Amazon Alexa

High school (ages 12+)
Science & Technology

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/amazon-alexa

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the development origin?Acquisition of Ivona, a Polish speech synthesizer company, on January 24, 2013
2. What is the extensibility mechanism?Third-party developed 'skills' that add new functionalities
3. How does Alexa know what we say?Alexa uses Automatic Speech Recognition to turn spoken words into text. Then Natural Language Processing helps it understand the meaning, and AI decides the best response.
4. Why does Alexa sound so natural?Amazon bought a company called Ivona that made advanced speech synthesizer technology. This gives Alexa a natural-sounding voice.

Speech Synthesizer: Technology that generates human-like speech from text.
Weak AI (Narrow AI): AI designed and trained for a specific task, unlike general AI.
Home Automation: The use of technology to control and automate household systems and appliances.