Originally posted on TechCrunch:
Amazon has today announced that two new companies, Musaic and Rachio, are being added to the Amazon Echo platform with investments from the $100 million Alexa Fund.
With the Amazon Echo, which is in many ways a first-of-its-kind device, Amazon is taking a different approach to building out the voice-powered home assistant's feature set.
Instead of trying to do it all, Amazon is tapping various developers to build on the Alexa API, connecting third-party devices and services to the system for as much user functionality as possible.
For those of you who are new to the Amazon Echo, it's a voice-powered IoT device that sits in the home and responds to queries. These queries can include informational questions (how tall is the Empire State building?), a request to turn on the lights through a forthcoming SmartThings integration, or simply an addition to your Amazon shopping list.
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