Amazon, owner of Alexa had recently has opened up its Virtual assistant to other platforms. Alexa voice-controlled virtual assistant to Windows, Mac, and Linux users, in addition to giving the the software more power on Raspberry Pi.

Reports has it that the company has released the code for the hands-free version of Alexa for Raspberry Pi on GitHub, while Windows, Mac, and Linux users will have to make do with pressing a button to turn on the digital assistant.

Alexa also has support for Raspberry Pi has been available for a few months now, but there was no provision for making it hands-free and voice controlled. Users had to wake up Alexa by pressing an on-screen button.

With the new code, Amazon has provided developers support for make the software always listen for the ‘hot word,’ in this case “Alexa”, similar to what you get with Amazon’s popular Echo, Dot, and Tap devices.

How the app works is that always-on functionality will be absent from the release for Mac, Windows, and Linux. There have not been an official release date to the release of the app, though given improvements in the Raspberry Pi project.

The company has said that the code released on GitHub is for tinkering only, and not meant for commercial use. With Alexa on the desktop, users will, theoretically, be able to ask Alexa for the weather or look up information on the Internet, etc., and perform other tasks that Amazon’s other Alexa-based devices can do. It does not ‘integrate’ with your desktop machine in any way.

http://toralife.com/amazon-extends-alexa-ai-to-other-platforms/