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Lilbits: A “breadboard phone,” Wine 9.0 released, and the future of Amazon’s Alexa

Generative AI is more conversational and responsive than the software that powered early voice assistant software like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. But it’s also a lot more expensive to run, due to the amount of processing power required by the servers that make things tick. Meanwhile Amazon, which was one of the companies that […]

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Lilbits: Eero Max 7 is a mesh WiFi 7 router with 10 GbE Ethernet (for a steep price)

Today was a busy day for Amazon product announcements. In addition to a new Fire HD 10 tablet and new Fire TV Stick 4K and 4K Max devices, the company announced an updated smart display, a new smart home hub, a bunch of new AI-enabled features coming to Alexa and Fire TV, and the most […]

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Lilbits: Fedora 37, Qualcomm’s next-gen chip for AR glasses, and Amazon layoffs

Qualcomm’s new solution for AR smart glasses is said to bring big performance improvements while reducing power consumption. It’s also a multi-chip solution rather than a single chip, which allows different bits of silicon to be placed in different parts of a pair of glasses. So you can expect glasses powered by the chips to […]

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Lilbits: Checking in on Amazon’s Astro robot and Echo smart speakers could become a WiFi range extenders

Amazon’s next-gen eero mesh WiFi routers are expected to bring new features including support for WiFi 6E on at least some models. But they could also bring tighter integration with other Amazon hardware: Steve Moser reports that they’ll allow you to use an Amazon Echo or Echo Dot as a WiFi range extender. In other recent tech […]

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Amazon’s Black Friday Device Deals are here: Kindle for $50, Fire tablet for $35, Echo Dot for $20

Most of Amazon’s Black Friday 2021 device deals are now live, with deep discounts on tablets, eReaders, smart speakers and displays, media streamers, and other gadgets. You can find a detailed list of deals below, but some of my favorites? You can pick up an Amazon Fire HD for $75, a Fire TV Stick 4K […]

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Lilbits: Amazon’s Echo plans leaked, SiFive HiFive RISC-V dev board benchmarked, and more

Amazon is holding an event on September 28, 2021 when the company is expected to announce new hardware including updates to its Echo line of smart speakers and displays. According to a new report from Bloomberg, some of those devices could be a 15 inch smart display designed to be mounted to a wall and/or […]

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Amazon Prime Day device deals are live: Fire HD 10 for $80, Fire TV 4K and Echo Dot for $25 and more

Disclosure: Some links on this page are monetized by the Skimlinks, Amazon, Rakuten Advertising, and eBay, affiliate programs.  Amazon Prime Day runs from June 21 through June 22, and Amazon is expected to offer some of its lowest prices of the year on Echo, Kindle, and Fire devices. But most of those deals went live two days early for […]

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Amazon’s new Echo Show 8 has a faster processor and better camera, Echo Show 5 gets spec bump, price cut, and Kids Editio

Amazon is upgrading its most two most affordable smart displays. The new Amazon Echo Show 8 has the same $130 starting price as its predecessor, but Amazon has upgraded the processor and camera. Meanwhile the new Echo Show 5 is getting a modest spec bump and a $5 price cut. The 2021 model has an upgraded camera […]

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Amazon Show Mode turns some Lenovo laptops into Alexa smart displays

A handful of PC makers have been shipping computers with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant software pre-installed for a few years. Now Lenovo is going a step further and adding support for Amazon’s Show Mode software, effectively letting you use some recent Lenovo Yoga, IdeaPad, and ThinkPad laptops as smart displays. The upshot is that if […]