• Scandal: Amazon recognizes that it saves your conversations
  • Echo Show 5.Alexa becomes a smart alarm clock

Alexa , the popular virtual assistant of Amazon , will have in the coming weeks the option of having his voice sound like that of actor Samuel L. Jackson , as well as those of other celebrities in the future, the company announced today.

At an event at its headquarters in Seattle (Washington State, USA) in which they also presented their latest hardware developments, Amazon said Jackson's bass voice will be available in English before the end of the year and that the of other celebrities will arrive in 2020.

Amazon's Vice President of Devices and Services, David Limp , revealed that every new celebrity voice you want to use in Alexa will cost 99 cents.

The company led by Jeff Bezos said that replicating the voice of Jackson and the rest of the celebrities is possible thanks to the new technology also presented on Wednesday "Text to Neuronal Speech" that better mimics the human voice giving it "greater emotion and expressiveness."

Amazon also presented at its hardware event wireless headphones, sunglasses and a ring that has Alexa integrated, as well as updated models of its range of Echo speakers, including a large version with Dolby Atmos surround sound.

The company held this event at a time when virtual assistants have been splashed by controversy, after at the beginning of July the Belgian press published that people hired by Google were listening to some of the interactions that users maintain with Google Assistant , and, as a result of that case, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft recognized similar practices.

These are practices that have been done since the moment these services were put into operation and that are known within the sector, but that in many cases have not been communicated accurately or transparently to the public.

Companies justify it by claiming that, despite the advances in automated learning and artificial intelligence, the machines are still not perfect and therefore need from time to time human beings to verify that they are functioning properly and contribute to possible improvements of the system.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Google
  • Microsoft
  • Jeff Bezos
  • Facebook
  • LOC

COMPANIES Digital users, tiny taxes: Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon pay 23.9 million a year

CompaniesAmazon is painted green: it will buy 100,000 electric vans and advances Paris commitments 10 years

Finance Why are the authorities worried about the landing of Facebook and Google in banking?