Implementing "repeat" is one of the Intents that the review teams from both Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant require. But they don't really give guidance about how to design or implement that Intent. Mark and Allen discuss the various approaches that they take with the Alexa Skills Kit, Assistant Library, Jovo, and multivocal.
Did you notice that Mark was nominated for a Project Voice award for game development? To celebrate, we chatted about the tools he used to create his games and what kinds of things you can do to make a good voice-first game.
We complete (for now!) our review of display technologies for voice. Mark dove into a project using Vue and Web API for Games for Alexa, and he compares his experiences with Allen's recent presentation about using the Interactive Canvas for Actions on Google with React. Buzzword Bingo! How do the two compare and contrast? Mark's project with Vue and Web API for Games: https://github.com/rmtuckerphx/jovo-web-vue-starter-ts Allen's project with React and Interactive Canvas: https://github.com/afir...
Allen has some questions about the Alexa Presentation Language (APL), so who better to ask than one of the contributors to apl.ninja, Stuart Pockington, who joins as the guest host this week. We go through a lot of details about APL, some of which blows Allen's mind. Stuart adds this clarifying note: "For one question Allen asked about importing the APL document, I answered in a way that implies that I drop the json directly into the directive. That’s not what I do and I’d not recommend others t...
What kind of built-in Intents do Alexa and the Google Assistant provide to developers directly? How do they differ from each other, and what kind of problems do they cause? And what are Events and how do they differ? Allen and Mark dive into this weeks tongue twister, (but don't worry, it doesn't get too intense).
Five to seven seconds. That's how long you have for your Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action to reply to a request from the user. And while that doesn't seem very long, if you're waiting for a reply, it can seem like forever. Mark and Allen discuss how important it is to shave milliseconds off your processing, and various techniques to do so.
We received a question from Rebecca Evanhoe asking if there was a way to determine the features of our assistant device for a conversation. Mark and Allen dive into the various ways we can figure that out, and some of the "gotchas" that can come with it.
Following on from our previous episode about debugging, Allen and Mark discuss the related topics of analytics. Although there are tools from Alexa and Google, there are also some third party tools such as those from Dashbot, and the new Jovo Inbox. Along the way, we discuss potential performance pitfalls, and how to avoid a sonic Blue Screen of Death.
Debugging is the bane of most developers, but it can be particularly tricky when it comes to voice - between the remote nature of it and the rapid response time required, it can be difficult to capture what is going wrong. Mark and Allen discuss the various tools and tips we have at our disposal to track down those pesky bugs. Some tools mentioned: Bespoken - bespoken.io Sentry - sentry.io Mocha - mochajs.org Chai - chaijs.com Assistant Conversation Test Tool - https://github.com/actions-on-goog...
For our first guest host, we're thrilled to welcome Ilarna Nche! She chats with Allen about how she got started developing with voice, some of her insights about what it takes to create a successful voice game, and what we should be thinking about next.
Allen thinks that the Interactive Canvas feature on the Google Assistant is one of the best technologies it supports, but Mark has a few questions about how it works. Supporting most of your favorite HTML/CSS/JS technologies in a Chrome-like environment, how would you enhance your Actions? What questions do you have about using it?
Breaks are good times to get some coding done, so what have Allen and Mark been up to recently? Turns out, there are some updates with Speech Markdown and Multivocal, and they explore these changes and the code that went into them. Speech Markdown: speechmarkdown.org Multivocal: multivocal.info
Happy New Year! At least we hope it is. Mark and Allen take a glimpse at the year ahead and discuss what we hope the new year will look like for voice first developers. (Without getting TOO absurd!)
With 2020 finally coming to a close, Allen and Mark look back at the past year - both personally and professionally.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone! Mark was busy working on his new game, Snatch Words, and Allen provided some help getting it working with the Google Assistant. Hear what that means when it comes to visual lists, security tokens, and more.
Have you played Snatch Word or Cross Talk yet? Mark and Allen chat about what it's taken to get their recent games developed and a bit about the underlying technology and code.
Mark is getting ready to release his new game, Snatch Word, but there are a couple of details to work out. So he and Allen chat about what it's taking to get things ready for release.
We often talk about skills and actions being "all about the content", but how do we manage that content if its so important? In a content management system, of course! Mark and Allen discuss their experiences using CMS tools and the crucial role they play in building practical skills and actions.
In the US, today is Thanksgiving. Allen and Mark would like to thank all of you for watching and listening, but also some people who have meant so much to us. Just a small list includes: Our families and closest friends Michael Palermo Brad Abrams, Jessica Early-Cha, and Mandy Chan Bradley Metrock Octavio Menocal Gene Homicki, my coworkers, and everyone at MyTurn.com and spiders.com Karol Stryja and Michal Stanislawek for VoiceLunch.com Noelle Silver Denis Valasek and Linda Lawton Maike G and Re...
Building for voice is more than writing a simple program and you're done. A good voice skill or action has many components that work together. Mark and Allen discuss what some of those components are, how they integrate, and what you should think about as you write them. Number Spies System Components: https://markvoicedev.medium.com/creating-an-alexa-game-number-spies-system-components-overview-41bf142d0b3c
Even before you start with a blank editor, you're faced with coming up with the idea. When it comes to Voice - what inspires us? Allen and Mark talk about where our ideas come from and how they start to shape our #VoiceFirst experiences. Mark writes about what inspired him to create Number Spies: https://markvoicedev.medium.com/creating-an-alexa-game-the-spark-of-inspiration-for-number-spies-7f2b5a073a41
With all the confusion about Daylight Saving Time transitions finally behind us, Mark and Allen discuss all sorts of ways to handle time on Alexa, the Google Assistant, and Bixby. (And some tools and tips that make it easier!)
Where we are now has been shaped by our past. In light of this, Allen and Mark discuss how we got to this moment. What technologies and jobs have we held in our careers, and what lessons have they taught us that have helped us when it comes to voice.
Mark and Allen discuss the tools they use to build Skills and Actions, and some of the tricks to make a developer's life a little easier and more productive.
What happens when new features are released? Why, Mark and Allen break into song! And discuss the latest new features developers for Alexa and Google Assistant can work with .
Google Assistant Console: https://console.actions.google.com/ Main docs page: https://developers.google.com/assistant Codelabs: https://developers.google.com/assistant/conversational/codelabs Community forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleAssistantDev/ Stack Overflow: actions-on-google and actions-builder tags twitter: @ActionsOnGoogle Actions on Air video / podcast series Follow other GDEs - many have tutorials about various topics. Dialogflow ES Docs: https://cloud.google.com/dialogflow/es/do...
For our milestone episode we wanted to change it up a little. So we present our Top Ten issues that we see with the major platforms as developers.
We have something special planned for our 10th episode! Curious what it might be?
Authentication and Authorization are some of the more difficult concepts that most developers end up having to deal with at some stage. Mark and Allen discuss the high level concept of Account Linking - connecting your auth system to the voice agents auth system. Alexa and Google Assistant offer some tools to help with this, and explore how some of the tools are similar, but others offer significantly different experiences for both users and developers.
As developers, the more information we can get about people talking with our skills or actions, the better the conversation will be. But privacy is a serious issue! (And one the platforms take seriously, too.) How does Alexa and the Google Assistant balance our need for more information, and the need for privacy? And how can we ask for permission to get the information? There are surprising differences and similarities that Allen and Mark explore.
