Amazon’s Alexa skills has now attained the ability of gaining information regarding its user’s locations. Today, Amazon has unveiled the Device Address API which enables the skill developers to integrate location into the services it provides to the users. Unlike the GPS, the Device Address API does not track down the users address, rather, it simple shares the address of the device holder.
In a blog post made today, Alexa propagandist Jeff Blankenburg mentioned:
Your skill, for example, can deliver food and groceries to a customer’s home or provide directions to a nearby gym.
Alexa skills default setting would be not to share the location, however, user may change it if they want.
The device will seek user’s permission regarding the sharing of his or her postal code, country, or full address with a skill, and such permissions will be provided within the Alexa app itself, said Blankenburg. In order to regulate the device location settings, one may find the list of relevant options under device options in the settings of the Alexa app.
Also, a brand new skill analytics dashboard has been introduced today, specifically for the developers of Alexa skills. This dashboard is capable of trailing information like monthly analysis of skills adoption rate, completely unique utterances, or the specific time of the day users interact the most with skills.
Last November, Alexa was also provided with a library of certain pre-loaded commands which made the device a lot more smarter.
Real, the German chain store which provides local news, discounts, or information regarding big events in a locale is one of the first users of Device Address API, along with Just Eat, which utilizes the service for delivering foods. AccuWeather is another big brand name in the list which is utilizing the API for more accurate weather analysis.
