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Amazon Said to Plan Premium Alexa Speaker With Large Screen (bloomberg.com)
Amazon's Echo speakers have garnered a lot of interest over the past few months. Many people believe that they like Amazon Echo because of how easy it's to operate -- there is no display, you talk with Alexa, Amazon's digital assistant, which is reasonably good at understanding your queries. But in what seems like a deviation from the idea that made Echos so popular, Amazon is reportedly working on an Echo-like speaker, only this time it is more premium and has a 7-inch display, too. From a report on Bloomberg: The new device will have a touchscreen measuring about seven inches, a major departure from Amazon's existing cylindrical home devices that are controlled and respond mostly through the company's voice-based Alexa digital assistant, according to two people familiar with the matter. This will make it easier to access content such as weather forecasts, calendar appointments, and news, the people said. The latest Amazon speaker will be larger and tilt upwards so the screen can be seen when it sits on a counter and the user is standing, one of the people said.
The idea is that you use it for giving Jeff Bezos more money
I've bought pretty much all my audio CDs from Amazon (well, CDNow, originally) since about 1997. I buy a lot of music on disc. Turns out it's kind of hard to pirate contemporary classical music. In any case, I had a massive library of content available through Amazon's Cloud starting from the day they announced that everyone's music purchases would be put in there. That stuff just plays through the Dot. That's kind of great, really. I say "Alexa, play Kevin Puts And Legions Will Rise" and Kevin Puts plays. "Alexa, play Pandora; Alexa and set a sleep timer for 30 minutes." and I get a half hour of music random music.
Something else that's great? "Alexa, give me a news briefing" No more timing my shower so I catch the news at the top of the hour while I'm getting ready for work.
I can do that stuff about 10 different ways in my house, but the voice activation is legitimately handy. Especially since it's one step closer to getting to be Deckard in the middle of Blade Runner. Easily worth $50, anyway.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
I'm surprised by the negativity in these /. posts. Do you all own an Amazon Echo? I can honestly say that the Echo in our kitchen gets more use than our TV's and and Stereos. So if I were to rank our non-work related tech usage by hours each day:
1) iPhones (of course)
2) Laptops and iPads
3) Amazon Echo
4) TV's
5) Various CD/MP3/Radio/Stereo players
We use the Echo for music, news, kitchen timers, weather, podcasts, jokes, etc. I probably use the "flash news briefing" the most, followed by playing music. When you are cooking, the hands free control over your media is really important. e.g. "Alexa Pause", "Alexa set a timer for 10 minutes", "Alexa Louder", "Alexa Skip", "Alexa Play Pandora Fallout Boy", "Alexa how many tablespoons are in a cup", etc.
The Echo gets things "right" where Siri doesn't because Amazon focused on specific use cases and made sure they worked properly. I haven't had a single house guest who did not want an Echo after seeing it in action while we cooked dinner.
I like how this got posted right next to the article about UK legalizing mass surveillance. Between the government on one side and consumerism on the other we may yet get to 1984!
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You must be half deaf then, because the quality of the Alexa speaks for playing music is horrible. And you know what - the brain needs to have some rest. The instant gratification of doing 10 things at a time is nothing more than addiction. There is this concept called mindfulness, check it out, it really improves your life, though I'm afraid if your only spare time to get some news is in the shower, you may not have any. Stop giving in to all this BS all the corporations are trying to put you into. Take your time, think about what you do, live in the moment, not in 10 difference places in 10 different days somewhere in the next 6 months. Those corporate bastards can really do without the greed of ever increasing profits. The world will not end if there isn't "growth" for a day, for a month, or for a year.