Amazon has been bringing its Alexa voice assistant to a global audience, and now it is launching an option to better serve the diverse U.S. audience. Starting today, Alexa can speak Spanish in the U.S. Continue Reading
Amazon has been expanding into Brazil. The tech company introduced Amazon Prime and Amazon Music there last month, and now has rolled out two of its Echo line of smart speakers and Alexa voice assistant in the market. Continue Reading
Amazon launched a series of new products and developments to its voice platform yesterday. The company unveiled eight devices for its Echo line of smart home devices and a push into wearables. Continue Reading
Amazon announced that it is introducing a high-definition streaming music option. More than 50 million songs will be available in high-definition, with lossless, CD-quality audio. The service will also offer millions of tracks in Ultra HD, which is even better quality than CD audio. Continue Reading
Amazon has launched a new, crowdsourced supplement designed to help improve its voice assistant. Alexa Answers lets users contribute their own responses to queries that stumped the voice AI. Continue Reading
The National Music Publishers Association is making a new query into how mechanical royalties are calculated at Spotify and Amazon. The trade group sent letters to both businesses seeking information about their application of the three-tier rate formula from the Copyright Royalty Board. Continue Reading
Amazon Music announced a new hire, bringing on Adam Block as global head of music catalog. In this new position, Block will oversee the music service’s catalog music strategy, and build relationships with artists and labels. Continue Reading
Both Apple and Google responded to privacy issues surrounding their voice assistants last week. Now Amazon is also heading off potential issues for its Alexa platform. Continue Reading
Amazon released its financial results for the second quarter. The company generated net sales of $63.4 billion in the period. Despite the eye-popping size of the totals, Amazon’s performance caused consternation in the market. Continue Reading
Amazon has been a dark horse in the digital music industry for years, and the conglomerate is beginning to emerge from the shadows as a more visible player in the space. Financial Times reported last week that Amazon Music Unlimited has grown its subscriber base by about 70% in the past year. Continue Reading
Amazon has carved out a large amount of territory in the smart speaker market, and it may have another effort under way to reach new audiences. Bloomberg reported that Amazon could be working on an Echo smart speaker with improved audio quality, one that could rival the high-end, audiophile options on the market. Continue Reading
Voice assistants have been gaining in popularity, but many people are cautious about the technology for privacy reasons. When a microphone is constantly on and waiting to respond to a possible command, is it recording any and all other audio? And what happens with those recordings? Continue Reading