Alexa skills kit expands to include Canadian French

Amazon announced developers can start building French language voice experiences, or “skills”, for customers in Canada using the Alexa Skills Kit with the Canadian French voice model. The skills developers create now will be available when French language support launches for Echo devices in Canada soon.

We’re also excited to share that device-manufacturers building Alexa-enabled products for customers in Canada can request early access to an invite-only Alexa Voice Service developer preview.

foodora and 7-Eleven launch delivery for 48 stores Canada-wide

Foodora, Canada’s popular on-demand food delivery service, announced their collaboration with convenience store giant, 7-Eleven. Using foodora’s mobile app, Canadians will now be able to order items and special bundles from 48 7-Eleven locations, right to their doorstep.

Canadian consumers now have an even more convenient way to get snacks, drinks, hot food, and everyday items. Even 7-Eleven’s iconic Slurpee will be available using foodora. All orders made through foodora are available via delivery and pick-up.

This collaboration is the first of its kind between a retail convenience store of this size and a food delivery service in Canada. While foodora has ventured outside of food delivery before, delivering items such as customized socks for Father’s Day and soap for Mother’s Day, this is the first convenience store available on the platform. This collaboration enables foodora to expand its product offering for consumers, delivering items from 7-Eleven such as Advil, tissues, and more.

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Amazon's Music Unlimited streaming service aims to take on Spotify and Apple Music

While Amazon has offered streaming music for free with Amazon Prime subscriptions, the range of artists, songs and albums was rather lacking compared to larger libraries from services like Spotify and Apple Music.

Amazon actually has another music streaming service in Canada available since last month and unlike Prime Music, which has around one million songs, the Music Unlimited service offers millions of songs. Costing $9.99 a month, Music Unlimited is discounted to $7.99 for individual and current Amazon Prime users. A family plan costs $ 14.99 a month and a single device subscription (ideal for one Amazon Echo device) for $3.99 a month.

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Amazon diversifies its Echo product base in Canada with a range of new models

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Canadians today are spoiled for choice when it comes to smart speakers and smart home technology. Just think that two years ago, we had to sneak in Amazon Echos and Google Homes across the border and run through hoops to enable some fascimile of functionality with these devices.

Today there are literally dozens of smart speaker devices to choose from and Amazon has just made choosing the right device more challenging thanks to its latest fall harvest of devices.

Occupying an entire floor of an old building in downtown Toronto, Amazon set off to demo a slew of new devices that are all coming to Canada and will be available as early as tomorrow.

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