Amazon launches Alexa, Echo, and Prime Music in Canada today

It has been a while coming. Amazon launched its Alexa virtual assistant and smart device platform in Canada today. In tandem with Alexa, Amazon is now shipping three devices there—the Echo Dot, the Echo, and the Echo Plus.

Amazon expects 10,000 skills to be available to Canadian users this year, "including skills from Air Canada, TD Bank, TELUS, CBC, The Weather Network, Bank of Montreal, Manulife, Aviva, Yellow Pages, and more." Amazon Prime Music has launched for Canadian users as well. It will compete with Spotify and Apple Music in the Canadian market with one million songs—and yes, that includes songs by The Tragically Hip.

The rollout is part of a wave of expansion to new countries; Japan just got a similar rollout last week. With a platform like Alexa, localization is both critical and complex. Even between the United States and Canada, there are linguistic differences that could trip up Alexa's functionality if not accounted for. To address that, Amazon has implemented local knowledge and local skills put together by Canadian developers.

Alexa also has a new English voice with a Canadian accent. Curiously, Amazon's announcement of the Canadian launch makes no mention of Canadian French.

The Amazon Echo is a smart speaker that is designed to blend in with home furnishings and answer voice commands on a wide range of useful subjects. Ars found the recently released 2017 Echo to be a positive step forward for an already promising device. The Echo Plus offers similar functionality but also serves as a Zigbee smart home hub. And the Echo Dot is a slimmed-down cousin to the Echo. The three devices can be preordered right now, but they won't ship until December 5. The Echo retails for $99.99 CDN.

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