“Alexa, tell me where my hammer is.”
No, not to whack the guy who made this thing, but to whack the thing itself. The thing being a Big Mouth Billy Bass, a wall-mounted novelty item that has been hacked into a flopping version of Alexa, Amazon’s voice-enabled virtual assistant.
As noted by The Verge, Amazon asked for this when they opened up Alexa’s API to allow developers to integrate her capabilities with any hardware device — phones, TVs … singing fish.
Brian Kane, whose Facebook page says he lives in Cambridge, Mass., posted a video of the toy on his feed a week or so ago. Instead of singing “Take Me to the River” or “Don’t Worry Be Happy” — like the one in my father in law’s Florida garage does — this Billy Bass tells Kane the current weather.
It’s beyond unsettling to hear Alexa’s voice coming out of the plastic fish, as it moves its fish mouth. But if you’re already on Amazon looking for an Echo, you can cast your line over here and reel in a bass for $27.96. And then drop them all in here.
