally, that could control things around you, that could do things for you, that could get you information?”
So far Alexa can do all sorts of things ranging from functional to novel, whether it be controlling your smart/connected home appliances or ordering you a pizza. Amazon’s decision to open the platform up also means that Alexa isn’t just limited to Amazon’s Echo lineup, but also third-party hardware.
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