I thought Alexa used Bing

[scottrods]

If you guys want to quibble over what search engine powers Alexa, go right ahead.  As for me, I could care less what the search engine is, because if I want to know about something, I don.t ask Alexa something that's better answered by Google or Siri. If Alexa's reply is BS, I just check elsewhere.  There are questions Alexa can handle well, and other's it can't.  There are other tasks it does extremely well, and those are the more important features of the product.

This is the reason Forums are the devil's work in so many cases... folks who have already had the discussion think that everyone else is already done with it... and can't just click the "next" button or move on to a thread they wish to help in instead of bashing the current one...

I had not seen this discussion come up before due to my time on the forums... so it was something to learn from. Then it went to hell pretty quickly due to some folks who can't remember how not to reply when they have nothing to offer...

So I offer this... and it continues the original discussion... I have actually done google searches on some lesser known businesses and could not find their hours of operation... so sometimes I know any search will fall flat. It has as much to do with the company as the search engine most times. Nowadays, most businesses try and get their most basic information on the web, such as their business hours and a contact phone number and address... some still live in a more "Classical" age and haven't stepped into the technology age. Some have stepped in and not followed up... some have stepped in, followed up and still have issues conveying their message...

With everyone's experiences with the web being different so far (I don't know what's being taught through schools today) It is easy to have a new technology seem to fall short of it's perceived capabilities... Hell, it takes me sometimes days to find the right command to get the Echos to do what I want... but I stick with it and find some way of accomplishing the goals...

To this end, It is just my suggestion that everyone needs the input to help this rather new technology grow and each will learn with different questions. I had no idea what search engine if any, The Echo products used... Could have been "Ask Jeeves" as far as I knew. But I generally have learned to deal with unanswered questions in my life, and find another way to get my answers... I inquire on a ton of things no one else seems to have interest in, quite often. and of course being Attention Deficit helps with all that... Oh Look! A Squirrel!


 

[Jerrym74]

I only asked the question because I was curious. But as they say, curiosity killed the cat. Let's let this cat die in peace. Nuff said, close the thread.

[jwlv]

There are no charter members here. Just members who were early adopters and found this tiny forum when it was first put together.

There are tons of new people who are experiencing Amazon Echo for the first time every single day. Some of them will find their way here. While many questions and topics have been answered and discussed to great extents, sometimes it's easier just to ask again. This forum has become quite large and it can be difficult to find an old thread out of thousands of threads.

As Amazon states in its sales literature, "Always getting smarter and adding new features..."  Thus a question that was already answered previously might not be relevant or even true today.

[mike27oct]

@jwlv

Thanks for clarifying.  I was not implying some of us here are actually charter members (and is why I put that phrase in quotes).  When I first found this forum, there were so few posts in the different forums, I was able to read all of them!