Amazon Canada Launches Prime Music

Today, Amazon Prime Members in Canada are Able to Easily Stream More Than One Million Songs, Including Hundreds of Playlists and Personalized Stations On-Demand with Unlimited Ad-Free Listening at No Additional Cost

Beginning December 5, Prime Music Enables the Power of Innovative Voice Controls on the Recently-Announced Alexa

SEATTLE – (BUSINESS WIRE) – November 15, 2017 – (NASDAQ: AMZN) — Amazon Canada today announces the launch of Prime Music, making it possible for all Amazon Prime members in Canada to listen to more than one million songs, on-demand by chart-topping artists, along with hundreds of hand-curated playlists and personalized stations. Now included with every new and existing Prime membership, customers in Canada can begin streaming Prime Music today within the Amazon Music app for iOS, Android, Mac, PC, Fire TV Stick Basic Edition and on any Web browser at www.amazon.ca/primemusic. In addition, customers who pre-order the recently-announced Echo devices at www.amazon.ca/echo will be able to start streaming Prime Music when Echo begins shipping in Canada on December 5 and conduct their listening experiences through natural voice controls powered by Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service, for the first time ever.

Prime Music reimagines music listening with innovative voice controls powered by Alexa. New Echo owners in Canada will soon be able to experience the simplicity of using their voice to ask Alexa for music, which makes listening to favourites and discovering new music easier and more fun than ever before. In addition to browsing the Amazon Music app or Web Player for a wide selection of today’s hottest songs from best-selling artists including Rihanna, Shawn Mendes, Halsey, Justin Bieber, Keith Urban, The Tragically Hip and Hedley, customers will now be able to simply ask Alexa to play the music they love by playlist, song, or album title, as well as artist name, tempo, popularity or genre. For example:

· Want to hear your favourite artist? Just ask, “Alexa, play Alessia Cara,” and she’ll begin playing music by the acclaimed singer-songwriter.

· Want to hear tunes at a certain tempo? Ask, “Alexa, play relaxing pop music,” and Alexa will play relaxing pop music hits.

· Know what type of music you want to hear, but can’t think of a playlist or album? Ask, “Alexa, play hip-hop songs,” or “Alexa, play rock music,” and Alexa will play a range of songs and artists.

· Looking for tracks from a chart-topping artist? Just ask for the most popular songs by a particular artist, like “Alexa, play popular Justin Bieber songs.”

With today’s launch of Prime Music, Prime members are also now able to enjoy hundreds of playlists and stations hand-curated by Amazon Music’s experts from a catalog of more than one million songs, based on a variety of genres ranging from “Top Pop” to “Classic Rock,” to mixes exclusively featuring Canadian artists including “Made in Canada: Rock and Alternative,” to “Quebec Country Now,” “Acoustic Commute,” and “Chanteuse Québécoise.” Customers can now also create their own playlists based on favourite songs or new music discovered through Amazon’s personalized recommendations.

“Music plays such an important role in our customers’ lives, and we’re excited to provide an even better Prime experience for Canada with the launch of Prime Music,” stated Mike Strauch, Country Manager for Amazon Canada. “The combination of music and natural language voice controls with Alexa, paired with playlists and stations developed uniquely for our customers, further highlights the value of Amazon Prime membership.”

Prime Music includes ad-free listening with unlimited skips and repeat plays, and compatibility with devices to listen anywhere on iOS, Android, Mac, PC, Fire TV Stick Basic Edition and any Web browser at no additional cost to Prime members in Canada. Mobile listeners can also save music for offline playback on their mobile device when they don’t have an internet connection.

Start listening to Prime Music today by downloading the Amazon Music app in Android and iOS app stores, or by visiting www.amazon.ca/primemusic. Additionally, eligible customers who are not already Prime members can try Prime Music with a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime today.

Every Day Made Better with Prime

Tens of millions of Prime members around the world enjoy the many benefits of Prime. For Canadian members, Prime benefits include unlimited FREE Two-Day Shipping on millions of items, Prime FREE Same-Day and One-Day Delivery for Toronto and Vancouver, Prime FREE One-Day Delivery for Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal and Ottawa-Gatineau, Prime Video, a rotating selection of free digital games and in-game loot with Twitch Prime, free unlimited photo storage with Amazon Drive, 30-minute early access to Lightning Deals, unlimited ad-free streaming with Prime Music and more. To learn more about Amazon Prime, visit www.amazon.ca/prime.

About Prime Music

Prime members in Canada can listen to songs by chart-topping artists, along with hundreds of hand-curated playlists and personalized stations- all available on Prime Music at no additional cost to their membership. Prime Music can be accessed through the Amazon Music app on iPads, iPhones, Android devices, laptops or online at www.amazon.ca/primemusic, with tracks available for anytime, anywhere listening. Eligible customers who are not already Prime members can try Prime Music with a 30-day free trial by visiting www.amazon.ca/primemusic.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.

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Alexa Skills Kit and Alexa Voice Service Expand to Canada

Developers can now use the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) to build new skills and capabilities for customers in Canada

Canadian developers are building skills for Alexa, including Air Canada, TD Bank, TELUS, CBC, The Weather Network, and ecobee

Global developers are bringing more than 10,000 skills to customers in Canada this year including Philips Hue, TED Talks, Uber, and more

Starting today, hardware manufacturers can begin developing Alexa-enabled products for Canadian customers with the Alexa Voice Service (AVS)

SEATTLE — November 15, 2017 — Amazon today announced the expansion of the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) and the Alexa Voice Service (AVS), enabling developers around the world to build voice experiences for Alexa customers in Canada.

“Our philosophy from day one was to make it as easy as possible for developers to create voice experiences with Alexa that reach customers in a totally new way,” said Steve Rabuchin, Vice President, Amazon Alexa. “Tens of thousands of developers are already building innovative Alexa skills and Alexa-enabled products. We are excited to expand our tools to enable developers around the world to reach Alexa customers in Canada.”

Alexa Skills Kit (ASK): Add Capabilities and Skills to Alexa

The Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) is a collection of free, self-service APIs and tools that make it fast and easy for developers to create skills, or capabilities, for Alexa. With ASK, designers, developers, and brands can build engaging skills and reach millions of customers in the US, UK, Germany, Japan, India and now Canada. Developers don’t need to have a background in natural language understanding or speech recognition to build an Alexa skill. From daily news updates, to interactive games, to smart-home integrations, developers from Canada and all over the world are creating voice-first experiences with Alexa.

Build Skills with Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Whether it’s computing power, database storage, or content delivery, AWS has a wide range of services to help developers build sophisticated applications with increased flexibility, scalability, and reliability. The easiest way for Alexa skill developers to connect their skill to the cloud is to use AWS Lambda, an innovative compute service that runs code only when needed and scales automatically, so there is no need to provision or continuously run servers. Developers can also enhance and scale skills using additional AWS offerings such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon CloudFront.

Developer Response — Tens of Thousands of Developers Around the World Building Skills

Developers can now use the Alexa Skills Kit to build skills for customers in Canada—here’s what they are saying:

Air Canada (AC) is excited to launch its first skill for Amazon Alexa-enabled devices. Air Canada is leveraging the Alexa service to enable Air Canada customers to get information instantly, like the status of their flight, ticket prices, and answers to common questions. “Advances in innovative and new technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing have great promise to deliver more convenience for our customers,” said Mark Nasr, Vice President of Loyalty and eCommerce at Air Canada, “and we’re thrilled to launch this capability so that customers across Canada can access AC services quickly and simply, using their voice.”

Using the Alexa Skills Kit, TD Bank has built a skill which allows its Canadian customers to ask Alexa for information about TD products and services, locations of TD branches, and even exchange rates. "We're thrilled to be working with Amazon to bring voice interaction to our customers alongside the launch of Alexa for Canada," said Rizwan Khalfan, Chief Digital and Payments Officer for TD. "We're focused on enabling customers to bank when, where, and how they prefer, through personalized connected experiences. Voice interaction supports this vision and takes us another step forward as we develop new ways to simplify our customers' lives through smart innovations that connect our customers with what matters most to them."

TELUS, Canada’s fastest growing telecommunications company, used the Alexa Skills Kit to build a skill allowing their customers to ask Alexa to make calls through their mobile phone, check billing information, data usage, and add new data or travel options. “Innovations like Amazon Alexa and its voice capabilities play an important role as we deliver on our customers first commitment and help our customers connect with the information they need most,” said Robert Currie, Vice President of Mobile Devices at TELUS. “TELUS customers can also take advantage of Alexa to check in on their TELUS services quickly and easily with a simple voice prompt.”

CBC, Canada's Public Broadcaster, will provide Flash Briefings including CBC News: The World This Hour (updated hourly) and CBC News: Local News, which will provide audiences with news from 13 regions across Canada updated throughout the day. In addition, CBC will soon introduce a custom skill which will provide on-demand access to hourly updates from CBC News as well as 30 regional streams from CBC Radio One. "We are always looking for innovative ways to bring stories to Canadians, and Alexa makes it easier than ever for our audiences to connect with us,” said Lauris Apse, Senior Director, Digital Products, CBC.

The Weather Network is Canada’s trusted source for local weather updates. Alexa customers can now ask The Weather Network skill for detailed forecasts, hyper-local weather, and the latest alerts and warnings from across Canada. “We want to be where our consumers need us and with the Alexa Skills Kit we are able to bring The Weather Network’s accurate weather information to consumers when it really matters,” said Naomi Lipowski, Director, Pelmorex Innovation Centre at The Weather Network. “At any time, consumers can simply say, ‘Alexa, ask The Weather Network, how’s the weather?’ and get the information they need to plan their day and stay safe.”

Smart lighting system Philips Hue is working with Amazon Alexa to bring a feature-rich, voice-controlled lighting experience to customers in Canada. “We think that voice control of Philips Hue is a magical experience for customers,” said Michael Gentile, market leader Canada at Philips Lighting. “Alexa and Philips Hue make smart home technology simple, accessible, and easy to use. That’s why we’re so excited for customers in Canada to get started with Philips Hue voice control and Alexa in their homes.”

With ASK, customers in Canada will be able to use Logitech’s popular Harmony smart remotes with Alexa. Logitech’s Harmony skill for Alexa lets customers with a Harmony hub-based remote ask to change the channel, pause shows, turn up the volume, turn on or off the TV, and more. “We’re thrilled to bring our Harmony skill for Alexa to Canada,” said Rory Dooley, head of Logitech Smart Home. “We think using just your voice to play or pause your favorite show, raise or lower the volume, and more, is a truly enjoyable experience.”

We invite developers to join the Alexa team at upcoming workshops, webinars, and other in-person events to learn about building Alexa skills. Get started at: https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit/.

Alexa Voice Service (AVS): Integrate Alexa into Any Connected Product

The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) enables developers to integrate Alexa directly into their products, bringing the convenience of voice control to any connected device. AVS provides developers with access to a suite of resources to quickly and easily build Alexa-enabled products, including APIs, hardware development kits, software development kits, and documentation. Through AVS, device makers can add a new intelligent interface to their products and offer customers access to a growing number of Alexa features, smart home integrations, and skills. Starting today, hardware manufacturers can begin developing Alexa-enabled products for Canadian customers with the Alexa Voice Service.

Developer Response – Now Even More Devices With Alexa

Developers have already integrated Alexa into a variety of devices including mobile phones, wearables, smart home devices, and speakers. Tens of thousands of developers are taking advantage of AVS to voice-enable their products. Hardware makers are already planning voice-driven experiences for customers in Canada—here’s what those developers are saying:

Toronto-based ecobee today launched its next-generation smart thermostat ecobee4 with Amazon Alexa and far-field voice recognition in Canada. Customers can also enable the ecobee skill for Alexa to control an existing ecobee thermostat. “As a proud Canadian company, it is an exciting milestone for us to offer ecobee4 to Canadians with the launch of Amazon Alexa across the country,” said ecobee President and CEO, Stuart Lombard. “We are committed to building technology that makes customers’ lives simpler and better. Technology that allows our customers to focus on the things that matter – their families and moments they share. With ecobee4, and soon the smart light switch, voice recognition will make for an even easier, seamless smart home experience so our customers can get back to enjoying what matters most.”

Ultimate Ears is known for its portable, wireless speakers with amazing 360-degree sound, and Amazon Alexa is integrated into their newest speakers, BLAST and MEGABLAST. "Ultimate Ears BLAST and MEGABLAST bring Alexa and music together in a portable, waterproof, ready-for-anything design," said Charlotte Johs, general manager of Ultimate Ears. "Customers in Canada can take these speakers and Alexa anywhere, with up to 12 to 16 hours battery life and far-field, hands-free, voice control with Alexa when connected to Wi-Fi or a mobile hotspot."

Toronto-based FABRIQ delivers high quality, affordable devices for the smart home. It is bringing its popular Chorus multi-room speakers with Amazon Alexa to customers in Canada. “The Chorus speaker with Alexa delivers excellent audio, multi-room capability, voice functionality, and affordability,” said Jordon Sansom, Director of Marketing, FABRIQ. "We're excited to bring FABRIQ home so Canadians can experience Alexa for themselves."

Developers can start building with AVS for customers in Canada today. To learn more and get started visit: https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-voice-service/international/.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.

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Amazon Introduces Alexa and Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Plus in Canada

Alexa is a cloud-based voice service that is always getting smarter—she answers questions, plays music,

turns on and off the lights, gives you sports scores, and more

Amazon Echo is a revolutionary device designed entirely around your voice—priced at $129.99, it's

always ready, hands-free, and fast—just ask Alexa and get answers instantly

Put an Echo Dot in every room to interact with Alexa throughout your home—connect it to an external

speaker or use it as a standalone device to access all the capabilities of Alexa for $69.99

Echo Plus integrates a built-in smart home hub to easily connect your compatible smart devices—set up

and start controlling lights in minutes for $199.99

For a limited time only, enjoy special introductory pricing on Echo devices— Echo for just $99.99, Echo

Dot for just $49.99, and Echo Plus for just $169.99

Prime Music now available for Canada—Prime members can use Alexa to stream more than one million

songs with on-demand and unlimited ad-free listening at no additional cost

SEATTLE—November 15, 2017—Amazon today announced that Alexa, the brain that powers Amazon Echo, is now available for Canada, along with three Alexa-enabled devices: Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot. You can learn more and pre-order your Echo device at www.amazon.ca/echo.

Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot are voice-controlled speakers designed entirely around your voice—they are always ready, hands-free, and fast. Alexa is the brain behind Echo—since Alexa runs in the cloud, the service is always getting smarter. Just ask, and Alexa will answer questions, play music, read the news, set timers and alarms, check the calendar, provide sports scores and results, control lights at home, and much more. With the Echo devices’ far-field voice control, you can do all this from across the room using just your voice.

Alexa delivers an all-new experience, including a new English voice with a Canadian accent, local knowledge, and local skills from Canadian developers. Over 10,000 skills will be available for customers in Canada this year, including skills from Air Canada, TD Bank, TELUS, CBC, The Weather Network, Bank of Montreal, Manulife, Aviva, Yellow Pages, and more.

“Tens of millions of customers are already using Alexa, and today we’re excited to bring her to Canada with an experience designed from the ground up for our Canadian customers,” said Tom Taylor, Senior Vice President, Amazon Alexa. “The combination of Alexa and Echo provides customers with hands-free access to music, weather, news, information, and more—just ask.”

Customers in the US, UK, and Germany have left more than 100,000 5-star reviews for Echo and Echo Dot—here’s what they’re saying:

“The Echo is a great price for a great piece of technology.”

“The Echo is everything I expected. Works great from the start.”

“Echo can fill your space with quality sound and can get you information quickly and hands free!”

“Love it and people that hear Alexa are very impressed. Best purchase I've made in a long time!”

Amazon Echo—The Hands-Free, Always Ready Speaker

Echo is a hands-free, voice-controlled speaker that allows you to access Alexa from anywhere in the room with far-field voice control. It uses on-device software to detect the wake word, “Alexa.” When Echo detects the wake word, the device’s light ring turns blue and begins streaming the request to the cloud where Alexa processes the request. Since Alexa is built in the cloud and leverages Amazon Web Services, the Alexa Voice Service is always getting smarter and adding more functionality.

2nd Generation Far-Field Voice Recognition with Beam Forming Technology

Amazon Echo has an array of seven microphones that use beam-forming technology and noise cancellation so it can clearly hear you from across the room. This advanced beam-forming technology combines the signals from the individual microphones to suppress noise, reverberation, the music currently playing, and even competing speech to make sure Alexa clearly hears your request, even when in a noisy room.

Omnidirectional, Room-Filling Sound

Amazon Echo has been fine-tuned to deliver crisp vocals with dynamic bass response. Its 63mm down-firing woofer, dedicated tweeter, Dolby processing, and 360° omni-directional audio deliver crisp vocals and dynamic bass throughout the room. Echo can stream music directly from popular music services. Echo is also Bluetooth-enabled so you can stream music directly from your phone or tablet.

Designed to Fit into Any Room

Amazon Echo is designed to disappear into your home. Pick from a variety of shell colours to fit into your home’s décor—choices include sandstone, heather grey, and charcoal.

Echo Dot—Add Alexa to Any Room

Echo Dot is a hands-free, voice controlled device that is powered by Alexa and uses the same far-field voice recognition as Echo. Echo Dot has a sleek and compact design, and is designed so you can put an Echo Dot into every room. Use the built-in speaker to talk with Alexa and listen to music, or Echo Dot can directly connect to speakers you already own through Bluetooth or by using a 3.5mm stereo cable, enabling you to add Alexa to any home entertainment system.

Echo dot is available in black and white.

Echo Plus—Set Up Your Smart Home in Minutes

Echo Plus includes all the features of Echo, including room-filling sound powered by Dolby and a far-field microphone array, and adds a built-in Zigbee smart home hub.

With the built-in Zigbee smart home hub, Echo Plus makes connecting to compatible Zigbee smart home devices easy. Just say “Alexa, discover my devices,” and Echo Plus will automatically discover and set up compatible lights, plugs, switches, and locks without the need for additional hubs or apps. This simple set-up works initially with Zigbee-supported products from Philips Hue, GE, Osram, and others.

Echo Plus is available in silver, white, and black.

Alexa—The Brain Behind Amazon Echo

Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot are powered by Alexa. Built in the cloud, and with tens of thousands of third party developers around the world creating skills, Alexa is always getting smarter. With Alexa, you can use just your voice to:

Hear the News

Alexa can read the news and give customized updates based on your preferences. You can choose your favourite outlets to provide the news or sports results, including TSN, theScore, CTV News, Global News, The Globe and Mail, Business News Network, The Toronto Star, Montreal Gazette, and National Post. Just say “Alexa, what’s the news?”, or “Alexa, read my flash briefing.”

Get the Weather

Ask Alexa about local, national, and international weather forecasts. For example: “Alexa, will it snow tomorrow?”, “Alexa, what’s the weather in Toronto?”, or “Alexa, do I need an umbrella?”

Play Music

Alexa offers a seamless, hands-free music experience with premier music services including the all-new Prime Music service, launching today for Canada. Now included in every Prime membership, customers in Canada can begin streaming Prime Music to hear a catalog of more than one million songs, including hundreds of hand-curated playlists and personalized stations – all at no additional cost to their membership. Learn more about Prime Music. Control volume and playback by saying “Alexa, turn it up,” or “Alexa, skip this song.” If you aren’t sure who an artist is, just say “Alexa, which song is this?”

You can also listen to popular music services like Spotify, Radioplayer, TuneIn, and more.

Multi-Room Music

You can group multiple Echo devices for synchronized music streaming in every room. Simply use the Alexa App to create groups with two or more Echo devices by naming the group, such as “downstairs.” Once you’ve created the group, say “Alexa, play reggae music downstairs.”

Voice Control your Smart Home

Use Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot to switch on the lamp before getting out of bed, change the temperature without going upstairs, turn on the coffee maker on your way to the kitchen, or dim the lights from the couch to watch a movie—all without lifting a finger. Echo works with compatible lights, locks, plugs, thermostats, entertainment devices, and more from brands like Philips Hue, Ecobee, Wink, Honeywell, WeMo, TP Link, Logitech, and more. Simply say “Alexa, turn on the lights,” “Alexa, lock the door,” or “Alexa, turn on the TV.”

In addition, you can use the new Routines feature which allows you to automate a series of customizable actions using a single voice command of your choice. For example, say, “Alexa, good night,” and Alexa will turn off the lights, lock the door, and turn off the TV. You can also create Routines based on the time of day – for example, you can create a Routine that has Alexa turn on the kitchen lights, start the coffee maker, and read the weather forecast at 6 a.m. every weekday and at 9 a.m. every Saturday and Sunday.

Hands-free Calling and Messaging

With Echo, you can instantly talk to anyone hands-free—no tapping or searching required. Your contacts will see your number when they receive the call so they know who is calling. Additionally, you can send messages via voice or text to anyone with a supported Echo device or the Alexa App. Just say “Alexa, call mom,” or “Alexa, send a message to Hayley.”

Let your household know when dinner is ready, ask someone for help with a task, or remind the kids to go to sleep — without having to raise your voice. With the Drop In feature enabled for room-to-room calling, instantly connect with compatible Echo devices in your home. Just say “Alexa, drop in on the kitchen.”

Ask Questions

Ask Alexa all kinds of questions, including those about famous people, dates, places, calculations, conversions, spelling, and much more. For example, “Alexa, what time is sunrise today?”, “Alexa, how many days until Boxing Day?”, “Alexa, how tall is Mount Logan?”, or “Alexa, how do you spell cantaloupe?” Or, ask Alexa for a joke by saying “Alexa, tell me a hockey joke.” And, Alexa can even tell you her favourite author, singer, foods, hockey player, and more.

Check the Traffic

Alexa can tell you the estimated duration and quickest route to your destination. Just ask “Alexa, how is traffic?”, or “Alexa, how is my commute?”

Follow your Favourite Sports Teams

Ask Alexa for live scores or scores for completed games, find out when your favourite team plays their next game, and more. Just ask “Alexa, what CFL games are on today?”, or “Alexa, what are the NHL standings?”

Set Timers and Alarms

Set up multiple alarms and timers with your voice, including setting repeating alarms. Just say “Alexa, wake me up at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning,” “Alexa, how much time is left on my timer?”, or “Alexa, set a repeating alarm for Tuesday at 9 a.m.”

Create Shopping and To-Do Lists

Alexa can help you stay organized by creating and managing your To-Do and Shopping lists. Just say “Alexa, add dog food to my Shopping list,” “Alexa, put ‘change oil’ on my To-Do list,” or “Alexa, what’s on my Shopping list?”

Check your Calendar

Ask Alexa to add or read events from the Google Calendar or read events from shared calendars. Just say “Alexa, what’s on my calendar tomorrow at 9 a.m.?”, “Alexa, add lunch with grandma to my calendar,” or “Alexa, add ‘shopping’ to my calendar for Saturday at 10 a.m.”

Echo Spatial Perception (ESP)

If you have multiple Echo devices within hearing distance, Amazon’s ESP technology intelligently calculates the clarity of your voice and determines which Echo is closest and should respond to the request—instantly. This feature is smart—performance gets better over time, so ESP will continuously improve as you use Echo. In multi-Echo households, ESP resolves the problem of two Echo devices answering you at the same time.

Third Party Skills

Developers can use the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) to build skills to expand the capabilities of Alexa. More than 10,000 skills will be available this year to customers in Canada. Skills include Air Canada, which allows customers to ask Alexa for helpful information on flights, ticket prices, and baggage carousel updates; TELUS, which will let customers make calls to their friends through their mobile phone and check billing and data usage status; and CBC, which provides localized news flash briefings for customers across Canada.

Other Alexa-Enabled Devices

Hardware developers can integrate Alexa directly into their products with the Alexa Voice Service (AVS). Alexa should be everywhere you might need her, and with AVS, customers can ask for Alexa on virtually any connected device. Devices with Alexa coming to customers in Canada include Toronto-based ecobee’s ecobee4 smart thermostat, Ultimate Ears’ BLAST and MEGABLAST portable, waterproof speakers with Alexa, and wireless, multi-room Chorus speakers from Canada-based FABRIQ. Tens of thousands of developers around the world are integrating Alexa into their products with AVS, so Alexa is always coming to new devices.

Pricing and Availability

Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot are available for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.ca/echo and will begin shipping December 5. Echo devices will also be available at Best Buy, The Source, Staples, TELUS, Bell, Bed Bath & Beyond, and TSC - Today's Shopping Choice.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.