Rest of the Day: Amazon Tap Gets No Touch Activation
Contrary to its name, Amazon Tap, a mobile Bluetooth speaker with Alexa capabilities, now has a hands-free mode so you don’t have to press a microphone button. Life is full of surprises. About this and much more in today’s news.
- Amazon Tap has positioned itself more as a mobile Bluetooth speaker than a real replacement for the Echo, demonstrating how Alexa can be added as a feature on a variety of audio devices. With this new update, which goes live today, users can enable hands-free mode, which removes the need to press the microphone button. This makes it a little more like the cheaper version of the full-size Echo with better sound quality than the standalone point . [TechCrunch]
- Jeff Bezos talks to Aleca at the bank. [Gizmodo]
- Now you can check the weather on Facebook. You may have noticed that Facebook sometimes greets you with a short forecast (something like “Hello! Seems like clear skies!”) And they add the ability to follow the actual forecast from that query. You can also go to the weather forecast in the “More” section of the mobile application. [TechCrunch]
- Verizon is offering on-site screen replacement in select cities. Customers with Total Mobile Protection can have their broken screen replaced in-store for a deductible of $ 79, and a technician can visit you in some regions. [The Verge]
- Apple apparently kept a purported Safari browser history in iCloud over the years. Security researchers found data that was marked for deletion but was still stored on Apple servers. (Your browsing history was here primarily because you can sync your Safari history across devices.) After this bug went public, Apple quietly made a fix. [The Verge]