[ad_1]
It may be common for your kids, partner, and coworkers to listen to you, but shouldn’t your virtual assistant be any different? Amazon Alexa will now practice a little more patience with users, thanks to a Tuesday update that causes the service to wait longer for someone to finish speaking commands before stopping listening.
As noted by Forbes, the feature is optional. It could certainly be useful for those who speak slowly or just need more time to process their thoughts. But this is really an accessibility feature that makes it easier for people with speech disabilities to use Amazon’s virtual assistant. Amazon added the new behavior after some customers told the company that “they just need a little more time before Alexa responds to their requests,” Shehzad Mevawalla, head of Alexa voice recognition at Amazon.
Giving people more time to speak with Alexa could make the product more appealing to millions of people. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders reports that more than 3 million Americans stutter and that nearly 7% of Americans have some language disorder, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Another type of communication
This week, Amazon also updated the Alexa app on Android to allow users to type in requests instead of speaking them, The Verge reported. The feature is a public preview in the United States. Of course, the ability to type commands on Alexa could be crucial for those who have difficulty speaking, but the update also provides a private way to communicate with Alexa when others are in the room.
Alexa’s iOS users got the feature in December, and competitors like Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant have been accepting requests entered for years.
[ad_2]
Source link