TechTaffy

tech:

taffy

Developers have released over 1000 skills for Alexa, says Amazon

By TechTaffy Desk

Developers have now released over 1,000 skills for Alexa, the cloud-based virtual assistant from Amazon, using the Smart Home Skill API within the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), says the retail giant.

A quick look at what some developers are building:

  • Capital One – Is using ASK to give its customers voice access to banking information, so they could hear how much money they have in their accounts or make credit card payments.
  • Domino’s – Customers can order and track their pizza hands-free using Alexa.
  • Fitbit – Is leveraging ASK to provide users with voice access to their health and fitness stats. 
  • Kayak – Is using ASK to give customers a way to access their travel details with their voice.
  • SmartThings – An open platform for the smart home, is using ASK and the Smart Home Skill API to offer customers voice-activated control of their home.
  • Uber – Letting users order a ride using Alexa.

Developers can create custom skills with ASK by designing their voice UI and building cloud-hosted code that interacts with Alexa cloud-based APIs to process customer requests. 

Just in

Series A

Tembo raises $14M

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Tembo, a Postgres managed service provider, has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round.
Around the web

Raspberry Pi is now a public company — TC

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate, writes Romain Dillet. 
Fundings

AlphaSense raises $650M

AlphaSense, a market intelligence and search platform, has raised $650 million in funding, co-led by Viking Global Investors and BDT & MSD Partners.
Around the web

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B to take on OpenAI — VentureBeat

Confirming reports from April, the series B investment comes from the participation of multiple known venture capital firms and investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding, writes Shubham Sharma. 
IT

Capgemini partners with DARPA to explore quantum computing for carbon capture

Capgemini Government Solutions has launched a new initiative with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate quantum computing's potential in carbon capture.