Talk to Pikachu through your Amazon Echo or Google Home

Pikachu is virtually inescapable in the tech world, and that includes the smart speaker in your living room. The Pokémon Company has previewed Pikachu Talk, an app meant for Alexa- and Google Assistant-powered devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home. The name says it all, really: you can hold conversations with the iconic yellow critter. We wouldn't expect deep discussions when Pikachu can only respond with variants of its name ("pika pika!" isn't exactly My Dinner With Andre material), but it's bound to be fun for at least a little while if you're a Pokémon fan.

You may be waiting a while to try this. Pikachu Talk will be available in Japan before 2017 is out, but it'll only reach additional areas sometime in 2018. In the meantime, you'll just have to make do with Pikachu's many, many other presences on consoles and phones.