Amazon Reportedly Bought EVI, Siri-like Voice Assistant App

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If this latest intel is true, it means the Amazon Kindle Fire smartphone is likely closer to fruition. Supposedly, Amazon already purchased a Siri-like voice assistant app called EVI for $26 Million dollars from a British startup. Here's a quote with soem additional detail,

Evi had a controversial birth, being threatened with being pulled from the Apple App store for being too similar to Siri, then being allowed to stay.

Will Amazon combine Evi with the voice recognition company they bought in January called Ivona? It’s hard to say. But smart observers might speculate that all these moves point towards Amazon developing a mobile handset/smartphone.

But the evidence that Amazon purchased Evi late last year is incontrovertible.

At UK Companies House all the Evi Technologies Ltd directors have been replaced by Amazon’s UK legal representative, and this is confirmed by the Octopus Ventures annual report. The annual reports of all Octopus Ventuers’ funds all refer to the disposing of their shares in Evi Technologies.

Companies House records show all directors at Evi have been replaced and loans paid off, while a small loss of £19,000 was recognised.

The new Company Secretary for Evi Technologies is also Amazon’s: Mitre Secretaries Ltd are the corporate secretary for Amazon.co.uk (and Amazon’s London software development company).

Evi is an iOS and Android app and runs on any Android or iPhone. The app couples Nuance’s voice recognition technology and True Knowledge’s search engine.

The evidence supporting this theory certainly looks compelling. Perhaps sometime this year we will finally see the Kindle Fire Phone?

Source: TechCrunch