If the Fire TV Cube caught your eye, but your TV itself is due an upgrade, Amazon and Toshiba are hoping their new smart TV collaboration will fit the bill. The Toshiba 4K Ultra HD Smart TV Fire TV Edition may not have an elegant name as it begins shipping today, but as I discovered with an early play, it does a surprisingly smooth job of integrating Amazon's set-top box at an affordable price.
Alexa is coming for your living room and, just like the Borg cube that the Amazon Fire TV Cube might remind you of, resistance is futile. Amazon's virtual assistant may not be an entirely new addition to the TV experience, thanks to integrations into early Fire TV adapters and dongles, but the Fire TV Cube ousts buttons completely in favor of end to end voice control.
Amazon is debuting a new Alexa-based streaming box today, but this one is a bit more capable than the rest of the company's lineup. Dubbed the Fire TV Cube, this new product will still let you stream content to your TV in 4K while controlling playback with your voice. Where it stands out from Amazon's other Fire-branded products, however, is in its ability to control your TV and other set-top devices, such as cable boxes and sound bars, directly.
The advent of the Amazon Echo and Google Home smart speakers have practically pushed HDMI into streaming dongles out of the spotlight. While those two categories can and do work in tandem, it seems that the market is at least gravitating more towards faceless speakers and disembodied voices that don't need a screen to function. Amazon, however, might have a way to bring them together into one. It has practically confirmed the existence of the Amazon Fire TV Cube that could very well be a fusion of Amazon's two device lines.
Best Buy and Amazon announced a partnership today for the former to sell the latter's televisions in-store. In physical, brick and mortar Best Buy stores, Amazon will sell their Amazon Fire TV smart television sets. But if what I've experienced with Fire TV devices over the past several years remains true, I recommend you steer clear of the whole lineup.
It isn't exactly a secret that Best Buy and Amazon are rivals. In fact, where Amazon and the internet in general have driven some brick or mortar stores out of business, Best Buy remains and - as of the end of its last fiscal year - is actually on something of an upswing. As the old adage goes: "If you can't beat them, join them," and today, Amazon is doing just that.
If you've been thinking of getting on the streaming video train, today might be the day for it. Amazon is running a limited time promotion on two of its most popular set-top boxes, the Amazon Fire TV Stick and the Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD. Both are reduced to some of the cheapest pricing we've seen so far.
There's no shortage of set-top boxes and streaming sticks around, but if the thought of Iain M. Banks' Culture series has swayed you to Amazon Prime Video there's a new deal on the Fire TV stick. Amazon has slashed the price of two of its most popular Fire TV models, on the one hand offering a sub-$30 deal for those wanting the cheapest point of entry into streaming the on-demand service, while another promotion makes 4K streaming even more affordable.
The Fire TV is popular with cord-cutters, but many users still pay for a live television service. With that live TV service -- whether cable, satellite, or OTT -- comes the option of authenticating cable apps that provide users with on-demand and, in some cases, livestreaming access to content. Actually authenticating those apps, though, is a long, annoying process.
Amazon has pushed out an update for Fire TV that brings new Live TV features, including a channel guide. Note that this isn't the same as the live TV features found on the Fire Smart TVs, which revolve around over-the-air TV delivered by an antenna. Rather, these new features related to livestreaming content aggregated from Amazon Channels subscriptions.
Starting today, Amazon Fire TV officially joins the retail war between Google and Amazon. Amazon refuses to allow several Google products to be sold on their site, including Google Chromecast, Google Home, and some of the newest Nest products. Google released a statement on the subject, and Amazon replied - have a peek!
By now, the feud between Google and Amazon should be fairly clear. The disagreement between the two has been simmering for a couple of years at this point, but things have started heating up in the last few months. The culmination of all of this is that YouTube will be leaving Amazon's Fire TV devices on January 1, after Google previously disabled YouTube on the Echo Show.