Dear readers, 

Lex wrote last week about the unstoppable rollout of smart speakers, now glowing in the corners of millions of kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms worldwide. A number of readers replied that they were so fond of their Echo/Portal/Nest that they had installed multiple smart speakers at home. A few suggested that voice tech felt as if it was on the cusp of being far more widely used. 

There is certainly plenty of optimism about the potential for voice tech. Potential uses for sophisticated, artificial intelligence-driven conversational voice tech are varied. These include online learning, customer support, gaming and marketing. Lockheed Martin recently announced that pilots training to fly the F-35 Lightning II aircraft will be guided by a ReadSpeaker artificial voice so that they can concentrate on flying and won’t have to look at a written manual while in the cockpit.