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 […]
Tag: alexa
Amazon’s Build It program lets you pre-order weird gadgets if you want Amazon to build them (another name for crowdfunding)
9 Comments on Amazon’s Build It program lets you pre-order weird gadgets if you want Amazon to build them (another name for crowdfunding)Amazon makes a lot of its own hardware these days, including tablets, smart speakers, eReaders, and media streamers. But every now and then the company releases a product that’s a dud (like the Fire Phone) or that may have limited appeal and don’t stick around long (like the Amazon Echo Look). So the company has […]
Lilbits: Amazon Echo Wall?
Amazon’s new Echo Show 10 smart display with a screen that moves so that it’s always looking at you like a pair of eyeballs from one of those creepy paintings is set to begin shipping later this month. But it might not be the only new Amazon Echo device coming this year. Bloomberg reports that […]
Lilbits: Samsung Galaxy S21 leaks, MS Edge for Macs with M1, and the US blacklists China’s biggest chip manufacturer
The trade war continues. We have our first real look at a GPD Win 3 handheld gaming PC prototype (up until now we’ve only seen renders). And three different GNU/Linux distributions released new builds of their operating systems for the PinePhone this week. Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web. U.S. […]
Lilbits: eGPU performance, theme-aware apps, and transcript-based video editing
One of the selling points for laptops with Thunderbolt 3 ports is that they support data transfer speeds up to 40 Gbps over a USB cable… so you can connect use a desktop graphics card with notebooks like the Razer Blade Stealth by connecting an external graphics dock. But it turns out that not every laptop […]
Fitbit launches two new smartwatches with Google Assistant (but without Wear OS)
It’s been nearly a year since Google announced it was acquiring Fitbit, but today the company is introducing a new set of wearables… and none of them run Google’s Wear OS smartwatch operating system. But that doesn’t mean Google hasn’t influenced the new devices. The new Fitbit Sense and Fitbit Versa 3 smartwatches both run a version of […]
Lilbits: Apple “Prime,” Intel Alder Lake-S, and an Epic game of chicken
When Epic first brought its incredibly popular video game Fortnite to smartphones two years ago, the company sidestepped the App Store and Google Play by offering its own Android app launcher. Eventually Epic made its game available in the official Android and iOS app stores, but company officials were never happy about having to split […]
Amazon launches battery-powered Echo Input portable speaker (in India)
Amazon’s Echo line of smart speakers and smart displays has exploded in recent years… but one thing the company hasn’t offered is a portable, battery-powered Echo. Now the company has one of those too. The new Amazon Echo Input is a compact, 360-degree speaker with up to 10 hours of battery life while playing music, […]
Amazon Fire TV Blaster brings voice control to your TV for $35
Amazon’s latest Fire TV gadget combines is a $35 gadget called the Fire TV Blaster, and while the name makes it sound like some sort of gaming accessory, it’s really an add-on that lets you use your voice to control a TV, cable box, soundbar, and other accessories. Designed to be used with a Fire TV device […]
Amazon Echo Show now comes in 5, 8, and 10 inch models
A few months after introducing the Echo Show 5, Amazon has added another model to its Echo Show line of smart displays. The Amazon Echo Show 8 features an 8 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel touchscreen display, 10 watt stereo speakers, and a 1MP front-facing camera (with a shutter that covers it when it’s not in […]