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Amazon Echo Reportedly Enhancing Home Assistant With Touch Features

By Nick Younker
Published on: 17:02 PST, May 7, 2017

Amazon Echo is already the leader in home assistant technology. But now, the leader and its parent company seem to have something new and exciting on the horizon with a device that goes beyond the standard voice controlled apparatus that has traditionally been flooding U.S. households in recent years.

In a new report on Fortune, there has been some leaked photos and information that shows how the Amazon Echo is taking its technology to new heights by incorporating a touch screen user interface with the new Amazon Echo models.

This is a staunch departure for the Amazon Echo, who has reigned in the era of home assistants by introducing their device as the first to market gadget that has been a major success. In the beginning it was believed that there would be no real limit to all the daily tasks that an Amazon Echo could help you with.

For those who first started buying the Amazon Echo a few years ago when it was introduced, the device quickly gained favorable reviews for being so elastic with what it was capable of doing. Since it is wired directly into the Amazon servers as well as their storefront, the device proved to not only be good for consumers, but good for Amazon as well.

Many people have used their Amazon Echo to order things from the online retail giant and the sales have been an exponential success for Amazon. But the device was not just built to be good for business, but rather to be a must have home assistant that can perform a variety of tasks.

For those who have an Amazon Echo, you can use it for certain everyday tasks. When it comes to making a list, the Amazon Echo accompanied by the Alexa voice recognition software allows users to dictate what needs to be on it and it automatically adds it to that users cloud account.

Many people in their morning routines have also found themselves too busy to tune into a weather forecast or the daily news. The Amazon Echo has certain features that have allowed users to simply ask for a weather forecast or a flash news briefing. Alexa responds to users on the Amazon Echo and gives them what they need to hear.

There has also been some controversies in the past related to the Amazon Echo and its voice recognition software. That includes the concept that Alexa is always listening through a consumer’s Amazon Echo device, which means that people were widely speculating that Amazon could have been spying on them.

Although it is true that the Amazon Echo device is always listening, that is what it was designed to do. Furthermore, there is a mute button that can turn off the microphone and stop the Amazon Echo from hearing you. But if it is on, then they can hear what you are saying, which may have also been an instrumental value to police who were searching for evidence of a murder suspect in 2016.

But with these new leaked images that have come out for the Amazon Echo, there is also speculation that Amazon could now be watching you through the graphic user interface. Although this could be the case with touch screen phones and tablets, it appears as though such technology will have its own set of moral and ethical practices attached to it when it is sold to the consumer.

This new device would essentially connect an Amazon Echo with a touch screen that will help a consumer use it for desired tasks that are not voice activated. One other obvious benefit to this feature is for those who play music – the new Amazon Echo device could display a playlist. It could also display your grocery lists as well. But Amazon is not commenting on it yet.

[Featured Image by Ethan Miller/Getty Images]

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