Amazon's Alexa Shines At CES 2017

By Nicholas Gerbis
Published: Friday, January 6, 2017 - 11:28pm
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(Photo via amazon.com)
The Amazon Echo is a speaker that uses Alexa Voice Service.

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas brought another bumper crop of tech for geeks and gearheads alike.

As usual, this year’s show was more about evolution than revolution. That, and the proliferation of sensors in everything from hairbrushes to toothbrushes. But Ken Colburn, a local tech expert and owner of Data Doctors, said that one technology was clearly the belle of the geek prom: Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa.

“I don’t know if that’s a feather in the cap of the folks at Amazon, or if Alexa’s APIs are a little easier to work with, or the standard is a little more open, but there’s no question that Alexa is making a big show in ways that I, you know, that most people wouldn’t even have thought of," said Colburn.

Colburn said far more products at CES integrated Alexa than its Apple or Google counterparts. That includes Ford Motor Company, which tests its autonomous vehicles in Wittmann, Arizona. Ford plans to bring Alexa-ready cars to showrooms within six to 12 months.

Alexa Demonstration

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