It's nearly impossible to turn on a television, open a magazine, walk into a retail store, shop online or turn on the radio without hearing about a new smart speaker. The world is rapidly changing to a 'screen-less' world and your voice, now more than ever is in control.
This holiday season, smart speakers will be the hottest gift item due to their low cost and infinite power as a digital assistant. Simple tasks such as finding time and weather, recipes, sports scores and news headlines become as easy as saying "start" or "play".AirKast is proud to have been asked to be a beta partner in the development of Cortana smart speaker skills for Microsoft. The newly released "Invoke" speaker from Harman-Kardon is the newest entry into the home entertainment world. It's sleek design, numerous speakers for high fidelity playback and tap pad for shortcuts are just part of this amazing new product. Inside the Invoke are three woofers, three tweeters, two passive radiators, and a 40 - watt amplifier that creates a 360 degree sound that can fill a room and seven microphones so it can hear you from anywhere. Check out the full capabilities here.
What also differentiates the Cortana is that it not only works with smart speakers, it's compatible and/or pre-installed on all Windows 10 personal computers and Xbox and even your Android and Apple phones; opening up a whole new world beyond its competitors. This ubiquitous distribution across multiple platforms is the first step in voice activation, anywhere, anytime and on any device. It integrates with Skype, Linkedin, Outlook and Office 365 to name a few creating seamless integration into your daily personal and business life. Another difference is that Cortana works with "AI or Artificial Intelligence" Bot's, little pieces of code that control your voice commands. No more need to install skills or say "Alexa play" all you have to do is tap Cortana say "Start" and your audio session begins.
The world of AI in 2017 will be everywhere from personal assistants and smart speakers to industrial automation, the power of the human voice is changing the world at lightning speed and AirKast will continue to build smart speaker skills on all platforms for our clients as they emerge.
