Alexa developers have integrated digital assistant with Wolfram Alpha

Source: Techcrunch

The other day, the Alexa voice assistant development team has expanded the capabilities of the gadget. Service connected to the knowledge base Wolfram Alpha. Unfortunately, the update is relevant only for users from the US - if Alexa will show itself well, the experience will spread to other regions.

Amazon’s voice assistant now knows how to answer complex scientific questions as well as perform calculations. For example, if you ask what is the maximum flight altitude for birds of a certain type, the voice assistant can easily cope with this task.

In addition, Alexa will be able to answer rather complex questions about the region’s climate features (for example, to talk about the parameters of the wind rose) or to calculate some elements necessary for the user. So far it is unclear exactly how the user can dictate the commands in question.

Wolfram obtains data from the databases of many third-party services, including Crunchbase. Alexa is connected to such services as iMDB, AccuWeather, Yelp, Wikipedia and many others. Walfram Alpha for user requests gives a detailed response with a large amount of data. How Alexa will communicate to the user such answers is not yet completely clear. In addition, the developers did not say whether Alexa could cope with complex mathematical calculations.

Now Alexa is working on a large number of devices, including cars, smart cameras and even microwaves. In the latter case, we are talking about a microwave oven AmazonBasics Microwave. She understands voice commands and, if necessary, can order a popcorn bag if the house has run out of supplies.

Alexa's closest competitor, Apple's Siri digital assistant, got integration with Wolfram back in 2011, after the release of the iPhone 4S. Another competitor, Google Assistant, does not integrate with Wolfram; instead, the company’s own resources are used.