Amazon

Amazon and Microsoft today jointly announced that Alexa and Cortana will soon be able to communicate with each other. Microsoft said the collaboration will allow access to Alexa via Cortana on Windows 10 PCs later this year, and via the Cortana app for iOS and Android at an unspecified point in the future. Similarly, users will be able to access Cortana on Alexa-enabled devices like the...

In its ongoing push into retail, Amazon today announced the opening of five "Instant Pickup" locations in the United States, allowing Prime subscribers to choose from a selection of "daily essentials" that are made available for pick up in two minutes or less (via Reuters). The essential items include snacks, drinks, electronics, and Amazon's own devices. The Instant Pickup process begins...

Amazon today announced a new feature coming to its iOS and Android apps called "Amazon Pay Places," which will let users pay for in store items and order ahead meals using the payment information saved in their Amazon accounts (via TechCrunch). Amazon is opening up the feature with a small scale launch, however, and only enabling pay-ahead food orders through one restaurant, TGI Friday's, at...

Amazon is reportedly working on bringing a new mobile messaging platform to the table, according to customer survey details obtained by AFTVnews. The chat service for iOS, Android, and desktop is said to be called "Anytime" and will include typical messaging features like encryption, video and voice calling, but with some novel touches added to the mix that suggest social network-style...

Amazon's third annual "Prime Day" has just kicked off, with Amazon offering 30 hours of "epic 'day of' deals on everything you're into." Deals will change continually over the course of the next day, and Amazon is expected to offer discounts on a range of products, including Apple devices and accessories. The products that are discounted will be a surprise until each "Lightning" sale kicks...

Following the debut of "Prime Day" in 2015, and its return in 2016, Amazon this morning announced the third annual Prime Day will arrive next month, on July 11. Amazon calls this year's event an "epic day of deals on everything you're into," and like previous iterations you'll have to be subscribed to Amazon Prime to gain access to the discounts. Prime Day is expanding this year as well,...

Ahead of the launch of the Echo Show this Wednesday, June 28, Amazon has given review units to a few sites so that they can test out the new Echo and see how its 7-inch touch screen adds to the traditional Amazon Echo experience. Amazon revealed the $230 Echo Show earlier in May and bills it as having all of the features of the traditional Echo, with the addition of a display to enhance user...

Amazon today announced that users will now be able to sync their iCloud Calendar information with devices that support Amazon's smart assistant Alexa. With the update, users can ask Alexa what's coming up on their calendar, or issue commands so new appointments are added to the schedule. Anything added from an Amazon device is then synced with iCloud and added to the Calendar app on iOS and macOS ...

Amazon yesterday refreshed its low-cost tablet range and brought its Alexa voice assistant to Fire tablets in the U.K. for the first time. The new thinner and lighter $50/£50 Fire 7 boasts an improved 7-inch 1024x600 IPS screen with higher contrast and sharper text, up to 8 hours' battery life, and more storage than its predecessor. Meanwhile, the new $80/£80 Fire HD 8 features a larger 8-inch ...

Apple plans to make a major Apple TV announcement at WWDC that should delight Amazon Prime subscribers - the addition of an Amazon Prime Video app for the Apple TV. The news comes courtesy of BuzzFeed's John Paczkowski, who often accurately shares details on Apple's plans ahead of events. According to Paczkowski, sources of Apple's plans say the company will announce an Amazon Prime Video app...

Amazon today debuted an all-new touchscreen Echo device, which it's calling the "Echo Show," following a report from yesterday that said the company was gearing up to debut the new Echo as soon as today. As was expected, the Echo Show is a smart home speaker system that has all of the features of the basic Echo system with an additional 7-inch touchscreen. With the addition of a touchscreen,...

After nearly two years of being absent from the fourth generation Apple TV's app lineup, Amazon Prime Video is reportedly on its way to Apple's set-top box and could arrive for Prime subscribers to download and watch videos as soon as this summer. The news comes from Recode, citing sources familiar with the plans of each company who said that Apple and Amazon are "close to an agreement" in...

Amazon today announced the expansion of its popular Echo line with the $200 Amazon Echo Look, a device that packs in all of the typical Echo functionalities and adds on a hands-free camera with built-in LED lighting that can give users an edge on their wardrobe choices. With Echo Look, users can take full-body photos and videos using their voice, and view the content on the connected Amazon iOS...

Amazon on Wednesday made the AI and voice-recognition software that powers the company's Alexa virtual assistant available to all its cloud-computing customers. Called Amazon Lex, the service will allow developers to make chat bot applications using Alexa's voice recognition technology and leverage the AI's deep learning abilities to enable their apps to understand more text and speech...

Amazon today announced it is launching its Fire TV media streamer stick in the United Kingdom, approximately six months after the device first launched in the U.S. The redesigned Fire TV stick, which costs £39.99, is the first of Amazon's media streamers to come with an Alexa-enabled voice remote. It features a new quad-core processor that makes it 30 percent faster than the previous version, ...

Amazon today announced a new way for its users to add funds to their Amazon accounts, called Amazon Cash. By visiting a participating retailer, Amazon users will be able to show a barcode to a cashier, choose an amount between $15 and $500, and pay the amount in cash to see it transferred digitally and able to be spent on Amazon.com. As TechCrunch reported, Amazon Cash is aimed at "cash...

Amazon has launched another grocery initiative, this time for Amazon employees in Seattle. The service is called AmazonFresh Pickup and it allows customers to order groceries from the Amazon mobile app on iOS and Android, or on the web, select a pickup time, and show up at the AmazonFresh Pickup location to get their items bagged into their vehicle by an Amazon worker. Although it's limited to ...

Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa are being put through their paces in a "tech incubator" hotel chain, in order to determine which voice assistant brings more to the table for guests wanting to order room service, control lights, change TV channels, adjust the temperature, and more (via Bloomberg). The main incubator for the test is happening in Aloft Hotels, which are owned by Marriott. The...

Amazon has added a long-awaited Pocket-style read-it-later feature to its Kindle iOS app that allows users browsing the web to send articles to their Kindle device for offline reading. Amazon has offered desktop Chrome and Firefox browser extensions to feed into its Send to Kindle feature for some time, but the company had not offered a Safari-compatible iOS solution until now. The new...

Amazon today updated its Amazon Music app for iOS devices to version 6.4.0, adding a small but important new feature: support for CarPlay. With the latest version of the Amazon Music app, Amazon Music subscribers who own a vehicle equipped with CarPlay can access their music directly through the CarPlay interface when an iPhone is connected to the car. Amazon Music is available to Amazon...