Another of my favorite things is the Amazon Echo.  Amazon Echo is a wireless speaker and voice command device from Amazon.com. The device responds to the name “Alexa”; this “wake word” can be changed by the user (to also “Amazon” or “Echo” at present.).  The device is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic and other real time information. It can also control several smart devices.

I use Alexa everyday.   “Alexa, tell me the news.”  “Alexa, Tell me a joke about Hillary Clinton!”, “Alexa, add Milk to my shopping list.”  “Alexa, turn on the back door lights”, “Alexa, turn up the heat.”, “Alexa, play me some Rod Stewart Music.”, “Alexa, what is the weather going to be tomorrow”, “Alexa, add fix outside light to my to-do list”, “Alexa, what is on my calendar for today”, “Alexa, read me from my Kindle Book”, “Alexa, When do the Ga Tech Yellow Jackets play next?”, “Alexa, wake me up in 30 minutes.”  These are just a few of the commands that the Amazon Echo responds to.   More are being added weekly.

Basically, Amazon put a Siri-like assistant into a tube that lives on your coffee table. After connecting it to Wi-Fi, it can answer simple questions like How tall is Barack Obama and Who are the members of Run the Jewels. Additionally, Echo is a voice-controlled speaker for listening to tunes and talk from Amazon Prime, TuneIn, and iHeartRadio, Spotify, or Pandora.  If you prefer to listen to your personal music collection, you can beam it over Bluetooth.