Amazon now lets coders to use Alexa on Raspberry Pi
Amazon have come out with an online guide explaining the process for its acess to virtual assistant Alexa via Raspberry Pi.
The Raspeberry Pi is a pocket-sized computer to encourage children and others to learn how to write computer programs. The technique details a low-cost alternative to buying one of its Echo devices which are currently only available to the US territory and also provide an incentive to gain computer skills.
The walkthrough guide on GitHub includes access to necessary app data and certificates required to link the budget computer to Amazon's servers. It seemed that all coding experts welcomed the initiative.
Amazon said that users requried to have at least a second generation model as well as a plug-in USB microphone, a MicroSD card, an ethernet cable along with a wi-fi wireless adapter and a mouse,keyboard and screen.
Although the coding is limited to certain sets of commands, the guide explains in-depth the purpose of each one.It also requries users to register for an Amazon Developer Account which can be made for free.
Alexa service can be used to stream music, provide occassional weather updates, answer some general questions etc. Amazon were however a late arrival following Siri from apple, Cortana from Microsoft and google's now services.
Alexa has been offered a facility to third-party developers. An internet connection is required because Amazon's own data centres do the processing required for the voice recognition and other artificial intelligence tasks involved.
