Items tagged with echo
If you have multiple Amazon Echo speakers in your household, a new feature has been enabled which will allow you to spread your favorite tunes to every room. The feature is called Alexa Multi-Room Music, and as its name implies, allows you to synchronize music playback with two or more Echo devices.
To get started...
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Microsoft is already dealing with the fallout from Consumer Reports’ decision to pull its recommendation of Surface PCs due to reliability issues, and now a former executive is spilling the beans on turmoil within the company’s Cortana team. Qi Lu, a leading AI researcher, headed up Microsoft’s applications and...
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If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines during this whole “AI smart speaker” revolution, then maybe now is the time to pull the trigger. Last month during its Prime Day sales extravaganza, Amazon was selling its original Echo for $89. Since that time, the price has skyrocketed back up to its original MSRP of...
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Bigger is better, right? When it comes to smartphones, larger screens have definitely won over the majority of consumers (save for the iPhone SE holdouts), but Facebook might be looking to go “big” in a completely different arena. A new report suggests that Facebook is working on a new smart speaker that will...
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If you do not care about having a fancy touchscreen on your smart speaker, you can score a pretty good deal on Amazon's original Echo model. Amazon is currently selling its voice-controlled Echo speaker with Alexa integration for $130, down 28 percent from its regular retail price of $180. It is available at that...
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Following the philosophy that some things are better late than never, Amazon has rolled out the ability to block calls and messages to its Alexa-powered Echo devices. For whatever reason, Amazon did not think to include call and message blocking from the start, which is a bit of a privacy concern—without that ability...
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Amazon wants to make sure that its digital assistant only springs to life when it is actually summoned, versus misinterpreting a word or phrase for "Alexa." To make that possible, Amazon in introducing a new feature called Cloud-Based Wake Word Verification. Just as it sounds, the new feature is intended to improve...
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Amazon has been in the news a lot recently, mainly for its popular Alexa AI that powers its Echo family of products. The company last week announced the Echo Show, which features a 7-inch display, and today the company has revealed a partnership with Element to produce 4K Smart TVs.
Element isn’t a brand that you...
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Amazon's latest Alexa update is one that could prove extremely useful to those who want to keep in contact with friends and family through various Echo devices, coming to us in the form of Alexa Calling & Messaging. The premise is simple: you can use your Echo device to send and receive messages to anyone who also...
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Launching a successful technology product is sometimes all about timing. That was certainly the case when Amazon came out Echo two and a half years ago. The proliferation of increasingly affordable Internet of Things (IoT) products had started to bring smart home functionality into the mainstream, and with every...
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Back in early March, we were given an early glimpse at an upcoming Amazon camera courtesy of AFTVnews, which stumbled across a picture of the device sitting on Amazon’s servers. Two months later, that product was revealed to be the Echo Look camera.
Today, a small image of what could be a touch-screen Amazon Echo...
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Does your Echo or Echo Dot sound a little too robotic for your tastes when responding to queries? If that’s the case, then Amazon is working diligently to make your digital assistant AI mastermind sound a bit more “human” with regards to its speech patterns.
Until now, Alexa’s female voice, while helpful in an...
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Amazon is wasting no time in weaving its Alexa digital voice assistant into more of its services and apps. Last week, Alexa made its way to Amazon’s shopping app for iOS, allowing iPhone users to enjoy most of the benefits available to Echo and Echo Dot users including controlling smart devices.
Today, Amazon is...
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Amazon’s Alexa AI voice assistant is making a run for Apple’s iOS platform, and it is doing so with its Amazon app for the iPhone and iPad. This move effectively turns your iPhone into an Echo-type device, allowing you access to the thousands of skills in Alexa’s rapidly expanding repertoire.
Accessing Alexa is...
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Whether or not audio recorded by smart speakers such as Amazon's Echo is protected by the First Amendment of the United States is a legal argument that will have to wait for another day. That is because Amazon is no longer fighting a subpoena that was issued in an Arkansas murder case after the defendant gave the...
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Is Amazon’s Alexa protected under the First Amendment of the United States? As part of an ongoing homicide investigation, Amazon argues that any information contained or recorded by the device is protected under “freedom of speech”. The corporation claims that it is not trying to obstruct the investigation, but...
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Police are hoping that audio captured from an Amazon Echo smart speaker can help shed light on a murder investigation in Bentonville, Arkansas. The device belongs to James Andrew Bates, who was arrested and charged with first-degree murder after the victim, Victor Collins, was found dead in Bates' hot tub at his...
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Amazon’s Alexa-powered devices have been a runaway sales hit for the online retailer. As we reported during the lead-up to Christmas, the Echo, Echo Dot and Amazon Tap were nearly impossible to find online following enticing price cuts, while many brick and mortar stores also had trouble keeping the speaker/AI...
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The Wynn hotel and casino in Las Vegas is going high tech by equipping all 4,748 rooms with an Amazon Echo smart speaker. Wynn Chairman and CEO Steve Wynn likened the hands-free speaker to having a personal butler, saying that in all the years he has been in the business he's never seen a better implementation of...
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Amazon took the consumer electronics world by storm two years ago with the debut of its Echo speaker, which is powered by the Alexa intelligent digital assistant. The Alexa/Echo family has since grown to include the pint-sized Echo Dot and the portable Amazon Tap. During that time, Alexa’s skillset has also ballooned...
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Online shopping may seem like the modern thing to do, but if you're moving your mouse and pecking away at your keyboard (or tapping on your touchscreen), you might already be behind the curve. That will be the case if voice shopping takes hold, as Amazon would like to see happen. From now until Monday, Amazon Prime...
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Reviews for Google Home may have started flooding the internet this week, but Amazon’s Echo is still the device to beat when acting as your central hub for AI voice assistance and home automation. Now, Amazon is looking to make it even easier to add new Alexa skills to your Echo straight from Amazon.com to give it a...
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