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.

The smart speaker market will grow by 35% this year, according to SAR Insight & Consulting’s Latest Digital Assistant Platform Forecast DATAbase, with shipments reaching 92 million. Amazon remains the market leader, but its smart speaker market share has declined and now represents approximately a third (33%) of the total volume anticipated in 2019. Total voice software unit shipments are expected to increase significantly to 2024.

QuickLogic, the developer of ultra-low power multi-core voice-enabled SoCs, embedded FPGA IP, and Endpoint AI solutions, announced the launch of its EOS S3AI platform for endpoint Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) applications. The new AI platform provides all the hardware blocks needed to enable low power AI at the connected device endpoint. It comes with time-series (continuous) sensors, including accelerometer / gyroscope / magnetometer motion sensors and two digital microphones (PDMs).

DSP Concepts has launched TalkTo, a new brand and a major expansion of its voice recognition technologies. TalkTo is a family of software-based Audio Front Ends for voice-controlled products. It uses advanced microphone processing and machine learning techniques to deliver highly reliable voice control, even in high-noise environments and with multichannel audio products. According to the company, TakTo will enable voice interfaces even in the most difficult classes of products, like TVs and soundbars.