By Dick Roppé, Resident
Way back in 1967 I remember listening to a computer-generated
voice. Wow I thought. At that time the voice was a monotone,
seemingly male, with no expression. We've come a long way
since then. Now we have Alexa, Siri and Google with its little blue
microphone as well as a variety of other "translators." Now you
can speak and your words are put into text as well as text to
voice. You can ask questions and receive a vocal response.
My favorite is Amazon's Echo Dot hosted by Alexa. She
will answer questions and play music as well. Want a male
host? Now you can say "Alexa, change your voice." You can
get a new male voice and he
goes by the name Ziggy. You can
also get celebrity voices but that will
cost you extra. Siri is Apple's version of voice
response software.
You ask, what's the difference between Alexa and Siri?
Alexa only works with Echo and Android devices, while
Siri can only be used with Apple devices. With Alexa you can
order items from Amazon. Siri seems to have an edge when it comes
to travel and entertainment.
Lynn and I use Alexa almost exclusively for music. The Amazon
music library is quite extensive if you are an Amazon Prime
subscriber. You can also expand the playlist for a monthly fee.
I love playing a game I call, "Can You Stump Alexa?" Being
teenagers in the 50s Lynn and I like to listen to the "Oldies"
and will ask Alexa to play the Kingston Trio, Everly Brothers,
Pat Boone, the Platters, Bill Haley & His Comets, Ray
Charles, The Four Freshmen, Jerry Lee Lewis, the
Crickets and of course Elvis… you get the idea.
Alexa always delivers. One evening I thought I'd
see if I could stump Alexa. "Alexa, play Andre
Kostelanetz." On came (guess who?) Andre
Kostelanetz and his orchestra playing Clair
de Lune. I could not stump Alexa!
Alexa, Play Andre Kostelanetz
16 SOLERA DIAMOND VALLEY | APRIL 2022
