Standing in a demo room that overlooked the Space Needle at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, Alexa hardware executive Miriam Daniel smiled as she encouraged me to stick a pair of Echo Buds in my ears. The space was noisy and chaotic, punctuated repeatedly by Alexa chiming in with different responses. I tapped the side of the …
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Amazon is taking on Apple’s AirPods and Samsung Galaxy Buds with the Echo Buds. These new buds have integrated Alexa support and include noise reduction technology from Bose. Using the usual wake word, Alexa, will activate the voice assistant, or by tapping and holding one of the buds, a separate voice assistant on your phone (such as Siri or Google …
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Music streaming service Tidal has announced it’s now available on Roku devices, joining competitors Spotify and Amazon Music. The new Tidal channel has a custom interface for Roku devices that highlights the service’s 250,000 “high-quality videos,” including original video series, as well as its catalog of 60 million songs. The company offers two main levels of subscription — Tidal Premium …
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At its Alexa event on Wednesday, Amazon announced a new low-bandwidth network called Amazon Sidewalk that could extend the range at which you can control your devices beyond what Bluetooth and Wi-Fi currently allow. Amazon Sidewalk taps the 900MHz band of the radio spectrum — typically used for amateur radio — to extend the distance at which you can control your smart …
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The US Justice Department plans to investigate Facebook to determine whether it violated federal antitrust laws, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. The investigation, reportedly begun at the urging of US Attorney General William Barr, comes as the Federal Trade Commission conducts its own investigation into whether the social media giant illegally harmed competition. While the FTC’s probe focuses on whether Facebook’s acquisitions …
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For anyone who wants a tablet but doesn’t want an iPad (because pricey) or an Amazon Fire (because limited), it often feels like there aren’t many options. Samsung halfheartedly offers a couple models, but they’re rarely updated or on sale. Good news: The company’s midrange tablet is on sale, for the lowest price I’ve seen to date: For a limited time, …
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There’s a reason Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world. It’s not just books, or televisions, speakers and appliances; sometimes it seems you can buy almost anything on Amazon, especially if you get carried away with Amazon Prime Day sales. And that means that we’re bound to see some weird things to purchase. We’ve assembled our current favorites …
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Anker is all-in on true-wireless earbuds. The company showed of five new models at an event in New York City, with prices ranging from $50 to $150 for a more premium model, the Liberty 2 Pro, which is being billed as offering audiophile-grade sound and looks a little like the Sony WF-1000XM3. Most of the new earphones will hit stores …
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The folks from EarFun, which includes some former employees from budget audio favorite Tribit, have been trying to get me to review the startup’s new Free true wireless earbuds for a while. Unfortunately, with the first review sample I received, I could only pair one of the earbuds to my phone — the buds wouldn’t join up into a stereo …
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I’m irrationally excited about this deal. See, I first spotted the i-Star Qi Wireless Charging Smart Table earlier this year, when I wrote about 7 unexpectedly cool things with built-in wireless charging pads. Back then, it was $220, though an on-page coupon brought the price to just below $200. Still a bit on the high side for me. Today, however, …
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