It’s been 30 years since Samuel L. Jackson gave the weather report as a DJ in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” — HOT! — and now the iconic actor is being employed to do the same thing, and more, as Amazon’s first celebrity voice for Alexa.
Amazon announced the integration as part of its devices event in Seattle on Wednesday. Using neural text-to-speech, which makes the voice assistant sound more fluid and natural, the Jackson voice will tell jokes, set timers and alarms, play music, and, yes, offer up the day’s weather.
Whether Jackson’s weather report has a little extra sizzle in it is up to you — the voice can be set for explicit or non-explicit.
Those who are familiar with the actor’s work over the years, from “Pulp Fiction” to “Snakes on a Plane” to “Django Unchained” should surely be aware of the range of his vocabulary. And don’t forget when he narrated that popular children’s book, “Go the F*** to Sleep.” Also, somebody totally saw this coming two years ago with this Alexa L. Jackson spoof.
The voice is coming later this year, according to Amazon. Those who add it during the introductory period can do so for 99 cents. After that it jumps to $4.99. Don’t forget, because …
“I’m not reminding you of sh*t,” the actor says in a promo video from Amazon, below.
Amazon has a new “neural text to speech” engine that allows Alexa to mimic celebrity’s voices (with their permission). Samuel L Jackson is rolling out later this year. pic.twitter.com/vvh9XR7znn
— nic nguyen (@itsnicolenguyen) September 25, 2019
