Your Tech Story

Amazon

Alexa Event

Amazon Alexa Event : Everything That Amazon Announced this Year

The festive season is almost here and so the Amazon’s sale is. Amazon ahead of its upcoming season sale hosted its Alexa event, and to include more products to its sale, the company just introduced a new lineup of products at the event.

Last year, the company released around 70 products, including the echo speakers and many updates to its old products. Though we get the idea about the new launches in advance through some of the leaks, this time, Amazon was successful to keep the things under the wraps. But as the event is final over, we have got news about everything it launched at the Alexa event.

The Alexa Event was an invite-only event and the company took it to the stage to introduce its guest with new Echo devices, new Echo earbuds, a new Echo display, Smartglasses, and even a revamped oven powered by Alexa.

Alexa Event
Image Source: cnn.com

This time, the company came up with some unique upgrades to its Echo devices, like an Echo Dot with a clock. Amazon has now included a LED clock to its Echo Dot, that can also show the weather. The clock can be switched off, if not required. You can also use it to set the alarm. For this new feature, you need to pay an extra $10, making the price of Echo Dot a $59. It means the old Echo Dot is still there, and you can even buy it without the clock.

After Google’s Nest Max and Apple’s HomePod, this time, Amazon has brought its new Echo Studio, that offers a 3D audio and Dolby Atmos. The devices include a 5.25-inch woofer, and a 1-inch, front-firing tweeter. There are also three, 2-inches, mid-range speakers included in the speaker to provide awesome audio quality in different directions in the room. The company has also added the lossless music playback to the speakers, such that it will produce a great sound when Amazon’s HD songs are played on it. The speaker costs $199.99.

Amazon, like the other big companies, has now brought new Echo earbuds that also render support for Alexa. The wireless earbuds are incorporated with Bose’s Active Noise Reduction Technology and cost $129. These super small earbuds can run up to 5 hours with full charging, and with its case, you can charge them three times. These earbuds are one of the surprise elements from Amazon.

Another surprise product that the company revealed at the event is the 8-inch screen Echo Show 8. The devices come with an inbuilt camera and have got an HD display, such that you can make quality video calls through it. The device is perfect for watching videos, playing music and even keeping an eye on your kids. The price of the device is set to be $129.

Incorporated with four micro speakers, the company introduced a pair of eye frames costing a $179.99. The eyeglasses offer support for Alexa, such that it reads the notification and other information to the user. The eyeglasses are connected through the smartphone and lead the sound directly into your ears. There is no display, but Alexa will do all the work for you.

Another unique product that the company released during the Alexa Event is a Ring named Echo Loop. The $129 ring is a smart ring featuring a haptic engine and two microphones. The ring and the frame will only be sold on an invite-only basis.

Other than these devices, the company launched a $249.99 Alexa-powered smart oven, a $25 Echo Flex device, $249 Eero router, Amazon Sidewalk (a device to connect all the IoT devices around you), etc. There have also been some new upgrades to the Amazon devices, like the multilingual-mode and Neural Text to Speech model added to Alexa.

Amazon Music HD

Amazon Launches Amazon Music HD a High-Fidelity Streaming Service

Home deliveries, grocery, cloud computing, and what not? Amazon is doing everything. In fact, it was the first company to sell music without digital rights management from the four major music labels. But what is next? Well, we have got the news. After Amazon Music, Amazon is now launching its new HD music streaming service, named Amazon Music HD. It is an affordable music streaming service which can make Amazon leave its rivals like Apple Music and Spotify way behind in the competition with its HD music offering.

Currently, Amazon’s music streaming service only offers MP3 quality songs. But with the new service, the company is focussed on providing the users with the high-quality CD-like audio and is the first to offer high-fidelity digital audio through the subscription. For that, the company has added 24-bit CD-quality music to its Amazon Music platform, offering “Ultra HD” music. The subscription for the Amazon Music HD starts at $12.99 a month for the Prime users, and for the other users, the plan starts at $14.99 a month.

There is an offer for the current Amazon Music subscribers, under which they can get a trial of 90 days for the new HD music with just paying an extra $5 a month.

Amazon Music HD
Image Source: Amazon.in

According to Amazon, with the subscription, the users will get access to 50 million songs that it calls “High Definition” having a sample rate of 44.1kHz. There will also be around 1 to 10 million ultra HD songs included in the subscription plan, with sample rates between 44.1kHz and 192kHz and ten times the bitrate of standard tracks. Also unlike the Tidal music’s MQA file format, the file format for Amazon’s HD songs will be lossless FLAC.

“We’re thrilled to make it possible for our customers to stream their favourite music the way artists intended their fans to hear it. From rock to hip-hop to classical and pop, we believe listening to music at this level of sound will make customers fall in love again with their favourite music and artists. As we usher in a new listening experience for our customers, we’re combining the convenience of streaming with all of the emotion, power, clarity and nuance of the original recordings.” Steve Boom, vice president of Amazon Music, said in a statement.

But even having subscribed to Amazon Music HD, only the users with latest technology device get to enjoy the HD and Ultra HD music through it. These devices include the second-generation or later Amazon Echo speakers, Fire TVs and Fire TV devices, Apple devices released after 2014 and running iOS 11 or newer, the Android devices released after 2014 having Android Lollipop or newer.

amazon event

Amazon Gears up for its Annual Hardware Event to be Held on 25th Spet

We have not even got over with the Apple Event held on 10th September yet, and now, Amazon has also announced one, that will take place on 25th September at its Seattle HQ. The company, in the announcement, said on Thursday that the upcoming ‘hardware and services’ event will cover some new launches and upgrades in its existing products as its previous Amazon event did last year.

In the last year’s event, the company came up with the new Amazon Echo products, Alexa-controlled microwave, a wall clock with Alexa built-in and many more things. For now, the company is mute on what ‘new’ the company be hiding in its robe, and what would be the major highlight of the Amazon event. But through the previous launches, there is an estimation that the Amazon Echo and Amazon Fire TV might be the among the things Amazon will be talking about.

Previously in the CES 2019, the company completely bragged about Alexa, and how its partners are up to integrate it with anything at one’s home, from TVs to home security systems, from a dog bowl to a lawnmower, from headphones to speakers, etc.

amazon event
Image Source: geekwire.com

And after the company announced a new Fire TV Cube as well as new Fire TV series during the IFA 2019, earlier this month, the Amazon partners are focusing on its Fire TV software and embedding it into new televisions and smart speakers, as well. So quite possibly the company may be discussing the same along with its new launches.

Along with that, it is expected that there will surely some new upgrades to the amazon’s Echo speakers, like a refresh to the standard echo speakers. Though it had launched the Echo Plus last year, with Alexa being almost everywhere, there might be some good changes to the smart speakers to make it more useful with Alexa, similar to Apple’s Homepod. There may also be some better changes to the services like Amazon Prime the company has been offering to its users.

Until the next announcement, we can only make the estimations, but since the Amazon event is not too far, we do not have to wait long either.

Adora-bots

Amazon Starts Testing its New Delivery Robots ‘Adora-bots’ in California

Maybe it is an attempt to eliminate the need for more manpower or maybe to increase the work efficiency, but Amazon is trying to get robots to its work field. The company has been testing its new blue coloured robots for a few months now. After making its new little delivery scouts stroll in the streets of Seattle (Amazon’s headquarter city), the company has started the tests for the same on the roads of California, now.

The little robots have been named the “Adora-bots”, which has got “Prime” imprinted over them. The robots will be roaming around the city and deliver the packages to Amazon customers.

The little delivery robots from Amazon are blue and have got six wheels. It uses batteries for power and moves at walking speed. In the past few months, the robots have been trained in a way that they get to know the maps of the city better, and for that, Amazon has used the 3D maps. It includes cameras and the ultrasonic sensors, which makes this robot capable of identifying any sort of obstacles on its way.

Adora-bots
Image Source: hindustantimes.com

The company will be randomly choosing on who gets the delivery by these new robots, depending on the size and cost of the package as well as the place where it has to be delivered. The timings for the delivery for these robots will be only in the day time, and that too, between Monday to Friday.

Also, the robots will be under the surveillance of human scouts during the delivery, which the company has named as the “Amazon Scout Ambassadors”. They will accompany the robots to get it out of any kind of trouble and will also be answering the questions of the customers during the delivery.

The company has been bringing the robotics technology to its almost every operation to automate all the processes and increase the efficiency of its employees. Earlier, Amazon had introduced a collection of sorting robots in its warehouse, and before that, it tested delivering items using drones.

Amazon started the working on the Adora-bots in January 2019, and since then it has tested a bunch of six robots in the Seattle and Washington’s Snohomish County. The company undertook the tests in the daylight and in a different type of weather conditions to check its capabilities. Soon, the company may test the robots in other parts of the country as well.

Video Credit : Amazon YouTube Channel
Amazon Prime Day Sale strike

Amazon Prime Day Sale: Over 2000 German Employees Protests on the First Day of Sale

Amazon is hosting its two days Prime Day sale, probably the biggest sale of the year, which started on Monday 15th July, but amid this biggest shopping discount extravaganza, many of its employees have gone on strike. As soon, the sale started, the Amazon workers from Germany started their strike against the company with the motto, “No more discounts on our incomes”.

There has been always an issue for the Amazon workers on the wages the company offers them. According to the employees, the company offers new discounts and free deliveries to its customers by cutting off their salaries, and they can no more handle this. These workers from Germany had already announced that they will stop working during the Amazon Prime Day sale, and employees from the two distribution centres in Bad Hersfeld, as well as sites in Werne, Rheinberg, Leipzig, Graben and Koblenz, went on strike on the same day the sale started.

“We know Prime Day is a big day for Amazon, so we hope this strike will help executives understand how serious we are about wanting real change that will uplift the workers in Amazon’s warehouses,” striker Safiyo Mohamed said in a release.

Amazon Prime Day Sale strike
Image Source: cnbc.com

According to another striker, over 2000 Amazon workers went on the strike on the first day of the sale. But Amazon being aware of the strike to take place on its very important day had said that the strike won’t affect the operations of the sale. In fact, on Monday, the company even made the announcement that it will create another 1,000 jobs in Poland. This announcement by the company also reflected double salary for its Poland workers.

This is not the first time that Amazon workers are on strike, in fact, last year there were over 50 strikes in Europe only. Employees from some of the other countries also took part in those strikes. And, in April this year, the representatives of the worker union of 15 countries had a meeting in Berlin concerning the same issue.

Along with Germany, this time the employees from Minnesota, U.S. also joined the strike during the first six hours of the sale. The Amazon workers from the UK also had planned to strike during the sale.

Along with the low wages, the employees often complain about how the company treats them at their workplace. But as the company had already claimed that the Prime Day sale won’t get affected by the strike, the company still does not seem to be doing anything for the employees. Amazon has clearly said that it won’t be accepting the demands of the employees who have gone on the strike.

Prime Day Sale

Amazon Teasing the Customers with Early Sale Prior to the Prime Day Sale on 15 July

The biggest sale of the year, the Amazon Prime Day Sale, is only ten days away, and Amazon has claimed that people will get the most attractive deals in the sale. The sale is to kick off on 15th of this month and is expected to be of a bigger scale even than the Black Friday. The event will last for two days and is only open for the Prime members.

According to the company, along with big discounts and offers, it will be launching over 1000 new products. The Prime users will get access to major discounts in almost every category available on the website, though the offers will be valid on limited stock.

But even before the sale, Amazon has come with major discounts on various products, including the popular Fire TV Recast, which the company is currently selling at the lowest price to date. There is also a big discount on the Amazon’s Alexa, along with few other Amazon devices, too, including Fire TV Stick 4K bundle, Echo Dot, etc. The company as a pre-sale has also put great discounts on smartphones, laptops, DSLR, and other electronic devices.

Prime Day Sale
Image Source: cnet.com

The upcoming Prime Day Sale though will have similar products on sale, but this time, the sale will go even cheaper. The company has promised ‘never before offers’ on select premium smartphones. For the sale, the company has put discounts on over 5000 other products in the electronics category.

Amazon will also put out a great discount (up to 60 %) on Books as well. In fact, the company is offering a three months subscription of Kindle Unlimited for free. On a regular basis, the fee for a month costs $9.99/£7.99 per user.

Though the offers are exclusively for the Amazon Prime members, you can get the 30-days free trial subscription to take advantage of the sale. And, if any person is from the U.S., they can get the same deals with three months for $9.99, whereas on the regular days they need to pay three times more for a subscription.