Has anyone else noticed that you can now have continued conversation with Alexa?
Just ask her something…
It doesn’t do it for everything… but it does do it.
It seems like you have to ask the question correctly… with the Noun of the subject as the end of question…
Examples ?
I keep asking her what a whale sounds like and she " didn’t understand the question I heard"
I guess Alexa team doesn’t watch GH commercials
ask her what a blue whale sounds like… you’ll get a good laugh…
Worked for me!
Alexa, who played Rocky?
Alexa, how tall is he?
…
Alexa, what’s the capital of Argentina?
Alexa, how many people live there?
Alexa, what currency do they use?
…
Alexa, where’s the Golden Gate Bridge?
Alexa, how long is it?
Alexa, who designed it?
…
Alexa, who was the drummer for the Beatles?
Alexa, where was he born?
…
Alexa, who is the President of the United States?
Alexa, what are his daughters’ names?
…
Pretty good! 
Seems some work for me some don’t. Looks like they are trying to emulate GH in conversational skills.
For entertainment, ask what does the fox say or knock knock. There are multiple responses to both. Sometimes she gets stuck saying the same responses repeatedly. Ask what sound does horse make.
I tried, “Alexa, what temperature does water freeze”?
She responded with her patented, “I do not understand the question I heard”. 
Geez, come on Echo team, how hard is it to get some basic smarts into these simple questions that GH seems to have right out of the launch.
I have to give my Echo the two thumbs up for integration with my Home Automation and custom Lamba development capabilities over GH.
It seems to be all about the phrasing…
Alexa, what is waters freezing point?
Now that is just crazy! I tried your exact phrasing and she gleefully answered back correctly, just like my high school science teacher. What’s next for Alexa, Yodish phrasing…
Alexa, "Waters freezing point, what is it"? She should have responded, "Hum, by that question, I'm not sure what you meant"
I think Amazon hired a lot of mysterious species folks on H1 visa…hmmm
Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? No. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is
Since Amazon has spent the past 15 years selling us stuff while google has spent that time developing computer intelligence, your question is kinda silly. It is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT to get “basic smarts” into computer systems. I dunno, have you been following the development of “basic smarts” for SmartThings? Been installing stuff off GitHub to do something as simple as brighten the living room lights and turn the stereo to the right station and turn the heat up a degree? Been through the failed rules engines of the past, and struggling with CoRE and its pistons?
If it’s so very easy as you claim, why can’t we just type a simple sentence into ST and have ‘smarts’ that write the rules for us??
Think about it.
Dang @Glen_King: Did you have your morning coffee on that reply, really “Silly” 
?
I’m just saying that the Echo could simply perform some response to basic answers much like Siri, GH, Yahoo, Bing do, by issuing a query to any of the the web search engines and providing back a short speech to text. As pointed out by @bamarayne they have some of this done, but working on the intent language since similar questions have many ways of being asked.
As far as Core and Rules, that development application has been a HUGE leap frog into 4G/5G GUI visual programming and providing so many people additional NEW and IMPROVED Home automation capabilities without having to do any 3G coding with Groovy, Javascript, Oauth, etc…
Yeah. Nonetheless, you can’t type in “SmartThings, I want the kitchen lights to go on automatically if my wife’s presence sensor shows up any time between 5p and 7pm AND the kids’ sensors are present, but NOT if the kids’ sensors are not present, but the living room should go on when she gets in regardless of whether the kids are home or not”. Simple request. Very simple. You and I understand that intuitively… not ‘intuitively’ really, as we’ve spent decades using our non-digital brains to learn and process speech. But try to have a computer understand you as you speak it. Which is why you have to spend ten minutes in CoRE setting it up.
I did not mean to attack you. I just find the presumption that Alexa should already be able to EASILY grasp these things - when Alexa does not have the massive power of the google search/intelligence engine behind it - to be, well… what’s a less robust word for ‘silly’?? 
These parents may not agree that it’s getting smarter:
I feel like mine is getting stupider. it wont answer sometimes, and if there is other noise, it wont respond to Alexa.
its been going down hill the past few months in my opinion.
I don’t know if it’s new, but someone in the room said “Alexa, turn off the lamp” and I immediately said “No!” and it seemed to cancel the command.
Try saying “Alexa, watch me whip”
Approximately four million new Alexa devices have come online over the past few months. Those moments might be server/system load issues.
I’m finding it quite responsive. The responses to ‘native’ (alexa, turn off the ____) commands is almost always within about a second or less, and the IFTTT commands are within about 3-5 seconds.i’m finding it’s forcing me to enunciate better lol
Check out a new device coming to the market called WooHoo by Smartbeings. Facial recognition and voice recognition and a lot more . Why didn’t Amazon or Google make this?
Alexa, sing me a song
Who me? Oh I couldn’t…singing begins
It’s funny & kind of true.
" SPLASH… just kidding" LOL