Developer Brian Kane hacked Alexa to speak out of a fish robot. Image Courtesy – https://twitter.com/verge.
Brian Kane, a programmer, has hacked his Alexa to talk through the ‘avatar’ of a Big Mouth Billy Bass which was mounted on a wall. Though it was not clear specifically how he did it, but rather it was likely identified with the Alexa API.
The ‘Alexa Voice Service’ (AVS) API permits programmers to voice-empower associated items with an amplifier and speaker. Once incorporated, an item of a person will have entry to the implicit capacities of ‘Alexa’; like music playback, clocks and alerts, tracking of package, listings of motion picture, management of calendar etc. and outsider aptitudes created utilizing the ‘Alexa Skills Kit’.
AVS is involved interfaces that relate to client usefulness, similar to ‘speech recognition’, sound playback, volume control etc. Every interface contains sensibly gathered messages called ‘directives’ and ‘events’. ‘Directives’ are messages sent from the cloud to instruct your customer to make a move. ‘Events’ are messages sent from your customer to the cloud informing Alexa that something has happened. The API utilizes ‘Login with Amazon’ for item approval and uncovered a HTTP/2 endpoint.
The Alexa API opened in April this year soon after the arrival of the ‘Dot’. The ‘Dot’ permits programmers to incorporate the brilliant associate in ‘third-party’ hardware.
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In the Facebook video, one may unmistakably observe the ‘animatronic fish’ reacting to Alexa’s wake word and moving its mouth in a state of synchronization with her commands. The outcomes are unsettling most definitely which are incorporated above.
The Big Mouth Billy Bass is an exemplary of ‘novelty shops’ and ‘Wal-Marts’, intended to sing “Take Me To The River” or “Don’t Worry Be Happy” when its movement sensor is initiated. There is no inherent amplifier, so apparently Billy is running off some off-camera offboard mouthpiece.
In some way or another, this is a joke — but at the same time it is a dream of our cynic future. If anybody can place Alexa in an auto or a telephone, why not should we it on a wall-mounted ‘novelty fish’? Obviously, there are many reasons, however no one knows until he/she tries.
Reference: The Verge
