Alexa – Amazon’s artificial intelligence assistant – has certainly moved on from just residing in Echo smart speakers. In just four years since it first launched in the United States, Alexa can now be found moonlighting in phones, microwaves, televisions, fridges and now a plastic animatronic fish.
Yes, Alexa is coming to Big Mouth Billy Bass, the beloved Christmas novelty that comes alive to sing classics when the button is pressed in a way that is mildly amusing the first time, before rapidly going downhill with each successive activation.
While the Alexa-enabled Billy Bass doesn’t actually have the virtual assistant built in, it does come with Bluetooth, meaning that it can be paired with any Amazon Echo. And when it is, Billy will respond in new unique ways: dancing to the beat of your Echo’s music and reacting to alarms and notifications in the way that only a plastic, wall-mounted fish can. Most brilliantly of all, Billy will lip sync to Alexa, meaning that anything the virtual assistant says will be channelled through the cold, dead eyes of Billy.
It’s up for preorder on Amazon.com costing $39.99 – or just over 30 quid. Gemmy Industries, the company behind Billy Bass and other eye-catching novelties like a plush twerking teddy bear, doesn’t seem to be selling the Alexa-enabled Billy Bass in the UK, but people have previously hand wired their own solutions to Billy, should you be really desperate have a fish filling you in on your day.
If you fancy trying your hand at the surgery, you can currently buy the traditional Big Mouth Billy Bass on Amazon for £29.99, or £86.97 for a pack of three. Who needs three Big Mouth Billy Basses? And think really carefully about the word ‘need’ before you answer that hypothetical…
Original publication by Alan Martin: Source article