Duncan Bell isn't Asking Alexa

Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo is said to be losing money by the bucketload. Is it any wonder?

Back in 2014, I was among the first people to review Amazon's Alexa speaker. I said it was a clever piece of technology that nobody really needed, and gave it three stars. I should add that I don't think three stars is a bad score - it basically means, it's fine, you might like it.

Amazon perhaps didn't share my view that three stars is a perfectly adequate score, since their PR people got in touch a few times to ask me to give it four stars instead, but that's all water under the bridge now.

My review has long since been replaced online with reviews of Echo versions 2 through 57, or whatever they are up to now. However, while the words themselves may have proved transient, the piercing insight and truth of what I wrote remains. Echo speakers are fine. Alexa, who can now be either male or female - how modern - is fine.