Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo speakers now available in Canada

Amazon’s anticipated cloud-based voice service, Alexa, is now available in Canada along with three Alexa-enabled devices: Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Plus. The lineup of innovative voice-controlled speakers allows users to experience a new level of convenience and intelligence. From simply asking Alexa for the temperature, or the news of the day, to controlling your entire home’s lights and locks, Alexa’s capabilities are endless and ever-expanding. You can order your Echo device today at www.amazon.ca/echo. Hit jump for specs and pricing.

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Review: Sonos One Smart Speaker

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Sonos is considered the originator of wireless streaming audio. The company’s innovative MESH network solution enabled high fidelity audio streamed across multiple rooms simultaneously (or independently). Sonos speakers have been considered the gold standard in audio quality and precision while their software has long been the envy of other speaker manufacturers.

2017 has been a challenging year for Sonos. While the company continued to unveil well-received speakers and sound bars, they are seeing unprecedented competition not just from cheaper smart speakers with built-in assistants. They are also seeing companies like Google and Apple jump into the premium connected speaker space, presumably with smart assistant functionality. Now, Sonos has answered that challenge.

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Amazon Echo gets additional news sources for Flash Briefing

Amazon Echo’s latest update brings new sources for its Flash Briefing feature. You can now add the likes of CNN, Bloomberg, NPR, Discovery News, The Economist, and ESPN Radio. Just head over to the Settings section of the Alexa app. Other than that, the Echo also now has some mad rhyming skills. It gets RhymeZone, a rhyming dictionary that you can speak to. You can just ask questions like, “Alexa, what rhymes with blue?” and it’ll get you a word or words that rhyme with it. You can now also ask it about baby names and what the popular names are for a particular year. The new skills can be added from the Skills section of the Alexa app.

Source: Android Central

Amazon's Echo is a standalone voice assistant you can boss around

Got to hand it to Amazon, eh? Days after announcing same-day delivery service for Prime members in Vanvouver and Toronto, they now  revealed a standalone personal assistant.

Echo looks like a speaker but is actually a connected voice assistant like Apple's Siri, Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana. As shown by the cringeworthy ad above, it is triggered by the 'Alexa' word and can be engaged in a number of ways.

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