Twitter launched a new application that reads tweets for users and they only need to listen. The Alexa application can read trends and general information. The app can even read aloud information from the user's own account.
Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa, was launched for Twitter on Friday, September 9, 2016. Any Alexa-powered device can read Twitter mentions, tweets and trends. The app can also use the Amazon Echo speaker. The app can read aloud the home timeline of the Twitter account just by asking it. Alexa can also be launched by saying, "Alexa, open Twitter." Alexa is a part of Amazon's platform for voice computing, Tech Crunch reported.
As of June, there are already tens of thousands thousands of developers working on the Alexa application, according to Amazon. The said developers worked on Alexa's "Skills". The app store of the online store, Amazon, house 1,400 of add-ons for Alexa.
Basically, Alexa is just like Apple's Siri. It is a voice platform that listens to preset commands. To use it, the user just have to turn on the Twitter reader and authenticate the account. Once authenticated, the basic commands will work. Complicated tasks, however, such as dictating tweets is not supported yet because it is the human-robot communication is still prone to many mistakes, according to Bustle.
Alexa was launched in 2015 as part of the Amazon Echo. Surprisingly, the company already sold more than three million speakers by april 2016. Unlike Siri, Alexa is totally screen-free. Some of the features which Alexa packs include weather reading, ordering online, playing music, and ,just recently, read Twitter.
Twitter announced on Friday the release of Alexa via a post on the social media (Twitter) with a hashtag #AskAlexa. Alexa could be the beginning of the science-fiction artificially intelligent voice assistants such as Iron Man's J.A.R.V.I.S..
