Amazon’s Alexa is getting a new Whisper mode feature which is rolling to users in the USA and works in U.S English language. As the name suggests, it is particularly useful during bedtime or nighttime scenarios, when you want to keep the room as quiet as possible.
Amazon seems to be constantly working on bringing new features to Alexa and at the Amazon’s September event, the company showcased a smart- home feature for Echo devices called “Alexa Guard.” This sound-detection technology will allow Alexa to recognize smoke alarm, carbon monoxide alarms, and the sounds of glass breaking. Both the Alexa guard and Whisper Mode use a machine-learning network known as a long short-term memory.
The incoming audio signals are broken into ultrashort snippets, and the long short-term memory network processes them in order. The key factor here would the judgment about preceding snippets as to whether the new snippet is a whisper or alarm. In this way, it can learn systematic relationships between segments of an audio signal that are separated in time.
Amazon recently patented tech that would allow Alexa to tell if you’re sick, then offer to sell you meds – like cough drops. The system could also detect emotion, like joy, anger or sorrow. As for the Whisper mode, you can enable it from the settings in the Alexa App or it can also be enabled by voice, simply by saying “Alexa, turn on whisper mode.”