The Show 5 is wedge-shaped, like the Show, with a screen about he size of the average mobile phone. The screen is nice and bright, with a good resolution. The sound is quite wonderful, far better than the similarly sized Spot. One feature I like a lot is a physical switch in the case, which covers the camera. This is quite appropriate, as I can see this being an excellent bedside device.
Tag: alexa
Some time ago, I posted how Storyline, the free online tool I had used to write my first Alexa skills, had changed to Invocable, a paid platform charging developer level charges for hosting (i.e. hundreds of dollars a month).
At the time, however, they said existing skills would continue to work, even if you didn’t pay, you just wouldn’t be able to make changes.
A few months ago, I discovered that as well as the familiar (to me)
“Alexa, what is the temperature”,
I’ve been playing with writing Alexa skills recently, using the Storyline tool.
Storyline is great for writing scripted skills, and also has facilities for connecting to other online applications to exchange data, via JSON and simple GET/POST connections.
I have been playing with Alexa Skills for some time, and having great fun.
Until recently, all of my skills were private. If you design an Alexa Skill but never publish it, it remains in Dev – it is accessible to all of your own Echo devices, but not to the outside world. This is actually extremely useful, as you can write your own personal skills to do quite specific tasks.