WHEN THE INTERNET DISAPPEARS—DIGITIZATION 2.0
Does LogTrade Work With Alexa?
Yes, of course.
LogTrade works with Madame A, as she is called on American radio shows, at least if she has been allowed to come into the studio and has been turned on, and if she has not been programmed to answer to another name, such as “Computer.”
We are talking about Alexa, the AI brain behind Amazon’s voice-controlled Echo device. She is the most popular home robot in the world with more than 20 million users in the US. Alexa can help you out in a number of ways. Just say “Alexa” followed by your request and she will deliver. For example, you can order groceries that are running out while you are standing in front of your refrigerator.
Alexa is a service provided by Amazon that can be built into all kinds of products on the market. Therefore, she is not tied exclusively to Amazon Echo, but she can be implemented into many different kinds of products, such as your refrigerator or your car. That way, she becomes an integrated part of the so-called Internet-of-Things concept.
But What Does LogTrade Have To Do With Alexa?
LogTrade can be used with Alexa in two ways:
- As a sender of goods, you can connect your Amazon Prime account to a LogTrade account and thus ask Alexa to give you the shipping statistics from yesterday. Alternatively, why not use Alexa to create an end-of-day manifest?
- You can also use Alexa to send data to your customers. Then, those of your customers that also use Alexa, can simply call out “Alexa, when will my package be delivered?” or “Alexa, how will my package be delivered?” or why not “Alexa, which packages am I going to have delivered today?” The question will be answered truthfully by Alexa. Without even having taken your phone out of your pocket or opened the lid of your laptop, you and your customer have made use of LogTrade’s various features.
The Contractor, Alexa, and LogTrade
So what would a normal day look like for say, the contractor Stefan Olsson from Malmö, Sweden, with LogTrade integrated into Alexa?
Stefan would get into his car, start the engine and ask “Alexa, what does my day look like today?”. She will then answer: “Good morning. The weather today is going to be stable. It is 20 degrees Celsius outside. You are meeting John Sandal for lunch at noon at the restaurant Novell. Your first task of the day is at Eriksgatan 12, which is an apartment building. The floor drains you are going to install have already been delivered. They arrived at 7:30 a.m. to apartment 1024. This afternoon, you are going to go to the basement premises of St. Nikolaj. The address is Tunbindaregatan 24. The spare parts are estimated to arrive around 1:45 p.m., just as you ordered. Let me know if any of your plans have changed and I will adjust your upcoming deliveries. Have a good day.”
When the Internet Becomes Invisible
It might seem like science fiction, but the future is here already. Even if the services connected to Alexa have not yet reached their full potential, their numbers keep increasing, and the scoop is getting bigger and bigger. More and more companies think it necessary to make their services accessible via voice control. There are currently more than 1,500 so-called skills, or voice controlled applications, in Alexa. One of them is LogTrade.
We are moving away from the screen dependent Internet 2.0 era, and toward the Internet 3.0 era where your smartphone neck and mouse elbow have been thrown out onto the junk pile of history, sitting a few layers above the typewriter and the manual TM system.
So far, Alexa only works in the US, England, and Germany, but it is only a matter of time before she will become available in Sweden and there is already a LogTrade application waiting to be put into use by anyone who wants to try it.
What is happening on the digitization front today is a kind of change that we can only begin to comprehend. We are moving away from the screen dependent Internet 2.0 era and toward the Internet 3.0 era where your smartphone neck and mouse elbow have been thrown out onto the junk pile of history, sitting a few layers above the typewriter and the manual TM system.
This is the story of when the Internet became invisible and started to work for you, imperceptibly.
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