There’s something obvious I should state up front: no one needs this stuff. My exploration in this area has been under the guise of “I need a cool backdrop for YouTube videos,” but even that is probably not a great reason to spend a bunch of money on lights that change colors.
That aside, this stuff is fun to play with, and I like what I can do with it.
Jacob Kastrenakes at The Verge:
Apple never shows up to CES, but the last couple years, it’s still managed to have a quiet presence through HomeKit. That’s true this year, too, but it’s been really quiet, failing to drum up anywhere near the excitement of something like Amazon’s Alexa.
[…]
CES is where that tends to change, as companies building HomeKit gadgets turn up to show off their newest products. This year, there are more than a dozen companies presenting HomeKit devices — but, for better or worse, they’re all pretty boring.
Astra is a new iPhone app that acts as a client to Amazon’s Alexa service. It’s like having an Echo right in your pocket. Everything that works on the stand-alone devices seems to work in the app.
I’m a big fan of what Amazon is doing in this space. I just bought an Echo Dot to put on my desk after loving the Echo we put in our kitchen earlier this year.
The littlest Amazon Echo just got a nice update. As it has a small built-in speaker, it needs to be hooked up to an existing sound system or Sonos to get the party started. For $50, it’s a great way to make an existing setup a lot smarter.
Several months ago, Sonos revealed plans to bring voice control to its popular home audio speakers. Today at an event in New York City, the company shared more on its approach to letting users play music by speaking commands aloud instead of controlling everything by thumbing through the Sonos app. In short, it’s all about Alexa and Echo. Beginning in 2017, anyone with an Alexa-enabled device — right now that’s he Echo, Tap, or Dot — will be able to control Sonos speakers with voice commands.
The Kindle Oasis is really nice, but you probably shouldn’t buy one unless you’re a hardcore ebook fan.
First of all, it’s $289 with Special Ads Offers, which is bonkers-expensive for a Kindle. You can get an iPad mini 2 for less, and the actually-worth-owning iPad mini 4 isn’t that much more.
Second of all, the Oasis isn’t a big jump over Amazon’s other offerings. The Kindle Paperwhite is still for sale at just $119, and the nicer Voyage can be had for $199.
At a media event Thursday, Aug. 4, in Seattle, Amazon took the wraps off its first “Prime Air” branded plane, a Boeing 767 owned by Atlas Air that has been converted into a freighter. Amazon announced deals with two aircraft leasing companies — Atlas, and another called Air Transport Services Group, or ATSG — earlier this year to fly as many as 40 dedicated cargo planes over the next two years. Eleven are already in operation; this is the first one that’s been painted.
Ahead of Apple’s WWDC 2016 keynote next Monday, June 13 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, Siri is now offering up some traditionally witty responses to users that ask about potential announcements. iPhone users can test Siri themselves by asking “what to expect at WWDC?” or similar questions.
All of Siri’s responses are unsurprisingly vague, including one related to the popular HBO drama series Game of Thrones.
Apple is working on its answer to Amazon’s Echo, the voice-activated assistant packaged inside a speaker, but it may come in the form of a refreshed Apple TV, rather than a new hardware product, VentureBeat has learned.
The company will build on its enhancements to the Apple TV announced last year, which brought the Siri virtual assistant to the set-top box. A new version of the Apple TV will solve problems with the existing box and remote control, a source familiar with the matter claims.
While the new Kindle’s $289 price point is still a little mind boggling, apparently Amazon is selling them faster than they can be made. (Whether that’s on purpose or not is anyone’s guess.) I went to go order one today and noticed that it’s out of stock until early June. I guess I can move that review back a bit in OmniFocus.
I’m a long-time Kindle hoarder user, and when word broke that a new one was around the corner, I was excited to see how Amazon would improve the Voyage.
The answer? A new $290 high-end Kindle that doesn’t seem to earn the price tag.
It uses the same 6-inch 300 DPI display found on the Voyage, but it’s a lot brighter now. Battery life seems crazypants good, thanks to the mandatory leather-clad battery case. The case is removable, thankfully, and acts more or less like the iPhone battery case Apple put out a few months ago.
Customers using an outdated software version on Kindle e-readers require an important software update by March 22, 2016 in order to continue to download Kindle books from the Cloud, access the Kindle Store, and use other Kindle services on their device.
If you do not update your device by March 22, 2016, you will receive the following message on your device: Your Kindle is unable to connect at this time. Please make sure you are within wireless range and try again. If the problem persists, please restart your Kindle from the Menu in Settings and try again. If you see this message on your device on or after March 22, you will need to manually install the latest software update for your device.