Owners of the Echo wireless speaker with built-in Alexa assistant may soon be treated to Amazon's new music-subscription service that charges half as much as competing offerings from Spotify, Apple, Google and others. The bargain-priced music service should cost between $4 and $5 per month, Re/Code reports, and would only work on Echo hardware.
Despite not being in danger of closing down thanks to its cash cushion of $1.4 billion, the popular ride-sharing service Lyft has in recent months attempted to sell itself to Apple and a few other Silicon Valley giants like Google, Amazon and Uber, The New York Times reported yesterday. None of the mentioned companies commented on the story.
The nation's second-largest ride-hailing firm also attempted a sale to China's leading ride-sharing service, Didi Chuxing, into which Apple invested $1 billion, and to General Motors, one of its largest investors that refused to make a written offer to buy it.
Who wants to pay for podcasts? Thought so... Well, Amazon thinks people will have no issues whatsoever paying for short-form audio shows so it's introducing a new Channels thing through its Audible service, which hosts the largest selection of digital audiobooks on the web.
According to Bloomberg, Channels will host premium shows like Scientific American, The Onion and the WSJ, plus a bunch of own originals like Mortal City, Presidents Are People Too and Breasts Unbound.
Online retailer Amazon has scheduled a second annual Prime Day event for July 12. The Prime Day 2016, a one-day shopping event exclusive to Prime members, will be the biggest global Amazon event ever with new deals starting as often as every five minutes throughout the day.
Online retail giant Amazon on Tuesday announced a new Page Flip feature for its Kindle lineup of e-readers and mobile apps. Page Flip lets you flip back and forth between pages to reference different parts of the book while you read, without losing track of your current reading position. With Page Flip, you can turn one page at a time or zoom out to a bird’s eye view of your book to quickly choose the page you want.
Amazon is preparing to launch a new standalone streaming music subscription service, reports Reuters. The tech giant is currently finalizing licenses with labels for the service, and it's aiming for a late summer or early fall launch.
Of course, Amazon already offers a limited music service for free to Prime subscribers. But this new service will cost $9.99 per month and offer a much more competitive catalog, putting it squarely up against Apple Music and Spotify.
If you've ever wanted to take Amazon's Alexa digital assistant for a spin but bulked at the though of dropping $180 on the company's Echo wireless speaker, now you can.
Originally started by Nexmo developer Sam Machin at a hackathon in 2015, a web-based Alexa simulator runs in any standards-compliant web browser.
During the keynote presentation this morning which kicked off Google I/O 2016, the Internet giant previewed its much-anticipated entry into the voice-activated home device market in the form of a new appliance, named Google Home.
With a built-in Google Assistant that also powers Duo, a new smart messaging app coming to iOS and Android this summer, Home lets you retrieve information from the Internet, get answers to simple questions and carry out basic tasks—using your voice and the familiar “OK Google” wakeup phrase.
Code-named 'Chirp', Google's upcoming hardware appliance will integrate the company's search and voice assistant technologies akin to the Amazon Echo, and is landing soon, Re/code reported yesterday.
The rumored device should resemble Google's OnHub wireless router, according to several sources.
If the increasing popularity of Amazon's integrated wireless speaker and voice command device is an indication—it's estimated they sold three million Echo units to date—Google's rumored accessory could prove popular with users, especially given Google's expertise in voice and search.
Amazon this morning announced a brand new self-service aimed at content producers and storytellers: Video Direct. With it, content makers can upload their videos to the Amazon cloud and decide if they wish to optionally make them available to buy or rent.
Content owners can choose to receive royalties depending on how popular their content is on Amazon based on hours streamed, which will limit their work to Prime members or Instant Video subscribers, or opt to monetize their content with advertising, in which case their videos will be available to all Amazon customers.
Online retailer Amazon announced this morning that it has started to offer its Prime Video service as a standalone subscription independent of its $99.99 annual Prime membership, which includes things like free two-day shipping, unlimited streaming of music, movies and television shows and other perks.
In an effort to step up its challenge to Netflix, the e-commerce giant has priced its standalone offering at $8.99 per month—a dollar more than Netflix's entry-level $7.99 plan in the United States.
Amazon on Wednesday unveiled a brand new device, the $290 Kindle Oasis, its eighth-generation Kindle e-reader. Billed as its thinnest and lightest e-redear yet, the Oasis weighs in at just 4.6 ounces and measures a remarkable 3.4 millimeters at its thinnest point, which is less than half the thickness of Apple's iPhone 6s at its smallest point.
Its dual-battery charging system lets you read for months without plugging in if you're using the Oasis with the official charging case. Without the case, the device's built-in battery provides up to two weeks of reading based on 30 minutes usage per day.