Alexa Skills or The Unexpected Virtue of Laziness !! Aswini Dasika Principal Software Engineer DWP Digital

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Necessity Laziness is the mother of invention.

Alexa intelligent personal assistant developed by Amazon capable of voice interaction music playback making to-do lists setting alarms streaming podcasts playing audiobooks providing weather, traffic, and other real-time information can control compatible smart devices such as light bulbs, TVs etc.

Echo (1st Gen) Echo Dot Echo Plus (built-in ZigBee smart home hub) Echo Show Echo Buttons (Alexa Gadgets) Echo (2nd Gen)

Demo Polygon Pal

Wiggle Your Parts!! Demo

AWS DEVELOPER CONSOLE Building an Alexa Skill

AWS MANAGEMENT CONSOLE Building an Alexa Skill

Sample Intent Handling Code exports.handler = function (event, context) { try { // Restrict this function to just a given skill id if (event.session.application.applicationId !== “your_skill_id”) { context.fail("Invalid Application ID"); } if (event.session.new) { onSessionStarted({requestId: event.request.requestId}, event.session); } if (event.request.type === "LaunchRequest") { onLaunch(event.request, event.session, function callback(sessionAttributes, speechletResponse) { context.succeed(buildResponse(sessionAttributes, speechletResponse)); }); } else if (event.request.type === "IntentRequest") { onIntent(event.request, event.session, function callback(sessionAttributes, speechletResponse) { context.succeed(buildResponse(sessionAttributes, speechletResponse)); }); } else if (event.request.type === "SessionEndedRequest") { onSessionEnded(event.request, event.session); context.succeed(); } } catch (e) { context.fail("Exception: " + e); } };

function onIntent(intentRequest, session, callback) { var intent = intentRequest.intent, intentName = intentRequest.intent.name; // dispatch custom intents to handlers here if (intentName === 'WiggleIndicator') { handleWiggleRequest(intent, session, callback, false); } else if (intentName === 'FailIndicator') { handleFailRequest(intent, session, callback, false, “"); } else if (intentName === 'AMAZON.YesIntent') { handleYesRequest(intent, session, callback); } else if (intentName === 'AMAZON.NoIntent') { handleNoRequest(intent, session, callback); } else if (intentName === 'AMAZON.HelpIntent') { handleHelpRequest(intent, session, callback); } else if (intentName === 'AMAZON.CancelIntent' || intentName == 'AMAZON.StopIntent') { handleStopRequest(intent, session, callback); } else { throw "Invalid intent"; } }

function handleWiggleRequest(intent, session, callback, atLaunch) { if(intent.slots) { var wiggleIndicatorsSlot = intent.slots.WiggleIndicators; var wiggleIndicatorName; if (wiggleIndicatorsSlot && wiggleIndicatorsSlot.value) { wiggleIndicatorName = wiggleIndicatorsSlot.value.toLowerCase(); } /* YOUR SKILL LOGIC HERE */ var output = “SOMETHING FOR ALEXA TO SAY"; var speechletResponse = buildSSMLSpeechletResponse(output, "", "false"); callback(session.attributes, speechletResponse); } else { /* SOMETHING WRONG, HANDLE IT ! */ } } function handleFailRequest(intent, session, callback, wrongPlayOption, wiggleIndicatorName) { /* YOU KNOW THE PLAYER FAILED IF YOU ARE HERE, SO NO NEED TO INTERROGATE INTENT AND THE SLOT */ /* LOGIC TO GATHER GAME SCORES etc. HERE */ output = “SOMETHING FOR ALEXA TO SAY UPON PLAYER”S FAILURE OR GAME ENDED"; speechletResponse = buildSSMLSpeechletResponse(output, "", "true"); callback(session.attributes, speechletResponse); } }

Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/speech-synthesis-markup-language-ssml-reference.html function getApplauseSSML(score) { var applauseSSML = ""; if (score <= 2 ) { applauseSSML = ""; } else if(score <= 10 ) { applauseSSML = ""; } else { applauseSSML = ""; } return applauseSSML; }

function buildSSMLSpeechletResponse(output, repromptText, shouldEndSession) { return { outputSpeech: { type: "SSML", ssml: output }, reprompt: { outputSpeech: { type: "SSML", ssmlssml: repromptText } }, shouldEndSession: shouldEndSession }; } function buildSpeechletResponse(title, output, shouldEndSession) { return { outputSpeech: { type: "PlainText", text: output }, card: { type: "Simple", title: title, content: output } shouldEndSession: shouldEndSession }; }

Alexa Skills Lingo Alexa, ask polygon pal about a pentagon } } —> Wake Word —> Launch Phrase —> Invocation Name } } —> Utterance • Alexa • Echo • Computer • Amazon —> • Ask • Launch • Play • Tell • & more at —> https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/understanding-how-users-invoke-custom-skills.html

Alexa Skill Certification and Publishing Amazon’s skills promotion and incentives - alexa swag - monetary rewards - advertising

More Games.. err Demos ? Mind Your Words - DynamoDB What3Words - Google Location API, Amazon Device API, What3Words API Mark My Words - Word based game, DynamoDB

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk Let’s have some laugh !!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_language_processing#Natural_language_processing_APIs

What kind of skills can I build ? • Custom Skills • Smart Home Skills • Flash Briefing Skills • Video Skills • List Skills https://developer.amazon.com/docs/ask-overviews/understanding-the-different-types-of-skills.html

12 reasons to be developing Alexa Skills right now https://medium.com/voiceflow/12-reasons-to-be-developing-alexa-skills-right-now-c4c93cf8f7f6

Potential for Voice Control Technology in Application Development Paper Forms —> Email Attachments —> Web Forms —> Voice Interactive Technology

• Can revolutionise how our customers interact with our product - Do away with web forms ? • Improve accessibility with a new way to solve problems - Take commands by voice DEMO - JobSearch skill • Natural Language Processing (NLP) APIs - use them to create organisation specific NLP universe and host them on-premise using Alexa for business. • Amazon Lex - sophisticated, natural language chatbots with flexibility of natural language understanding (NLU) and automatic speech recognition (ASR)

Alexa, Say Thank You ! [email protected] @aswinidasika