Blog: voice control

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Facebook Launches Its Smart Speaker: A Few Strategic Considerations For Portal

Cover image for Facebook Launches Its Smart Speaker: A Few Strategic Considerations For Portal
Zach Fuller
Earlier this year, MIDiA predicted that Facebook would join the smart speaker market. A TV dongle or smart speaker: It makes strategic sense for Facebook to develop a TV dongle like Amazon’s Fire Stick or smart speaker like Apple’s HomePod, to give it a hardware foothold in the home—something that Oculus clearly is not going to be anytime soon, if ever.
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Walled Gardens: How Does Amazon and Google’s Approach Compare to Apple’s?

Zach Fuller
Having begun to embed itself within popular consciousness throughout 2017, voice control is poised to extend its influence and usher in the latest hardware paradigm shift in tech. What is important to consider is that in these early days of the technology, the charge is being led by two companies with a far less decorated history of delivering hardware: Amazon and Google.
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Quick Take: Why Amazon and Microsoft Are Joining Forces on Voice

Zach Fuller
Amazon and Microsoft have announced they will be collaborating around the Echo by allowing Microsoft’s Cortana service to be accessed through the voice control device. Whilst the move is not a direct merger between the company’s two respective voice assistants, it will now allow users commanding Cortana to open Alexa, meaning you will now be able to launch one of over 18,000 Alexa skills.
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Thoughts On Second-Order Effects For Content Discovery in Voice

Zach Fuller
Second-order effects are rarely considered when new technologies come to the fore and reach critical mass. For example, the realisation of smartphones, the emergence of Apple's app store and the ubiquity of Wi-Fi and cheap, effective data in mature digital markets means a service such as WhatsApp makes more immediate sense, but Uber and Snapchat are less obvious.
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Why the Voice Control Landscape Will Be So Competitive

Cover image for Why the Voice Control Landscape Will Be So Competitive
Zach Fuller
Withthe success of Prime and the Echo, Amazon at present is experiencing the same halo effect that graced Microsoft in the 90s and Apple in the 00s. Withtheir finger on the pulse of everything from entertainment (Manchester by-the-sea, American Gods) to drones, there appears to be a consensus that save for anti-trust legislation, Amazon will become the first $1 Trillion market cap company.
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