Amazon's Echo is a standalone voice assistant you can boss around

Got to hand it to Amazon, eh? Days after announcing same-day delivery service for Prime members in Vanvouver and Toronto, they now  revealed a standalone personal assistant.

Echo looks like a speaker but is actually a connected voice assistant like Apple's Siri, Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana. As shown by the cringeworthy ad above, it is triggered by the 'Alexa' word and can be engaged in a number of ways.

Amazon Echo is designed around your voice. It's always on—just ask for information, music, news, weather, and more. Echo is also an expertly-tuned speaker that can fill any room with immersive sound. So think of a hybrid of Siri, Sonos and Cloud Computing all rolled into one.  Echo sells for $199 ($99 if you're a Prime Member) but seems to be available only in the US (doesn't even show up in Amazon.ca). Good thing about Echo is that it's got the artificial intelligence to 'learn' user's preferences.