Amazon Alexa's 'Brief Mode' Makes the Digital Assistant Way Less Chatty

A new update is rolling out to Amazon Echo devices that gives users the option to make Alexa respond with a short, beeping sound rather than her customary "OK." Reddit users reported seeing the new feature this week. CNET reports: You access the Brief Mode in the Amazon Alexa app's Settings Menu under "Alexa Voice Responses." You can also ask your Alexa-enabled device to turn on the Brief Mode. Once the setting is enabled, you can ask Alexa to control devices to which she is connected and she will respond with beeps rather than "OK" to let you know that she received and completed the task. Don't want to completely quiet Alexa down? Amazon also rolled out a "Follow-Up Mode" last week that's designed to let you will let you talk to Alexa more naturally. That mode will let you make successive requests without needing to use Alexa's wake word between each command.

Re: HHGTTG

[bn-7bc]

Oh no noy that tostoholic toaster from red dwarf, that thing was a bit over the top

Not bad

[nospam007]

Now we just need a Grunt-Mode for us men.

Re:

[antdude]

I would like Tim Allen's grunts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com] :P

Alexa

[MrKaos]

Ha ha ha haaaa HAHAHAHAHAHA

Tried it

[fyngyrz]

It works.

You can now (finally) engage in a much more normal interaction. For instance:

Alexa, what time is it?
::it's four fifty three PM
thank you
::You're welcome
 
...it's surprising how much of a difference this makes in the character of the interaction. Much better.

Re:

[PReDiToR]

Voluntarily giving Amazon access to more data to store on the sounds in your room.

How long before the brand new, latest thing, how shiny and nice is this, ALWAYS LISTENING mode comes out?

I hope that every second of audio goes through the NSA too. It wouldn't do for Amazon to be the only ones who heard terrorist plots being planned or kiddie abusers.

Misdirected paranoia

[fyngyrz]

Voluntarily giving Amazon access to more data to store on the sounds in your room.

Yep. Not even slightly worried about it.

The government would be the one I was worried about, if I was worried about anything - because they have, and will improperly use, immense amounts of power.

Amazon has no power at all other than to offer me stuff, or get others to offer me stuff, which I can always take or leave. And that particular power has been a considerable boon to my life.

How long before the brand new, latest thing

Re: umm

[Anonymous Coward]

It's difficult for the same reasons that making yourself understood on the phone is more difficult than in person. Too many paralinguistic cues and deictic expressions that index aspects of shared frames of attention which make interpreting what people mean to say, i.e. pragmatic meaning, rather than what they literally say, i.e. semantic meaning.

Let me guess...

[burtosis]

To switch it back you enable C3PO mode?

Better still.

[fahrbot-bot]

... make Alexa respond with a short, beeping sound

Have her (it) *say* "Beep".

Let's expand this

[slashmydots]

Can we get this for the Windows 10 1709 installer? Cortana is so time-wasting and cringey it makes me embarrassed to even listen to it. She literally says "A touch of wifi here, and you'll be back to watching cat videos" or something virtually identical to that. Could they be any less professional?

Uh-huh...

[kiphat]

Uh-huh... Uh-huh...