Amazon’s Alexa has been in and out of the news, both for its usefulness, as well as for some flaws.

One of the cool things about Alexa is the ability to create programs and automation that ties directly into the device, such as controlling other devices connected to the internet.

One of NetApp’s software developers, Jungsook Yang, has taken Alexa and created automation for it to play the latest Tech ONTAP podcast episodes!

From Jungsook:

The podcast skill is live. The invocation name is ‘Netapp podcast’. You can say, “Alexa, ask netapp podcast to start”, “Alexa, ask netapp podcast to help.” “Alexa, open netapp podcast.” And say “Alexa, pause” or “Alexa, resume” to pause and resume. Currently, the automatic feed doesn’t work, though. Until I fix that part, I have to manually update the code whenever a new feed is introduced.

Pretty cool stuff! The product is currently “beta” and will be undergoing improvements. If you have feedback, send it to podcast@netapp.com or leave a comment!

Thanks a ton to Jungsook for this innovation!