Amazon

Apple uses custom Inferentia and Graviton artificial intelligence chips from Amazon Web Services for search services, Apple machine learning and AI director Benoit Dupin said today at the AWS re:Invent conference (via CNBC). Dupin said that Amazon's AI chips are "reliable, definite, and able to serve [Apple] customers worldwide." AWS and Amazon have a "strong relationship," and Apple plans...

Amazon today announced the launch of two new Echo Show devices, both of which have large displays. The Echo Show 15 has a 15-inch display and is a replacement for the original Echo Show 15, while the even bigger Echo Show 21 has a 21-inch display. For those unfamiliar with the Echo Show, it is Amazon's smart home control device, serving as a way to control smart home products. According to...

Amazon today refreshed its popular Kindle e-reader lineup, introducing the first Kindle that has a color display. The $279.99 Kindle Colorsoft has a 7-inch high-contrast display that Amazon says offers "paper-like color." While Amazon has released tablets with traditional LCD displays that support color, the Colorsoft is E Ink like Amazon's other Kindle tablets, but with new technology that...

Amazon is set to release a revamped version of its Alexa voice assistant this October that will be powered by AI models from Anthropic's Claude, rather than Amazon's in-house AI technology, reports Reuters. Amazon's Echo device with Alexa The decision to use Claude's AI models comes after Amazon's internal software reportedly struggled with performance issues during initial testing. Sources...

Apple competitor Amazon is working on a revamp of its Alexa assistant, and the new version could cost up to $10 per month, according to a report from Reuters. The upcoming version of Alexa will support conversational generative AI, and Amazon is planning for two tiers of service. There will be a free tier and a second, premium tier that is priced at $5 at a minimum, with Amazon considering...

Amazon today launched the Amazon One app, which is designed to allow customers to scan their palms to make device-free purchases at Whole Foods, Panera Bread, and 150 third-party locations in stadiums, airports, fitness centers, and convenience stores. Prior to the launch of the app, signing up for Amazon One had to be done in a physical location with an Amazon One device. The app lets...

Amazon today announced Matter Casting, an interoperable rival to Apple's AirPlay feature, at CES 2024 (via Bloomberg). Matter Casting will initially only support streaming content from Amazon's Prime Video app to Echo Show devices, but the feature will support Fire TV in the coming months. Later in the year, it will work across a range of other video services, including Plex, Starz, Pluto...

Amazon Prime Video will introduce limited ads to its content starting on January 29, offering an ad-free option for an additional fee. In an email to subscribers, Amazon confirmed that movies and TV shows on Prime Video will soon feature "limited advertisements" starting on January 29, 2024. The company assured users that Prime Video will have "meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other ...

Amazon today announced that it has added passkey support to its desktop sites and mobile apps, allowing customers to sign in to their accounts without the need for a password. Passkeys are a more secure alternative to passwords because a passkey cannot be shared with another person through a phishing attempt or leaked online through a database hack. Passkeys do not require customers to...

Amazon today hosted an event to introduce a range of new devices and services across its brands, from an updated version of the Alexa voice assistant to new Echo, Ring, and Eero products. Amazon previewed a future version of Alexa, which is based on generative AI to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Bing, Google’s Bard, and more. Amazon says that its large language model has...

Both Apple and Alphabet have asked Amazon to improve content moderation for its Kindle app after it was found that children could use the app to access sexually explicit images, reports Reuters. Amazon's Kindle platform sells adult-oriented books that include photographs that are not suitable for children, with the content first discovered by parents who contacted Reuters. The parents had...

Amazon today announced that it will be updating 17 of its Echo devices to support the new Matter smart home standard over Wi-Fi next month, according to The Verge. The phased rollout will initially only be supported on Android and allow those Echo devices to serve as controllers only for plugs, bulbs, and switches. Amazon's Matter support will expand early next year to include iOS devices and...

Amazon today announced an expansion of Amazon Music, which is now available almost in full to Amazon Prime subscribers. Amazon is providing Amazon Prime users with access to the full catalog of 100 million Amazon Music songs, up from the original two million songs that were available. Amazon Prime subscribers are not getting unlimited on-demand access to Amazon Music tracks, but the full...

Amazon today announced that it is dropping support for its Cloud Cam indoor security camera, which launched in 2017. In an email, Amazon said customers will no longer be able to use the Cloud Cam and all companion apps starting December 2, 2022. Cloud Cam users will be able to download any video recordings until December 2, 2022, at which point all video history will be deleted, according to ...

Amazon Freevee, aka the ad-supported video service that used to be called IMDb TV, now has an app that's available on the App Store for the Apple TV (via Variety). According to Amazon's website, Freevee is an ad-supported streaming video service that is available in the United States. It is separate from Amazon Prime Video, which requires an Amazon Prime subscription, and it is entirely free ...

Amazon is seemingly working on an extended-reality (XR) device that could rival similar efforts from Apple, Meta, Google, and Samsung, according to several job listings. Concept render of Apple's mixed-reality headset by Ian Zelbo, based on purported leaked information According to a number of job listings spotted by protocol, Amazon has been looking to fill senior roles for computer vision...

Amazon is increasing its Prime membership subscription prices in the U.S., the company has revealed in its Q4 2021 earnings results. According to the company, the fee for a Prime subscription is set to increase for the first time in four years, rising to $15 per month (up from $13), or $139 per year (up from $119). The price hike, representing an almost 17% increase, will go into effect...

Amazon today announced that its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service is now offering a "preview" of M1 Mac mini instances in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) regions of U.S. East and U.S. West, with other regions to be available when the instances are fully released. An "instance" is a virtual server available for rent through Amazon's EC2 service for running apps on AWS infrastructure....

Amazon today introduced a native macOS app for its Amazon Prime Video service, with the app now available from the Mac App Store. Prime Video subscribers can stream content using the new app, or download content on Macs for offline viewing. All Amazon Prime content is available through the Mac app. Picture-in-Picture and AirPlay are both supported features that work with Amazon's new app, ...

Amazon's Omni and 4-Series Fire TVs will support AirPlay 2 and HomeKit in a future update, the company has announced (via The Verge). Amazon's Omni and 4-Series Omni TVs launch today, featuring 4K HDR, voice controls with Amazon Alexa, and close integration with the Fire TV user experience. Upon the launch of the new TVs, Amazon today announced that it plans to add support for ‌AirPlay‌ 2...