Framingham events now available as Amazon Alexa skill

Users of Amazon's popular Echo, Dot, and other Alexa-enabled devices can now say: "Alexa, ask Framingham Events what's happening today?" to get a list of interesting events in Framingham.

The Framingham Events skill is free to use on any Alexa-enabled device. To begin using it, a user just needs to say once: "Alexa, enable Framingham Events" to add it to their Amazon account.

Other questions the Framingham Events skill can answer include phrasing such as: "Alexa, ask Framingham Events what's going on tomorrow?", "Alexa, ask Framingham Events is anything going on next weekend?", and "Alexa, ask Framingham Events about listings on October 31st."

Once Alexa responds with listings, user can say an event number -- "one" for the first event, "two" for the second event, etc. -- to get more details.

While there are several Framingham "Flash Briefing" news-reading skills available for Alexa, Framingham Events is the first Framingham-specific interactive skill for Amazon Alexa.

Event listings used in the Alexa skill are also available on the Web without Alexa at http://FraminghamEvents.com .

The Framingham Events skill was developed by Sharon Machlis, former Metrowest Daily News writer and editor and long-time editor at Computerworld. She is currently director of editorial data and analytics at Framingham-based International Data Group, publisher of Computerworld, InfoWorld, PCWorld, Macworld and other technology websites. Sharon recently wrote an article for InfoWorld explaining how to start creating Alexa skills, at https://tiny.cc/AlexaSkill .

People without Alexa devices can still try out the skill and see how it works by using a software-based Alexa testing service at https://echosim.io/ . They'll need an Amazon account and a computer with microphone. There is also an Alexa app for Mac OS and iOS, Reverb https://reverb.ai/ , which can be used to access the Framingham Events skill.