Tag: amazon echo

There was a slightly puzzling report on Bloomberg last Friday claiming that Amazon “is developing a higher quality version of the Echo Speaker” that will be released by next year. “Prototypes of the cylindrical speaker...

Amazon has launched a new version of its Echo Dot Kids smart speaker, which was originally released in April 2018. The new version is louder and comes in new colours like ‘Frost Blue’ and ‘Rainbow’. The $70 device...

Research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) has issued its latest estimates on the smart-speaker market in the US. It claims the number of speakers in use grew from 37m at the end of 2017 to 66m at the end...

One of the new gadgets announced by Amazon last September was the Echo Auto: a gadget that connects to an in-car entertainment system to add Alexa voice-assistant features. The device is shipping now, and according to Amazon...

From iTunes on PCs to Apple Music on Android smartphones, Apple has shown itself willing to take its digital-music platforms beyond its own devices. In the latter case, Apple Music has been installed more than 10m times on...

Research firm Canalys has published its latest figures on the smart-speakers market, focusing on shipments in the third quarter of 2018. It says they grew by 137% year-on-year to 19.7m units, which puts the market on track...

Smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home ranges have a significant role to play in Spotify’s strategy. Witness its recent deal to give away a Google Home Mini to all its family-plan subscribers in the US, and...

Okay, don’t forget the debate around the ‘value gap’ as it’s important. But it’s not the only gap that the digital-music ecosystem has to think about in 2018. An investigation by the Washington Post has identified...

Amazon is about to fire the starting trigger on its annual Prime Day of shopping deals, and research firm eMarketer has put out some new analysis of the company’s place in the US online-retail sector to accompany it. Its...

Research firm Canalys has published the latest report predicting the growth of the smart-speakers market, and there’s a big, round number attached to it. “Canalys expects the smart speaker installed base will approach...

A new study on smart speakers from research firm IHS Markit doesn’t add many surprises: 65% of respondents use these devices for listening to music, asking questions and checking the weather, versus just 6% for controlling...

Labels have been working hard to understand how smart assistants like Amazon’s Alexa decide what music to play when, for example, an Echo owner asks for some ‘happy indie music from the 1990s’. These algorithms –...