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Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) is looking to students to help it grow the skill set of its smart assistant Alexa. According to a Reuters report, the Seattle-based company is paying for a year of doctoral fellowships for research related to expanding Alexa’s capabilities. The members of the Alexa Fund, as the program is known, are Carnegie […]

It’s still winter, and March, as the saying goes, is coming in like a lion—or a juvenile bald eagle—with snow in the forecast for the weekend. Again. We’re wrapping the week with a look at funding for 2nd Watch, Amazon Web Services’ outage, a spate of Alexa news, a look at ways game controllers are

Have you heard? Amazon’s Alexa now has 10,000 skills, or voice-activated apps, that are designed to make your life a lot easier. (Click here for a full list of commands you should be using.) The best part is they speed up everyday tasks. Instead of opening up a computer, then logging in, typing in a

Amazon has plans to release more Alexa-powered devices this year, some of which, according to recent reports, may include voice-activated voice call functionality. The devices would allow users to talk with others using Alexa-powered devices, effectively functioning as an intercom system. The news originates from a report claiming Amazon has confirmed its plans to advance

Amazon will introduce at least one more Alexa-powered device this year that will allow users to initiate phone calls with their voice, according to Recode. The device(s) can also serve as an intercom system between people on the opposite end of another Alexa-capable device, Recode reports. The new product was in beta testing as of

The $50 Amazon Fire 7 Tablet is one of the cheapest and most capable mainstream tablets you can buy. For a limited time, you can buy two Fire 7 tablets and use coupon code “FIRE2PACK” to drop the price to $84.98. That means you’ll get two tablets for less than the price of many other

Amazon’s Alexa can be used for a variety of home tasks, but could it make your phone calls? Recode reports that Amazon is developing Alexa-based devices that would have the ability to be used as a phone-like intercom. The devices are still in beta and details on functionality — for example, how the devices would pair

How much excitement can one tech product – the voice-activated Amazon Echo and its smaller siblings Echo Dot and Tap – generate before the “don’t-believe-the-hype” syndrome also sets in? Thanks to a gangbuster holiday season, the installed base of Amazon’s smart home “virtual assistant” speakers, which answer to the wake-up call “Alexa,” then do your