Amazon is sending Alexa into space for some reason

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Combining every science fiction fan’s greatest fantasies, Amazon is preparing to send its voice assistant AI, Alexa, to the moon. No, this isn’t the script for the next Star Trek series, this is real life. At least, I think it is.

In a press release earlier this month, Amazon announced a collaboration with Lockheed Martin and Cisco that will bring Amazon’s AI to the moon on NASA’s Orion spacecraft on the Artemis I mission later this year. But this won’t be your everyday Alexa device wrapped in a spacesuit.

The companies have come together to develop a brand new technology, called Callisto, that combines Amazon’s Alexa and Cisco’s Webex to “test and demonstrate commercial technology for deep space voice, video and whiteboarding communications.”

READ MORE: Amazon wants to make Alexa sound like your dead relatives

Speaking on the collaboration, Amazon Alexa’s vice president Aaron Rubenson said, “The Star Trek computer was part of our original inspiration for Alexa, so it’s exciting and humbling to see our vision for ambient intelligence come to life onboard Orion.”

While Callista might not be as impressive as Star Trek’s AI (we’re still a long way from the likes of Data or The Doctor), the companies have come together to create a seemingly impressive piece of technology that could prove to be very useful in the future.

It is definitely an interesting time for technology, to say the least. Who knows, maybe next Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk can put aside their differences and Alexa can be the one to help colonize Mars in a few years.

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