I remember The Big Mouth Billy Bass, The Singing Sensation. In 1999, I purchased one for my sister Kathy as a Christmas present just to annoy her. She hated it so much that she boxed it up and mailed it back to me. You might recall the animatronic singing largemouth bass fish was motion-activated.
When someone was in its sights, the bass would turn its head towards a person and then wiggles its tail on its trophy plaque and sing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin and “Take Me To The River” by Al Green. Here we are in 2016 and Billy Bass is back only not the way that you might expect. He’s not singing any of today’s current hits. Rather, he’s been hacked.
An innovative engineer named Brian Kane took his Big Mouth Billy Bass and gave it Amazon Alexa’s smarts.
I guess he probably used the Alexa Voice Service API to do it. This allows engineers such as Brian give new uses to current tech like Alexa. You have to watch the video of it in action below!
As Amazon states, “The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) API allows developers to voice-enable connected products with a microphone and speaker. Once integrated, your product will have access to the built in capabilities of Alexa (like music playback, timers and alarms, package tracking, movie listings, calendar management, and more) and third-party skills developed using the Alexa Skills Kit.”
Thank goodness for Brian. Now, I have a new present to gift my sister just in time for Chrismas!
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