Roger Launches Voice Platform
Roger, a voice app created by former Spotify engineers, is launching as a voice platform with a suite of third-party integrations that enable users to talk with friends, interact with other services like Amazon Alexa, Dropbox, and Slack, and redirect missed phone calls and voicemails, with voice interfaces.
Launched as a walkie-talkie app, Roger is now a full-fledged platform, enabling voice-based communication between people, devices, and Web services.
Its integration with the Alexa Voice Service makes the popular voice assistant available to mobile users for free, even if they do not own an Amazon Echo or other Alexa-enabled devices. Users can check their calendars, control smart home devices, make shopping orders, and use a variety of other Alexa services by talking. Roger even works with Bluetooth in the car.
"Roger has always been about making communication and technology feel more human; about spending more time conversing and less time looking at screens," said Ricardo Vice Santos, co-founder and CEO of the New York-based startup, in a statement. "With the Echo and Alexa, Amazon is building a powerful conversational interface that feels human, and that's where we have much in common."
The startup already released a public applicationprogramming interface that lets developers build their own integrations. Dropbox, Slack, and IFTTT integrations allow users to leave voice memos, discuss project details, or connect with many other services using voice.
"Rapid advancements in connectivity, speech analysis, and the proliferation of API-based services has created the perfect storm for voice as the next major computing platform," Vice Santos said, "and we believe we're only getting started."