Amazon has an International Women's Day surprise for Echo owners

Everyone has a fairly decent understanding of the relationship between a human being and Amazon's Alexa, even if only be watching the commercials that seem to air on every channel now. You wake Alexa up, ask a question about a particular topic, and Amazon's massive network of data resources works to provide and answer. It seems simple now that we've had it for a while, but an impressive level of intelligence and engineering has gone into making all of this seamless.

In celebration of International Women's Day, and to further recognize the women of our history that contributed in some incredible way to the world as we know it, starting today Alexa is going to drop some lady knowledge on you.

Starting first thing on March 8th, saying "good morning" to Alexa will result in a reminder that International Women's Day has arrived followed by your normal morning briefing. After this, if you ask Alexa "who inspires you?" you'll get a brief history lesson starring a woman from our history. Alexa's list includes:

  • Heady Lamar
  • Katherine G. Johnson
  • Dorothy Vaughan
  • Mary Jackson
  • Ada Lovelace
  • Simone Biles
  • Grace Hopper
  • Sally Ride
  • Jane McGonigal
  • Malala Youshafzai
  • Serena Williams
  • Jane Goodall
  • Marie Curie
  • Alexa Canady
  • Melinda Gates

Each name will come with a brief anecdote or joke, with lots more information available by enabling the new Inspirational Women skill. It'll offer detailed information for anyone who asks, including but not limited to the women listed above.

Russell Holly

Russell is a Contributing Editor at Android Central. He's a former server admin who has been using Android since the HTC G1, and quite literally wrote the book on Android tablets. You can usually find him chasing the next tech trend, much to the pain of his wallet. Find him on Facebook and Twitter