Natural Language Processing enters the kitchen with Jamie Oliver Skills for Echo

Chatbots can already order read you the news, order you a takeaway, or hail you a cab. Now they're heading for your kitchen, with the launch of Jamie Oliver Skills, a virtual sous-chef developed by digital agency AKQA and the Jamie Oliver Group for the Amazon Echo. The Echo is a voice-controlled wireless speaker that is Amazon's answer to Apple's Siri, Google's Now and Microsoft's Cortana. Microphones on the device transmit your voice then a virtual assistant called Alexa--now equipped with a British accent for the UK market--responds automatically using artificial intelligence tech to create a simulated conversation. Jamie Oliver Skills is one of the early additions to Alexa's array of capabilities.