en apple news

Want a smarter Alexa, savvier Siri, brainier Google Now or a cleverer Cortana? So do Amazon, Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft -- and each is working to make its voice assistant your personal Einstein of choice. Amazon recently enhanced its efforts by nabbing an AI expert from eBay, The Wall Street Joual reported Friday. Hassan Sawaf is now Amazon's director of artificial intelligence, focusing on "the user experience for users of Amazon's search capability across all products and businesses," according to Sawaf's LinkedIn page. The Joual was one of the first to spot Sawaf's updated responsibilities on LinkedIn. "eBay has wide and deep capabilities in AI across the technology organization, and ...

In mid-June, Dave Jackson bought a Frito-Lay variety pack through AmazonFresh for $10.44. When he retued to the Amazon mobile app soon after, it coaxed him to purchase more of the snacks through its "Buy It Again" feature. But the very same variety pack under the "Buy It Again" baer didn't cost $10.44. It was $22.94. The same thing happened after buying Snickers bars for 89 cents apiece on AmazonFresh, Amazon's grocery delivery service. Yet again, Amazon invited him to buy more, but for $4.95 each, more than five times the previous price. What was happening? Jackson, a web administrator in San Jose, Califoia, believes he found a handful of bugs on Amazon after it recently combined the ...

RoadshowNewsCar IndustryAmazon offers up car advice with Amazon VehiclesEnlarge ImageA screenshot of an Amazon Vehicles detail page. Amazon Amazon is gearing up its car knowledge.No, the e-commerce juggeaut still isn't selling cars -- not yet, anyway. Instead, the company on Thursday launched a new webpage called Amazon Vehicles that helps customers research new and classic cars.Amazon Vehicles could help solidify Amazon's place as the search engine for shopping. Bypassing Google's own Google Shopping search engine could train consumers to start thinking about a purchase at Amazon first, even in the rare case...

RoadshowNewsCar IndustrySchedule a test drive where you want with Hyundai and Amazon Close AutoComplete: Massachusetts will tax ridesharing and give that money to taxi companies Drag "Bring it to the mountains, please. I have some, uh, steering tests I'd like to perform." Jos...

Enlarge ImageThe Ecobee3 Smart Thermostat and the Amazon Echo smart speaker. Ecobee Last year, Amazon established the $100 million dollar "Alexa Fund" for developers and manufacturers both large and small. The idea was fairly straightforward -- support people with good ideas on how to put the voice-recognition technology in the Amazon Echo smart speaker to good use. Now, the online mega-retailer is ponying up for its biggest investment yet and joining in on a$35 million-dollar funding round for the makers of the Ecobee smart thermostat. The funding round brings Amazon in with Thomvest and Relay Ventures, an...

Enlarge ImageThe Airlander 10 is designed to fly for up to five days at a time. Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images The Airlander 10, the world's largest aircraft, took to the skies for the first time over Bedfordshire, England, on Wednesday and completed a lap of Cardington airfield before safely landing, the BBC reports.At 92 metres (300 feet) in length, the helium-filled airship is 19 metres longer than the Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet. The Airlander 10 has been nicknamed "The Flying Bum" due to its peachy behind's striking similarity to the human rump.While the airship was originally in produ...

...

Jet.com has landed at Walmart. Jet.com Walmart is hoping its acquisition of startup Jet.com takes its own online presence to new heights. The retail giant said Monday it has acquired Jet.com in a stock and cash deal worth $3 billion. The deal underscores the competitive nature of the online retail business, where Amazon dominates and Walmart, the largest brick-and-mortar retail in the US, plays second fiddle. Walmart is apparently expecting that Jet.com, which saw early hype as a possible "Amazon-killer," can even the playing field. "Walmart.com will grow faster, the seamless shopping experience we're pursuin...

Enlarge ImageSamsung's massive new mobile is... pretty cool! And that blue will make my eyes pop. Sarah Tew/CNET Samsung's popped out yet another massive phone, but the Note 7 has made us sit up and pay attention -- underwater doodling, iris scaing, easy GIF creation? This might be the mobile to prove that these devices have a bit of creative life in 'em yet. On the UK's best tech podcast, Luke Westaway and Rich Trenholm debate the merits of Samsung's toy, including asking whether it's too pricey to battle with low-cost Android rivals. Elsewhere, Britney's back! In a storm of puns, we try and figure out why...

Target and Amazon, together again. Target Four years ago, Target threw Amazon's gadgets out of its stores amid heightened competition between the retailers.Now, the big-box chain has reversed course, bringing back Amazon's Fire tablets, Fire TV devices and Kindle e-readers to its website, with plans to sell the gadgets in stores by October, according to a report from Bloomberg. The Amazon Echo smart speaker, though, doesn't appear on Target.com."Target continually evaluates our assortment to deliver quality products at a great value," a Target spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. "We know our guests lov...

There are plenty of things in my house that I yell at. Some of them answer back these days, though, and even do what I ask. My dog is still a work in progress as far as that goes, but my Amazon Echo has just about nailed it. The Echo is a device that uses speech recognition to perform an ever-growing range of tasks on command. Amazon calls the built-in brains of this device "Alexa," and she* is the thing that makes it work.Alexa is a smart cookie: if I say "Alexa, play some Pink Floyd", she will find some Floyd and start playing it over the built-in speaker of the Echo. If I say "Alexa, what's the weather?" she will calmly tell me that it is too damn hot in Boston. How does she do this? The ...

There are plenty of things in my house that I yell at. Some of them answer back these days, though, and even do what I ask. My dog is still a work in progress as far as that goes, but my Amazon Echo has just about nailed it. The Echo is a device that uses speech recognition to perform an ever-growing range of tasks on command. Amazon calls the built-in brains of this device "Alexa," and she* is the thing that makes it work.Alexa is a smart cookie: if I say "Alexa, play some Pink Floyd", she will find some Floyd and start playing it over the built-in speaker of the Echo. If I say "Alexa, what's the weather?" she will calmly tell me that it is too damn hot in Boston. How does she do this? The ...

Enlarge ImageYou can soon expect to see new, interactive gaming experiences developed for Amazon's Alexa-powered smart speakers. Tyler Lizenby/CNET Amazon wants more gaming options for its voice-powered virtual assistant Alexa, and today, it's introducing a new set of tools that'll make it easier for developers to bring them to life. The gaming tools are the newest addition to the Alexa Skills Kit, a set of blueprints for creating Alexa's "skills" -- essentially the apps of the Amazon Echo and Amazon's other Alexa-enabled gadgets. Developers already had access to templates for crafting basic command-and...

If Spotify is too expensive and your tastes don't get much more adventurous than Coldplay, Amazon Music wants to be the music-streaming service for you. It might not have as many songs as rivals, but Amazon says you don't need them when you have the rest of Amazon Prime at your fingertips.Launched in the US in 2014 and the UK in 2015, Amazon Music is the retail giant's streaming service that comes bundled with Amazon Prime. One year on from the British launch we caught up with Paul Firth, head of Amazon Music UK, to blow out the candles and find out how being part of the Amazon empire makes Amazon Music different from Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services.Amazon Music is a "main...

Amazon might be coming out with a noise-canceling headphone that automatically tus off when someone yells your name.USPTO.govHere in New York City, noise-canceling headphones are as important as comfortable walking shoes. I throw a set in my bag every moing to fight the sound of shrilly subway trains, noisy construction crews and that saxophone busker guy who always manages to find my subway car.Muting the world might sound like bliss, but to walk around a busy city with only four senses in use is a dangerous game. They might be aoying, but some noises you actually need to hear, like a car ho or a siren.Granted, some headphones like the Master & Dynamic MH40s have a manual pass-through b...

Enlarge ImageHere's one I caught earlier. Then I took a screenshot, uploaded that to CNET's content management system and set it as this page's promo image, so everyone can see the wicked cool Vaporeon I caught. Screenshot by Luke Westaway/CNET Pokemon Go might still have an iron-tight grip on human social behaviour, but the mobile gaming phenomenon has done very little to line the coffers of Nintendo -- the House of Mario confirmed big quarterly losses, in the same week it reminded investors that it didn't actually, y'know, make the monster-catching game. Elsewhere the Solar Impulse sun-powered plane has co...

Amazon Prime has an estimated 60 million members in the US, reaches 11 countries and even has its own fake holiday. For CEO Jeff Bezos, that's not nearly enough.The world's largest e-commerce company has been busy finding new ways to evolve and expand the $99-a-year Prime loyalty program. This week, Prime launched in India, the second most-populous country in the world, and arrived in Belgium in February. Prime Video can now be purchased as a standalone service in the US, making it a more direct competitor to Netflix, and Prime can be bought on a monthly -- instead of just aual -- basis, making it more affordable for more people.There now are rumors Prime Music will also become a standalone ...

Amazon now has such a vast inventory of stuff, it needs to work a little harder to find new products to sell you.The online retailer is doing just that by teaming up with Kickstarter to offer more than 300 products that originated on the crowdfunding site. The products, dubbed the Kickstarter Collection, can be found on the startup-focused Amazon Launchpad storefront.The new relationship with Kickstarter could make it easier for more entrepreneurs and inventors to bring their products to market, while also helping Amazon bolster its selection. The products, some of which have already been available on Amazon, include Prynt, an iPhone case that prints out your photos (raised $1.6 million on K...

[embedded content] How closely are Amazon's Echo devices listening in on your conversations? Is it time to set up Tinder dates with multiple people at the same time? Plus, what are the ways politics are taking over Twitter during the Republican National Convention? Jeff Bakalar chats with CNET editorial intes Samantha Rhodes, Jake Krol and ZDNet's Zack Whittaker on these topics, originally broadcast live on Friday, July 22nd.Feel free to leave what you think about these topics in the comments, tweet to us using #OpenTab and join our next broadcast Friday on CNET's YouTube page around 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT.Let's block ads! بخوانید...

Enlarge Image Amazon Like Apple and Facebook, Amazon wants a slice of India. And now, the Seattle-based company is taking action.On Tuesday, Amazon launched its Prime subscription service in the world's second most-populated nation. Through Prime membership, the e-commerce giant offers free and faster delivery options to customers. The service is available in only a handful of regions, including the United States, UK, Japan and Germany.As part of Prime, Amazon is currently offering Indian customers in "over 100 cities" one-day and two-day delivery options, and access to special deals. Customers in 20 cities w...