Amazon Announces Voice Interoperability Initiative with Leading Technology Companies

Amazon, Baidu, Sony, BMW, Microsoft, Bose, Tencent, Orange, Salesforce, Harman, Logitech, Verizon, Sonos, Spotify, Sound United, and more are joining forces to promote choice by supporting multiple, interoperable voice services on a single device. The idea is to offer multiple, simultaneous wake words, so users can access multiple voice services by simply saying the corresponding wake word – from Alexa and Cortana to Orange’s Djingo, Salesforce’s Einstein, and more.

Microsoft announced a new raft of hardware products, where it surprised the market with the introduction of its first "premium and smart" headphones. The new Microsoft Surface Bluetooth noise-cancelling headphones are designed to complement the company's latest range of Surface computers, highlighting the integration with Windows 10 services and experiences. If that strategy will appeal to consumers or not that's a big question, but there's no doubt that the Surface Headphones are well-designed and combine an interesting set of unique features.

Sensory, the originator of wake words for personal assistants, raised the performance bar for always-listening wake word and speech recognition with significant upgrades to the embedded AI in its sixth generation of TrulyHandsfree, boosting the technology's already industry-leading wake word performance and accuracy by more than 65 percent. The new solution introduces upgraded turn-key voice interface solutions for devices of all shapes, sizes and power requirements.