The days are numbered for opportunistic thieves who swipe packages from people's doorsteps when they are away at work or otherwise not at home. In an expansion to its Amazon Key service, Amazon is now giving Prime members the option of having their items delivered to their car, so instead of leaving a box of goodies...Read more...
It appears that Amazon is looking to take Alexa mobile. No, we're not talking about Alexa on your smartphone, but rather Alexa integrated into a robot that will be placed within your home. The robot is being developed under the codename "Vesta" and is being crafted by Amazon's Lab126 hardware research division...Read more...
Amazon has rolled out something cool for folks who have pondered creating their own Amazon Alexa Skills, but lacked the programming skills necessary to do it. Alexa Skill Blueprints are a new way for customers to create customized Alexa responses and personalized skills. Blueprints are simple to use templates that...Read more...
Most of the massive companies in the tech and online worlds hold things like subscriber and member numbers very close to the vest. Amazon has always done this with numbers for its Prime service. This lack of hard detail directly from Amazon has meant that analysts in the past had to infer how many Prime members Amazon...Read more...
Best Buy and Amazon are fierce rivals in the electronics market, with the former having a big presence in the brick and mortar side of things, while the latter absolutely dominates the online sector. The two companies are now joining forces to sell new Fire TV Edition smart TVs in a rather interesting...Read more...
If you are looking for another reason to cut the cord with your cable company, Philo has an announcement that you might be interested in. Philo is a streaming TV service that has been around for a while now and the service has bundles of channels that you can subscribe to that are much cheaper than traditional cable...Read more...
One of the reasons the Essential Phone did not perform better in terms of sales is because it launched at $699, putting it in competition with premium handsets from established players. It was just too pricey, despite an overall decent collection of hardware and features. Now the price is a lot more enticing—Amazon is...Read more...
Amazon announced today that it has completed its purchase of video doorbell and security camera maker Ring. The internet retail giant first announced its intention to acquire Ring for $1 billion back in late February, and was able to relatively quickly seal the deal.
"Together with Amazon, we will accelerate our...Read more...
You can now let people into your home when you are gone with the help of Amazon Key. The feature first launched in October of last year in limited areas; now Amazon has announced that it is available nationwide. Prime members in 37 cities can continue to take advantage of optional in-home delivery.
It's easy to...Read more...
Amazon is pushing out a new update to two of its Fire tablets: the Fire 7 and Fire HD 8. This over-the-air update in effect turns the tablets into hands-free Alexa speakers, which furthers the ubiquity of Amazon's dominant AI voice assistant.
Amazon says that Alexa can be invoked when a Fire 7 or Fire HD 8 tablet is...Read more...
It's been a while since we heard much out of the RIAA after the organization was frequently in the news during its hunt to force anyone who even thought about illegally downloading music to pay damages. At times, the RIAA filed suits against deceased people essentially making it look like the bad guy to many music...Read more...
In about a month, AMD will release its second generation Ryzen lineup with a handful of new processors based on its 12-nanometer Zen+ architecture, otherwise known as Pinnacle Ridge. Leading up to the launch, the upcoming Ryzen 7 2700X has been spotted in numerous leaks, the latest of which is an Amazon listing. Same...Read more...
Intel is releasing a new batch of Coffee Lake processors, most of which are low power SKUs. Several of them appear on Amazon's marketplace through third-party sellers, and it appears ASUS has listed the full stack. The new CPUs bring the full lineup count to 23 chips with TDPs ranging from 35W to 95W, and prices...Read more...
Amazon is adding yet another perk to its Prime membership program that is now about so much more than just free two-day shipping on millions of items. Leveraging the online retail giant's acquisition of Twitch from three and a half years ago, Amazon is going to start gifting games to Prime subscribers, through Twitch...Read more...
Amazon Echo owners have enjoyed the ability to place calls and send messages with their smart speakers for nearly a year. However, some additional members of Amazon's Alexa-enabled product family are also gaining the ability to communicate with friends, relatives, and colleagues using voice controls.
This new tablet...Read more...
Fans of the strange, yet classic flick 2001: A Space Odyssey will most certainly remember the rogue computer AI named HAL-900 that eventually decided to kill all humans. If you ever wanted to own a HAL-9000 (minus the homicidal insanity bit) this is your chance, thanks to a company called Master Replicas. This company...Read more...
Amazon is working hard on teaching its Alexa Voice AI some new tricks. Recently Alexa gained the ability to play music that you have heard previously even if you don’t know the track name. Amazon has now rolled something much more useful into its digital assistant with a new "Follow-up Mode." With this new mode, Alexa...Read more...
We all know that asking an Amazon Echo speaker powered by Alexa to play a specific artist or song is possible (among other things). Amazon has been adding some new music controls to Alexa devices that make it easier to play songs when you don't know the artist or song title. These new playback commands are perfect for...Read more...
There is a brewing battle between companies that are vying for your dollars when it comes to making your home "smart". August is the latest company to strike a blow with the decision to give its Doorbell Cam and Doorbell Cam Pro users [limited] free cloud storage.
August today announced the "Basic August Video...Read more...
Yesterday we talked about a problem that was plaguing some devices powered by Amazon Alexa that would cause them to laugh suddenly and maniacally. Amazon promised at the time that it was working on a fix and it didn’t waste any time fixing the bizarre fits of laughter Alexa was experiencing. The reason that Alexa is...Read more...
After being temporarily knocked offline last week due to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage, Amazon is dealing with another Alexa incident. While losing access to Alexa Voice Services for a few hours is annoying, what is currently happening to Amazon Echo users (and other devices that take advantage of Alexa) was...Read more...
In the summer of 2017, Amazon announced that it would offer a low-cost version of its extremely popular Prime membership program for customers on government assistance programs. The program was offered to U.S. residents with a valid EBT card, which is used by people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program...Read more...