Building Apps Using Amazon's Alexa and Lex

Name: Building Apps Using Amazon's Alexa and Lex
Rating: 4.4 (338 reviews)

Alexa Skills and Lex Chatbots

Created byLoony Corn

Last updated 12/2017

English

What you'll learn

Build smooth voice-activated apps for Echo and other Alexa-aware devices
Design and build sound interaction models for your Alexa skills
Implement robust fulfilment models using AWS Lambdas

Course content

10 sections • 75 lectures • 7h 13m total length

You, This Course and Us2:40
Source Code and PDFs0:04

Introducing Alexa1:59
Explore how Alexa enables voice interactions, examine voice interfaces and Alexa skills basics, including invocation, utterances, and intents, and learn AWS integration and testing tools.
Evolution Of Human Computer Interaction And Voice Interfaces7:34
Prereqs And Course Overview2:53
Alexa, Echo And AWS5:57
Skill Concepts: Invocations, Utterances and Intents8:43
Tools and Platforms: AWS, Amazon Developer Console and Echosim.io8:17
Types Of Skills6:02

Overview Of The Stock Market Tracker4:27
Utterance-Intent Mapping4:45
Financial Data From AlphaVantage3:20
Fetch real-time and daily Dow Jones data from Alpha Vantage with a free API key, and configure intraday and daily time series to access open, high, low, and close values.
Setup And Configure An Alexa Skill8:10
Configure your first Alexa skill by defining the interaction model, intents, and sample utterances in the Alexa Skills Kit, then connect AWS Lambda via ARN and test end-to-end.
AWS Lambdas6:07
Link the Alexa Skill with the Lambda Function8:15
Set up and Test Lambda Code7:59
Code And Test the Launch Request5:07
Code And Test the Intent Request4:53
Handle Help And Stop Intents5:03
Test Using Echosim.io1:41

Slots As Request Configuration Parameters6:23
Slots, Prompts And Utterances8:09
Financial Data From Intrinio2:28
Access stock data with the Ingenio API by signing up, retrieving an access key, and making authenticated requests to obtain Apple’s closing price on 15th September 2017.
What Exactly are Slots?5:06
Define slots and their values with synonyms to make utterances flexible, then build the stock tracker dialogue skill using three slots (stocks, price type, date) in the Alexa skill builder.
Configure the Dialog Model8:42
Handle Start, End and Launch Requests7:00
Handle the GetStockInfo Intent9:50
Demonstrate handling the get stock info intent, filling stock name, price type, and date slots with dialogue delegate prompts, and fetching stock prices from a backend using basic authentication.
Handle Help, Stop and Cancel Intents1:18
Testing With Echosim.io1:53

Remember Data Across Sessions5:47
Create A Dynamo DB Table2:06
Configure Full Access To Dynamo DB from Lambda7:34
Configure a Lambda function with a DynamoDB full-access role to persist a stock list across sessions in an Alexa skill, covering IAM roles, Lambda, and DynamoDB integration.
Handle Start, End and Launch Requests1:50
Handle Add, Remove And List Stock Intents8:03
Test Using Echosim.io1:12

Module Outline5:49
Weather Bot4:39
Create a weather bot that prompts for location to fetch temperature via a third party API through AWS Lambda, using built-in slot types and reusing intents across Lex bots.
Built In Slot Types7:17
Setting Up a Weather Bot3:43
Lambda Intro7:08
Lambda Blueprint6:21
The Big Picture: Code3:42
Lambda Handler6:18
Constructing a Response6:26
Configuring an AWS Lambda5:42
Lex Lambda Configuration4:25
Open Weather API6:09
Invoking the Open Weather API9:20
Importing External Libraries to an AWS Lambda7:57
Package your python lambda with its source code and all third-party libraries in a zip file. Upload to aws lambda and set the handler to main.lambda_handler.
Versions, Aliases And Publishing9:24

Requirements

Basic javascript programming
Basic understanding of HTTP/s and how REST APIs work

Description

Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google Now - voice-activated personal assistants are one of the hottest trends in technology these days. They are a great way to convey complex information to your customers in a free-flowing, conversational way. Alexa is a great way to build them - an AWS service for building conversational interfaces for Echo, FireTV and a host of Alexa-aware devices.

Alexa and Lex are state-of-the-art, with support for new devices being added all the time
Powered by a deep learning based engine that parses user voice and resolves the contents of user utterances to API calls and parameter values
No deep learning or natural language processing expertise is needed to build even complex voice and chat apps
Provides an intuitive way of specifying the conversational interface
Automatically and dynamically adjusts conversational responses
Easy to build, test and publish app

In the sections on Alexa we will cover:

The big picture - voice and text interfaces and current trends in human-computer interaction
How Alexa, Lex, Echo and the other bits of the Amazon ecosystem come together
Interaction models: Utterances, intents, slots, prompts and their resolution into API calls
Fulfilment models: Using AWS Lambdas to fulfil user intents, and how AWS lambdas provide smooth, no-ops, auto-scaling code endpoints

In the sections on Lex we will cover:

Interaction models: Utterances, intents, slots, prompts and their resolution into API calls
Fulfilment models: Using AWS Lambdas to fulfil user intents, and how AWS lambdas provide smooth, no-ops, auto-scaling code endpoints
Third-party integration: How a chatbot can be added to your Slack workspace

Who this course is for:

Echo or FireTV developers looking to build Alexa Skills
Website and mobile app developers looking to add voice apps

Building Apps Using Amazon's Alexa and Lex

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction2 lectures • 3min

Alexa Basics: Eco-system and Skill Concepts7 lectures • 41min

Build a Basic Alexa Skill11 lectures • 1hr

Multi-turn Dialogs for Rich Conversation9 lectures • 51min

Persist State Across Sessions6 lectures • 27min

Build a Flash Briefing Skill3 lectures • 14min

Introducing Lex5 lectures • 32min

Interaction Models in Amazon Lex12 lectures • 1hr 21min

Fulfilment Models in Amazon Lex15 lectures • 1hr 34min

Third-party Apps: Chatbots in Slack5 lectures • 31min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: