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Amazon integrates Alexa with Windows PCs in 2018

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After much anticipation, Amazon Alexa has now eventually debuted on Windows 10 PCs and will sit alongside Microsoft’s preloaded Cortana assistant. Companies starting with Acer, Asus, HP and Lenovo, all are preparing to integrate the Alexa voice assistant on their new notebooks and desktops. Some of the offerings that are being showcased at CES 2018 in Las Vegas will come with pre-installed Alexa app. Amazon and Microsoft partnered in August last year to let Cortana and Alexa work together.


“Hands-free access to Alexa on PCs can be helpful to customers in many ways, like making it simple to interact with your smart home, get news or weather, set timers, and more,” said Steve Rabuchin, vice president of Amazon’s Alexa division in Acer’s press release. “This is a big step towards making Alexa available wherever customers might need her.”


HP’s Pavilion Wave PC will support Alexa. Another company that announced the integration is Acer, which said that the digital assistant would launch on the Aspire 5, Aspire 7, Spin 3, Spin 5, Switch 7 Black Edition, Swift 3, Swift 5, Swift 7, Aspire Z24, Aspire U27 and Aspire S24. Asus say some 2018 models of the Zenbook and Vivobook laptops will feature Alexa.


Some will use Intel’s Smart Sound Technology that allows for Alexa to be able to listen to commands even over music.


Last year, Amazon and Microsoft announced a partnership. They promised that they would integrate Alexa and Cortana together by the end of 2017. Both companies announced the move at the end of August. This would’ve allowed the digital assistants to talk to each other.


Amazon says that the new Alexa app for Windows 10 PCs has nothing to do with the Alexa/Cortana integration. It would be tough to see how the two assistants would be able to cohabitate the same device without some confusion.


Amazon and Microsoft weren’t able to agree on a date when both digital assistants would be able to interact. And both companies ended up missing the cross-platform integration target date.


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