Heather Kelly and Jay Greene* say that Amazon is introducing a new line of wearables that will push Alexa into every corner of our lives.
Amazon has a plan to make sure Alexa is everywhere we go by adding the voice assistant to glasses, wireless ear buds and a shiny black ring.
Those wearables are just a few of the newest grab bag of products announced by Amazon last month as part of its push to get a little bit of Alexa into every corner of people’s lives.
But as those gadgets move from customers’ kitchens and living rooms to their ears and faces, the company will learn how far consumers are willing to trust Amazon with their privacy.
Because Amazon lacks an Alexa-powered smartphone such as Google and Apple have, it’s looking for other ways to make its always-listening assistant omnipresent.
In addition to the wearables, it announced an updated Echo Dot that shows the time and a new eight-inch Echo Show.
There was also the Echo Glow, which is essentially a soothing, Alexa-controlled night light.
The Alexa-controlled Amazon Smart Oven can read bar codes on packaged foods and automatically cook them according the directions, and a new Ring Elite doorbell feature adds Alexa to the front door to chat up visitors and take messages if you’re away.
Amazon has recently jumped in on the traditional events that technology companies, including Apple and Google, host to highlight their new products.
But Amazon takes a looser approach than its sometimes-rival Apple.
Instead of showing off a handful of nearly finished products, Amazon shares a long list of releases of varying quality and readiness, not all of which will make it to consumers.
Meanwhile, Amazon has spent much of the past five years pushing its Alexa voice assistant into as many nooks and crannies of people’s lives as possible.
It lives in the company’s Echo smart speakers, of course, but it also works with third-party speakers, as well as with cars, kitchen appliances and a fancy toilet.
But a phone is conspicuously missing from Amazon’s offerings.
Google and Apple sell phones with their own smart assistants built into the operating systems.
That advantage is crucial as the tech giants fight for what may be the next big battleground: conversational computing.
Each company is racing to emerge with the dominant voice technology that consumers will use to tell their gadgets to play music, turn on lights and find information.
And while Amazon has a head start in bringing speech recognition to consumers’ homes, it faces a huge hurdle competing in the mobile world against Apple and Google, whose technologies run most smartphones around the globe.
In addition to new hardware, Amazon announced a wide range of new software features and products.
Alexa can now tell when you are frustrated with it by detecting changes in the volume and tone of your voice and choice of words.
It will change how it replies accordingly, even sheepishly apologise and try to correct course.
And, like Google Assistant before it, Alexa is adding the ability to use celebrity voices, starting with Samuel L. Jackson.
Still, Amazon’s critics have questioned the company’s commitment to privacy.
Many have pointed to Amazon’s facial recognition technology, which is taking off in use by law enforcement, as posing risks to civil liberties.
Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos told reporters at the event that the area of facial recognition is “a perfect example of where regulation is needed”, adding that his public policy team was working on regulations.
In addition, recently, a coalition of 19 consumer groups accused Amazon of illegally collecting voice recordings and other identifying information on users aged under 13 with its Echo Dot Kids Edition.
The company is continuing to develop products for children, and will let educational software companies create Alexa skills.
That will allow parents, for example, to ask an Echo how their children did on tests at school or what homework they have to do, instead of asking their children directly.
It is adding its child-aimed service FreeTime to Echo Show devices, too, which will also let children send messages to an approved list of people.
Amazon said it has improved by 50 per cent the accuracy of detecting when users say “Alexa” to wake the device to hear commands.
That way, Echo devices are less likely to listen in on conversations when users don’t want them to.
In May, Amazon gave consumers the ability to use voice commands to delete recordings of what they’ve said throughout the day.
Users can now ask Alexa what the device heard.
And they will soon be able to ask Alexa why it took specific actions, so they can understand why it played music or turned on lights when users didn’t intend for that to happen.
Amazon also added a home camera from Ring, the doorbell-camera company it bought 18 months ago.
Its Alexa Guard security service can use those cameras, along with its Echo devices, to detect sounds such as breaking glass — something that can indicate if a house has been broken into.
In August, The Washington Post reported that Ring had forged video-sharing partnerships with more than 400 police departments across the US, giving them access to homeowners’ camera footage if users grant permission.
Heading off questions about surveillance, Amazon said the new Ring gadgets let customers flip on “home mode” to halt the recording of sounds and images.
Several of Amazon’s newest products could test the limits of consumer comfort with regard to privacy.
The Echo Buds headphones record anything a wearer says when it hears the wake word, “Alexa”.
People who wear its new Echo Frames — an experimental device, available for now only by invitation — will have a microphone on their heads as long as they have their glasses on.
* Heather Kelly is technology reporter for The Washington Post who tweets at @heatherkelly.
Jay Greene is a Washington Post reporter who tweets at @greene.
This article first appeared at www.washingtonpost.com.
