The CES technology show is underway in Las Vegas, and one of the early splashes has been made by Amazon – albeit through other companies’ devices.
The firm announced deals to put its Fire TV platform (and its Alexa smart voice assistant) inside 4K televisions from Chinese manufacturers Seiki, Westinghouse and Element Electronics.
It’s unclear for now whether those TVs will also provide access to Amazon’s music subscription services though. ZDNet has reported on Amazon’s other CES deals for Alexa, including making it work with Dish’s Hopper digital video recorder; Whirlpool’s smart washing machines; and Lenovo’s new ‘Smart Assistant’ speaker, which looks a lot like the Echo.
This is part of a wider battle this year among the big tech companies to expand the footprint of their smart voice assistants. Apple may be content to keep Siri to its own devices, but Amazon, Google and Microsoft are keen to explore the wider world of partnerships.
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