Amazon Wants You to Wake Up With Alexa, and That’s Just the Start
September 28, 2017 by admin
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If the strategy works, Amazon could gain an edge in a new wave of computing. Most big technology companies are convinced that voice commands and intelligent assistants will be primary ways that people interact with technology, perhaps more vital than touch screens and keyboards.
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David Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, said Wednesday that the company had about 5,000 employees working on Alexa projects. The company held its event on the 30th floor of one of its high-rise buildings in Seattle, where it had created a living room and kitchen to test how the Alexa devices worked in a homelike setting.
The company has identified music, communications and controlling smart home appliances as the most popular uses of Alexa. Although Amazon has not released specific sales figures for Alexa devices, Mr. Limp said tens of millions had been sold.
“They’re literally scattering them around the house, putting them in hallways, workshops and garages,” he said.
Echo Spot, a $129.99 spherical device with a 2.5-inch touch screen, is Amazon’s version of an alarm clock. In addition to displaying the time and weather, its microphones will allow people to make phone calls, turn lights on and off and ask how long a morning commute will take. A tiny camera makes videoconferencing possible.
The device, and its camera, could also provide a test for Amazon. Whether customers feel comfortable having a camera aimed at their beds will depend partially on whether they trust Amazon to protect their privacy.
Also introduced Wednesday was an updated version of the original, cylinder-shaped Echo. The new iteration is shorter, with sleeves made of fabric, wood veneer and other materials that allow it to blend in better with the rest of a home’s décor. The company said it had improved the device’s speakers as well. The biggest change is the price: $99.99 instead of the original Echo’s $179.99.
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Another new device, Echo Plus, resembles the original Echo, but comes with technology that helps control certain household devices like light bulbs that are automated. Echo Plus, priced at $149.99, is designed to find many of those automated devices with little configuration required.
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A new version of Fire TV, the company’s device for streaming internet video to televisions, is small enough to dangle from the back of a television’s video port. Amazon said that media companies including Bravo, Netflix and Showtime planned to use a new Alexa capability that lets people use voice commands to control Fire TV video apps.
Amazon also said that BMW Group had agreed to embed Alexa in its BMW and Mini Cooper vehicles starting next year, the latest in a series of relationships that Amazon has entered with carmakers to spread the use of Alexa outside the home.
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Jan Dawson, an analyst at the technology research firm Jackdaw Research said he believed Amazon’s goal was to strengthen the loyalty of its customers, especially those enrolled in its Prime membership program.
“Overall, today’s announcements felt like Amazon doubling down on its Echo and Alexa strategy,” he said, adding that the company was “reminding all of us that it doesn’t necessarily need to make money on Echo hardware for the strategy to be successful.”
Mr. Dawson said the strategy created “interesting competitive challenges for others like Google and Apple who don’t have such obvious non-hardware revenue streams associated with their smart voice speakers.”
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Contractors Begin Building Prototypes For Trump’s Border Wall
September 27, 2017 by admin
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A Border Patrol vehicle rides beside an already existing portion of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border south of San Diego.
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A Border Patrol vehicle rides beside an already existing portion of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border south of San Diego.
Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images
After months of competition and preparation, contractors broke ground Tuesday on eight prototypes for President Trump’s long-promised border wall. U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that the companies would have about 30 days to complete construction on their prototypes in San Diego.
“We are committed to securing our border and that includes constructing border walls,” CBP’s acting deputy commissioner, Ronald Vitiello, said in a statement Tuesday.
“Our multi-pronged strategy to ensure the safety and security of the American people includes barriers, infrastructure, technology and people. Moving forward with the prototype enables us to continue to incorporate all the tools necessary to secure our border.”
Six contractors from across the country have been selected to build the eight prototypes, half of which will be constructed of concrete and the other half of “other materials.” The walls are to range between 18 and 30 feet high and succeed in one prevailing goal: “deter illegal crossings in the area in which they are constructed.”
Once built, they will undergo testing by the Department of Homeland Security.
And all the while, officials are preparing for a fair share of protests against the controversial project. The Los Angeles Times reports that miles of fencing have been put up in San Diego’s Otay Mesa region — a “checkerboard of public and private land ownership” where the prototypes are to be built — and no-parking zones will be in effect through Nov. 10.
The free speech area designated for potential protesters is a “dusty, unshaded, weed-choked lot overlooking Otay Mesa and more than 1.5 miles away from construction,” according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
That said, the paper reports there appeared to be no protesters around as construction kicked off Tuesday, and at least one local activist expressed skepticism the project was even worth protesting at the moment.
“It’s just political theater,” Hiram Soto, spokesman for Alliance San Diego, told the Times. “There is no funding for it in Congress.”
Trump relented earlier this month on a threat to shut down the federal government if lawmakers failed to approve funds for the wall, striking a deal with Democrats to delay multiple fiscal deadlines with no strings attached. He has also appeared to acknowledge he won’t require border wall funding to be part of a possible deal to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
On the campaign trail and early in his administration, Trump had said repeatedly that Mexico would pay for the wall’s construction — a proposition that has also been repeatedly rejected by Mexican leaders.
Estimates for the cost of the border wall have ranged up to $38 billion. The Department of Homeland Security plans to pay for the construction of the prototypes, which cost up to $500,000 each, with funds reallocated internally from other programs.