Rest of the Day: You Can Now Use Alexa on Amazon Fire Tablets
Amazon is shipping its Alexa virtual assistant to its tablets this week with a new software update. It can do all of the usual Alexa activities except for the constantly listening Echo microphone. About this and much more in today’s news.
- In this case, you just need to press and hold the virtual home button on your Fire tablet to activate Alexa . It’s compatible with the Fire HD 8, 10 and their latest $ 49 model. And if you have a Fire and Echo tablet, you can pair them together to see a visual representation of Alexa’s actions on the tablet. [The Verge]
- Apple has postponed the launch of AirPods, the wireless earbuds it unveiled with the iPhone 7 last month. They originally planned to ship them sometime in October, but Apple tells TechCrunch they need “a little more time.” [TechCrunch]
- The Google Fiber dream has been shelved as they cut 9 percent of their workforce and put some unfinished operations on hold. They will stop construction in ten cities in which they were not fully involved, but will continue to operate in markets where they are already available or already involved. [Ars Technica]
- Twitter is finally testing its previously announced intent to no longer include usernames in the 140 character limit. In fact, there is a refined interface that does not display @names at all, which is a bit confusing, especially if there are a lot of people on the thread. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. If anything, this is still a work in progress. [TechCrunch]