Amazon's Alexa digital assistant has mad skills; more than 1000 of them, actually

Alexa is one of the most powerful virtual assistants available, with Amazon saying Friday that the Alexa platform has surpassed 1000 skills. With a variety of features ranging from hailing an Uber to ordering a pizza from Domino's, it seems like Amazon is preparing to defend its turf ahead of the pending release of Google Home and Apple's rumored Echo-like device. Amazon opened up its Alexa platform to third-party developers last June, and in a manner that was much more open than its competitors. While there are rumors that Apple will open up Siri to third-party developers ahead of a shipping an Echo-like product of its own, and Siri, Cortana, and Google Now all have at least limited third-party support, Amazon in unique in the way it has opened Alexa to rapid third-party development without subjecting those developers to heavy oversight. Banks like Capital One signed on to make banking available through Alexa, while fitness tracker Fitbit uses the Alexa platform to give you a little more motivation to meet fitness goals.