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The Echo speakers and Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa, are obviously synonymous with Amazon, the online store, but we are now seeing the two offered in more and more places. One of the most surprising is Microsoft, which seems to have recognized the weaknesses of its own Cortana assistant by collaborating with Alexa over the last few months in several ways. The latest is that Echo speakers are now sold directly by Microsoft, online and in-store.
Buyers spotted both the second-generation Echo speaker and the latest Echo Dot model available on Microsoft's website and in their stores in the United States. It's not clear how long Microsoft has been selling Amazon devices, but the two companies have been working together for some time. The two partners formed a partnership that resulted earlier this year in a demonstration of the integration of Alexa and Cortana, in which users could use a wizard to call and interact with each other .
Sign that Microsoft could gradually distance itself from Cortana, the company has integrated Alexa to more services and products in recent months. Alexa has recently been updated on the game console with a recent update of the Xbox One software. An Alexa app is now available under Windows 10 directly on Amazon. Soon, the Echo Speaker and Echo Show will support Skype calls.
While Cortana was once a flagship feature of Windows 10 on the desktop, the writing is on the wall and therefore risks being dropped. Recent updates to Windows 10 have dramatically reduced the presence of the assistant, and Microsoft Vice President, who was appointed to head Cortana earlier this year, announced his departure from the company in the next weeks. If Microsoft still has projects in artificial intelligence assistant, they do not seem to imply any product or consumer service.
VIA The Verge
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