Amazon Alexa's 'Brief Mode' Makes the Digital Assistant Way Less Chatty (cnet.com)

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.

Comments

Not bad

[nospam007]

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

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, how shiny and nice is this, ALWAYS LISTENING mode comes out?

Oh, probably not that long. Hopefully in robot form. I'll take the French Maid model, thanks.

I hope that every second of audio goes through the NSA too.

It probably does, although it's an open question as to if they can decipher it or not.