A recent book by Brad Stone offers up some interesting information about the rise and rise of Jeff Bezos; arguably one of the most important business stories of our times. His is a meteoric rise that started out of a garage and now spans the globe to make Bezos the richest man in the world. The book Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire tells us the story of Amazon and disruptive products such as the virtual assistant Alexa. It also narrates interesting anecdotes such as when Bezos said this to Alexa:
During the trial stages of developing Amazon's virtual assistant, Bezos had said this in frustration back in 2013. At the time, there was the apprehension that Alexa wouldn’t make it as a product – the assistant didn’t understand the commands and didn’t seem able to give the right answers. Now, of course, there is a lot Alexa can do:
You can tell Alexa that you sneezed and Alexa will say ‘bless you’ – which might be a nice thing when one is alone. Or Alexa may have a more pandemic-appropriate response, such as ‘say it, don’t spray it’.
Not sure why anyone would want to hear this, but if they do, Alexa will do – flush a virtual toilet for you – without wasting water.
Don’t get enough compliments? Alexa has it covered. With over a hundred compliments available, there's enough flattery in store.
Ask Alexa to recite the Hanuman Chalisa for you, tell you a story (bed time story, fairy tale, take your pick) offer up some daily cricket trivia, or play Akashwani for you. Wild planet has 500 animals sounds for you: alligator, to baboon, to puppy, to monkey, to cat, to goose… you name it.
The virtual assistant is designed to help us spell difficult words – try getting Alexa to spell a difficult to spell words and it will oblige. But try to get it to spell rude swear words or abusive words and it will not.
Some of us are used to sleeping with snorers around. So much so that sleep may elude us until that background noise gets going. You can ask Alexa to snore for you. Say "Alexa, play snore sounds," and Alexa will oblige.
Ask Alexa to belch, fart, sing to you, tell you jokes and Alexa will do that for you. I'm not sure why you would want to hear disgusting sounds, but if you do, Alexa is there for you. So clearly, the Amazon virtual assistant has come a long way from the time when it was told by Jeff Bezos to go ‘Shoot yourself in the head’.
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