Microsoft adds Amazon Alexa support for the Xbox One

For select gamers in the U.S., starting up your Xbox One is as easy as calling out for Alexa. The console now supports voice commands via Amazon Alexa—that is if you’re part of the Xbox Insiders program. This Amazon Alexa skill will let you do things like switch the console on, open games, capture screenshots, control media playback, among other things. Not sure what else you can do, just say, “Ask Xbox what can I say?” Of course, to play, you will need to use your controller.

This isn’t the first time voice control has come to the Xbox One. Microsoft’s own assistant Cortana is supported by the Xbox One but you’ll need either their headset or the now discontinued Kinect cameras and motion tracker to get this to work. So, of course, the convenience of talking to nearby smart speakers will make things more convenient. In case you’re asking, the Xbox One doesn’t support Google Assistant just yet. But Microsoft isn’t closing the door on supporting it in the future. The company has said it will "continue to evolve this experience and grow our voice integration across devices, digital assistants, and voice services."

Sonos One and Beam get Alexa Announcements

Amazon has started to bring one of the useful features of Alexa to the Sonos One and Beam: Alexa Announcements. This feature will let you broadcast one-way messages to all Alexa-enabled devices in your house. So, if you want to call your family for dinner or remind them about bed time, you can do it with these Alexa-enabled Sonos speakers. It’s coming first to Canada, the United States, and United Kingdom and will be available for English messages for now. The firmware update to enable this feature should be coming your way now so keep an eye out for it. You don’t need to do anything as it’ll automatically just update your speaker when it’s idle.

Amazon Alexa app on iOS now has voice control support

It took many, many months (or even a year or two) since Amazon has been able to add voice control support to its Amazon Alexa iOS app. It might have felt like this wasn’t going to happen but it’s finally here. The update will be rolling out to users in the coming days so keep an eye for it. What this brings to users is the ability to ask for help from Alexa. Since it’s not baked in natively, you’ll need to tap a button to interact with it. But once you do that, you can ask Alexa questions, access skills, listen to music, and control smart devices. There will also be a visual component in the app for queries related to weather, sports, movies, and calendar.

Source: TechCrunch

Microsoft Xbox One will soon reportedly support Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant

It seems there will be more assistant options coming to the Microsoft Xbox One soon, if rumours are to be believed. Windows Central reports that upcoming versions of Xbox One dashboard will add support for both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. This’ll be available through a skill on both platforms. At the moment, Cortana is the only supported digital assistant on the Xbox One through the Kinect accessory or a headset. This rumoured addition could mean that you might be able to control your console through them. But it isn’t clear what features will be supported or if you’ll still need the aforementioned accessories for it to work. We’re banking on the idea that you wouldn’t need it.

Amazon recently brought on board Microsoft Xbox veteran Albert Penello to “help figure out how to grow Alexa/Echo presence in gaming.” If this integration is true, then that means the platform is a step closer to making that happen. Microsoft and Amazon are already working to integrate Alexa and Cortana on all Windows 10 PCs.

Source: The Verge