Listen, it’s up to you whether or not you want to partake in the annual panic-shopping event that is Amazon Prime Day. But if you do, Amazon is offering some pretty big discounts across the board on its Alexa-powered digital devices. [More]
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Best Buy Is Now A Showroom For Amazon, Google Home Products
By 6.28.17
How quickly tides turn. Not that long ago, Best Buy looked upon Amazon and Google with disdain, angry that “showrooming” customers were coming into Best Buy stores just to look at products that they would then — sometimes while in the store — purchase online for less. Now Amazon and Google have turned to Best Buy to showroom their growing array of devices.
[More]
Amazon Launches ‘Echo Show,’ A $230 Alexa Speaker With A 7″ Screen
By 5.9.17
If simply talking to Alexa on your Amazon Echo Speaker just wasn’t doing it for you, soon you could talk to — and see — your friends or family through the e-commerce company’s upcoming screen-equipped Echo Show. [More]
Amazon’s Alexa Inches Closer To Human With Ability To Whisper, Raise Voice
By 4.28.17
Sure, talking to a speaker definitely isn’t the same as talking to your friend, but if you have an Echo — or other device with Alexa integration — it may soon seem more like a human-to-human convo. [More]
Amazon Hasn’t Turned Over Echo Recordings Related To Murder Investigation
By 2.23.17
Nearly two months after police investigating a homicide in Arkansas served Amazon with search warrants, requesting any information that may have been stored on an Echo speaker located inside the suspect’s home. They wanted to know if the device’s “Alexa” virtual assistant had recorded any evidence of the murder, but Amazon has thus far refused to turn this information over to authorities. [More]
Rogue Hungry Child Uses Alexa To Order $160 Worth Of Cookies, Doll House Without Parents’ Permission
By 1.5.17
You can buy just about anything using Amazon’s Alexa, including apparently four pounds of cookies and a doll house without having to ask your parents first. [More]
Police Want To Find Out If Amazon Echo Recorded Evidence Of Homicide
By 12.27.16
The issue of who can access information stored on your electronic devices has become increasingly controversial in the last year, with authorities obtaining search warrants to unlock smartphones for everyone in an office building, courts ruling that police can force smartphone users to give up their devices’ passcodes, and federal lawmakers trying to force weakened encryption on consumers. Now, police investigating a homicide are hoping to get a look under the hood of Amazon’s Echo speaker to see if its virtual “Alexa” assistant might have recorded evidence of a murder. [More]
Don’t Want Alexa Listening In Your Wynn Las Vegas Hotel Room? Unplug That Echo
By 12.14.16
At first, it might sound pretty cool that the Wynn Las Vegas will be adding Amazon Echo speakers to every hotel room. hotel room. In fact, the idea of a voice-controlled assistant in your room may be something you see as a positive — but it could also be a bit creepy to think that the always-listening device is sitting by your bedside, hearing everything you do while alone (or not) in your room. [More]
Report: Amazon Working On An Alexa-Controlled Speaker With A Touchscreen
By 11.29.16
Are we heading toward a future where you control everything in your home by speaking to a disembodied voice? Amazon certainly seems to be going in that direction, with a new report that it’s working on a premium speaker powered by Alexa, a sort of souped-up Echo, featuring a large screen. [More]
You Can Now Control Amazon’s Alexa With A Fire Tablet
By 10.26.16 — Updated: 10.31.16
Last month, Amazon announced that sometime this fall or winter it would put its Echo-connected speaker digital assistant, Alexa, on mobile devices — as long as they were made by, you know, Amazon. That time has come, with Alexa officially making its debut on the Amazon Fire tablet this week. [More]
Amazon Joining Spotify, Apple With New Music-Streaming Service
By 10.12.16 — Updated: 11.1.16
As it was predicted, so it has come to pass: after rumors heated up last week that Amazon was close to launching a music-streaming service to rival Spotify and Apple, the company announced today that its on-demand offering Music Unlimited is ready for the masses. [More]
Amazon’s Alexa May Get The Ability To Talk Without Being Spoken To First
By 9.12.16
As it stands right now, Amazon Echo is the well-behaved child your grandparents might have approved of: it doesn’t speak until spoken to. But soon Alexa could be piping up to offer information without being prompted first. [More]
Report: Amazon To Open 100 Pop-Up Stores In Next Year
By 9.9.16
Two years after Amazon opened two real-life seasonal pop-up stores in San Francisco and Sacramento, the company is reportedly working on a plan to open 100 more of the limited-run stores. [More]
Lenovo Says It’s Talked With Amazon About Bringing Alexa To PCs
By 9.1.16
We’ve gotten used to Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa adding new capabilities to her repertoire, like buying Prime-eligible products, paying credit card bills, ordering pizza, and then leading workouts to exercise off said pizza, but thus far she’s done it all from within the Amazon’s line of devices like the Echo and Echo Dot. That might be changing. [More]
Amazon Working On Discount Music Subscription Service For Echo Users
By 8.23.16
Amazon already offers Prime Music as part of its Amazon Prime subscription package, but now it looks like the online retailer is looking to offer this music streaming independent from Prime while also giving a discount to users of the company’s Echo web-connected speaker. [More]
You Can Now Tell Amazon’s Alexa To Order Millions Of Prime-Eligible Items
By 7.1.16
Do you want to order a pallet of cat food and some bendy straws on Amazon? If not, don’t judge. If you do, it won’t matter if you’ve purchased those items in the past: Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa will no longer be limited to just reordering stuff you got before. [More]
“Chirp” Is Google’s Answer To Amazon Echo; Could Be In Your Home Later This Year
By 5.12.16
The Amazon Echo can do just about everything — order pizza, pay your credit card bill, and answer all your spur-of-the-moment questions, among other things — but can it compete with other connected home speakers? That’s something Google is poised to find out with its own connected-device that could launch later this year. [More]
