Instead of building out an entire ecosystem of smart home products, Amazon has focused on doing one thing and doing it well. Amazon is ready to fund up to $100 million in investments for Alexa, the heart and soul of its Echo tower.
For the second time, the Amazon Echo has intrigued the tech world. The digital assistant hardware was initially launched last fall exclusively for Amazon Prime members, but the Echo just went on sale this week for the general public.
Dual downward firing speakers give voice to the Echo's words and songs, while a seven-microphone array at the top of the cylindrical tower gives the digital assistant its ears. Its farfield, beam forming microphone sensors enable the Echo to lock onto voices near and far.
Alexa, Siri's newest rival, gives the Echo its brain. Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud platform, functions as its mind. Amazon's new $100 million fund was created to nurture Alexa's mind by inspiring development from third parties.
A third party, for example, can leverage Alexa to communicate with smart things not yet supported by the AI. Amazon's Alexa Fund helps lower the financial barriers of developing software with the newly announced Alexa Skills Kit or Alexa Voice Service.
The Alexa Skills Kit is a collection of application programming interfaces and other developer tools that can be used to give Alexa more smarts. Specifically, developers can program Alexa to support more devices than she already does.
Alexa Voice Service enables developers to take Alexa and integrate her into their apps. Developers of a smartband, for example, could integrate Alexa into their products so that wearers can give voice commands to the wearable tech.
The Alexa Fund will review proposals and select people who advocate compelling cases for Alexa. Experience built around human voice will change the way people use technology for the better, and third parties are interested in using Alexa to that end, according to Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO.
"Since introducing Amazon Echo, we've heard from developers, manufacturers, and start-ups of all sizes who want to innovate with this new technology," said Bezos. "With the Alexa Fund, we want to empower people to explore the boundaries of voice technology. We're eager to see what they come up with."
