The programming, fortunately, is open-ended and ever-expanding, so if you want Alexa to do something, you just need to find the right “skill.” The voice recognition varies in accuracy, as it does with all such devices. Naturally, Alexa is only as powerful as its programming allows it to be and only as responsive as its voice recognition. In the early days, this mostly meant “Alexa, play Neil Young” or “Alexa, what’s the weather today?” Echo is a “smart speaker,” which is really just an audio device with a built-in virtual assistant that responds to a “wake word.” It is always listening, and if it hears “Alexa” (a word chosen because it’s less common in speech and the hard “X” sound is easier to detect), it executes or responds to whatever commands follow, if it understands them. Lately, however, it’s gained ground on Siri, with new features that bring prayer, Scripture and Catholic media content into the Alexa ecosystem.Īlexa was unleashed on the world in 2014 with the release of the Amazon Echo, and it has migrated through various products produced by Amazon for the home market. Ask it the same question, and it reads a more Protestant-sounding Wikipedia entry. Amen.Īmazon’s answer to Siri is Alexa, and it’s much less of a papist. Ask, “Who founded the Catholic Church?” and it responds: “Jesus Christ created Catholic Church.” Amen, Siri. Umberto Eco once declared that Apple computers are Catholic while PCs are Protestant, and Siri confirms it. Ask Siri to schedule your adoration hours, and it will add the time and date to your calendar, then provide a reminder at the right hour. Simply talk, and the technology responds.Īpple’s Siri, integrated into its iOS devices, was the first to make that a practical reality.
#Alexa gospel library software#
Personal digital assistants have been evolving for a long time, as hardware and software developers seek to turn Star Trek’s conversational computers into a reality. From prayer apps and podcasts to Angelus bells on mobile phones and services like Formed (a Catholic Netflix), there are always new ways to harness this technology for devotional purposes. As new technology insinuates itself into our lives, Catholics keep searching for ways to integrate it with their faith.