Dale T

Amazon launches a $100 million fund to support the AI brain behind its Echo device https://fortune.com/2015/06/25/amazon-alexa-fund/ Stacey Higginbotham/Fortune Amazon is letting developers use the voice recognition tech behind the Echo and has launched a $100 million Alexa fund. Amazon has taken the cloud-based intelligence behind its voice-controlled Echo device and is offering it up free to anyone who wants to use it. And to show how serious it is, it is also launching a $100 million investment fund, which already has made seven investments. Amazon made three related announcements on Thursday covering its plans for the artificial intelligence behind the Echo device. The first is that the voice-activation software development kit will be made available for free to developers who want to add high-quality speech recognition and links to Alexa’s cloud services to their devices. The second is that developers can now add integration to the Echo with a few lines of code, and finally it announced the $100 million investment fund. Amazon’s move is the equivalent of Apple opening up Siri for any device, and pushes Amazon to compete against Apple, Google and Microsoft in providing a personal assistant and user interface for the smart home. The service is designed for a world where our connected devices don’t have screens (or have really tiny ones). When lights and thermostats are connected, voice is an obvious control mechanism, and Amazon wants to get in on that game to ensure its relevance in the consumers’ life as our homes become smarter. It also turns the Echo, a device that combines a series of microphones and a speaker with cloud-based intelligence, into the hub of a smart home. But instead of just controlling connected lights or appliances, it also is a bridge to a variety of services on the web such as your calendar. So eventually you may be able to ask the Echo to “wake you up in time for your 8:30 meeting” and it will have the intelligence and means to do so. Today, by offering what Amazon calls Alexa Voice Services developers can use the natural language recognition that the Echo uses to control their own connected devices via voice. So a connected vacuum cleaner could understand a spoken command to “Vacuum the living room.” Already Amazon is working with Intuit, Glympse, StubHub, AOL and others to add voice capabilities to their products. Products using the Alexa voice recognition and speech services will launch later this year. That’s impressive, but Amazon is taking it one step further with the Alexa Skills Kit for developers. This will offer developers a way to integrate their products with the Echo devices in people’s homes. So with a few lines of code a connected oven maker can enable their product to work with the Echo. Amazon made the Echo generally available to consumers this week, and this announcement ensures that the device will only get more capable as time goes on. All Amazon has to do is ensure that there’s a large market of consumers who have and use the Echo, and developers will be forced to support the platform. To help with this, Amazon has built the investment fund which ensures that certain services and products will be working with the Echo. The fund has already made investments in The Orange Chef, a company making connected kitchen prep devices; Scout Alarm, a DIY connected security system; Garageio, which makes a connected garage door opener; Toymail, a company building connected toys; Dragon Innovation, which helps companies build consumer devices and will promote the Alexa services to its customers; MARA, a virtual running coach; and Mojio, a company making a device that plugs into a car’s diagnostics port. With these investments, customers who own the Echo and these devices will soon be able to ask their Echo “Is my garage door open?” or “Do I need gas in my car?” and get a spoken answer. What Amazon has done is unveil an entire ecosystem built around voice control for the smart home, apps and anything else, all in one week. So go spend $179.99 on the Amazon Echo. Because right now, it’s the device that gets you closest to living in the future.

Thank you mwester and Michel, I had thought UPnP had something to do with online gaming. Part of the reason I thought why I had never used it. I have manual port forwarding already configured. I'll stay with that. Thank you.

Hi all, I just installed a new router. This one includes UPnP support. My previous router did not. I currently have my ISY configured with a static internal IP (public IP is not static) and have setup a ddns account via my router. For remote access, which is the better way to configure the ISY, using UPnP or not? I've never had need to use UPnP in the past. I did see an older post referring to security concerns with UPnP but it did not go into detail. Thanks! Dale

For Darkness sensitivity, is the higher the number refer to darker or lighter? Reading the above answers I'm a bit confused. Thank you Dale

Tweeted as well - https://twitter.com/dtherio/status/604525896335106048

What was gay about it? Were there two Echo's having sex with each other? Or are you just jealous?

Has anyone used a wireless extender with Ethernet ports as an option to plug their plm into in order to get it closer to their breaker box? At the moment my internet drop is in my roommates closet as it is in a central location in the house. My breaker box is in the front corner of the house in the kitchen pantry. My current plan is to relocate my internet drop to the garage and move everything there (giving me more room and not having to bother my roommate if I need to tweak things). I do have a whole house surge protector in the panel. Also have a sub panel in the garage. Since installing my ISY a few days ago and installing a few insteon devices my x10 wall outlets that I previously couldn't reach (even though I have the phase coupler in the main panel) are now functional! Yea! Any recommendations? Thank you.

Thank you apostolakoisl, I discovered that - eventually For some reason everything else seemed to work ok. I exited the admin interface and logged back in. Then it worked. Dale

Possibly because that's what the instructions suggest Some of us are new to this, so we try to follow the instructions.

Greetings Builderb Thank you for the reply and link. I would prefer to use Chrome, but tried IE for my testing. I received a reply from the folks at UDI (on a holiday even). It appears that my ISY wasn't getting an IP address. I have since been able to correct that issue and access the ISY. Thank you again for your help. Dale

Hello, Following the documentation on the wiki, I created my first program. When I tell the admin interface to save the program I get a Bad Request error followed by Discovering Nodes, Retry! error and the program doesn't save. The program is: If On Mon, Tue From Subset To 3:00:00AM (next day) Then Set 'Patio / Patio Light' On Else Set 'Patio / Patio Light' Off Any thoughts as to why I am getting this error? Thank you Dale btw, is there any way to copy the code from the admin interface vs. having to re-type it?

Hello, Just received an ISY994i Pro and Insteon serial PLM. Sad to see such a lack of installation information with these two products. I have plugged the PLM into its own outlet, plugged the Ethernet cable from the PLM to port A of the ISY and plugged the other Ethernet cable into the network port of the ISY and into my router. I have updated java on my machine (windows 8.1) to the latest version. Per the document on the wiki I have tried accessing the ISY using the following links: http://isy.universal-devices.com/994i and have downloaded the applet at: http://isy.universal-designs.com/9941/admin.jnlp Neither process can find the ISY. I get the admin interface with only a File menu. The other menus do not display and the icons that appear under where the menu tabs should be do nothing. I DO still have the Insteon hub installed. That works fine. Since the above links do not work, any thoughts, suggestions to get this thing working? Thank you. Dale

What might that combination be? I'm new to this combination and can't get any of the links to even recognize the ISY on my network, Thank you Dale