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 r...

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, and comes several months after the Ecobee3 became the first smart thermostat to sync up ...

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 "mains...