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When a third-party application – or skill – of Alexa's voice assistant Alexa politely asks you to summon an actor, an airline, an athlete, an author or some other name in the game. In response to a question, it specifies a type of dwelling – an entity that defines how the data is recognized and processed. (A skill that uses the aforementioned actor niche type could query filmographies with the names of actors and actresses provided, for example.) They are meant to "save time" and provide "More consistent" experience between skills, according to Amazon, and today, four types of locations join the existing list of the public beta: AMAZON.CreativeWorkType, AMAZON.Food, AMAZON.Sport and AMAZON. VideoGame.
When creating an Alexa skill with Amazon's Custom Skills API, developers define a voice interaction model that describes how users will interact with their skills. The model includes the intentions, which Alexa uses for the words uttered by the users and the actions they would like to have, as well as the location variables in the intention. Amazon's predefined slots eliminate the need for them to offer common use cases themselves.
New niche types work in all Alexa environments and can be used in the skills published in the Alexa Skills Store. They encompass a representative list of values that Amazon claims to constantly update and uses to form the machine learning models of Alexa's voice recognition machine.
Here is a description of each:
- AMAZON.CreativeWorkType captures types of creative works such as "soundtrack", "book" or "album".
- AMAZON.Food captures food, such as "bacon", "scrambled egg" and "lemon juice".
- AMAZON.Sport captures sports names, such as "gymnastics", "basketball" and "team handball".
- AMAZON.VideoGame capture video game titles, such as "Doom Two," "Lemmings," and "The Sims."
The four types of slots join built-in slots for date, time, numbers and more in the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), as well as seven types of slots launched by Amazon in beta early October: AMAZON.Color, AMAZON.Country, AMAZON.DayOfWeek, AMAZON.Genre, AMAZON.Language, AMAZON.Month and AMAZON.Room.
Both additions follow the Alexa Reminders API, which allows skill developers to warn users of upcoming tasks and events, as well as schedule availability, allowing Alexa to tap a connected calendar and free hours on the surface. Alexa Smart Scheduling Assistant, another recently added feature, allows scheduling individual meetings based on the availability of both participants. In addition, the Room Reservation API allows third-party meeting planners such as Joan and Robin to book conference rooms and check their availability.
Oh, and Alexa can now talk about the mid-term elections.
The voice assistant of Amazon has acquired new capabilities through an accelerated sequence since September, when the company launched 11 new devices updated and compatible with Alexa, including the Echo Sub; Echo Dot 2018, Echo Dot Plus and Echo Show from 2018; and Amazon Smart Plug. Last week, she released the Music Skill API, allowing developers to stream songs online to Alexa devices and Amazon Echo speakers in the United States. Earlier this fall, she launched the Alexa Presentation Language (APL), a suite of tools designed to make it easier for developers to create "visually rich" skills for Alexa devices with screens such as Echo. Amazon's Show, Fire TV, Fire Tablet and Amazon's Echo Spot-in. And in October, he unveiled APIs for connecting smart cameras and doorbells to Echo devices.
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