Search Search Amazon Echo: How it will bring artificial intelligence into our homes much sooner than expected The Amazon Echo might soon have a rival The future is closer than you think.
 Not only can you activate music with Amazon's latest device, but the technology uses more than 300 apps to accurately let you order food or check your diary with just your voice 6169789578 Click to follow The Independent Tech What’s all the fuss about the voice-activated home speaker that Amazon is due to release in the UK and Germany in late September?
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6m and 3m.
 But these figures belie the potential impact this kind of artificial intelligence device could have on our lives in the near future.
 Echo doesn’t just let you switch on your music by voice command.
 It’s the first of what will be several types of smart home appliances that work beyond simple tasks like playing music or turning on a light.
 It uses an artificial intelligence assistant app called Alexa to allow users to access the information and services of the internet and control personal organisation tools.
 You can order a pizza or a taxi, or check the weather or your diary, all just by speaking to Alexa.
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 This creates a system that is far more integrated and sophisticated yet simple to use with minimal setup.
 Amazon Echo uses an artificial intelligence assistant app called Alexa to allow users to access the information and services of the internet and control personal organisation tools (Youtube) This is a very significant development in the rise of the connected home, which is coming as we move from PCs and mobile devices to the era of the internet of things when computer chips will be in objects all around us.
 Echo is arguably the first successful product to bridge that gap.
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 The astonishing thing about this is that it’s a vision of the future that’s arriving much sooner that expected.
 We’re still far from general artificial intelligence, with machines fully able to think and perform like humans, but the days of the keyboard and mouse are numbered.
 This article originally appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.