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Tech News
Amazon unveiled a new Fire TV Stick 4K on Wednesday as part of its fall hardware lineup, featuring a slimmer body, USB-port charging, and performance Amazon says is 20-40% faster than rival streamers. The device ships with a redesigned voice remote that drops the blue Alexa button for a subtler microphone key, adds a touch-distinguishable home button, a recessed power button, a flatter D-pad, and a new favorites button.
Amazon unveiled a slimmer, faster Fire TV Stick 4K along with a redesigned remote and updated interface and app that more deeply integrate Alexa+. The company is simplifying its lineup by dropping the 'Select' and 'Plus' naming for its 4K dongles, and the new stick includes 8GB of storage, a quad-core 1.7GHz processor, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3/LE support.
Amazon's second-generation Echo Auto, a dongle bringing Alexa to cars without built-in smart infotainment, is now listed as 'Currently unavailable' on its product page with no restock date given. Reddit users first noticed the device had also disappeared from direct search results on Amazon.
Amazon has discounted its latest Echo Spot smart alarm clock to $54.99, down from its $109.99 list price. The device, which lacks a camera unlike the original Echo Spot, features a small customizable display, Night Mode, Alexa voice control, alarms, timers, and dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.
Amazon has built a Price History feature into its shopping interface, showing 30-, 90- and 365-day price trends for products via a button on desktop or a similar option in its app. The company's Alexa for Shopping AI assistant (formerly Rufus) can answer questions about pricing and, for eligible Prime members, automatically purchase an item once it reaches a set target price.
Senators Tammy Baldwin and Rick Scott have asked the FTC to investigate whether Amazon's Alexa and Walmart's Sparky shopping chatbots adequately surface information about domestically made products. The request cites a Columbia University Center for Law and the Economy study finding both assistants initially struggled or declined to confirm US-origin claims, though they could answer questions about foreign-made goods and eventually provided US-made results after prompts were reworded.
Amazon now offers five distinct personality styles for Alexa—Brief, Chill, Sweet, Sassy and Original—that change the tone of responses without altering Alexa's functionality. Users can switch styles by voice command or through the Alexa app's device settings menu, with the Sassy option requiring an age confirmation due to its cheekier, more colorful responses. Each Echo device must be configured separately, since the personality setting is not shared across a household's devices.
Amazon has rolled out a new capability in its Alexa for Shopping assistant that lets customers ask whether an email, text, or call claiming to be from Amazon is genuine. The AI compares the message against Amazon's own records of communications sent and examines its content, formatting, and sender details before confirming authenticity, but only when it is highly confident.
Amazon launched a new Alexa for Shopping feature called 'Update Me When,' which sends personalized notifications when events like a new product line, book release, or concert announcement could prompt a purchase. Users manually set up these alerts for now, choosing what brands, artists, or products they want tracked.
WIRED highlighted the Dreo Air Purifier Tower Fan MC710S as a standout multiuse home appliance, priced around $330 on Amazon. The unit combines a 99.97 percent HEPA filter with a fan that can run independently, controllable via remote, the Dreo app, or voice assistants like Alexa and Google Home.