When it comes to cementing sales, a shopper’s hands-on experience is definitive. Absolutely nothing better demonstrates how well and product or service meshes with needs quite like trying it before buying it.
Clearly, Amazon gets it. In an effort to solidify the Amazon Echo’s proprietary Alexa Voice Service virtual assistant, the maestros of the Internet of Things has introduced Echosim.io, a browser-based app that authentically emulates Alexa’s interactions.
Obviously, differences in hardware mean that the demonstration won’t exactly 100% replicate using an Echo. You’ll still have to hold down a “button” to have a little chat with Alexa, but after that, she appears to be a pretty savvy, useful program for needs ranging from pulling up news, music, podcasts, and web searches to reorder certain goods directly from Amazon.
Apple, Google, and Microsoft may currently hold a comfortable lead together in engineering “smart” households that perfectly synchronize and integrate their respective products, but Amazon appears to be gaining ground. Fast.
Source – BoingBoing
