Voicefirst Weekly Flashbriefing

Just like every other brand on the market, publishers are waking up to the reality that voice is rapidly changing the way people interact with products and services. Platforms like NYT, BBC, Reuters and Evening Standard are experimenting with the formats to understand where the audience is, the frequency in which the content needs to be delivered and times of the day people listen in these platforms. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

All the echo lines deals on Prime Day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The App Store turned 10 years this month. How does voice technology and skills compare to mobile apps 10 years ago? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What is the basic terminology is voice tech that it's important to know? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The voice world keep getting the monies. Bespoken announced yesterday that it raised 2.4 million dollars in seed funding round. Bespoken, a developer focused tool we featured as a voice resource a couple of weeks ago in our newsletter, allows you to test and monitor your Alexa skills. Storyline, Sensible Object, list of voice focused companies who have raised money in the last months. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In a recent episode we talked about coming events in voice ecosystem. One of this conference is the Voice of Healthcare Summit taking place in August. These are real life examples of voice applications in hospitals or medical institutions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We have been waiting on the rise of bots for years now. I remember how in 2015 people were going crazy on chatbots and that it will be the “Next big thing”. Revolutions in technology are multi stepped. It has been quiet, but it’s growing. Now what happen with voice and chatbots? With aggregated together, you can provide a seamless experience, transparently to the end user of communication between a voice app and your chatbot. Following voice command prompts, inter-related services will communicate to provision requests, such as booking a preferred airline, hotel and transport services for a meeting taking place in two weeks’ time. A multimodal, context based interface powered and started by voice; is what we see when we think of a voice-first world. All of those mediums needs to be aware of the other, the chatbot, the smart assistant, the skills, plus all the services we have available today to know when a plane is landing in Chicago, to make reservations to restaurants, everything that is powering the web to

Today's episode is different to other themes we talk here, which are more strategy driven. Today is about art, and how one artist sees speech, sound and communication. It's a quote that stood with me, and I want to share it. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.I like the intersection of technology and art, and everything else. And in terms of voice-first Ursula Le Guin paints the best picture: "Sound is event. Speech, the most specifically human sound, and the most significant kind of sound, is never just scenery, it’s always event. This event of speech is the most potent form of entrainment we humans have and the intimate tango of speaking and listening is the stuff of great power and great magic.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Apple is improving the AirPods, but what about the HomePod? Or is their strategy different to a SiriPods, then that would be cool and game changer. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What are restrictions you need to know about building voice apps See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cortana has among their featured skills like tips on saving money, location reminder, check your email, send texts, etc. I was surprised not to see more skills directed at productivity. It would make a lot of sense for them to present themselves as the enterprise assistant, effectively repurposing Cortana as the workplace assistant more than a personal one. According to an article, the assistant is being redesigned to provide a more refine user experience for consumers, promoting a typing based-experience rather than a verbal one. This is being referred to as conversation canvas by Microsoft. The canvas is meant to be a thread with all you have said in the past. This is not news for Android phone users with Google Assistant since they already have this service for some time now. Microsoftwill be looking to reposition it to other areas of Windows where it can become a more productivity-focused assistant rather than a personal one. The trail that left the lost of smartphone war can still be savored by the

If you are a voice enthusiast, might that be a developer, designer, entrepreneur or an investor you should be aware of the events and conferences, to flourish ideas and connect with fellow voice first enthusiasts. In this episode we are bringing you the most important events in voice that you need to know. Disclaimer: we are not sponsored by or in association of any kind with any of the organizers of the conferences listed here. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What are the questions you need to answer for a effective voice strategy and sound identity?When a client comes to you would you advise them to be as disciplined visually as sonically?So here is 3 things you should have into account for your sound / voice strategy.Find the full transcript at voicefirstweekly.com of all of our episodes with references. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From stories with kids expecting Alexa to tell them the weather at a camping, to one yelling Bike stop! We can infer that voice is heading for ubiquitousness. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The British secretary of defense was interrupted by Siri while delivering a statement to the parliament. Funny isn’t.The response of the twitterverse was that this was a high security concern that he has a voice activated device with the listen on all the time in parliament sensitive meetings. Would it make sense that parliaments have a smart speaker/intelligent assistant in their meetings? I can see that will happen eventually. For sure we’ll have first to sort out the security concerns and privacy issues. It might sound too sci-fi now, but I don’t see it that far away. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Every once in a while, I see a tweet of a parent stating something like my kid was trying to talk to Alexa in the amusement park or a kid asking for the weather in a tent at camp or concerned with Alexa being alone in the house. Are kids that interact with smart speakers already living in a voice-first world? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An Italian startup is developing a glove and an app that translates sign language to voice. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We played the free version of Jurassic World and it’s really good. It’s voice actors, it’s engaging, letting you feeling you’re inside a game. You are prompted fairly frequently, keeping the attention at all times, since you need to know what to answer. However for me some of the decisions felt light, it had little to no weight in the course of the story. I went back and chose differently just to try this. But the biggest hurdle for me was how fast the free version ends, leaving me with no desire to continue to the premium version. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Google announced that users can now query their assistant in Spanish. It was already available in the Assistant in Android phones. And now, Google Home and Google Home Mini are also available in Spanish in both Mexico and Spain. We ask it “Cual es el clima (What’s the weather)” and it replied with the weather information in English, presumably because my default language is English. They also introduced continued conversations, where you can ask more than one question without saying the invocation word. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm gonna play near future oracle here. It seems to me that in time it makes a lot of sense that every city has a voice assistant in every main attraction area where visitors and locals can ask questions about the city and the different services that are link to the government. It would be really useful for tourists finding their way around the city, asking for schedules of theaters, city hall, museums. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.