Alexa can mimic celebrities, starting with Samuel L. Jackson
Soon your echo will help you get snakes off your plane.
During its hardware extravaganza today, Amazon announced that its neural text-to-speech technology (Neural TTS) that powers Alexa has advanced enough that it can mimic celebrity voices. The first out of the gate will be Samuel L. Jackson.
Jackson will tell you jokes, share info about the weather, set timers and all around be your digital friend, ready to answer your queries in an always-listening piece of hardware.
The actor's voice will be available later this year for $0.99 with more voices coming in 2020. Amazon says this is a special price, so if you want to save a few bucks you should opt-in sooner rather than later. Plus, we're not sure if this price is per celebrity or for all celebrity voices that'll become available next year.
For parents, or those with delicate sensibilities, who are concerned about Mr. Jackson's rather salty vocabulary, there will be two versions available: explicit and the more family-friendly, non-explicit.
Yes, we expect jokes about snakes and planes.
Follow all the latest news from Amazon's 2019 hardware event here!
