WEBVTT - A Conversation with Nerds 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.520 Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from stuff 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:14.680 dot com. Hey everyone, and welcome to Tech Stuff. I 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:19.480 am your host, Jonathan Strickland. Today I am incredibly fortunate 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.680 I have not one, but two amazing guests to talk 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.759 about our topic of discussion today, which is really going 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:30.880 to be about Amazon's Alexa service and what it can do, 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.080 what what it's like to develop for it, and why 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.880 should we be excited about these voice recognition services in general. Uh. 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.640 I guarantee you by the end of this episode you'll 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.400 be as excited about them as I already am. So 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.920 let me introduce my guests. First, on the phone, I've 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:51.960 got Dave Zbitski from Amazon High Dave, Hey, how you 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.880 doing great? Thank you so much for joining me, really appreciated. 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.920 And I here in the studio in the flesh. John 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.760 Scheme from big nerd Ranch. Now, Josh, you've been working 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.720 on developing sort of the the the how to guide 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.160 of developing for Amazon's Alexa. Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.160 I've been working with David and others in Amazon to 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.000 build some developer education tools to write apps for the 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.080 Alexa Skills Kit platform with Now, this is great. I'm 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.679 glad that I've got two experts on the subject here 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.520 because I do lots of research and I love to 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.120 chat about technology, and I'm very passionate about the subject. 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.160 But it's always a great thrill for me to have 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.319 experts on the subject matter here as well, so that 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:40.160 they can even fill in those gaps that are within 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.319 my understanding, because I'm coming from a consumer standpoint primarily, 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:48.720 I am not someone who has had a deep education 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.000 in the field of coding and developing for this sort 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:57.000 of stuff. I have a liberal arts degree, but I'm 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:58.920 so glad to have you guys here to talk about. 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.559 Let's start at the very top and work our way down. 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:06.360 So Alexa is uh a kind of a personal assistant 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:08.720 that can do lots of different stuff and depends heavily 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:14.440 upon voice recognition, speech recognition, natural language processing. And I 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:18.320 don't think a lot of people have a true understanding 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:23.200 or appreciation of how big a deal that is that 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.800 the way we humans communicate and the way that computers 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:31.000 quote unquote think is very different. So, Dave, can you 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:35.079 talk a little bit about the challenges of developing something 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:41.799 that can actually work with natural language? Certainly, I um 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:43.920 and and thank you for the intro. I uh, I 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.560 love talking about technology too, and I am far from 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.440 an expert. This has been a learning journey for me. 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.960 There are people who have been working on voice and 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.800 natural language and AI for thirty plus years, and I 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.360 feel like we're in a see change now with the 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:06.400 power of the cloud and just how affordable you know everybody, Um, 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:08.360 you may have a tablet or you may have a 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.880 smart home. Just that technology has become so affordable for 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.040 everybody that we can finally do something like this. And 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:21.680 Amazon's vision is basically the Star Trek computer. If everybody remembers, 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.080 it doesn't matter if it's you know, the Next Generation, 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:29.000 the original series, Deep Space nine, any or the movies, right, 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:33.040 there was always a voice that a human being could 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.360 just call out to in the air. I remember watching 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:41.000 Next Generation and uh wharf would go and play opera, right, 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.040 klingon opera or Pricard would would ask for music just 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.520 and they would walk in the room. And I was 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:48.960 just thinking about that the other day walking into my office, 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.680 I was like, gosh, I'm asking a computer to turn 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:54.560 on the lights and play a piece of music. This 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:58.400 is we are living in science fiction, right, And so 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:02.480 that's the basic idea behind mind Alexa is it is 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:06.400 a service from Amazon that we make available to anyone 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.640 were free, and we've put it into actual pieces of 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.119 hardware that we make and we sell to Amazon customers 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.080 as well. And some of your listeners may know that 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.720 as the Amazon Echo, the Dot, the tap, or the 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:25.000 fire TV. And the basic premise is that Alexa can 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:29.159 understand us as a human being, and then she can 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.440 talk to all the technology in our lives so that 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.440 we don't have to learn that user interface, you know, 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.160 the whole twelve o'clock blinking light. How do I go 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:40.560 ahead and change that. I should be able to just 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:45.200 ask the device itself to set the time. I should 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.159 not have to worry about that as a human being. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.120 And that's really what Alexa is all about. She can 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:55.080 talk to human beings, she can understand human beings, and 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.159 then she can go ahead and tell machines what we're 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.359 actually asking for. The is really important to have that 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.760 sort of translator between us and the machine world. One 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.680 of the things that I found extremely frustrating early in 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:13.719 the era of home automation is that it wasn't all 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.479 or nothing kind of approach, depending upon what you wanted 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.040 to do you had to essentially go with one provider 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.320 for everything, one manufacturer for all of your stuff, because 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.280 it wouldn't talk to each other. You have different protocols, 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:30.000 you have different approaches to the way that they would 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.520 integrate with each other. And if you had everything from 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:37.480 one company, awesome, everything talks to each other, it's fantastic. 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:41.040 But if you're like a regular human being who can't 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.760 necessarily outfit an entire home all at once with the 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:48.400 same sort of technologies, you wanted to be able to 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.640 talk to each other. So I think one of the 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:54.600 big in my mind, one of the big bonuses of 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.200 an approach like Alexa is the idea that you have 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:01.880 this go between that can do that work for you 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.800 where it can start to compensate for the fact that 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:10.599 these technologies don't natively talk to each other necessarily. Um. Right. 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:14.520 A great thing about standards is there's so many of them, right, yeah, yeah. 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.080 I love the fact that you know, the term standard 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.520 means the opposite of what you could expect it to 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:23.440 be and um and and that is one of the 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:27.200 most popular uses we have seen for the the echo device. 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:29.640 I know that was my journey too, is I started 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.640 out you know. I used it for music and general queries, 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.600 and I said, you know, I heard this thing can 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.880 do stuff with smart home. I have no idea what 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:39.960 smart home is. I have no idea what any of 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.520 these terms like IoT right, internet things. It doesn't make 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.680 sense to me. I want to light I can turn on. 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.000 So I went to Amazon and I searched for smart 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.120 light bulb I think is what I found, and it 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.320 was I think it was fifteen bucks. I figured i'd 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:56.200 order it and see if it would work. And there 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.640 was you know, kind of a general instruction on Amazon site. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.960 But what you can actually do with Alexa as you 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.400 get the device and you say, Alexa discover devices and 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.640 then she figures out what you put into your home. 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.080 You don't have to go and figure that out. And 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:15.040 we've found enough custard demand that we've actually created. If 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:19.200 you go to Amazon dot com slash smart Home, people 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.559 can go there and they'll see all of the smart 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.760 home devices that Alexa can just talk to and will 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.880 automatically work. So it makes it a much easier process 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.520 versus trying to figure out all the individual pieces to buy, 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:33.760 who talks to who and everything that you mentioned. You 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.560 can just go ahead and put a light screw in 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:38.280 a light bulb and be able to talk to it. No, 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.240 that's incredible from a consumer standpoint, right, the idea that 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.400 you've made this sort of a seamless experience so that 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.600 you don't have that frustrating moment where even with something 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.320 as simple as bluetooth pairing, for some people that that 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.080 is that is a barrier, right that they have to wait, 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.600 do I have to on each device when the light 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.440 is bling? Game? It means that what's happening, you know, 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:04.880 just something as simple as that can be really frustrating 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.080 for some people. So to take that step away, uh, 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:12.560 is really really an ingenious and helpful thing to do. Now, Now, Josh, 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.440 you've worked very hard to help with the back end 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.360 of this so that people who are developing for Alexa 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:23.920 can take advantage of this and and give people chance 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:28.239 to make Alexa do some pretty incredible things. So, first 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.640 of all, I gotta I gotta lay down some vocabulary. 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:37.040 Right before we started recording, you talked about how a 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.079 thing on your phone you refer to it as a skill, 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.439 and you think all of us, because I'm so deep 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.760 in this Amazon world, skills and acts. So so tell 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:49.000 people what what exactly is an Alexa skill? Well, it's 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:53.160 interesting skill the term you think initially a skill is 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.160 something that you acquire or learn over time. And I 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.320 believe that Amazon used that terminology as a nod towards 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.880 really the machine learning aspect of what they offer in 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.120 the cloud, right, um, which is and David was speaking 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.959 to this a bit ago. Um, you know, the machine 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:13.640 learning component of what the Amazon service offers, and that 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:19.280 is the incredibly complex problem, right of taking spoken words 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.640 and resolving them to a format that uh software can 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:27.880 actually work with and treat in a predictable way. Um. 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:32.199 You have to imagine all the timing, the inflection, the variation, 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:37.320 just regional differences, uh, that someone's going to ask for something. 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:39.400 And then also you have to think about all the 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.280 various ways that someone could ask for the exact same things. 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.840 It's an astronomical number of ways that that can happen. 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.640 And it's the Alexa Skills Kit platform that actually resolves 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.040 that problem, um in a lot of ways, UM for you. 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.000 So I believe that's why they chose that terminology. It 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:01.280 makes sense, right, And actually Amazon's corporate a corpus by 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.600 the way, to throw another technology steward into the mix. 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.760 UM is really a collection of data, and Amazon their 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.960 service offers a large collection of that data at which 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.200 is ever increasing by the way. UM. That simplifies the 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.319 problem of resolving that speech and converting it into UM. 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.680 What what the platform calls an intent, which is really 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:25.880 an indication of something that someone would like to do 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.240 at a given time. Yeah, it's interesting because if you 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.440 think about it from a classical computing standpoint, if you 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.040 wanted your computer to do something specific, uh, let's go 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:37.840 back to the DOS days. We're not gonna go all 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:39.440 the way back. We'll go back to DOST days because 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.240 that's that's my childhood. Then you would type in a 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.600 command and and the computer knew exactly what you wanted 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.520 to do as long as the actual program is installed 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.520 on your computer. Because you're following a very specific protocol 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.160 that does not vary. That's right, always going to be 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:56.760 the same. It's a one to one thing, and it's 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:00.240 a textual interface and very consistent. Yes, but when you 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.120 get to two different people, just just two people, and 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.719 you just want them to ask for the same thing, 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.320 but you're not guiding them in how to ask, that's 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.040 same for that same thing. That's where you start getting 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:16.920 into this, uh, this this variability and even if they're 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.720 both saying the exact same phrase, if they're from my 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:21.599 neck of the woods, there might be a bit of 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.600 a droll that's right there. If they're up over in Maine, 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:26.559 it's going to be a different sound if they're if 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.800 they're no non native English speaker, they're gonna be in 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:32.480 an inflection in their voice from whatever language was their 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.400 primary language. So these are all non trivial problems actually 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.679 in the in the programming world. Yes, so there's that problem, 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.360 and then there's also an Amazon refers to this as 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:46.400 the interaction model, which is the number of variances in 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.200 how someone could ask for something, and the platform takes 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.880 a fuzzy matching approach to solving that problem. Right, So 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.440 instead of providing an exhaustive list of all of the 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:01.320 various ways that someone could ask for information for an airport, 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:06.880 for example, um, instead they use a artificial intelligence approach 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:10.840 to that problem and generalize a set of training data 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.640 that you actually provide as a developer, uh to to 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:18.120 simplify that problem down. Okay, so yeah, because the first 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:19.640 thing I was guessing was like I wonder if it's 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:21.480 going to be probabilistic. It is one of those things 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.560 where it assigns a probability that I'm pretty sure this 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:26.760 is what they're asking for, so let's go for that. 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.720 Uh exactly. Yeah. We've talked about that with some of 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.440 the other artificial intelligence platforms out there, things like IBM 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.720 S Watson being a very simple example, right, simple in 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.560 the sense that it's easy to understand. It's actually a 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.760 pretty complicated machine as it turns out. But the fact 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:44.559 that you would say, all right, well, when it was 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.679 playing jeopardy, it would never buzz in unless that certainty 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.920 was greater than like an eight threshold. And once you 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.959 explain to people that's what we mean by probabilistic, where 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:58.679 a computer is determining, well, how how quote unquote sure 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.880 am I that this is intent of the person giving 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.080 the command then act upon it. One of the things 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.160 I wanted to also mention about alexas skill, so we 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.760 talked about how it's it's voice commands, right that you're 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:16.360 giving it. These have their own kind of anatomy, Right, 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.320 You've got the skill, where how how you activate the 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.240 skill itself? What you call upon in order to make 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.280 the skill happen, and UM, I wonder if you can 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.560 maybe go into just a little bit like it might 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:30.959 not be something that the end user would necessarily think 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.839 about the developers would think about. Yeah, no exactly that. 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.160 You know, it's got its own grab bag of terminology, 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.040 but it's really not that complicated once you get past 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.240 those initial things. Um. You know. So as a developer 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.079 coming to the platform, the first thing that I asked was, well, 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.560 what heck is the name of my app or skill? 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.800 I mean, um and updating that in my mind? UM, 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.600 and that is called the invocation name on the platform. 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.240 So what that invocation does is it invocation name does? 0:13:57.320 --> 0:13:59.920 Is it maps a user's word? Basically? I think it 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.480 as a name space like I came to you know, 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.600 Alexa skills kit development as a Java developer and being 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.520 able to give package names or name spaces two classes 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.319 as a Java developer is very helpful. Um. And really 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:18.439 that's what it does, uh, an invocation named. So for example, UM, 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.560 in our class at Bigner Ranch that we've built for 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.120 for Amazon, we we've given We've built a skill to 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.280 give you information about airports and UM, you you say, Alexa, 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.200 ask airport info for flight delays at a t L. 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.440 For example, that airport info word or words is an 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:39.600 invocation name, so that initially brings up the skill. It 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.440 launches it so to speak UM. And then you've got 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.840 sample utterances UM. I mentioned that you train UM. I 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:49.120 kind of think of it as a brain in the cloud, 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:51.360 UM that lives in the cloud to do our bidding 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.240 for us for resolving the spoken words. UH. These sample 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:59.080 utterances are what effectively resolve what someone's asking for to 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.840 an indication or an intent that we'd like to ask 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.080 for airport information. And Amazon has made some really smart 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:12.000 decisions about making that a black box. Effectively, as a developer, 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.000 all we do is provide that training data and on 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.600 the other side we get an indication of what came out. 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.360 We're not required to you know, set up a machine 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.800 learning server or you know, artificial intelligence or deal with 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:28.440 any of those algorithms that who knows how many countless 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:33.600 engineers and hours Amazon is invested into building that infrastructure UM. 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.360 But we've got that as a tool to resolve the 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:40.520 information down to something that our skill service can work with. 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.680 So with an Alexis skill, you've got a skill interface 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.960 and a skill service the Skill interface is where this 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.000 brain that I keep mentioning lives, and the skill service 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:53.560 is it's really anything that can speak HTTPS. UM. Now 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.240 with our class, we're using no JS, which is, you know, 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.240 it's JavaScript on the server side. Everybody's it in a 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.520 dab of JavaScript here there anyway, So it's an easy 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:05.880 language for people to pick up and get into. If 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.360 you've done you know, um uh, any web development, you've 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.480 likely got some JavaScript exposure. UM. So it's really an 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.520 extension upon that using some you know, you've got some 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.600 additional things like file io and being able to write 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.480 to a database using node. Uh. But with that JavaScript layer, 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.160 we get events from the Skill interface and we're able 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.560 to process those events and then send a message back 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:34.120 using Jason right Java JavaScript object notation uh to the 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.480 to the device, and she's able to speak speak our response. 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.400 It's pretty cool. This is really well, I'm sorry, Dave, 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.880 please go ahead. I was just gonna say to um 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.160 to to add on to that. You can think of 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.440 it in terms of you know, we've we talked before 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:54.360 about Alexa translating human language into a way that she 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.800 can talk to technology. It is the same when third 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.280 party developers go ahead and enhance what she can understand 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:07.040 through skills. So, if you are an Amazon customer and 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.440 you have an Echo and you talk to your echo, 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.040 and perhaps you're using what Josh describeder, you're using a 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:18.680 starting phrase, uh and a invocation name to launch something 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:22.480 like let's say Fitbit or uber or your your Domino's 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.359 easy order. Your voice goes to Amazon. Your voice is 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.359 never shared with a third party developer. You should think 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:32.800 of Alexa almost as that friend that can can not 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.840 only translate to other pieces of technology, but she can 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.960 talk to all of these third party developers who have 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:44.280 their own technology. Uh. And so in essence, for for Fitbit, 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.080 when you talk to her, she understands that you're asking 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:50.320 how you know, how did you do today? And then 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.600 she goes and she talks to Fitbit, and Fitbit says, oh, 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.119 you know, we have these servers and we have all 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:57.960 these datas and and we know we uh, you know, 0:17:58.040 --> 0:17:59.920 we we know you're a customer. We're gonna return that. 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.600 So go tell that customer this. And then Alexa goes 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:08.000 and she tells you the information that Fitbit had for you. So, 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:13.040 in in essence, it is translating between those things and uh, 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:17.480 you mentioned before the probability. Uh, it's very interesting. As 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:22.040 human beings when we have a conversation, we were constantly 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.399 making choices like that too. I bring all of my 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.120 experience to this podcast today, right, So when we're having 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.280 a conversation, it's based on all the years that I've 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.280 had a conversation and the understanding of what those words 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.479 actually mean. And there's a lot of things that go 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.000 on set. So for example, we all know what time 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.320 of the day it is where we are, we know 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:46.000 where we live, we know what country we're in. I 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:48.280 know you know, I know how to stand up, I 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:50.600 know what eyes and nose look like. I know what 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.200 a computer ist I knew what when you reference Doss, 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.520 A lot of machine learning is that a computer doesn't 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:01.560 necessarily have that context, right, And so when you're a 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:06.119 third party developer, you know the the interaction model that 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:09.119 jos described basically, think of it like, Uh, you and 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:10.679 I are going to have a discussion around a new 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.359 topic today. Maybe it's something to do with fitness, and 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.000 so we all, you know, we all go look at 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:17.080 a wiki or maybe we look at Reddit, and we 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:19.160 define all the terms and then you and I can 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.359 can have a conversation and actually understand all of that. 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.600 And so that's what you're basically setting up when you 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.400 want to add an additional skill to Alexa is Hey, 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.600 here's all the terms, and when people ask for it 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.800 like this in language, here's what I want you to 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.720 tell me that they asked. And Dave you touched upon 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.159 something early on in that too that I think is 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.879 interesting and important to point out the idea that uh 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:49.440 with with you communicating to Alexa, your information is going 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.880 to Amazon. It's not being propagated across the internet willy nilly, 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:57.200 being spread everywhere. That also ends up being an important 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.679 part of some of the restrictions around the types of 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:03.359 skill ales that Amazon will accept for Alexa, one being 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.240 that they there aren't going to be uh child once 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:11.879 once for children specifically, because there is a very real 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.879 concern about privacy and information, particularly for children who may 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:20.520 not fully understand or recognize the importance of that. Um. 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.959 So are there other restrictions on the types of skills 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.880 Amazon is going to except I would imagine that anything 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:33.760 that was against the law right out the door not happening. Yeah, 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:37.879 you know, um in the scenario that you described, because 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.480 Alexa today has no way to distinguish between different voices. 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.280 So if we had an echo in the room and 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.080 I was talking and you were talking, that is both 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.679 a human being, it's it's language. She cannot differentiate. So 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.679 she cannot differentiate whether it is a child asking for 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.879 something or an adult. And because of that, uh, and 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.600 you know there are COPA regulations and and everything else 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.320 when it is to mobile and web existing today, we 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:04.480 want to make sure that we're honoring that and that 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:11.880 we are protecting folks. Um your um uh second question 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:15.920 around um, if there's anything else that we're not necessarily allowing, 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.600 I think, um, there are. The guidelines are very similar. 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.439 So we do have an Android app store today, an 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.359 Amazon App Store which has very similar policy. So it 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:28.520 is something that Amazon has been in that that space 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.119 for years and we've kind of learned as we've gone through. 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.680 We just launched an update to the Alexis Skills section 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:39.440 where we have categories, and those categories are very similar 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.160 to what people would expect in a mobile app store 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.800 for you know, games, technology, things like that. So uh, 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:48.080 you know it's very it's got to be PG thirteen 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.960 and G you know, no our rated content anything like that. 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:57.439 No UM personally identifiable information. You would not. You know, 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:00.400 we're very careful about if you keep asking people all 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:02.520 about them, why are you asking about them? And you 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:06.040 better have a privacy policy for that that somebody has 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:09.439 allowed you to ask for that information. We do not 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:14.520 share any information about you. We don't share device information UM, 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.280 although you know developers of course keep asking for those 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:19.960 things you know they want to know is this coming 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:23.360 from an echo or mulbile app? Because Alexa will run 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.600 in anything. So there are UH apps for the iPhone, 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:28.879 apps for Android where you can talk to Alexa and 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.399 get access to all your skills. You can get access 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.200 to all of your smart home functionality as well, using 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:39.480 the same familiar Alexa experience. See and I am glad 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:41.600 you were able to address that. I think that that 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:44.600 actually is a very important thing for any platform to 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:48.520 do well. You do. Actually it seems counterintuitive, but you 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:51.680 do need to have those guidelines and restrictions there. And 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:56.520 if you ever want to see what can happen if 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:59.560 you don't put them there, you can look at some 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:05.040 any dramatic lessons we've learned through things like Microsoft Ta, 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:10.240 which was certainly not intended to turn into a big problem. 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:13.840 It was that the intention, the intent was how long 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:16.480 did that last? For like a day and hours? It 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:18.920 was twenty four hours and then they pulled the plug. Yeah, 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:20.879 I did a full episode of Microsoft Taste. I'm not 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:23.040 going to go back and do that, obviously, I'm not 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:25.359 going to ask either of you to comment on that 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:29.240 anymore than but just to just to say, like, if 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:32.639 you have a system and you don't have those restrictions 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:37.120 in and we are all in many ways like children, 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:40.960 and sometimes as children, you want to test boundaries, and 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:45.600 if you find there are no boundaries, problems happen. So 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.520 I'm in favor of boundaries personally. That's actually one thing, 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:52.560 uh that Amazon has done a really good job of 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:58.200 is curating the experience as well. You know, they literally, um, 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:02.120 as you submit your skill, audit that skill pretty thoroughly 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:04.560 and pretty rigorously to make sure that it conforms to 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:09.720 good Voice User Experience guidelines. Well, and when you're talking 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:12.600 about a device that that you know people think of 0:24:12.720 --> 0:24:16.640 as listening to you, obviously you have a great responsibility 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:20.439 in order to provide an experience that isn't going to 0:24:20.600 --> 0:24:23.919 be negative in any way. Uh, knowing that you know 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:26.040 you have to take a lot of time and effort 0:24:26.080 --> 0:24:29.560 to make certain that you avoid any problems that could 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:31.840 come later down the line. I mean, that's got to 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:36.119 be pretty pretty top concern from Amazon. Yeah, that was, 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:40.320 you know, very very important for us at Amazon when 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:43.680 we created the device. And so if you're not using 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:46.479 an Echo, you're using another device, you know, maybe it's 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:48.919 a mobile app, or you know, maybe it's in the 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:52.040 car or in a clock radio. All of those devices 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:55.120 are pushed to talk. So those devices are never listening 0:24:55.480 --> 0:24:59.400 unless you hit a button. If you have an Echo device, 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:03.000 you have the ability to hit a mute button, and 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:05.119 when you hit a mute button, you actually see a 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:07.879 red ring that goes around the outside letting you know, 0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:10.879 and we do cut power to the microphone as well 0:25:11.359 --> 0:25:15.040 when you hit that. Otherwise, Alexa is never listening unless 0:25:15.119 --> 0:25:18.320 she hears her name. So when you say Alexa, then 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:21.639 we begin to record your voice. Your voice again is 0:25:21.640 --> 0:25:23.600 only sent to Amazon. We do not send that to 0:25:23.680 --> 0:25:27.480 third parties. And then you can open the Alexa app itself. 0:25:27.520 --> 0:25:29.880 You can see every same little thing that you've ever 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:33.960 said to Alexa. After you've said Alexa and and then talk. 0:25:34.760 --> 0:25:37.040 And then you also have the ability to delete any 0:25:37.080 --> 0:25:39.720 one of those, or if you'd like, you can contact 0:25:39.760 --> 0:25:42.720 us and remove your entire history as well. So we 0:25:42.760 --> 0:25:45.959 do put all the control into the customer's hands. And 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:49.560 obviously that was this great foresight on on the part 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:51.760 of Amazon, because you could easily imagine that if you 0:25:51.760 --> 0:25:55.120 did not build that into your design from the ground up, 0:25:55.560 --> 0:25:58.400 that you would you would very quickly realize the need 0:25:58.520 --> 0:26:01.800 for that. And if that that, that's not a good feeling. 0:26:02.600 --> 0:26:04.520 I think in any of this, this scenario, because it 0:26:04.600 --> 0:26:07.600 is very new for people, it's about building up trust 0:26:08.400 --> 0:26:11.560 and it's about you know, I use terminology of crawling, 0:26:12.280 --> 0:26:15.560 then walking, and then running, and I think as a technologist, 0:26:15.600 --> 0:26:18.359 I always want to run, but it's important in a 0:26:18.400 --> 0:26:21.679 space like this to start out crawling, even if that 0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:25.280 means you're limiting what you can actually do with the device. 0:26:25.520 --> 0:26:28.239 And one of the you know, the things that I 0:26:28.280 --> 0:26:31.359 feel is a sign that that's been a success is 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:36.160 that people come and they ask for more. You know, now, hey, 0:26:36.200 --> 0:26:38.040 I want Alexa to do more. It's okay, you know, 0:26:38.080 --> 0:26:40.480 give me permission. I wanted to control this. I wanted 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:42.400 to control that, and gee, it would be great if 0:26:42.400 --> 0:26:45.040 we call it like, so people are now they're fine 0:26:45.119 --> 0:26:47.640 with the fact that they can talk to Alexa. Now 0:26:47.680 --> 0:26:49.720 I want Alexa to do even more. I want Alexa 0:26:50.160 --> 0:26:52.520 to wake up and start talking to me even if 0:26:52.560 --> 0:26:54.560 I haven't talk to her, which is something you know 0:26:54.640 --> 0:26:57.560 that she doesn't do today. She will never interrupt you 0:26:58.000 --> 0:27:02.360 or start talking out of nowhere unless you first engage. 0:27:02.400 --> 0:27:04.560 And I think that's a sign of customer trucks and 0:27:04.600 --> 0:27:07.280 people getting excited about where the technology is headed. That's 0:27:07.280 --> 0:27:09.600 pretty cool. I also want to say something else that 0:27:09.600 --> 0:27:13.240 I think is really cool. Um, you guys might disagree, 0:27:13.600 --> 0:27:16.960 and many listeners may disagree. But so I went back 0:27:17.000 --> 0:27:20.200 and I was looking at There are blogs for specifically 0:27:20.240 --> 0:27:24.040 for Alexa developers, which I recommend my listeners go out 0:27:24.160 --> 0:27:26.800 check out those blogs. They are not written in a 0:27:26.840 --> 0:27:30.919 way that is UH that's so dense or so technical 0:27:31.119 --> 0:27:34.040 that they are inaccessible. They are very accessible and I 0:27:34.080 --> 0:27:36.400 read over quite a few of them before we had 0:27:36.440 --> 0:27:39.200 this conversation, and one of the reasons why I wanted 0:27:39.200 --> 0:27:41.960 to bring this up. While they are incredibly helpful and technical, 0:27:42.760 --> 0:27:45.639 one of the examples that was used in UH in 0:27:45.680 --> 0:27:49.280 one of the blog posts spoke to a deep core 0:27:49.400 --> 0:27:52.960 within me where it was actually being used to explain 0:27:53.040 --> 0:27:55.760 what is a launch phrase? Was an invocation name and 0:27:55.800 --> 0:27:59.800 it was about um using Dungeon dice D twenty for 0:28:00.320 --> 0:28:04.520 that was me. Yeah, I'm as a hardcore D and 0:28:04.600 --> 0:28:08.040 D fan from way back. I hung out with Gary 0:28:08.080 --> 0:28:14.200 Guy Gags creator Dudgeons and Dragons. Yeah, edition campaign right now. Actually, 0:28:17.400 --> 0:28:21.679 if I hold this up talking about the video, you 0:28:21.720 --> 0:28:23.679 see all my D and D manuals right there. They 0:28:23.760 --> 0:28:26.800 can my originals. I can report that Dave in fact 0:28:26.880 --> 0:28:30.560 does have a stack approximately looks like about two ft 0:28:30.560 --> 0:28:34.879 tall of D and D manuals behind him. Um, first edition, 0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:37.439 all the way through a second. Oh Dave, you and 0:28:37.480 --> 0:28:42.240 me man this blogged this room and on the phone. 0:28:42.680 --> 0:28:44.600 Uh yeah, so that was one of those things. But 0:28:44.760 --> 0:28:49.000 I like that the examples you guys give are interesting, 0:28:49.320 --> 0:28:53.320 they are easy to understand, and you also it's outside 0:28:53.400 --> 0:28:56.800 of that initial reaction I think a lot of people 0:28:56.840 --> 0:28:59.719 would have when they hear the word Amazon. Of course, 0:29:00.320 --> 0:29:02.800 their first thought is going to go towards online shopping 0:29:03.160 --> 0:29:04.720 and they're thinking, oh, well, this is going to be 0:29:04.760 --> 0:29:06.600 an app that just makes it easier for me to 0:29:06.600 --> 0:29:08.960 buy things. But then you get into something like this 0:29:09.000 --> 0:29:11.080 and you're like, well, no, this is here's something where 0:29:11.080 --> 0:29:13.640 imagine you've got a table and you know, you don't 0:29:13.760 --> 0:29:17.480 have a metric ton of dice weighing the table down. 0:29:17.640 --> 0:29:19.320 You actually have an app and you can just call 0:29:19.400 --> 0:29:23.280 on any time you need, and then that becomes incorporated 0:29:23.320 --> 0:29:26.560 into your game. It's almost like Alexa is playing the 0:29:26.560 --> 0:29:29.880 game with you, and people start to realize, oh, there's 0:29:30.000 --> 0:29:33.760 other stuff this can do that that aren't that isn't 0:29:33.800 --> 0:29:36.520 related to buying things. I personally think one of the 0:29:36.560 --> 0:29:39.640 cool decisions Amazon made with this is really treating it 0:29:39.680 --> 0:29:43.640 like an interface and as a developer, implementing that interface, 0:29:43.840 --> 0:29:46.720 you know, uh, for your purposes is really what the 0:29:46.760 --> 0:29:50.040 platform is is great at I mean at work. For example, 0:29:50.080 --> 0:29:53.040 we had a hackathon recently and um, I wrote a 0:29:53.080 --> 0:29:55.560 service in a lixer to be able to control and 0:29:55.600 --> 0:29:57.440 this runs on a Raspberry Pie to be able to 0:29:57.440 --> 0:30:01.520 control the servo locks on of the doors in our building. 0:30:01.840 --> 0:30:04.520 And I recently was able to write a skill that 0:30:04.640 --> 0:30:08.520 interacts with that Raspberry Pie via the web to open 0:30:08.560 --> 0:30:11.400 the door, um when we see a visitor come by. 0:30:11.480 --> 0:30:14.880 So the platform is totally open as a developer, and 0:30:14.880 --> 0:30:17.280 and uh, there's Something else I wanted to touch on 0:30:17.320 --> 0:30:19.600 as well, that as mentioned in the blogs and we've 0:30:19.640 --> 0:30:21.560 kind of touched talked about a little bit, is that 0:30:21.640 --> 0:30:24.240 the the coding side of this, it is a server side, 0:30:24.240 --> 0:30:28.040 not a device side, not a client side kind of service. Josh, 0:30:28.120 --> 0:30:30.480 can you talk a little bit about about why that 0:30:30.640 --> 0:30:32.720 is just for people who might wonder like, well, why 0:30:32.840 --> 0:30:36.120 would all this be? Why would all the the hard work, 0:30:36.160 --> 0:30:38.200 the crunching of numbers, if you will, Why is that 0:30:38.280 --> 0:30:42.000 happening in the cloud and not on on a dedicated device. Yeah, 0:30:42.000 --> 0:30:43.520 that's a great question. I mean, I think there are 0:30:43.520 --> 0:30:46.080 a couple of really solid reasons right away. You can 0:30:46.120 --> 0:30:48.800 list for one, um, you know, the fact that the 0:30:48.840 --> 0:30:53.840 Amazon Echo you'll likely have numerous devices, and being able 0:30:53.880 --> 0:30:56.040 to enable that skill and have it in the cloud 0:30:56.280 --> 0:30:59.920 um is an instantaneous thing across all of those devices, 0:31:00.480 --> 0:31:02.720 right So, I think that's one really solid reason that 0:31:02.760 --> 0:31:07.160 Amazon went without architecture. The other reason is moving everything 0:31:07.320 --> 0:31:10.440 to the cloud, right keeping it on that infrastructure, it 0:31:10.480 --> 0:31:15.120 allows for Amazon to iterate incredibly quickly on that skill 0:31:15.320 --> 0:31:18.480 interface side of things. UM, you know, not having that 0:31:18.560 --> 0:31:22.640 constraint to the device and worrying about shipping new hardware 0:31:22.680 --> 0:31:27.080 to make changes over time. Amazon can simply change out 0:31:27.120 --> 0:31:31.520 that in interface and interaction model um uh, you know 0:31:32.400 --> 0:31:37.160 pretty much seamlessly. Um and it works um incredibly well. 0:31:38.200 --> 0:31:41.400 And that's a that's a big part of it. It 0:31:41.440 --> 0:31:44.480 also enables um, you know, third party developers to host 0:31:45.160 --> 0:31:48.120 their own services wherever they want, and whatever technology they 0:31:48.120 --> 0:31:51.000 want doesn't have to be an Amazon Cloud using any 0:31:51.080 --> 0:31:55.600 language that they want. And we knew, you know, uh, 0:31:55.840 --> 0:31:58.200 we thought of some pretty interesting things for Alexa, but 0:31:58.280 --> 0:32:02.480 we knew we really need to an essence crowdsource her 0:32:02.520 --> 0:32:06.760 ability to get smarter. Uh. And there's now over fifteen 0:32:06.840 --> 0:32:11.200 hundred skills out there today by a third party developers 0:32:12.080 --> 0:32:15.160 who are creating things with you know, like job described 0:32:15.520 --> 0:32:18.280 about controlling doors and putting things in Raspberry pies and 0:32:18.760 --> 0:32:22.960 robots and drones and health health and life sciences and 0:32:23.040 --> 0:32:27.360 doctors offices and hospitals and games and virtual reality, you know, 0:32:27.480 --> 0:32:30.680 things that we never would have been able to right ourselves, 0:32:30.680 --> 0:32:33.640 that people have just taken uh and they've run with it. 0:32:33.720 --> 0:32:36.040 And I continue to be impressed every day by what 0:32:36.400 --> 0:32:38.760 people are doing. Yeah, exactly, Davin. I mean, you know, 0:32:38.880 --> 0:32:42.400 you can embed you know, Alexa in if you're a 0:32:42.400 --> 0:32:46.440 hardware designer, you can build your own version of Echo 0:32:46.560 --> 0:32:49.640 with extended capabilities. In fact, you could have a display 0:32:49.960 --> 0:32:52.240 or you know, if you have visions about what that 0:32:52.280 --> 0:32:55.480 could be like, you can embed what's called Alexive Voice 0:32:55.480 --> 0:32:59.640 services within that hardware and actually create your own version 0:32:59.680 --> 0:33:03.560 of of the Echo, which is incredibly powerful. Interesting. So 0:33:04.040 --> 0:33:06.680 let's talk a bit now, Josh. You you work very 0:33:06.720 --> 0:33:10.080 closely over at Bigner branch and developing the kind of 0:33:10.240 --> 0:33:14.320 UH curriculum that someone would who wants to develop for Alexa. 0:33:14.320 --> 0:33:16.400 They'd find it very helpful they to to actually learn 0:33:16.440 --> 0:33:20.160 how to code something and crafts something. And you've mentioned 0:33:20.160 --> 0:33:23.720 before also that that one of the test skills people 0:33:23.720 --> 0:33:27.880 will develop is one about getting information about airports and 0:33:28.400 --> 0:33:32.160 potential delays. Let's let's kind of, in a layman sense, 0:33:32.280 --> 0:33:35.520 kind of walk through what is the process in general 0:33:35.680 --> 0:33:38.680 of of developing for Alexa, and then at the end 0:33:38.680 --> 0:33:41.560 of it, I think we can do a quick little demonstration. Alexa, 0:33:41.640 --> 0:33:44.200 by the way, I didn't introduce her. I feel like 0:33:44.200 --> 0:33:46.720 such a cad I didn't introduce her, but she is 0:33:46.800 --> 0:33:49.800 also in the studio with us. So Alexa, how are 0:33:49.800 --> 0:33:54.520 you doing today? Great. And if you're listening, make sure 0:33:54.560 --> 0:33:58.280 you're muted. Although you were already listening your your echo 0:33:58.320 --> 0:34:01.160 has probably gone on several times. My my parents are 0:34:01.200 --> 0:34:04.040 going to send me a very mad email. My parents, 0:34:04.080 --> 0:34:07.240 by the way, they have they're the ones who asked 0:34:07.240 --> 0:34:10.239 me to do this podcast because my parents own own 0:34:10.320 --> 0:34:12.680 and Echo, and they talked to it all the time, 0:34:12.719 --> 0:34:15.040 and they demonstrated to me all the time. And uh, 0:34:15.080 --> 0:34:17.640 the only reason I haven't picked one up yet is 0:34:17.680 --> 0:34:19.120 I've got to wait for my wife to go out 0:34:19.120 --> 0:34:21.319 of town just long enough so I can get it 0:34:21.320 --> 0:34:23.560 and incorporated into everything, so that when she comes back 0:34:23.560 --> 0:34:26.600 and sees that I bought it, it's so awesome and 0:34:26.640 --> 0:34:29.080 incorporated and integrated that she would never want to get 0:34:29.160 --> 0:34:32.640 rid of it. Yeah, I run the white I do 0:34:32.719 --> 0:34:38.040 the wife test with technology as well, and is slowly 0:34:38.120 --> 0:34:42.480 warmed up to She was resisted at first, but she's 0:34:42.560 --> 0:34:45.759 just accepted it into our home. Step one is is 0:34:45.800 --> 0:34:48.759 get my wife comfortable with Alexa. Step two is to 0:34:48.760 --> 0:34:51.920 get her into a D and D campaign. All right, 0:34:52.000 --> 0:34:54.799 So so we're I come to you, Josh, I just say, 0:34:54.840 --> 0:34:57.320 I say I am interested in starting to develop for Alexa. 0:34:57.719 --> 0:35:01.440 What's kind of the process of of learning to develop 0:35:01.480 --> 0:35:05.160 and and the process of actually developing in a skill. Yeah. 0:35:05.239 --> 0:35:08.120 And so you mentioned earlier that you had read our 0:35:08.160 --> 0:35:11.480 blog and you followed that arc. It's um as you 0:35:11.520 --> 0:35:14.320 get into the process, it's really a couple of things 0:35:14.400 --> 0:35:17.680 that you get your brain wrapped around. Initially, you know, 0:35:17.800 --> 0:35:20.280 most developers are going to be coming from a graphical 0:35:20.400 --> 0:35:23.560 user interface background, right, I mean that's the lay of 0:35:23.600 --> 0:35:27.040 the land these days. Of the applications being written, though 0:35:27.040 --> 0:35:30.399 that's changing, are all graphical, right, because it's either meant 0:35:30.440 --> 0:35:36.040 for a smartphone screen or it's on a laptop or desktop. Yeah. Once, once, 0:35:36.080 --> 0:35:41.800 once mac os and and and Microsoft Windows really took hold, 0:35:42.200 --> 0:35:45.960 we started to see other types of UIs disappear, and 0:35:46.000 --> 0:35:48.960 then we just began to assume that was the only 0:35:48.960 --> 0:35:52.439 way you could do things for a while. Yeah, exactly right. Uh. 0:35:52.520 --> 0:35:55.080 You know, however, the paradigm as we see is changing. 0:35:55.960 --> 0:36:00.880 So the first thing to understand is the skill interface 0:36:01.000 --> 0:36:04.200 portion of what I consider to be a two part thing. 0:36:04.239 --> 0:36:07.680 It's a skill interface and then a skill service. The 0:36:07.719 --> 0:36:11.560 skill interface, like I said, is responsible for resolving the 0:36:11.640 --> 0:36:15.000 user's words to the first step of building a skill, 0:36:15.040 --> 0:36:18.840 which is defining the interaction model, and so I consider 0:36:19.200 --> 0:36:22.400 consider that to be setting an invocation name, which we 0:36:22.440 --> 0:36:25.759 talked about earlier. It's the name of your skill, um 0:36:25.760 --> 0:36:28.120 and how a user is going to be communicating with it. 0:36:28.239 --> 0:36:30.319 So this is so that you can you can create 0:36:30.360 --> 0:36:33.040 a distinction between the skill that you're developing in every 0:36:33.040 --> 0:36:36.600 other skill that's out there on available on with Alexa. Yeah, 0:36:36.600 --> 0:36:38.400 that's exactly right, and it's going to be unique to 0:36:38.400 --> 0:36:41.080 the skill that you're building. Um. Amazon will in fact, 0:36:41.400 --> 0:36:43.320 uh not allow you to have you know, of course, 0:36:43.400 --> 0:36:47.319 the same name of another skill that that introduces an 0:36:47.320 --> 0:36:51.200 interesting new like domain squatting type problem, that doesn't wonder, 0:36:51.280 --> 0:36:54.160 I wonder what will become of that at any rate? Um. 0:36:54.239 --> 0:36:57.319 So in our class, for example, one skill that we 0:36:57.360 --> 0:36:59.560 teach you to write, which gives you a pretty good 0:36:59.560 --> 0:37:03.200 cross action of all the different capabilities of the platform 0:37:03.320 --> 0:37:06.399 is the airport info skill. So my first step would 0:37:06.400 --> 0:37:10.799 be defining the invocation name of airport info in Amazon's 0:37:10.880 --> 0:37:14.520 skill interface. And this is literally a web portal that 0:37:14.560 --> 0:37:18.680 you visit and configure in your web browser. So as 0:37:18.719 --> 0:37:20.520 you can figure that. The next step that you get 0:37:20.560 --> 0:37:25.080 to is defining the sample utterances that as a developer, 0:37:25.560 --> 0:37:29.080 I need to hook into UM as a result of 0:37:29.120 --> 0:37:32.960 the resolution of what the interaction model said someone had 0:37:33.000 --> 0:37:37.440 just spoken into the device, right. So this is the 0:37:37.560 --> 0:37:39.920 kind of magic that we're talking about earlier. The black 0:37:40.000 --> 0:37:44.440 box that Amazon offers you UM that leverages the artificial 0:37:44.480 --> 0:37:48.000 intelligence and machine learning, you know, the cutting edge technology 0:37:48.160 --> 0:37:52.600 really there, UM, and we train that model up with 0:37:52.800 --> 0:37:58.000 sample utterances. So those sample utterances for airport information UM. 0:37:58.040 --> 0:38:01.040 It's actually UH, it's got a couple of different aspects. 0:38:01.160 --> 0:38:04.880 One is, UM, we want to be able to resolve 0:38:05.280 --> 0:38:08.560 the various ways that someone will ask for information about 0:38:08.560 --> 0:38:11.520 an airport. And then secondly, we've got to have a 0:38:11.560 --> 0:38:15.480 way to pass a variable into the application or the skill. 0:38:15.680 --> 0:38:18.560 So I want to be able to, for example, determine 0:38:18.880 --> 0:38:22.719 if someone had said SFO or a t l UM. Right, 0:38:22.800 --> 0:38:25.640 they're asking about it a specific airport code, and I 0:38:25.680 --> 0:38:27.600 need to be able to throw that into a variable. 0:38:28.040 --> 0:38:31.080 So the interaction model has a mechanism for doing that 0:38:31.120 --> 0:38:35.479 called a slot, and a slot is it's kind of UM. 0:38:35.520 --> 0:38:38.880 It's Amazon's terminology for basically a variable assignment that we 0:38:38.880 --> 0:38:41.719 want to be able to do. So in that in 0:38:41.760 --> 0:38:46.480 that set of sample utterances, we give strings that represent 0:38:46.640 --> 0:38:49.640 how user could ask for airport information. So I might 0:38:49.680 --> 0:38:52.680 ask for, uh, you know, Alexa, ask airport info for 0:38:52.840 --> 0:38:56.640 flight delays at a t L, um for flight information 0:38:56.719 --> 0:38:59.320 at a t L, for delay status at a t L. 0:38:59.440 --> 0:39:01.560 You see the very creations of ways that someone could 0:39:01.560 --> 0:39:05.319 ask for that info. UM. Now, like I said, it's generalized, 0:39:05.400 --> 0:39:08.720 so in other words, it's a fuzzy resolution between those 0:39:08.719 --> 0:39:13.319 phrases and UM. An intent. So an intent is an 0:39:13.320 --> 0:39:15.960 indication of what someone would like your skill to do. 0:39:17.000 --> 0:39:18.839 And we want our skill to be able to give 0:39:18.920 --> 0:39:22.760 us information about an airport. And so the skill interface, 0:39:22.840 --> 0:39:25.439 once we've set up that sample utterances list and we've 0:39:25.480 --> 0:39:29.760 said okay, the words that fall at this portion of 0:39:29.960 --> 0:39:32.560 what someone says are actually going to be dropped into 0:39:32.600 --> 0:39:35.680 this new thing called a slot. And I want to 0:39:35.680 --> 0:39:38.040 be able to have that as a variable on the 0:39:38.080 --> 0:39:41.360 second portion of building a skill, which is the skill service. 0:39:41.960 --> 0:39:44.279 So once the skill interface has done that work for me, 0:39:44.680 --> 0:39:47.360 and since the information of what it found of what 0:39:47.480 --> 0:39:50.160 someone had said to the skill service, that's where we're 0:39:50.160 --> 0:39:53.840 in node land, or like David said, it's really any 0:39:54.040 --> 0:39:57.560 programming language that can speak HTTPS and live on a 0:39:57.600 --> 0:40:00.719 server One of the steps that actually happened at that 0:40:00.760 --> 0:40:04.720 point too, is after you've set up everything that johsh 0:40:04.719 --> 0:40:07.799 talked about, in essence, this is what I want to 0:40:07.800 --> 0:40:11.160 talk about. Here's some examples of me using it in 0:40:11.160 --> 0:40:13.920 a sentence. That's where the computer science comes in. So 0:40:14.000 --> 0:40:17.280 that's where it runs in the cloud, and we actually 0:40:17.280 --> 0:40:21.480 do a bunch of uh, you know, AI and machine 0:40:21.560 --> 0:40:24.240 learning and everything that sits on top of Amazon Web Services, 0:40:24.280 --> 0:40:27.920 and we generate a lexicon and a language model, so 0:40:28.360 --> 0:40:31.560 it's it's all done ahead of time, and it's almost 0:40:31.560 --> 0:40:34.160 a you know, me being a sci fi geek, it's 0:40:34.160 --> 0:40:37.440 almost like the matrix when Neo says, teach me kung fu, 0:40:37.800 --> 0:40:39.919 and then he's like, I now know kung fu. That's 0:40:39.960 --> 0:40:42.960 the part that we do through the portal. So now 0:40:43.000 --> 0:40:46.520 Alexa knows kong fu, uh, and she can talk to 0:40:46.560 --> 0:40:48.600 you about kong fu. But you actually have to build 0:40:48.640 --> 0:40:51.520 something to be able to respond to that. And that's 0:40:51.560 --> 0:40:53.640 what Josh is talking about now when we move on 0:40:53.680 --> 0:40:56.160 to the node piece, right, Yeah, so this is the 0:40:56.200 --> 0:40:59.279 magic black box in the cloud that has you know, 0:40:59.360 --> 0:41:03.239 the cutting edge artificial intelligence technology that Amazon offers us 0:41:03.960 --> 0:41:07.080 um on the interaction model side of things, and as 0:41:07.080 --> 0:41:11.080 a developer, I provide a training data. Uh. When David 0:41:11.120 --> 0:41:14.160 said it's sort of prepares things ahead of time. It 0:41:14.200 --> 0:41:19.160 literally bakes that training data down into something that occurs, 0:41:19.280 --> 0:41:22.279 you know, in near real time. That interaction is is 0:41:22.400 --> 0:41:25.760 very very fast and there's there's little to no latency 0:41:26.040 --> 0:41:28.640 um and the reason is because they use that sample 0:41:28.680 --> 0:41:31.839 data to prepare a model ahead of time. Uh, it's 0:41:31.880 --> 0:41:35.080 really cool. It's it's super cool. It's you know, we're 0:41:35.160 --> 0:41:37.520 we're living a sci fi novel right now. I feel 0:41:37.520 --> 0:41:39.759 like I'm in cryptomic con or. So well, it's it's 0:41:39.760 --> 0:41:42.279 got to be exciting too to be a developer that 0:41:42.400 --> 0:41:47.440 gets to take advantage of that level of of technology 0:41:47.760 --> 0:41:50.960 and not have to build it yourself, Like to to 0:41:51.360 --> 0:41:54.279 develop on top of something that has already got this 0:41:54.320 --> 0:41:57.080 amazing capability and on the shoulders of giants. I mean, 0:41:57.080 --> 0:42:00.279 we're leveraging all of that platform and infrastry sure and 0:42:00.400 --> 0:42:03.799 research that's that's occurred there. Uh. And right now there 0:42:03.880 --> 0:42:06.719 is a language model out in the cloud that knows 0:42:06.800 --> 0:42:10.040 all about rolling dungeons and dragon dice, which is It's 0:42:10.040 --> 0:42:12.520 a reassuring thought, isn't it. I would say that that 0:42:12.600 --> 0:42:16.239 was critical and critical hit it too a good initiative 0:42:16.680 --> 0:42:21.600 in doing that, I'm terrible. I've lost my saving throw. 0:42:21.640 --> 0:42:27.279 It gets being cool, that's not she will actually she'll 0:42:27.280 --> 0:42:31.400 make a little scathing comment about you rolling a one. 0:42:31.880 --> 0:42:33.759 That's that's pa why I showed it so like if 0:42:33.800 --> 0:42:36.400 you could aller it. But the big light of my 0:42:36.480 --> 0:42:39.400 kids rolling some dice if they had one, and she'll say, hey, 0:42:39.440 --> 0:42:41.520 do you have a warple sword? If you hit twenty, 0:42:41.800 --> 0:42:46.120 oh nice because off the head there you go. Uh so, 0:42:46.480 --> 0:42:48.399 all right, So you you get to this point where 0:42:48.440 --> 0:42:51.440 you've you've defined what it is you you know, incode, 0:42:51.440 --> 0:42:53.799 You've defined what it is that the action that needs 0:42:53.840 --> 0:42:56.799 to happen, um and you've you've built it. So we've 0:42:56.800 --> 0:42:59.360 provided the training data and the interaction model, right, and 0:42:59.400 --> 0:43:04.200 we've said when you uh hear words that are along 0:43:04.239 --> 0:43:08.560 the lines of our request for airport information, I want 0:43:08.600 --> 0:43:11.960 you to send an airport info intent as part of 0:43:11.960 --> 0:43:15.239 a Jason payload to my skill service. And I also 0:43:15.280 --> 0:43:17.640 want you to grab I want you to wrap up 0:43:17.719 --> 0:43:21.000 what they said at this portion of that utterance into 0:43:21.040 --> 0:43:24.600 a variable that I can use on my skill service. UM. 0:43:24.640 --> 0:43:28.120 So the skill service in our class is living on UM. 0:43:28.160 --> 0:43:32.600 It's actually another Amazon service called Lambda UM, which is 0:43:32.640 --> 0:43:35.880 an HTPS server that spins up and shuts down. It's 0:43:35.920 --> 0:43:39.440 kind of like Hiroku. If anyone's ever done rubyond rails 0:43:39.480 --> 0:43:42.280 development here, Hiroku is a real go to for handling 0:43:42.280 --> 0:43:44.799 the DevOps side of things UM and it's kind of 0:43:44.800 --> 0:43:47.560 an on demand server platform that we're using in the 0:43:47.560 --> 0:43:53.200 class UH and so on that. On that AWS Lambda instance, 0:43:53.280 --> 0:43:58.160 we've written node code that handles parsing the HTTPS UM 0:43:58.320 --> 0:44:01.239 Jason payload that comes across from the Skill interface and 0:44:01.280 --> 0:44:04.400 it says, Okay, I've gotten Jason information here, and I 0:44:04.440 --> 0:44:09.400 received an airport info intent UM, and I've got a 0:44:09.480 --> 0:44:12.920 variable of a t L here, And with that information 0:44:13.239 --> 0:44:15.200 I can then do what I will with it. I 0:44:15.200 --> 0:44:17.360 mean I can I can go make a web request 0:44:17.640 --> 0:44:20.640 or right to a database I could call off to 0:44:20.680 --> 0:44:23.480 another service UM. And that's actually what we do with 0:44:23.520 --> 0:44:27.680 Airport info is we hit the Federal Aviation Administration's servers 0:44:28.320 --> 0:44:31.400 and request the status for a t L. Then we 0:44:31.480 --> 0:44:34.440 build a string which is what Alexa is going to 0:44:34.480 --> 0:44:37.760 respond with, and send it back to the Skill interface 0:44:38.680 --> 0:44:41.600 and that gets forwarded onto the device. So that's kind 0:44:41.600 --> 0:44:44.320 of the round trip of how an interaction with the 0:44:44.360 --> 0:44:46.839 skill would work and what we would do as the developer. There, 0:44:46.960 --> 0:44:50.200 so got the skill interface, skill service, skill service response 0:44:50.280 --> 0:44:52.120 to the interface and hands it back to the device. 0:44:52.239 --> 0:44:58.040 Now for practical experience for the person who's actually using Alexa. Obviously, 0:44:58.440 --> 0:45:01.200 all of that information, while awesome, is not something that 0:45:01.200 --> 0:45:02.960 you have to worry about. If you did have to 0:45:03.000 --> 0:45:06.040 worry about it, then you would not really have a 0:45:06.800 --> 0:45:09.560 consumer product in your hands. You'd be a developer. But 0:45:10.080 --> 0:45:12.880 in order for you to understand what is what's the 0:45:12.960 --> 0:45:15.239 end result with that, I thought i'd be cool, Josh, 0:45:15.320 --> 0:45:18.400 would you mind asking Alexa kind to give an example 0:45:18.480 --> 0:45:21.440 of that app in action? Yeah? Sure, So it's skill 0:45:21.480 --> 0:45:23.960 I should say I have. Don't worry about it. That's 0:45:23.960 --> 0:45:26.759 a common blunder initially coming into the thing. I think 0:45:26.800 --> 0:45:30.120 I said app once today as well, So we don't 0:45:30.160 --> 0:45:34.680 have any app. That's fair, that's fair, that's a good 0:45:34.719 --> 0:45:39.279 skill idea. Yeah, so alright, so let me first, let's 0:45:39.360 --> 0:45:44.120 un mute her, all right? So okay, So Alexa ask 0:45:44.200 --> 0:45:48.200 airport info for flight delays at a t L. There 0:45:48.280 --> 0:45:51.759 is currently no delay at Hartsfield Jets in Atlanta International 0:45:53.080 --> 0:45:56.759 ladies and gentlemen, This is an amazing day. Not only 0:45:56.760 --> 0:46:01.280 did we get to hear voice wrecking shouldn't service work 0:46:01.600 --> 0:46:03.520 in real time on this show? But there are no 0:46:03.640 --> 0:46:11.640 flight delays at the airport. Actually yeah, it's it's it's 0:46:11.640 --> 0:46:13.600 not calling it's not really calling the airport, it's not 0:46:13.640 --> 0:46:16.560 calling the f A uh. But this is this is 0:46:16.600 --> 0:46:21.320 really interesting again showing just a very simple application. Obviously, 0:46:21.360 --> 0:46:25.560 you could ask for lots of different things. Sorry, skill, 0:46:26.480 --> 0:46:28.600 but you could ask for lots of different things, including 0:46:28.680 --> 0:46:31.080 like if you were curious about what's the weather going 0:46:31.120 --> 0:46:33.160 to be? Like what what was the time of day? 0:46:33.760 --> 0:46:36.640 Can you play my favorite playlist on such and such? 0:46:37.040 --> 0:46:40.000 All of these sort of things that are all really 0:46:40.040 --> 0:46:41.680 just you know, if you come up with an idea 0:46:41.760 --> 0:46:45.120 that could be uh essentially if you could if you 0:46:45.120 --> 0:46:49.120 could do it across a computer web browser, and if 0:46:49.160 --> 0:46:52.800 you're able to translate that into an experience that works, 0:46:53.480 --> 0:46:58.759 especially speech um in a speech role, then it's it's 0:46:58.920 --> 0:47:01.960 totally possible. And only that, but I saw because I 0:47:02.000 --> 0:47:04.239 was curious about this. There are some things that we 0:47:04.320 --> 0:47:08.000 do with computers where if you were asking a question, 0:47:08.480 --> 0:47:11.160 you might need a little more information or a little 0:47:11.200 --> 0:47:14.040 bit more of Uh, it might be a little difficult 0:47:14.280 --> 0:47:18.200 to explain something just simply in spoken word. Uh. I 0:47:18.280 --> 0:47:21.360 find that all the time doing an audio podcast, that 0:47:21.480 --> 0:47:25.240 it can be kind of challenging to explain a certain 0:47:25.280 --> 0:47:28.200 concept without the use of visual aids. I saw that 0:47:28.320 --> 0:47:30.799 with Alexa you could actually pair that with something like 0:47:30.840 --> 0:47:33.399 a display on an app where you can you can 0:47:33.440 --> 0:47:36.480 have a little more information about whatever the request is. Yeah, 0:47:36.480 --> 0:47:40.919 that's right. Yes, So Amazon also provides a additional part 0:47:40.960 --> 0:47:44.479 of that response from the server called a card um. 0:47:44.520 --> 0:47:47.280 So if we sent that information onto the skill interface, 0:47:47.400 --> 0:47:51.440 what would happen is we could preserve or send additional 0:47:51.480 --> 0:47:56.040 info to the Alexa companion app, which is in your browser, 0:47:56.080 --> 0:47:59.200 it's on your phone, it's on the Android and Iosh 0:47:59.400 --> 0:48:02.280 client the interfaces with it, and we'd have a history 0:48:02.560 --> 0:48:05.439 um and additional info as well um that we could 0:48:05.440 --> 0:48:08.839 display with that card mechanism. Right, that's a great way 0:48:08.840 --> 0:48:11.839 of getting around what could be a real challenge. I mean, 0:48:11.880 --> 0:48:15.719 that's something that because we've designed so much of our 0:48:15.760 --> 0:48:21.800 interaction to be primarily a visual experience, there's certain tasks 0:48:21.840 --> 0:48:25.200 that you do that don't translate as easily into something 0:48:25.239 --> 0:48:28.200 that's audio based. Yeah, it's a really interesting aspect of 0:48:28.280 --> 0:48:30.839 voice user interface design as well. I mean it's such 0:48:30.880 --> 0:48:35.600 a um ephemeral format. It's it's here and then it's gone, 0:48:35.960 --> 0:48:39.520 and it's an interesting problem coming from you know, the 0:48:39.520 --> 0:48:43.719 graphical user interface background that everybody's got UM. I think 0:48:43.719 --> 0:48:46.200 being able to hook a little bit into the g 0:48:46.400 --> 0:48:49.120 u I side of things and persist data UM and 0:48:49.160 --> 0:48:51.400 allow people to refer to that back um. You know, 0:48:51.520 --> 0:48:55.719 it does give your skill legs beyond just that one interaction. 0:48:56.080 --> 0:49:00.320 You know, for situational experiences, an on demand info voice 0:49:00.320 --> 0:49:03.040 is great, but being able to carry it beyond that 0:49:03.200 --> 0:49:05.280 is also one of the things that the platform offers. 0:49:05.640 --> 0:49:08.640 That's fantastic. Now I have a question for both of you. 0:49:08.680 --> 0:49:10.920 I'm going to kind of start wrapping this up because 0:49:11.520 --> 0:49:14.080 I feel like we've got a nice, a nice foundation 0:49:14.160 --> 0:49:16.399 for a discussion here and I think that it will 0:49:16.480 --> 0:49:19.960 really uh, it's really enlightening to understand, like what are 0:49:20.000 --> 0:49:22.680 the challenges not just the challenges, but what are the 0:49:23.120 --> 0:49:26.600 potential benefits of this kind of technology. My question to 0:49:26.680 --> 0:49:29.480 both of you, and it's a pretty simple one, is 0:49:30.239 --> 0:49:33.520 what is your personal favorite skill that you've had a 0:49:33.600 --> 0:49:36.239 chance to play with on Alexa and Dave, I'm gonna 0:49:36.280 --> 0:49:40.799 have you go first. Yeah. So, um, besides, you know, 0:49:41.200 --> 0:49:44.279 using the dice with my kids the funniest one, and 0:49:44.320 --> 0:49:46.560 this is this speaks I think a little bit to 0:49:46.800 --> 0:49:50.839 my maturity level. Is I have this skill enabled. It's 0:49:50.880 --> 0:49:54.480 called for a fart, and you can ask for a 0:49:54.600 --> 0:49:58.080 fart and you will get one through Alexa. So I 0:49:58.200 --> 0:50:02.880 actually I have dots so upstairs in my house. Yeah, 0:50:02.920 --> 0:50:05.839 all right, there's a dot in each one of my 0:50:05.920 --> 0:50:08.880 kid's rooms. And then I have a full echo in 0:50:08.920 --> 0:50:11.600 my bedroom. And there's actually a place in that upper 0:50:11.640 --> 0:50:14.600 hallway that I can say Alexa asked for a fart, 0:50:14.680 --> 0:50:20.200 and there is a symphony musical returned across the entire 0:50:20.280 --> 0:50:24.959 upstairs and I immediately here, Dad, not again. A nice, 0:50:25.040 --> 0:50:30.160 a nice chorus followed by groans. I can appreciate that 0:50:30.200 --> 0:50:35.520 as someone who loves puns and and grown and grown worthy. Hum. Um, yeah, 0:50:35.560 --> 0:50:39.239 that's fantastic. All right, So Josh, you your answer, that's 0:50:39.239 --> 0:50:42.400 an interesting one. Well, I have to say on the 0:50:42.440 --> 0:50:46.480 pragmatic side of things, Um, I have used lift skill 0:50:47.080 --> 0:50:49.919 to great effect. So you just say, Alexa asked lift 0:50:49.960 --> 0:50:52.000 for a ride, and guess what a car shows up 0:50:52.560 --> 0:50:55.759 at your door right to pick you up. Amazing, and 0:50:55.800 --> 0:50:57.799 it's such a good fit for the platform as well. 0:50:58.160 --> 0:51:00.040 I mean, you're walking out the door, you say, I 0:51:00.080 --> 0:51:01.920 don't want to get my phone out. Let's let's have 0:51:01.960 --> 0:51:05.040 a car show up right now. Uh, and it happens. 0:51:05.120 --> 0:51:09.640 That's very convenient. And there is a if you you know, 0:51:09.640 --> 0:51:11.120 we talked a little bit about D and D. If 0:51:11.160 --> 0:51:13.839 you ever played um that goes all the way back 0:51:13.880 --> 0:51:17.120 into the old bulletin board systems days of Space Empire 0:51:17.480 --> 0:51:20.959 or anything like that, there is a skill called star 0:51:21.120 --> 0:51:24.880 Lanes by Joe Jo Quinta that basically allows you to 0:51:25.040 --> 0:51:27.440 do that and you can play It's a multi player 0:51:27.560 --> 0:51:31.799 online Space Empire game through Alexa, and that is one 0:51:31.840 --> 0:51:34.040 of my other favorites. I would highly recommend checking that 0:51:34.080 --> 0:51:36.480 out if you've ever played any of those games in 0:51:36.480 --> 0:51:38.760 the past. That could be quite addicting. That's really cool, 0:51:38.920 --> 0:51:42.600 I mean, and it really does speak to the potential 0:51:42.719 --> 0:51:47.160 for things that we can't even necessarily anticipate right now 0:51:47.400 --> 0:51:50.440 that could end up being either uh, it could end 0:51:50.520 --> 0:51:52.880 up being something where you know, people talk about for 0:51:52.880 --> 0:51:54.919 a little while like, oh, that's really clever. It's really 0:51:54.920 --> 0:51:57.400 neat use of the technology, or it could truly be 0:51:57.480 --> 0:52:01.239 transformative to the point where we didn't think about this 0:52:01.360 --> 0:52:03.480 and now we can't think of what what life would 0:52:03.480 --> 0:52:05.840 be without it. I mean, that's the that's the cool 0:52:06.360 --> 0:52:09.240 promise of this kind of tech is that it stands 0:52:09.280 --> 0:52:13.880 to be really disruptive, uh, for a type of technology 0:52:13.920 --> 0:52:17.760 that's been fairly set in its ways for the last 0:52:17.840 --> 0:52:21.359 several decades. And um, I love seeing this. I love 0:52:21.360 --> 0:52:24.239 the discussions about machine learning and artificial intelligence. I love 0:52:24.320 --> 0:52:27.560 the discussions about natural language and the challenges that we 0:52:27.600 --> 0:52:30.360 face when we try to create interfaces that can accept 0:52:30.440 --> 0:52:33.560 natural language as an input. Guys, I have to thank 0:52:33.560 --> 0:52:36.520 you so much for joining me on tech Stuff, Dave, 0:52:36.719 --> 0:52:39.880 Thank you, Josh, thank you. I really hope that you 0:52:40.000 --> 0:52:43.399 enjoyed your time here on on David. I know you're 0:52:43.400 --> 0:52:47.400 not actually in the studio, but I'll pick up my 0:52:47.560 --> 0:52:50.560 laptop and I'll just show you around in a minute. 0:52:50.600 --> 0:52:53.799 Thank you. Yeah. I really enjoyed being here today and 0:52:53.840 --> 0:52:56.000 having this conversation. Thank you so much for having me 0:52:56.040 --> 0:52:58.160 on the show. Absolutely yeah, thanks for having us, Jonathan, 0:52:58.200 --> 0:53:02.000 I was really stimulating conversation. Uh. Yeah. And Guys, like 0:53:02.040 --> 0:53:04.960 I said, if you want to learn more about developing 0:53:05.000 --> 0:53:06.960 for Alexa, or you just want to kind of give 0:53:07.000 --> 0:53:10.279 a better idea of what's going on when you are 0:53:10.480 --> 0:53:14.359 using a device or a service with Alexa incorporated into 0:53:14.400 --> 0:53:17.440 it and you're wondering, well, what's actually happening? Those like 0:53:17.480 --> 0:53:20.879 I said, those blog posts are really accessible. I've read 0:53:21.480 --> 0:53:24.320 a lot of developer blogs over the last ten years, 0:53:24.640 --> 0:53:27.239 and they are written in a way that is much 0:53:27.440 --> 0:53:31.560 easier to understand, even if you're coming in from a 0:53:31.640 --> 0:53:35.200 purely just just an area of curiosity, much easier to 0:53:35.280 --> 0:53:37.480 understand that some of the other ones I've have encountered. 0:53:38.320 --> 0:53:42.719 That makes me feel good. And I not that you 0:53:42.760 --> 0:53:46.000 know it's I am. I am a budding uh podcaster, 0:53:46.120 --> 0:53:49.560 but just last week I did actually launch a podcast 0:53:49.600 --> 0:53:53.400 along the same lines of just talking about Alexa, you know, 0:53:53.440 --> 0:53:56.840 similar to the blog post learning Um. The first episode 0:53:56.880 --> 0:53:59.200 aired with Charlie Kendall, who runs in our smart home, 0:53:59.239 --> 0:54:02.120 so it's me asking him you know what that team 0:54:02.440 --> 0:54:04.640 set out to accomplish it If you're if you're interested, 0:54:04.680 --> 0:54:06.640 if you're if your listeners want to check it out, 0:54:06.680 --> 0:54:10.600 it's Bitley Alexa dev Chat or just look for Alexa 0:54:10.640 --> 0:54:14.680 dev Chat on iTunes or Stitcher or tune in or 0:54:14.719 --> 0:54:18.120 any of the other catchers. Yeah yeah, I should also 0:54:18.160 --> 0:54:22.120 mention the video series for learning Alexa skill Kit Development 0:54:22.840 --> 0:54:26.920 just rolled out. At least the first two videos have 0:54:27.080 --> 0:54:29.520 rolled out, and um I believe Amazon is planning on 0:54:29.640 --> 0:54:33.000 rolling all of them out in the next few days. Um, 0:54:33.040 --> 0:54:34.960 so those are going to be available online. If you 0:54:34.960 --> 0:54:39.000 search for you know, Big nerd Ranch Amazon training videos, 0:54:39.000 --> 0:54:41.480 you should you should be able to find it that way. 0:54:41.480 --> 0:54:45.120 Fantastic guys. Thank you again and listeners out there. If 0:54:45.120 --> 0:54:46.440 you want to get in touch with me, you have 0:54:46.440 --> 0:54:48.919 a suggestion for a future episode, you gotta follow up question. 0:54:48.960 --> 0:54:51.360 You want me to either run down Dave or Josh 0:54:51.360 --> 0:54:53.879 and ask them, or you know, just want to say hi. 0:54:54.400 --> 0:54:57.479 You can email me addresses tech stuff at how stuff 0:54:57.480 --> 0:54:59.760 works dot com or drop me a line on Twitter 0:54:59.880 --> 0:55:02.880 or Facebook. The handle for both of those is text 0:55:02.880 --> 0:55:06.120 stuff h s W and I'll talk to you again 0:55:06.840 --> 0:55:14.960 really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics, 0:55:15.200 --> 0:55:26.840 is it how stuff works dot com.