Alexa, play hide and seek with Elmo'

Alexa is adding kids skills.' (Photo: Amazon) Amazon boasts more than 20,000 "skills" for its Alexa-powered Echo speakers and all the many other devices in which Alexa increasingly lends her voice. On Thursday, Amazon announced that the first "kids" skills are coming to Alexa, along with a parental consent framework that mom and dad must approve before Junior can try out these skills. Alexa, it's time for work: Ask Cortana to read Outlook emails At launch, Amazon says there will be nine skills for Alexa, including a SpongeBob challenge through Nickelodeon, a Sesame Street skill in which kids can call Elmo or play hide and seek with him, and an Amazon Storytime skill in which short stores designed for youngsters 5 through 12 are read aloud via say an Echo by such narrators as Saturday Night Live's Aidy Bryant, and Tom Kenny, who is the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants. Storytime content is free and doesn't require an Amazon Rapids or Audible subscription, though Audible does plan to contribute short stories in the future. Amazon has opened up the kids' skills platform to developers and says hundreds have expressed interest.