VUX World

By Kane SimmsTechnology

VUX World episodes

April 15, 2019 4 ways to take your voice strategy to the next level
Since starting VUX World in February 2018, things in the voice assistant industry have changed. At the last MUXL London Meet-up, Design for Voice, I presented 4 things that have moved forward and gave 4 pointers for you to take into consideration when working on your voice strategy and voice first projects.

Read the full write up on vux.world
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
15 min
April 09, 2019Amazon Alexa skill localisation with Tech Evangelists Andrea Muttoni and German Viscuso
We're honoured to be joined by Andrea Muttoni and German Viscuso, Technical Evangelists at Amazon Alexa, to dive deep into how to translate your Alexa skill into other languages.
At the time of writing, Amazon Alexa is available in over 40 countries and 12 languages, and continuously growing.
For skill builders, tapping into emerging markets is key to having your skills used on a global scale and to growing your user base.
However, if you have a skill that's in English, you can't just point it to the Italian or German skill store. You have to localise it and translate it for those languages.

In this episode
In this episode, German Viscuso and Andrea Muttoni walk us through a step by step process of how to localise your Alexa skill.
We cover:
Why you should localise your skill in the first place
Front-end design considerations
Back-end technical considerations
Cultural differences
Andrea and German point to the importance of separating content and responses from code logic as the key to a successful localisation project. To help you visualise what that means, I've put together a little graphic that should help you picture this process visually.

This episode builds on the conversations we had about VUI design localisation with Maaike Dufour and localisation tooling with Milkana Brace and Jonathan Burstein of Jargon.

About Andrea Muttoni and German Viscuso
Andrea Muttoni is the Senior Solutions Architect and Technical Evangelist for Amazon Alexa UK and IRE and German Viscuso is the Technical Evangelist at Alexa, Spain.
Andrea and German are both more than qualified to speak in detail on localisation. Andrea was born in Italy and has lived in China, USA, Luxembourg, the UK and holds a German passport. While German was born in Argentina, lives in Spain and has an Italian passport!
They both know their technical stuff, too (obviously).

LinksContent
Andrea’s article on localisation
How to build an Alexa skill from scratch on YouTube
Find localisation source code at: github.com/alexa
Quickstart guide to the ASK CLI
Join the discussion on the Alexa forums: alexa.design/forums

Twitter and contact
@alexadevs
@muttonia
@germanviscuso
Reach out to the team at: alexa.design/contactus

Things we discussed
Crowd in - https://crowdin.com
Airtable - https://airtable.com
VUI design translation with Maaike Dufour
Localisation tooling with Jargon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 11 min
April 02, 2019Building an assistant on an assistant with Nick Carey
This week, Dustin Coates and Kane Simms are joined by Nick Carey, Lead Product Designer at Potato, to discuss the concept of creating an assistant on an assistant.

This episode touches on some unique topics that we haven't covered before, such as:
How to create an assistant on an assistant and the reasons for doing so.
The utility to affinity scale and when to create a persona.
AI and personalised VS static content and the difference between the voice interface and the backend functionality.

We also discuss Nick's design and research process, how voice changes the interaction pattern, how character and story improve engagement and how technical development mixed with design led the team to create a randomised response builder capable of generating over a million different response combinations.

Links
Visit the Potato website: http://p.ota.to(what a cool domain!)
Twitter: NSDCarey

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
59 min
March 26, 2019 Talk to me with James Vlahos
This week, Dustin and I are joined by journalist and author, James Vlahos, to discuss the details of his book Talk to Me: How voice computing will transform the way we live, work and think.

Where to listen
Apple podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
CastBox
Spreaker
TuneIn
Breaker
Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio

About Talk to Me
James Vlahos writes for the likes of WIRED, New York Times Magazine, Popular Science and GQ. His new book Talk to Mechronicles how the world’s biggest tech companies are battling to dominate voice—Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and the Assistant—the biggest technological paradigm shift since mobile phones. The book tracks the strange scientific quest—from humanoid talking contraptions of the 19th century to the latest AIs—that has resulted in our being able to say something to a voice assistant and receive an intelligible reply. And it explores voice computing’s potential to upend control of knowledge; to befriend, advise, and surveil; and to preserve memories of lost loved ones, as with James' Dadbotproject.
“Voice computing will profoundly reshape the way humans relate to machines, and Talk to Me is a brilliant and essential guide to what’s coming. James Vlahos understands how the technology works and all the complex things it will bring into the world—and he’s a superb writer too. You’ll find insights and meaning on every page, and you’ll keep turning them. This book is dynamite.” — Nicholas Thompson, editor in chief, Wired “Conversational AI is a genuine paradigm shift in our experience with technology. Vlahos brings the whole story to life, from big-picture historical context to the impact on our intimate personal lives. A thoughtful and enjoyable read.” — Tom Gruber, cocreator of Siri“James Vlahos has written an excellent book on how voice computing has become more and more of a growing presence in our everyday world. In Talk to Me, he provides the promise and peril of this development.” — Ray Kurzweil, inventor, author, and futurist“The baton of disruption has been passed from the smartphone to voice, and Vlahos helps make sense of this tectonic shift.” — Scott Galloway, author of the bestseller The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and GoogleLinks
Check out the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Book Passage.
Follow James Vlahos on Twitter

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
50 min
March 18, 2019Creating world-class interactive audio with Jonathan Myers and Dave Grossman
We're joined by Jonathan Myers and Dave Grossman, founders of world-class interactive audio production company, Earplay. Jonathan and Dave take us through what it takes to create movie quality interactive stories and share with us their approach to creating some of the worlds best voice experiences, such as Jurassic World Revealed and Jack Ryan.
We're also joined by our special co-host for this episode, Florian Hollandt.
In this episode, we discuss:
How to increase engagement and retention through storytelling
The audio production pipeline
Measuring success
Making a voice game for gamers
Earplay technology
Working with Bose on AR interactive audio
Where to listen
Apple podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
CastBox
Spreaker
TuneIn
Breaker
Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio

Links
Earplay: https://www.earplay.com
Codename Cygnus: http://www.codenamecygnus.com
Earplay iOS: http://bit.ly/Earplay
Creator inquiries: [email protected]
Bose AR: https://bose.com/ar
Xandra: https://www.xandra.com
Capstone: https://www.capstonepub.com
Jack Ryan: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Prime-Video-JACK-RYAN/dp/B07GX72SN2
Jurassic World: https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Studios-Interactive-Jurassic-Revealed/dp/B07D8KLPC9
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 5 min
March 18, 2019Creating world-class interactive audio with Jonathan Myers and Dave Grossman
We're joined by Jonathan Myers and Dave Grossman, founders of world-class interactive audio production company, Earplay. Jonathan and Dave take us through what it takes to create movie quality interactive stories and share with us their approach to creating some of the worlds best voice experiences, such as Jurassic World Revealed and Jack Ryan.
We're also joined by our special co-host for this episode, Florian Hollandt.
In this episode, we discuss:
How to increase engagement and retention through storytelling
The audio production pipeline
Measuring success
Making a voice game for gamers
Earplay technology
Working with Bose on AR interactive audio
Where to listen
Apple podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
CastBox
Spreaker
TuneIn
Breaker
Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio

Links
Earplay: https://www.earplay.com
Codename Cygnus: http://www.codenamecygnus.com
Earplay iOS: http://bit.ly/Earplay
Creator inquiries: [email protected]
Bose AR: https://bose.com/ar
Xandra: https://www.xandra.com
Capstone: https://www.capstonepub.com
Jack Ryan: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Prime-Video-JACK-RYAN/dp/B07GX72SN2
Jurassic World: https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Studios-Interactive-Jurassic-Revealed/dp/B07D8KLPC9
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 5 min
March 14, 2019 TechNOVA Voice 2019: Voice 101 opening talk
This is the recording of the opening breakfast session at TechNOVA Voice 2019, a voice-first conference held at the Hilton Tower Bridge, London, on 14th March 2019.

Kane covers where we're at in voice right now, from adoption numbers and usage figures, to emerging environments and a run through of some exemplar use cases.

View the slides and source material: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NqmndiWCF4EEke76lCFQaTKr9jyepkp0Qv_F1bV59rc/edit?usp=sharing

Find out more about the conference: https://marketforcelive.com/technova/events/voice/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
31 min
March 11, 2019 Inside Voice with Kane Simms and James Poulter
An interview with Kane Simms taken from the Inside Voice podcast, the official podcast of the Voice Summit 2019.

Visit voicesummit.ai to apply to speak or buy tickets.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
31 min
March 04, 2019Smart speakers increase in-store sales with Bree Glaeser and Brooke Hawkins
Diving deep into the usage of smart speakers in-store, finding out how a voice assistant is helping with product selection and driving sales, with The Mars Agency's Bree Glaeser and Brooke Hawkins.

If you've had your ear to the ground, you might have come across this example of how voice is being used to help people shop for whisky in-store. It's called SmartAisle. It's an interactive voice assistant that takes away the paradox of choice by guiding users through a conversation to find the right whiskey for them.
It's a sterling example of how voice could and should be applied in-store and is proving to increase sasles.
Today, we're speaking to the team that designed it to find out about:
The opportunities of voice in-store
How it's driving sales
Design considerations for designing in-store voice assistants
Technical challenges
The future of voice shopping
Earn monthly recurring revenue from your skills/actions
If you build skills/actions for clients, then you can earn money from them each month through Speebly.
Speebly let's your client's skill/action be accessed and interacted with via your client's website.
Sign up your client to Speebly and you'll get a share of the monthly subscription fee.
Plus, if you've already built the skill/action, it'll take you 5 minutes to set up.
Find out more

Where to listen
Apple podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
CastBox
Spreaker
TuneIn
Breaker
Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio

About Bree Glaeser
Bree is an innovation strategist, currently focused on helping brands prepare for a voice-first world. Bree leads the voice practice at The Mars Agency, and is a core member of the team responsible for dreaming up and bringing to life the first-of-its-kind voice assistant at brick and mortar retail, SmartAisle (SM).
Bree got into the voice and conversational commerce space via a background in design thinking and innovation. She has acted as a coach/industry expert supporting the Berkeley Entrepreneurship Program and other innovation groups in the Bay Area, to help students and professionals identify insights and ideate consumer/user-driven solutions.

About Brooke Hawkins
Brooke started her career in voice designing interactive phone calls and voice assistants for healthcare. Since then, she’s helped co-write the Intro to VUI course at CareerFoundry, designed chatbots for Fortune 500 clients at Nuance, and now works with The Mars Agency designing voice shopping experiences for brands. When she’s not designing for brands, Brooke writes about the burgeoning field of voice ethics, and is always thinking about the new ways voice interfaces are changing our lives for better or worse.

About The Mars Agency
The Mars Agency is a global marketing practice, specializing in marketing to shoppers, consumers and retailers across the ever-expanding omnicommerce environment. Mars uniquely refers to this environment as the A-to-V Commerce space, which incorporates everything from Autonomous to Voice commerce.
Mars, proud of its independence and growth-for-clients focus, operates internationally across the Americas, Europe and Asia through its network of 13 offices.

Links
Visit The Mars Agency website
Connect with Bree on LinkedIn
Connect with Brooke on LinkedIn
Follow Brooke on Twitter
Read more about Smart Aisle from the Marketing Dive
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
45 min
February 18, 2019 Anything world with Gordon Midwood
This week, we're getting deep into using voice to enhance the gaming experience, with Anything World founder, Gordon Midwood.

Where to listen
Apple podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
CastBox
Spreaker
TuneIn
Breaker
Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio

Links
Website: https://anything.world/
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/anything.world.worldwide
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_AnythingWorld
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Anything.World.Worldwide/
iOS app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/speak-to-anything/id1395178504
Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.differentcloth.speaktoanything
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
49 min

About VUX World

From the publisher's feed

Interviews with the best brains in AI, sharing how to improve customer experience and business operations using emerging AI technologies such as voice AI, conversational AI, NLP, Large Language…