Have you crafted a useful Alexa Routine that helps you get out of bed, remember to finish certain tasks or have a more effective workout? Have you wanted to share that Routine with a friend? Or maybe you’re less-than-organized and want to discover a Routine that could get you closer to your goals. Amazon has made both sharing and discovering Routines easier with shareable URL links for customers in the US, the company announced today.

You can share a Routine you’ve created by accessing the Alexa app, selecting the Routine you want to share, then choosing whether you want the routine sent via text, email or social media. If you’ve been sent a Routine and want to set it up on your Alexa device, clicking the Routine’s URL takes you to your Alexa app. Follow the on-screen instructions and customize the Routine to fit your needs.

The next time you need to fill up your car, you might pay for your gas using your voice. Amazon, ExxonMobil and payment provider Fiserv have announced that you can pay with Alexa at some pumps. The Alexa skill was announced at CES in January, and it’s now available at more than 11,500 Exxon and Mobil stations across the US.

When you pull up to a pump, you can simply ask the voice assistant to “pay for gas” using your phone or through your car itself if you have an Alexa-enabled vehicle or Echo Auto. Alexa will confirm the station and pump number with you, then it’ll activate the pump. Payment will automatically be handled through Amazon Pay. While you might have already been using contactless payments at the pump anyway, this option could make your trip to the gas station a bit more seamless.

Amazon Alexa users can now use the “Drop In” feature to talk with all of their Echo devices at once, Amazon announced on its blog. Previously, Drop In messages could only be sent to one other Alexa-enabled device at a time — a user with an Alexa device in the bedroom could “drop in” on a device in the kitchen and have a two-way conversation.

Now, you can use a device to send a message to all Echo devices in the house at once. This could be helpful with asking group questions like, “Does anyone want anything from the grocery store?” according to the Amazon blog. To start a group Drop In conversation, you can ask Alexa to “Drop In everywhere.”

Severe weather can be another problem that sidelines your plans or your commute. By saying, “Alexa, tell me when there’s a severe weather alert,” you’ll be notified in the case of particularly choppy storms.

If you missed an NBA game, you can now catch the highlights on any Alexa-enabled device with a screen. You can either specify which team’s highlights you want to see, or you can ask Alexa to “play the NBA highlights” to see all noteworthy basketball clips.

2020 US presidential election news has been coming in at a fast pace, making it somewhat difficult to stay up-to-date. You can ask Alexa for an election update to hear the latest polling info, candidate positions and debate recaps.

With these new skills — particularly the traffic and weather ones — Alexa could become an even more convenient way to get through your day. The NBA and election news can also help get you up to speed quickly. It’s up to the public if that convenience is worth the risk of less privacy.

Of course its Infinity Screen is impressive, with almost nothing surrounding the screen itself or distracting your eye. What you won’t see are the speakers embedded into the back of the display that, in concert with its AI “Quantum” processor give a 5.1 surround sound effect that tracks objects as they move around the screen, and can sync up with compatible soundbars — like the new ones Samsung just announced — for fuller “Q-Symphony” sound.

There’s also an embedded Samsung Health app, with dedicated fitness content, and it allows owners to manage their workouts on the TV using a connected smartphone. Naturally, support for AI assistants like Samsung’s Bixby, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa is built-in too. We’ll find out more about this TV and the rest of Samsung’s lineup shortly, so stay tuned.

Developing…

To get November (and the holiday shopping season) off to a flying start, Amazon has put many of its Echo devices on sale, including some of its more recent Alexa-powered gizmos. For instance, you can snag yourself or a loved one an Echo Show 5, which Amazon revealed in May, for $60 (down from $90).

The music streaming service added Spanish support during Latinx Heritage Month — it recently added a station called El Detour to highlight artists at the forefront of Latin music. Along with requesting a song, album, artist, genre or station with your voice, you can thumbs up/thumbs down a track and use the typical playback controls.

If the move seems like it was a long time coming, it’s worth noting Amazon only added Spanish language support to Alexa in the US this month.

It’s unknown when exactly we’ll catch a glimpse of these earbuds. Amazon is expected to unveil a host of new devices at its big hardware event on September 25th. As is typical, the company has remained silent on what exactly we can expect from the event. If last year is any guide, there will likely be some surprises in store. CNBC also reported that the company is working on an Echo device with better sound quality for music — a rumor that we’ve heard before — so we may see that item debut at the event as well.

Fitness tracking capabilities and a lower price could certainly give the new Alexa earbuds an edge over Apple’s Airpods. AirPods are currently the best-selling wireless earpods in the world, making up 60 percent of the global market. But for Android users or those hunting for more affordable options, Amazon’s upcoming entry could be an attractive alternative.

The Safety Connect system was previously available in the Prius only in the Limited models. It includes automatic collision detection, roadside assistance, emergency assistance and a stolen vehicle locator. Toyota’s offering the system for free for three years — it typically costs $8/month or $80/year. Meanwhile, the L Eco, LE and XLE Prius variants will include a seven-inch Toyota Audio touchscreen.

In practice, the patent would allow Alexa to “look backward” at recent things said aloud prior to hearing its name. For example, if a user said something like, “What’s the weather going to be like today, Alexa?” the device would hear the trigger word “Alexa” and quickly go back over the prior phrase to process the command. To accomplish that, the voice assistant would constantly be recording, storing and processing speech, then quickly deleting it if it is not relevant.

Such a feature, if implemented, would provide considerable privacy concerns for users. The patent attempts to account for that, giving users the choice to allow Alexa to record and store audio for between 10 and 30 seconds at a time.

“The technology in this patent is not in use, and referring to the potential use of patents is highly speculative,” a spokesperson for Amazon told Engadget. “Like many companies, we file a number of forward-looking patent applications that explore new scientific ideas that may not make it into customer-facing products. Patents take multiple years to receive and do not necessarily reflect current or near-future state of products and services.”

If the patent ever were to make its way to your Alexa, the recording limit still may not be enough for some people. Amazon has already shown on several occasions that Alexa recordings aren’t as private as you may think. Recent reports revealed that Amazon employs a team of people who listen to and process Alexa recordings — and those auditors may have access to potentially personally identifiable information including location data. Amazon has also accidentally sent a user someone else’s Alexa recordings and was ordered by a court to surrender audio from a person’s smart speaker as part of an ongoing trial.