His newest obsession is creating voice-based apps for Alexa, the digital assistant powering Amazon’s Echo smart speakers. The first Alexa app he developed was a Bollywood celebrity quiz.Thiagarajan is part of a growing community of more than 15,000 independent developers familiarising Alexa with India’s myriad obsessions and cultures. "Alexa is not going to be a visiting American who is going to come to India for a few days and go back. She is as Indian as it gets," said Dilip RS, country manager, Alexa Skills, India.Building a voice app is a different ballgame as compared with building a regular Android or iOS app. ‘Actions’ is Google’s equivalent to Alexa Skills.Even so, these are still early days and a lot more has to be done to make Alexa truly ‘Indian’, like making the device understand more the Indian context and the country’s many languages and dialects.

Source: Economic Times March 29, 2018 02:34 UTC