Amazon is quietly building up its digital health tech talent, reportedly poaching a healthcare exec from Box. The Seattle behemoth may be best known for its retail business, but in the background it has a growing footprint in all manner of health technology areas. This latest Amazon talent grab appears to be another move to shore up those.
Amazon had an idea for a robot that would live its life charging up other devices. This robot would call when bidden, and would be able to follow the user around when there's a need to walk. This robot - or army of robots - would address a problem that many citizens have at airports every single day of the year. It'd do a lot more good than those confounded outlet stickers, anyway.
Kenmore's Smart home appliances are getting Amazon Alexa integration, with the Sears-brand home tech also headed to the online retail behemoth's virtual shelves. The deal, announced today, is the biggest shift in availability for Kenmore appliances to-date, Sears said. However, even if you buy an appliance through Amazon rather than at a Sears location, the company will still offer its own delivery and installation services.
Amazon may be the go-to online retailer for a huge number of people, but the sales behemoth now wants to be a glamorous lifestyle boutique as well as a bargain warehouse. The company has launched a new feature, Amazon Spark, in its iOS app, taking ideas from Instagram and Pinterest in the grand scheme of making you buy more stuff. The premise? You'll be more likely to open your wallet if you see things looking pretty.
Blue Apron and lesser known services like it specialize in shipping all the ingredients for dinner to your door, leaving the actual cooking process to the buyer. It has proven to be a popular option that lies between take-out food and cooking from scratch, and now it looks like Amazon is getting in on the game. A trademark application from Amazon recently appeared from Amazon Technologies detailing 'prepared food kits' with the tagline 'we do the prep, you be the chef.'
Rejoice smartphone users! If you've been looking for a new messaging app and options like Facebook Messenger, iMessage, Whatsapp, Google Allo, Hangouts, Slack, Signal, Telegram, Skype, Viber, and whatever else is already installed on your phone still aren't enough, Amazon might just be working on something to meet your needs. That's right, we could soon be getting yet another messaging app, this time from the internet marketplace giant.
Amazon certainly made a lot of waves when it announced a $13.7 billion bid to add Whole Foods to its portfolio last month. Some of those waves were worrying, though, as a number of other retailers and grocery chains saw their stock price plummet after the announcement. That reality of Amazon's influence, along with some other concerning factors, are causing some US lawmakers to urge a closer look at this transaction.
Amazon has a successor to its Echo smart speaker in the pipeline and it'll be designed to take on Apple's HomePod, according to a new report. The new not-yet-officially-revealed version of the Amazon Echo will slim down compared to the first one, assuming the source is to be believed, and it'll also be shorter. Despite the shrunken size, the updated model will see many improvements, not the least of which is better microphone tech, more tweeters, and a new chassis material.
Alexa's abilities when it comes to controlling the devices in your living room just keep on expanding. A few weeks ago, Amazon expanded access to Alexa's Video Skills API, allowing developers to integrate Alexa into their services and let users find video content though voice commands. Today, Amazon is bolstering the Smart Home API, adding functionality to control devices like TVs, AV receivers, and IR hubs with Alexa.
Not all smartphones are created equal. That pretty much is a fact of the mobile life. Sometimes, even those with the same name can differ in features, depending on the region. Just like the LG G6 with its Quad DAC enabled Korean model and wireless charging US model. It seems that Sony has followed suit but in a potentially more confusing way. Available in the US via Amazon or Best Buy, the Xperia XA1 Ultra supports 4G LTE networks in general, but only one of those will work with US bands.
A lot of Pokemon fans are probably looking forward to the mainline Pokemon title Nintendo announced for the Switch during E3 2017, but before that arrives, we've got Pokemon UltraSun and UltraMoon to look forward to. Serving as enhanced editions for Pokemon Sun and Moon, players will once again venture through the Alola region, presumably playing through a different story. Like Sun and Moon before them, it turns out that Pokemon UltraSun and UltraMoon will be getting a special edition steelbook release.
Say what you will about Prime Day's sometimes lackluster deals, but the annual sale seems to working out wonderfully Amazon, which has hosted Prime Day for three years running now. Amazon announced today that Prime Day 2017 was once again its biggest sales day of the year. We've come to expect that from Prime Day, but what's particularly interesting is that Prime Day 2017 also managed to become the biggest sales day in Amazon history.
