Amazon working on Alexa-powered speakers for cars

Amazon is said to be working on a new breed of Echo speakers that will offer virtual assistance for cars. The retail giant is said to launch the new speakers worldwide later this year after releasing a beta test for the devices in India in February. The report also suggests that the speakers might be launched sometime in June or July in 2018.

It's important to note that the company has previously joined forces with car manufacturers to introduce a range of features on their car's infotainment systems powered by Alexa. Back in February 2017, Ford introduced support for Alexa with its SYNC3 infotainment system. Amazon was most recently joined by the Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) development team, which was established in 2012 for automotive-based applications by major players such as Jaguar, Land Rover, Nissan, and more.

Amazon's role here is to provide the code needed for compatibility across various platforms to better streamline the production of in-vehicle applications. This also indicates that the developers will be able to create a single version of their app which will work across a range of vehicles regardless of which voice recognition system installed.

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The team is planning to finish the software development by June, enabling the vendors to integrate the voice assistant into vehicles that have AGL. While this doesn't mean that Alexa would be the only voice assistant to appear on vehicles, this will give the company a huge jump ahead of its competition in the AI battle.

Amazon keeps updating its voice assistant Alexa by rolling out new skills at regular intervals. The company rolled out a new feature called Alexa Announcements which will turn a user's multiple Echo speakers into an intercom system.

Amazon believes that "millions of customers" use multiple Echo speakers in their homes. With the new feature, users will be able to use all those speakers together using only one voice command without having to set up an extra accessory.

For instance, if a user wants to call all family members to the table, users can say, "Alexa, announce that dinner is ready," and all the Echo speakers in the house will together announce that the supper's ready.

(source)