Amazon’s entry into the competition for your living room has a new skill.
Now the Echo device can read your local news to you, in addition to adjusting the lights, checking weather and playing music.
GateHouse Media, the owner of the Herald-Tribune, has joined with Amazon to add the skill to Amazon’s Echo, Echo Tap and Echo Dot, as well as the Amazon Fire TV and Fire tablets.
The devices can now read aloud the top headlines and a summary of the stories from the Herald-Tribune newspaper and website as well as from other GateHouse publications. The voice is that of Amazon’s artificial intelligence software, called Alexa, but other voices are in the works.
“We are very proud to partner with Amazon to further extend the reach of our local reporting to the numerous and fast-growing Echo/Dot user base,” said Herald-Tribune Publisher Patrick Dorsey. “We will continue to expand on the content and options available as we refine our partnership and enhance the options to promote our award-winning journalism to wider audiences.”
The so-called “smart speakers,” such as Echo and the Google Home device, are a small but growing market.
Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz estimated that nearly 10 million to 12 million Amazon Echo and Google Home virtual assistants could sell during the holidays, according to a Reuters report.
The new feature, called Flash Briefing, is easily set up after downloading the Amazon Alexa app on an iOS or Android device.
To add your local news:
1. Go to Settings in the Alexa app and choose “Flash Briefing.”
2. Select “Get more Flash Briefing content.”
3. On the next screen, search for your newspaper/website by name or city.
4. Tap the appropriate logo, and then “Enable Skill.”
From there, you should be all set. The next time you ask Alexa for your Flash Briefing, you will hear the top local headlines.
