New Jersey

Confusing the Computers: New Jersey College Student's Unique Link to Siri and Alexa

A Stockton University student from South Jersey has a unique distinction. Alexa Seary's name is synonymous with both of the most popular voice-command devices in the world.

Many iPhone owners find its built-in assistant, Siri, to be useful.

For a Stockton University student in South Jersey with the last name Seary -- pronounced exactly as you'd think -- it's become a light-hearted nuisance.

But you won't believe what the 21-year-old's first name is: Alexa.

She's a one of a kind virtual assistant mash-up now that Amazon's voice controlled Echo and Echo Dot have gained so much popularity. (For the less tech savvy among us, users of the Echo devices ask questions, play music and give commands to the in-home bot by starting a sentence with "Alexa.")

Seary, of Ventnor City, says she dealt for years with jokes related to Siri. And recently, the humor has doubled in volume.[[416382203, C]]

She says it all began when her manager at the New Jersey restaurant where she works would refer to her by last name and spoke to her the same way people normally speak to their iPhone assistant.

“When he first started calling me Siri, I kind of found it a little bit annoying,” Alexa said. "But then I kind of like decided to just be a good sport about it, I just took in the joke and I would kind of just start to answer in the automated voice back to him.”

She says it's far from the “waking nightmare” as some people have characterized it.[[416381863, C]]

“It’s an easy way to make my customers at work laugh, or if I’m talking to a new person to break the ice with that person,” Seary said. “It’s like my punch line, sort of.”

She said she is really learning to love all the attention now that her name is synonymous with two of the coolest new technologies. 

“I really like it, I think it’s very unique,” Seary said. “I think those stick together and it being my name is pretty cool.”

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