Amazon's Audible has announced plans to add captioning to audiobooks and publishers aren't happy about it. Though many users are receptive to the idea of 'close captioning' for audiobooks, which Audible announced last week, the publishing industry is revolting against the plan, in some cases demanding the feature be made unavailable on certain titles.
It's that time again, the "Amazon Prime Day" sale, the (two days) of the year when Amazon suggests it has its best deals of the year. Amazon will re-organize its front page to promote the products that companies agreed to push, and Amazon makes a boat-load of money. They'll use every trick in the book to make it seem like you're not only getting a deal, you're having fun at the same time!
The Amazon Echo is a device that's gone through a few different iterations throughout the years, and according to a new report today, Amazon is looking to give it a fairly significant upgrade. Amazon is said to be looking at launching a new Echo that will be larger than currently smart speakers in the line. At the same time, today's report claims that the company is beginning to ramp up its efforts in creating a home robot.
The latest entry to the retro mini console is just around the corner. Well, if that is a very big corner and you have no problem waiting for a year before you get your hands on one. If you do have that much faith in Konami, you'll be able to put in an order for the TurboGrafx-16 mini to play 50 classic titles next March. Actually half that many titles only unless you speak English and Japanese.
We already knew that Amazon is working on a Lord of the Rings TV series, but today, the company's game development arm confirmed that it's working on video game as well. Apparently, Amazon has partnered with Leyou Technologies and Middle-earth Enterprises to make a new free-to-play MMO set in the Lord of the Rings universe. Details are fairly slim at the moment, but Amazon is letting loose a few morsels today.
Amazon is developing a wearable that can detect human emotions, a new leak claims. The alleged wristband would be positioned as a health and wellness device, at least based on documents about the device that have surfaced. The wearable is reportedly being developed by Amazon's Alexa voice software team and Lab126.
The number of Internet users, or at least the devices connecting to the Internet, is growing rapidly, far too quick and too high for our existing systems to accommodate. But while the numbers rise, Internet connectivity remains a luxury or even a dream in some areas of the world. Luminaries and visionaries are looking to the skies for the answer, envisioning constellations of satellites to beam down that precious commodity almost anywhere. Not to be left behind, Amazon has started the process to make its Project Kuiper system a reality to "delight customers."
Amazon can be sued by customers over defective third-party seller products purchased on its platform, a federal appeals courts decided this week. The decision marks a significant change for the Internet retailer, countering two past courts that had found Amazon couldn't be held liable in these cases. The decision applies to Pennsylvania where the ruling was made.
AI assistants are only as good as the skills or actions they offer. And those skills largely depend on developers, often from big brands, doing their thing. Given how the early skills systems developed and how different rivaling companies raced to grab a piece of the Alexa or Google Assistant market, these skills grew to become isolated gardens. Now Amazon is attempting to bridge these islands by with the Skills Connections that lets other skill reuse existing skills to perform basic, common tasks.
It might not be a known fact but Amazon is actually an Android manufacturer. Not the traditional kind but its Fire line of devices, particularly the tablets, are based on a Google-less form of Android. Unlike other OEMs, though, it sells its Fire hardware almost at a loss. That's because it has a different strategy, one that focuses more on services and features for those services, as demonstrated by the new Live tab for Fire TV.
Amazon has already tested the waters with in-person order pickup through services like Locker, but today the company is expanding on that concept in a pretty big way. Amazon is launching a new service called Counter, which is available in various Rite Aid locations around the US starting today. The idea behind Counter is pretty straightforward: Place an order on Amazon and instead of having it delivered to your house, you can have it shipped to a nearby Rite Aid and pick it up in person.
Amazon has undoubtedly changed the way we shop today, if not directly then indirectly by pushing the idea of online shopping to the masses. For better or for worse, Amazon has become as indispensable a brand as Google. And to celebrate its influence in our lives, Amazon has confirmed its fifth and biggest Prime Day shopping craze that will span 48 hours of retail heaven or hell, depending on who you ask.