Amazon Alexa

Amazon has updated the Alexa mobile app with an important new feature that should help those who are dedicated to the platform. Simply called Auto Mode, this new feature enables users to turn on a simplified interface while they're driving, stripping the Alexa mobile experience down to the basic features users may need to access while driving. The feature may be useful for those who drive cars lacking a smart system like Android Auto.

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Amazon announced quite a handful of new products today, including some from its Ring subsidiary, but it isn't just bringing new hardware to its customers. The e-commerce giant also announced upgrades to the hands-free experience that powers many of its devices, giving the AI-powered Alexa more skills and more brains. Going beyond that, however, Amazon is also trying to address one of Alexa's most unpopular flaw: its privacy.

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Amazon is either brazen, blasé, or oblivious to its privacy reputation, and the result is borderline-creepy products like Ring Always Home Cam and the Echo Show 10. Unveiled today in a product-packed event that was punctuated by monologues about how working-from-home has changed the landscape for what we expect from our devices, on the one hand they're a perhaps logical progression of the smart home devices Amazon has already shown us.

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Amazon has launched its own cloud-based gaming system, Amazon Luna, taking on Google Stadia and Xbox Game Streaming. Based around a new, wireless Luna Controller that connects directly to the cloud, along with AWS and a partnership with Ubisoft, it promises instant play across Fire TV, computers, and smartphones, along with baked-in Twitch integration.

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Amazon has confirmed the date for its annual fall "Devices & Services" event, with the online-only launch taking place on September 24. It's expected to see the debut of Amazon's latest Alexa-powered hardware range ahead of the holidays, and which, if past events are anything to go by, will probably include both smart speaker mainstays of the line-up together with some more unusual options.

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Smart assistants and smart speakers have introduced new ways of making our busy lives less frantic but, until recently, they have been more about single-action commands. Routines, scenes, and other similar features have started rolling out to truly offer some automation, bundling related actions together for a specific theme or time. These are definitely useful but only if you actually know how to create them in the first place. Amazon is helping remove the guesswork by making it dead easy to share Alexa Routines around.

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Despite living in a mostly digital age, there always comes a time when we end up having to print something. It isn't always a smooth and uneventful experience, especially when you discover only then and there that you don't have enough ink left in the first place. If would definitely be grand if you could simply command your printer to do that for you. If you have an Amazon Echo, you now can, well, sort of.

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When the first smart speakers, led by the Amazon Echo, appeared, there was some confusion at what they'd really be good for. These devices eventually became commonplace inside more modern homes but they initially lacked one feature people presumed they would have: making and taking phone calls. That also eventually arrived in one form or another but now Amazon and AT&T are making it easier by linking subscribers' accounts with their Echo speakers for convenient hands-free calls.

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Amazon envisions a future in which its Alexa digital assistant is available in many homes, including rentals. The company has introduced Alexa for Residential, a new solution for property owners and managers who want to offer their buyers and renters 'smart' experiences, including voice-controlled lighting, appliances, and entertainment. of course, such applications would raise some important privacy questions.

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You can do a lot of things these days without even tapping on your phone but there are still quite a lot that requires some good, old-fashioned manual work. That doesn't always have to be the case, especially these days when people have to be extra careful what they put their hands on. Following up on a promise it made earlier this year, Amazon is finally rolling out Alexa's skill to pay for your gas with just a voice command. There are, however, quite a number of caveats users have to keep in mind when using this new convenience.

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Amazon is both famous and notorious for making it extremely easy to buy things with just a single click, even using a "1-Click" button exactly for that. It seems, however, that it may just be just as simple to compromise one of Amazon's most popular products. Its AI-powered personal assistant Alexa can be found in so many smart speakers and smart home products and all it takes is a well-crafted innocent-looking link for a hacker to get control of an Alexa device and the owners' data associated with it.

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Amazon has updated its Alexa mobile app, adding enhanced personalization while reducing the presence of certain third-party features. Notably, the app's home screen has been updated in a way that emphasizes the features that consumers most commonly use, helping them get straight to the tools they want without excessive tapping and searching. The Alexa icon has moved to the top of the app, as well.

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