How the Amazon Echo learned to talk — and listen
How the Amazon Echo learned to talk — and listen

Jeff Bezos badly wanted a voice computer. He had been saying so publicly since the very early days of Amazon, telling anyone who would listen about why voice might make it easier and more natural to interact with technology. (And to buy stuff from Jeff Bezos.) But when a team at Amazon set out to […]

You can order Grubhub and Uber Eats ‘conversationally’ with Alexa Plus
You can order Grubhub and Uber Eats ‘conversationally’ with Alexa Plus

Amazon is giving you a new way to order food through Grubhub and Uber Eats with Alexa without having to endure an awkward exchange just to add fries. Amazon said the entire process is meant to be conversational, building your order in a similar manner to ordering in a restaurant. That means changing your order, […]

Ring finally brings 4K video to its battery-powered doorbell camera
Ring finally brings 4K video to its battery-powered doorbell camera

Ring has announced its first battery-powered 2K and 4K doorbell cameras. The Ring Battery Video Doorbell Pro 2nd Gen ($249.99) offers 4K video resolution and 10x digital zoom, while the Battery Video Doorbell Plus 2nd Gen ($179.99) offers 2K video and 6x zoom. The Battery Video Doorbell 2nd Gen ($99.99) also has 2K but uses […]

Amazon is making an Alexa phone
Amazon is making an Alexa phone

Over 10 years after shelving the Fire Phone, Amazon is reportedly planning to launch another smartphone, this time focused on Alexa. According to Reuters, the phone, which is code-named “Transformer,” will center around Amazon’s AI assistant, but Alexa won’t “necessarily be the primary operating system of the phone.” “Transformer” is currently in development in Amazon’s […]

OpenAI snags $110 billion in investments from Amazon, Nvidia, and Softbank
OpenAI snags $110 billion in investments from Amazon, Nvidia, and Softbank

OpenAI has closed another round of funding, totalling $110 billion being newly committed to the maker of ChatGPT, which it says has more than 900 million weekly active users and over 50 million consumer subscribers. Amazon is investing $50 billion and striking a deal that includes plans for custom models and more. Nvidia and SoftBank […]

Amazon’s AGI lab leader is leaving
Amazon’s AGI lab leader is leaving

After less than two years at Amazon, David Luan, the head of Amazon’s San Francisco AI lab, is departing the company. Luan announced the update in a post on LinkedIn on Tuesday, saying, “I’ll be leaving Amazon at the end of this week to cook up something new.” He added that, “There’s incredible work to […]

You can now make Alexa’s AI personality more friendly, blunt, or chilled out
You can now make Alexa’s AI personality more friendly, blunt, or chilled out

Amazon is giving you more control over how Alexa behaves during conversations and responses. Three “personality style” presets are launching today for Alexa Plus users in the US that allow you to make the AI-powered voice assistant more concise, cheerful, or relaxed, depending on your personal preferences. “Alexa’s personality is one of the things customers […]

Amazon’s Send to Alexa Plus makes the Kindle Scribe feel more like a productivity device
Amazon’s Send to Alexa Plus makes the Kindle Scribe feel more like a productivity device

Amazon’s rolling out a new “Send to Alexa Plus” feature to the latest Kindle Scribe and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft owners starting February 12. The feature lets you send your notes or documents to Amazon’s AI-powered Alexa Plus assistant, which can then summarize them, turn them into to-do lists, calendar events, or reminders, as well as […]

The Alexa app is so bad I’m using Siri again
The Alexa app is so bad I’m using Siri again

I’ve used Alexa to manage my shopping list for years. There are plenty of great list apps out there, but the convenience of adding items by voice anywhere in my house, pulling up the list on an Echo Show in the kitchen, and having it on my phone via the Alexa app has worked well […]