{"id":1807,"date":"2017-02-16T11:46:58","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T10:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mi.hdm-stuttgart.de\/?p=1807"},"modified":"2023-08-06T21:54:41","modified_gmt":"2023-08-06T19:54:41","slug":"building-a-hdm-alexa-skill-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mi.hdm-stuttgart.de\/index.php\/2017\/02\/16\/building-a-hdm-alexa-skill-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a HdM Alexa Skill – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction to the Project<\/h1>\n

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\"\"<\/a>It is becoming obvious that chatbots are quickly emerging to the next Big Thing<\/em>. This is especially evident by the recent flood<\/em> of publication of software development kits by major tech companies to encourage developers to build applications for their ecosystem.<\/p>\n

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Microsoft offers a SDK to enable chatbots in Skype<\/a>, Facebook is implementing chatbots into its\u00a0own messenger<\/a>, Google is opening up their voice assistant<\/a> to the public and Amazon already offers more than 3.000 custom skills<\/a> for their Alexa voice service. Combined with Smart Speaker – take Amazon Echo, Google Home or the very recently announced device integration of Cortana by Microsoft<\/a> as an example – seamless voice interaction is introduced into our every day life and opens up a whole new market for developers to implement their products into the daily routine of their users.<\/p>\n

To gain expertise with this new technology we decided to develop our own voice service. Since – as of December 2016 – Amazon is slowly releasing their smart speakers Echo and Dot to Germany, we took the opportunity to be one of the first to release a German speaking Skill<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Now that we knew how to<\/strong> implement the project we needed to decide on what to<\/strong> implement. It was important to us that we don’t just implement a product that only serves us as a mean to learn and study but something that benefits others as well. The idea for a lightweight knowledge system which covers the basic functions to get through a regular university day at the HdM seemed fitting since we personally struggled with ever changing lecture halls. While there are possibilities to quickly lookup important updates using the mobile application<\/a> or one of the information displays which are distributed throughout the buildings, our team took the opportunity to further simplify the daily student life while using as much state of the art technology as possible.<\/p>\n

The video below shows an overview over the functionality of the finished project to give a brief preview on what to expect.<\/p>\n