NEWS
Universal Music Group expands catalog for Amazon Prime Members to Stream
Fire up your Echo friends! Because Amazon has announced that Prime members in the U.S. and U.K. now have access to even more great music - popular and award-winning Universal Music Group artists are now available for unlimited listening on Prime Music. Party on Garth.
Blast Off with the API catalog from NASA
Are you looking for a rich source of data to build that next fun Alexa Skill? NASA has a treasure trove of data, just waiting for you to leverage. Start your exploration of NASA'a space data, and boldly go where no Alexa Skill has gone before!
CODE
Amazon Echo Alexa's App Kit Ruby Implementation
This gem implements a quick back-end service for deploying applications for Amazon's Echo (Alexa). If you use Ruby then Damian and Dave have created a stepping off point for you, including samples and a video tutorial. Thanks guys!
Adding voice recognition to your Java programs
This article is the first in a two-part series. In it, Barry Burd introduces Amazon Echo, while in the second article he shows how to code with Echo, adding voice recognition to a Java program.
Amazon Echo (Alexa) skill to read out recent earthquakes in the world
From Lucas Burson comes this Amazon Echo skill. Using the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) SDK it can be easily deployed to AWS Lambda. NOTE: The service does not report earthquakes with a magnitude less than 3.0, or earthquakes over multiple days.
.NET meets Alexa
A .NET library that simplifies Alexa skills development; interface-compatible with Amazon's Alexa Skills Kit for Java from Ștefan Negrițoiu.
TOOLS
Utterances Tool on RequireBin
This week we bring you another tool for defining Utterances for the Alexa Skills Kit. This tool lets you edit 100% of the js code that makes it work. Very handy!
CONTROL THIS
Using Amazon Echo to control the home
While not an Alexa Skill, this GitHub repo is interesting and popular. The contributors have developed a way to scrape the Echo command history and then take action via a Sinatra server. Creative!
'Alexa, hit the lights': Amazon Echo adds Insteon support - CNET
The number of devices that you can control from the Echo just grew by 20+. Amazon Echo now works with the Insteon Hub to control additional connected home devices. The Insteon service is compatible with several connected home devices and makes it easy to manage and sync those devices with your Amazon Echo.
ALEXA FUND
Petnet is the Latest Alexa Fund Recipient
Now you can feed your pet by talking to Alexa. Have you applied to The Alexa Fund yet?
COMMENT
Welcome to Issue Number Two. Amazon added support for Insteon devices this past week, expanding the controllable universe of things. Amazon also added a lot more music to Prime Music, expanding our listening pleasure. And we added lots of new subscribers, expanding our reach.
Feel free to drop me a note with any links, tips or suggestions.
Mark Carpenter