Category: Amazon

Everything in our holiday gift guide that you can buy for $50 or less

[ad_1] TOYS Skyrocket Pomsies Lumies There’s no shortage of toys that light up, laugh or purr, but Skyrocket’s Pomsies won our hearts with their adorable and wearable design. Now they’re back as unicorns with a new ability: color reading. The Lumies still want to be loved and petted. But now kids can play hue-based games […]

Amazon designs faster ARM-based chips for its cloud servers

[ad_1] Last year, Amazon announced the launch of its ARM-based processor called Graviton which was optimized for performance and cost. According to a source who spoke to Reuters, the new processors are at least 20 percent faster than this first-generation ARM chip. The technology for the chips comes from ARM Holdings, a British company which […]

Amazon is discounting more Echo Show models by up to $80

[ad_1] The second-gen Echo Show has a sharp, colorful, 10-inch display — thanks to design refinements, it doesn’t take up too much counter space. The Echo Show 8 is Amazon’s most recent addition to the lineup. It combines the same screen and sound capabilities of the Echo Show with the camera shutter and form factor […]

The Echo Flex is Amazon’s Alexa gateway drug

[ad_1] Instead of something that looks like a speaker, the Echo Flex is a wall plug that you can fit into any outlet (. It’s fairly small at only 2.8 inches tall and 2.6 inches wide, and it doesn’t obscure the other outlet when plugged in. Since it’s not reliant on taking up any horizontal […]

Alexa can now sound excited or disappointed

[ad_1] Alexa’s ability to convey emotions is powered by Amazons’ Neural Text-to-Speech technology, and the company says “overall satisfaction with the voice experience increased by 30 percent when Alexa responded with emotions.” We guess the testers found it much more pleasing to interact with a voice AI that that doesn’t sound monotonous. By the way, […]

Amazon ends creepy program that sent samples based on purchase history

[ad_1] Product Sampling is ostensibly a convenience — you can try items you’d otherwise never consider. However, it also serves as a physical reminder of Amazon’s far-reaching data collection. Even if you’re fully aware that Amazon has a detailed record of your purchase history, it could still be creepy to receive cat food or moisturizer […]

Alexa can refill your prescription and remind you to take it

[ad_1] There are multiple privacy layers to be sure others aren’t prying into your medication history. You’ll need to use both your Alexa voice profile and a personal passcode to access data. Also, any interactions with the pharmacy skill are redacted to prevent someone from simply looking at the mobile app. Right now, the feature […]

Alexa is coming to low-spec devices like light switches and thermostats

[ad_1] Up until now, Alexa required at least 100MB of RAM and an ARM Cortex-A processor. That limited it smart devices that served as a central hub for other things that are controlled by Alexa. “We now offload the vast majority of all of this to the cloud,” AWS IoT VP Dirk Didascalou told TechCrunch. […]

Amazon warehouse injury numbers highlight pressure on workers

[ad_1] In a statement provided to Engadget, Amazon denies that its “fulfillment centers are unsafe and efforts to paint our workplace as such based solely on the number of injury recordings is misleading given the size of our workforce” (its full statement on the reports is below). As of June, it employed 125,000 people at […]

The Engadget staff on ‘The Man in the High Castle’ finale

[ad_1] Nick SummersSenior Editor Let’s jump straight into season four. What did you make of the slimmer cast? I was surprised that they killed trade minister Nobusuke Tagomi, a pacifist with a deep understanding of the show’s multiverse, in the first episode (apparently he was busy shooting the second season of Netflix’s Lost in Space). […]