Google Maps will help you discover a neighborhood’s ‘vibe’

Google may soon give you a feel for a city district before you’ve ever set foot in it. The company is introducing a “neighborhood vibe’ feature for Maps on Android and iOS that will help you learn what’s new and worth seeing in a particular area through info and imagery. You may discover a historic quarter full of landmarks and museums, or the hottest restaurants in the chic part of town.

The technology relies on a blend of AI with community contributions to Google Maps’ landscape, such as photos and reviews. If all goes well, the feature will evolve in sync with the neighborhood itself.

The vibe check will roll out to Maps users worldwide in the “coming months.” No, this won’t make you as knowledgeable as a resident. However, it might help you plan a vacation or move — instead of searching blindly for things to do, you’ll have a decent sense of what’s popular with locals.

Google Lens image and text multisearch will soon be available in more languages

Multisearch, a Google Lens feature that can search images and text simultaneously, will soon be more broadly available after arriving in the US as a beta earlier this year. Google says multisearch will expand to more than 70 languages in the coming months. The company made the announcement at an event focused on Search.

In addition, the Near Me feature, which Google unveiled at I/O back in May, will land in the US in English sometime this fall. This ties into multisearch, with the idea of making it easier for folks to find out more details about local businesses. 

Multisearch is largely about enabling people to point their camera at something and ask about it while they’re using the Google app. You could aim your phone at a store and request details about it, for instance, or ask about a screenshot of any unfamiliar item, like an item of clothing. You could also look up what a certain food item is called, like soup dumplings or laksa, and see what restaurants around you offer it.

Also on the Lens front, there will be some changes when it comes to augmented reality translations. Google is now employing the same artificial intelligence tech it uses for the Pixel 6’s Magic Eraser feature to make it appear like it’s replacing the original text, instead of superimposing the translation on top. The idea is to make translations look more seamless and natural.

Google is also adding shortcuts to the bottom of the search bar in its iOS app, so you’ll more easily find features like translating text with your camera, hum to search and translating text in screenshots.

Here are the new features Amazon is adding to Alexa

While new gadgets tend to dominate Amazon’s annual Devices and Services Event, the company still has a few upgrades planned for its ubiquitous digital assistant. So here are all the fresh features and skills Amazon is planning to add to Alexa. 

For people trying to shop for a new outfit, the Echo Show is getting an AI-based skill that allows it to more easily search for clothes using a customer’s references or specific characteristics. For example, Amazon says you can ask things like “Alexa, show me the one-shoulder top.” Amazon explained the skill was created using the Alexa Teacher Model, which was trained using images and captions sourced from the company’s product database. 

In the car, Alexa is also getting a new Roadside Assistance feature that will connect you with an agent in case you need do something like calling a tow truck or get help changing a flat tire. On top of that, BMW is expanding its partnership with Amazon, with BMW announcing plans to build its next-generation voice assistant using the Alexa Custom Assistant solution. BMW’s goal is to support more natural language controls that are easy to use while driving. 

Alexa is also getting integration with the new Halo Rise, allowing it to do things like automatically turn off your lights when you get in bed or play your favorite song to help you wake up in the morning. Amazon will also be adding the Fire TV experience to the Echo Show 15, so users will be able to watch all their favorite shows or purchased content on a smaller screen. There’s also a new Alexa Voice Remote Pro for Fire TVs, that allows you to more easily switch between various inputs, control routines and use your voice to find the remote if you lose it thanks to the controller’s built-in speaker. 

Meanwhile for Disney fans, Amazon is adding a new “Hey Disney” command that gives anyone with a Kids+ subscription access to immersive entertainment experiences featuring big-name Disney characters. 

Follow all of the news from Amazon’s event right here!

Amazon’s new Fire TV Cube can control your cable box

Amazon’s Fire TV Cube has always been a bit of a curiosity. Clearly, the company wanted to combine an Echo Dot with a Fire TV streaming player, but it took a few tries before we genuinely liked it. Now with the third-generation Fire TV Cube, Amazon is giving it a more premium sheen with a cloth-covered design, a more powerful 2GHz octa-core processor, and an HDMI input connection for plugging in your cable box. Doing so will let you tune the Fire TV Cube to specific channels with voice commands—you know, for those of you who can’t let your local sports go.

Given that new hardware, Amazon says the Fire TV Cube will feel much faster than before. It’s also the first streamer on the market to include support for WiFi 6E, which should help when you’re dealing with huge 4K streams. When it comes to older content, Amazon has also included Super Resolution support for upscaling HD video into 4K. It’s unclear if that will actually help older content look better, but we’re looking forward to testing it out.

In addition to the $140 Fire TV Cube, Amazon also announced the $35 Alexa Voice Remote Pro, which is unfortunately sold separately. It features a backlight and programmable buttons for launching your favorite streaming apps. Perhaps most useful though? There’s a Remote Finder feature, which allows you to ask Alexa to trigger a noise in case the Remote Pro gets stuck in your couch. That’s one big advantage it has over Apple’s easy-to-lose Apple TV remote.

The new Fire TV Cube ships October 25th while the new remote will ship November 16th. Both are available for preorder now. 

Amazon Alexa Voice Remote Pro
Amazon

Follow all of the news from Amazon’s event right here!

Amazon is turning the Echo Show 15 into a Fire TV

It’s Amazon’s turn to host a major fall hardware event, and the company took the opportunity to announce some news for the Echo Show 15. It will bring the Fire TV experience to the smart display for both new and existing owners of the device as a free update.

The move makes a lot of sense when you consider that over 70 percent of Echo Show 15 users watched videos on the device last month, according to Amazon. The company says users will be able to start playing shows, movies and live TV with Alexa voice commands, as well as through touch control. You’ll have the option of pairing the third-gen Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote to Echo Show 15 too. A new Fire TV widget will include shortcuts to recently used streaming apps, content you watched lately and your watchlist.

Follow all of the news from Amazon’s event right here!

Amazon is expanding the Astro’s abilities for both home and business

While Amazon is widely known for its Ring brand of doorbell camera home security systems, the company last year introduced a more mobile, and way more adorable, monitoring platform: Astro. The $1,500 automaton (which is currently on sale for $999) essentially serves as an Alexa on wheels, trundling about your home like an AIBO that also manages your calendar and doubles as a guard dog. On Wednesday, Amazon unveiled a slew of new features for Astro, including one that can now detect the presence of your real cat or dog. 

The new feature, which will be available later this year, will trigger while the Astro is “on patrol” around your home. When it encounters your pet, Astro will capture a short video clip of them and share it with you via Live View (part of the Alexa Together system). 

“You can use Live View to tell your dog to get off the couch, or you can take a picture of what they’re doing to add to your pet scrapbook,” Ken Washington, vice president of Consumer Robotics, said during the event. “We think this feature will be especially useful by providing a live connection to your pets so that you have peace of mind about them, no matter where you are.”

Astro is also gaining some added situational awareness. The robot can already map out its patrol routes through your home but, with a new multimodal AI capability, Astro will actively pay attention to “things in your home that you want it to learn about—and better notify you if something isn’t right,” Washington said. Basically, Astro will learn by looking at an object (say, a door) and listening to you speak about it (“that door should always be closed”), then incorporate that information into its monitoring duties. If it detects an issue, the Astro will snap a picture of it and send it to you with a request for further instructions.

For those of you itching to add bespoke features to your own Astro, Amazon is also releasing a new SDK. There’s no word yet on when it will be made publicly available. Washington noted that “to start, we’ll begin working with three of the world’s leading robotics schools later this year—the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, and the University of Michigan—to put an early form of the SDK into their students’ hands.” More official Astro features are in the pipe, Washington assured, and once they’re ready, they’ll be made available as OTA software updates.

Follow all of the news from Amazon’s event right here!

Amazon’s Blink adds its first wired floodlight camera

Blink, Amazon’s other home security company, primarily focuses on small, affordable and mostly battery-powered devices. Today, however, it’s launching a Floodlight Camera that, unlike the existing model, can be wired in to your home’s external power supply. The Blink Wired Floodlight Camera offers a beefy 2600-lumen LED light, a 1080p live view and two-way audio, as well as enhanced motion detection. That latter feature is aided by Amazon’s AZ2 Neural Edge Processor, which enables the processing to be handled locally, rather than in the cloud.

Blink Mini Pan Tilt
Blink / Amazon

At the same time, Blink is also trotting out a pan-and-tilt mount to its indoor Mini security camera. The Blink Mini Pan Tilt (the lack of an and in that name should bother you as much as it bothers me) attaches to the base of your mini to offer 360-degree coverage of a room. You can also attach it to a tripod or, for an extra fee, a wall mount if your needs are more specific. In terms of pricing, the Floodlight Camera will arrive shortly for $100 while the Pan Tilt (yup, still bothers me) is up for pre-order today for $30, or bundled with a Mini camera for $60.

Follow all of the news from Amazon’s event right here!

Ring brings radar detection to its Spotlight Cam Pro

We’ve already seen Ring add Bird’s Eye View — its fancy 3D motion detection — to its flagship security camera and its flagship outdoor light camera. Consequently, you get no prizes for guessing that the feature is now coming to the new Ring Spotlight Cam Pro. The new Pro Spotlight Cam is joined by a Spotlight Cam Plus, which offers a slightly nicer design than its predecessor.

For the uninitiated, Birds Eye View is a system that offers users a top-down map of their area, showing the path a person took to your front door. It’s designed to let you know if someone’s been peering into your windows, or anywhere else, while on your porch.

Both of Ring’s Spotlight Cams will be available in Battery, Plug-In, Solar and Wired variations, although not all of them are ready right now. The Spotlight Cam Pro Battery and Plug-In can be bought for $230, while the Solar model will set you back $250. The Plus, meanwhile, is available for pre-order today, with prices starting at $200.

Image of Astro and Ring Protect
Ring / Amazon

At the same time, Ring is also launching a more business-focused way of using Amazon’s Astro, its (terrifying) home security robot as a security guard. Astro can already patrol the ground floor of your home at night, and new buyers get a free six-month trial of Ring Protect Pro thrown in for good measure. Now, however, the company is integrating Virtual Security Guard to Astro for small businesses who don’t need (or can’t afford the cost of) a living and breathing security patrol.

Much like the home-friendly version, Astro will patrol your office (or other stair-free facility) keeping watch. Should the Ring Alarm or one of the sensors spot a disturbance, the system will connect to a local monitoring and security company. From there, an operator can take control of Astro and go investigate if there’s something worrying going on in the back office.

Like many of Ring’s newest products, this will be first tested by a small group of business customers in the following months.

Follow all of the news from Amazon’s event right here!

Amazon built Eero WiFi extenders into its latest Echo Dot speakers

Amazon isn’t done updating its Eero router lineup this year, if not quite in the way you’d expect. To start, the brand’s new Echo Dot speakers will now double as Eero WiFi extenders. Plug one in and you’ll get as much as 1,000 square feet of additional network coverage. That speaker on your nightstand could improve the internet connection in your office, in other words.

The base Echo Dot is available for pre-order today at $50, while the Echo Dot with Clock and colorful Echo Dot Kids will sell for $60. Given that an Eero 6 Extender costs $79, this is an easy choice if you use one of Amazon’s routers — you can pay less to bolster your WiFi network while adding speaker functionality.

There’s also a meaningful update to existing routers. The Eero team is prepping an Internet Backup feature that will automatically switch to an alternate connection if there’s an outage, and switch back when things return to normal. You can lean on your phone’s hotspot while your cable service is down, for instance. The technology will be available in the “coming months,” although you’ll need either a $99 per year Eero Plus subscription (formerly Eero Secure+) or service from a supporting internet provider.

Eero PoE 6 power over Ethernet WiFi router
Amazon

You can expect new dedicated Eero hardware as well, although this time it’s aimed at sophisticated home networks and businesses. As the name suggests, the Eero PoE 6 router (shown above) takes power over Ethernet and is thus easier to mount on the ceiling or wall. The dual-band device tops out at 1.5Gbps and a maximum 2,000 square feet of coverage. It will be available through installers in the US and Canada this October for $300, and will reach Amazon’s store in early 2023. An Eero PoE Gateway ($650) is also due early next year through Amazon’s website and ISPs. It can share up to a 10Gbps internet link through two 10Gbps Ethernet jacks and eight PoE-capable 2.5Gbps jacks.

There are services to match: Anyone who buys Eero PoE hardware will get five years of access to a Pro Installers software suite to help technicians optimize networks for customers. Companies, meanwhile, will have the option of a $299 yearly Eero for Business plan that offers hardware and software for outfits with little to no IT infrastructure of their own. It arrives in early 2023 in the US and UK.

Follow all of the news from Amazon’s event right here!

BMW’s next in-vehicle voice assistant will be built from Amazon Alexa

BMW began incorporating smart voice features into its infotainment systems using Amazon’s Alexa in 2018. In the intervening years, the number of models sporting the digital assistant have only increased. At Amazon’s 2022 Devices & Services Event on Wednesday, the two companies announced a deepening of their partnership: BMW’s next-generation of infotainment systems will feature an Alexa-based assistant specifically developed with the driver in mind.

The as-of-yet unnamed BMW assistant will be constructed from an Alexa Custom Assistant, “a comprehensive solution that makes it easy for BMW and other brands and device makers to create their own custom intelligent assistant tailored to their brand personality and customer needs.” Those capabilities might include a proactive notification from the vehicle’s assistant alerting the driver that the battery charge is low while automatically reserving a charging slot at the next off-ramp or preemptively scheduling regular service with the local dealership, and “will enable an even more natural dialogue between driver and vehicle,” per a Wednesday BMW press release.