Tag: Echo

Amazon’s Echo and Alexa-enabled division, ‘Worldwide Digital,’ is on pace to lose roughly $10 billion USD (roughly $13.3 billion CAD) this year. The division’s total operating loss for the first quarter of 2022 sits at $3 billion USD (about $4 billion CAD) — the highest amount any division at the tech giant lost this quarter.

With this in mind, the future of Worldwide Digital is reportedly uncertain, according to a report from Business Insider. It appears Amazon’s plan of subsidizing hardware sales by selling products and services through Echo and Alexa-enabled devices, isn’t working out how it hoped it would.

Business Insider says that its sources told it that “Alexa is a colossal failure of imagination” and that “it was a wasted opportunity,” emphasizing that there’s “no clear directive for the devices.” However, the report also mentions that Amazon is still currently committed to its Echo and Alexa devices — at least for now.

The New York Times recently reported that Amazon has plans to layoff roughly 10,000 employees. More recent reports indicate that these layoffs will start this coming Wednesday, November 22nd.

Anecdotally, I don’t know anyone that has purchased an Amazon product or service directly through an Echo device via voice controls. In fact, I’ve removed most of my Echo devices from my home and switched over to Google’s Nest/Home products since in most cases, I find them more responsive and better devices.

Source: Business Insider

Amazon has flipped a switch and its latest Echo and Echo Dot smart speakers (the circular models) can use ultrasound to detect if people are in a room.

The purpose of this is to help turn off lights and connected devices when a person leaves a room without any input from the user. You can disable this feature from the Alexa app, but it will be on by default for most people. It’s located under the ‘Motion’ subheading in the app. Privacy-minded individuals may also want to know that this ultrasound system uses the microphones on the speaker to receive feedback.

Inside the app, you can also use this feature to set up routines to turn on lights or play music when someone enters/exits a room. This allows you to use an Echo in place of an actual Motion sensor, which should allow for less tech-clutter around your house. Amazon’s new Echo Show devices do this with a camera, so this now means that motion-sensing is a pretty standard Echo feature.

Google also uses ultrasound on its Mini and Nest Home smart display to detect when people are nearby. The Nest Mini will display volume controls, and the Nest hub displays will alter its interface to be more easily readable when people are standing far away.

However, Google doesn’t allow users to utilize this tech to set up routines like Amazon does.

Via: The Verge

It looks like Amazon Canada is once again the “bad guy.”

Amazon has confirmed to MobileSyrup that its limited-edition Billie Eilish Echo Studio smart speaker that features the cover art for the artist’s Happier Than Ever album is not coming to Canada.

In the U.S., the smart speaker — which seems to be identical to a standard Echo Studio beyond its cover that features Eilish — is available to pre-order now and releases in October for $230 USD (roughly $291 CAD).

“I can’t wait for my cutie fans to be able to listen to my new album Happier Than Ever in spatial audio, available on Amazon Music Unlimited,” said Eilish in an Amazon press release. It’s unclear why Amazon and Eilish partnered for this speaker, but it could have something to do with the online retail giant acquiring MGM, the company behind the James Bond franchise. Eilish wrote the theme for the upcoming James Bond film No Time To Die.

The reveal of the rather strange smart speaker comes ahead of Amazon’s September 28th fall hardware event where the company is expected to reveal several new Echo and Rin devices.

One thing is for certain — if I was Amazon, “I’d never treat me this shitty.” It’s unclear if Finneas O’Connell, Eilish’s brother and creative partner, plans to release his own special edition Nest Audio.