Sometimes you get into a funk, and you need a little bit of self-care to just deal with a week. Maybe you like talking to a friend when you're in that kind of mood. For Mark and Allen, a chat is just the sort of thing to lift their spirits. Even more so when they're talking about coding and how to tackle a design problem for one of the #VoiceFirst open source projects they work on - Speech Markdown. Let's peek in on their conversation to see how they explore and resolve the issues about adding a...
Oct 28, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Mark and Allen continue talking about the most recent hardware announced from Amazon and how this may mark a change, for both Alexa and the Google Assistant, towards a more widget-focused environment. What do you think this means in a #VoiceFirst world?
Oct 21, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Mark is joined by fellow Alexa Champion Darian Johnson to talk about Darian's various hardware projects, from a smart mirror to an Enterprise computer, and the latest hardware announcements from Amazon and Alexa, including the Echo Show 15 and their robot Astro. For more about Darian and his projects: Pre-Launch Page for the Newt: https://www.crowdsupply.com/phambili/newt Newt technical blog: https://hackaday.io/project/178328-newt-always-on-low-power-digital-assistant Smart Candle Project (comm...
Oct 14, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 64
Amazon has been going all-in with Alexa Presentation Language recently, and Mark has been taking a deeper dive into it and working on some custom components. Allen and Mark discuss some of the basics of APL. Sites mentioned: apl.ninja
Oct 07, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 63
That's "Phonemes And More", as in the SSML Phoneme tag, and some other tags that are now available for the Google Assistant. Allen and Mark discuss how these tags are useful for developers when trying to create great responses that sound "just right". Websites mentioned: ssml.guru
Sep 30, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 62
Mark has updated his Picture Guesser skill with some new features, and he and Allen discuss what went into these new features. What developer components do you use to "plus up" your skills and actions?
Sep 23, 2021•30 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Do your messages and prompts to your users just drone on and on? Are people begging your voice agent to stop talking and get back to work? Do you fall asleep testing your skill or action? Mark and Allen discuss how to make messages and prompts more exciting!
Sep 16, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Inspired by a design presented at VoiceLunch US/Canada, Mark and Allen discuss how we would implement the design - consisting of keeping a "score" about user's to our skill or action, adjusting the score sometimes, and presenting different prompts based on this score. While the design seems straightforward, there are a number of interesting approaches to the implementation. How would you implement this design? What libraries do you want to see to help make your implementations easier?...
Sep 09, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 59
Both the Google Assistant and Alexa have routines - ways you can create your own phrases to do things. But what do developers need to do to make routines better for their users? Mark and Allen explore the differences between the two platforms and what developers need to know. Pages mentioned: https://amzn.to/38zzFT9
Sep 02, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 58
Most voice skills and actions will need to work with a database or contact another service, and the most common way to do that is with an API. Web API calls are pretty common, but there are some tricks and issues when it comes to voice. Mark and Allen discuss their approaches to using APIs in their apps.
Aug 26, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Conversations don't always go to plan, and your conversation designers may specify how to handle error recovery. But what are the basic tools we have to do so? Allen and Mark discuss what code to write to handle when things go wrong.
Aug 19, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 56
When we have a list of information to display on the web or on a mobile device, there are a variety of tools that we can use to manage that list. But when it comes to voice - how do we make sure that list sounds correct (and something a user will listen to)? Allen and Mark discuss the tools that developers have to manage lists.
Aug 12, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 55
Recently, Amazon announced the latest class of Alexa Champions, and Google announced the first GDEs for a new project category. Outstanding achievements for those named... But what are the Alexa Champions and Google GDEs? Allen (a GDE in five program areas) and Mark (an Alexa Champion and Bixby Premiere Developer) discuss what these programs are and how GDEs and Champions are expected to give back to their communities.
Aug 05, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 54
At "Alexa Live" last week, Amazon bombarded us with a pile of new features that developers will soon be able to take advantage of. Mark and Allen talk about which features jumped out at them, and what they're looking forward to learning more about. Which features are you most interested in? https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa/alexa-live/release-roundup
Jul 29, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 53
Mark and Allen, with a little help from our friends, celebrate one year of Two Voice Devs by looking back at some of the things that have stood out for us in the past year. Most of all, however, we want to thank all of you for watching, listening, and sending us feedback. Here's to the next year!
Jul 22, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 52
Things change, sure, but what happens when the platform you've developed for deprecates and removes a feature you were using? How do you adjust? Allen and Mark discuss the impending removal of Alexa Display Templates and other technologies on Alexa and the Google Assistant that have changed over the years.
Jul 15, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Our 50th episode! Amazing! Thank you everyone who has been part of this along the way. We figured this would be a golden opportunity to launch an Action, which we've now done. Mark and Allen chat about what inspired "Talk to Two Voice Devs", how it is more interactive than a typical podcast, how some of it works, and how this is just the first step. What would you like to talk with a podcast about? We'd love to hear your thoughts and comments.
Jul 08, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 50
You've designed the conversations, you've written the code, everything is tested. You can release your skill or action now publicly, right? Well, not quite yet. First you have to get past the review and certification teams at Amazon and Google. Mark and Allen discuss this final step in the development process and what it means for you. Do you have any good tales about the process? Any nightmare stories?
Jul 02, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 49
This week, Roger Kibbe guest hosts, along with Mark, to discuss what he does as a Developer Evangelist for Samsung's Bixby, how Bixby is different, what he does with the Open Voice Network, and his take on the voice industry in general.
Jun 24, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 48
Experience helps you to not make mistakes. But how do you get experience? By making mistakes. And between Mark and Allen, they've made plenty of mistakes in years of programming. They'll talk about some of the lessons they've learned along the way, particularly for voice. What lessons have you learned that you want to share?
Jun 17, 2021•24 min•Season 1Ep. 47
Eventually you're going to want to monetize your Google action and one way to do that is through in-Action transactions. Mark and Allen go over the different kinds of Digital Goods Transactions available and how to use them. (If you're looking for how to do this on Alexa - check out the previous episode.) For more about digital goods transactions, see https://developers.google.com/assistant/transactions
Jun 10, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Eventually you're going to want to monetize your Alexa skill, and one way to do that is through In Skill Purchases (ISP). Mark and Allen go over the different kinds of ISPs available and how to use them. (If you're looking for how to do this on the Google Assistant - tune in next week.) For more about In Skill Purchases, see https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/in-skill-purchase/isp-overview.html
Jun 03, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 45
Now that Google I/O has been completed, Allen and Mark discuss what new features have been delivered for the Google Assistant... and what has just been promised. What were your favorite moments from Google I/O, and what new features are you most looking forward to?
May 27, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 44
This week is Google I/O, where Google regularly takes the opportunity to release what's new and coming "soon" in the Google ecosystem. Mark and Allen take the opportunity to review what new features have recently come out for developers of Alexa skills and actions for the Google Assistant. What new features of these platforms have you been building for?
May 20, 2021•36 min•Season 1Ep. 43
In episode 38, we talked about the general process about handling users when they start our skill or action. But what do we do in the specific case of the new user? How can we onboard them? Allen and Mark talk about what our conversation designers may be asking of us, and the data structures and tools we can use to implement their ideas.
May 13, 2021•20 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Do your skills or actions work on the first try? Of course they don't! That's why we have to find good methods of tracking down and squishing those bugs. Mark and Allen discuss some of their tips for figuring out what is wrong when, on those rare occasions, things don't quite work as expected.
May 06, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 41
In a lot of ways, #VoiceFirst development is like any other programming. But not quite. There are always some good things we need to remember as we build and test our skills, actions, and capsules. Mark and Allen talk about the best practices they follow when starting a project. Do you have any tips and tricks you make sure you follow to make your development life easier?
Apr 29, 2021•24 min•Season 1Ep. 40
We've gotten a number of questions about developers from other fields getting started in voice. What do Ilarna and Allen think about that? Can it be done? You bet! Let's learn more.
Apr 23, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Make sure you get your conversation off to a good start with a good welcome message. While you'll rely on your conversation designer to make it sound right, Mark and Allen discuss how to implement all different sorts of welcome messages, and why you may need different approaches at different times.
Apr 15, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Keeping count of things, how often a user has asked for help or visited your skill/action, can be a useful tool conversation designers want. But how can you code that? And how do you report that value when you're talking to a user? Allen and Mark discuss several tips and tricks about how they keep track of counters using Jovo, multivocal, and other toolkits, and the best ways to present this information to your users.
Apr 08, 2021•43 min•Season 1Ep. 37
