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Amazon has reportedly acquired Evi for voice-guided search
Amazon isn't shy about wanting to own as much of the Kindle Fire's software experience as it can, which creates a challenge when implementing voice search -- the company can't just re-skin Google Now and call it a day. The next-quickest alternative is to buy a company wholesale, and TechCrunch has evidence that Amazon may have gone that route through a very stealthy acquisition of Evi, best known for its eponymous personal assistant app. While neither side has publicly commented on the deal, our colleagues have noticed that all of Evi's directors and its company secretary have been replaced by staffers linked to Amazon UK. If it's not an acquisition, there's been at least some loss of autonomy. We don't know exactly what Amazon would be doing should the acquisition prove real, although Evi's Nuance-powered voice assistance for Android and iOS may be enough of a clue in itself -- there's only so many places Amazon can go with such a narrowly focused company.
The Daily Roundup for 04.11.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
MOGA to support Kindle Fire and Windows Phone 8, $50 Pro controller slated for April 15th
After nearly six months on the market, the MOGA Bluetooth-powered gaming controller is finally ready to open up its Android-restricted doors. We were told at the Game Developers Conference that starting today, developers can add MOGA support to Kindle Fire and Windows Phone 8 games, thus marking the device's first foray outside of the Google Play ecosystem. Consumers shouldn't get too excited by this announcement just yet, however, as this is just a call for developers -- it'll still be awhile until we see MOGA-compatible Kindle Fire and Windows Phone 8 games pop up on that MOGA Pivot app. In the meantime, we also learned that the MOGA Pro controller we saw at CES will be available in stores starting April 15th for $50 a pop, so hopefully those newly-ported apps will be ready by then.
Amazon Whispercast for Kindle now lets organizations manage mass app distribution on Fire tablets
When Amazon introduced its Kindle Whispercast service back in October, it did so with the promise that '"bulk app distribution" would be coming soon for Fire tablets. Fast forward to today and that feature is now live, giving organizations the ability to push purchased applications from an administration account to all managed Kindle Fire tablets. Yes, that even includes BYOD devices, although those users will have to accept an opt-in prompt to participate. If your school or business already participates in the service, there's no need to take any further action -- the ability should be enabled right now. But if you'd still like to sign-up, you can do so at the source.
Kindle Fire HD 8.9 up for pre-order in Japan, ships March 12th
Amazon decided last year it was time to take the Kindle brand to Japan, but for some reason, the Fire HD 8.9 wasn't invited. Not being one to hold grudges, the biggest Kindle slate has agreed to a belated introduction, and is now available for pre-order on Amazon's Japanese portal, and in several bricks-and-mortar stores. Parting with 24,800 yen (around $269) will reserve you a 16GB model, or you can double that storage to 32GB for a total price of 29,800 yen (around $323). Both configurations are WiFi-only, and will begin shipping to early adopters on March 12th. If you've been holding out for that extra 1.9 inches, head for the link below to get in on the first batch, or peruse the Japanese PR if you're keen to hear the full pitch.
Canalys: Apple hits 20 percent of PCs through iPad sales, HP up to second place
Canalys is still staking its market share estimates on the view that mobile tablets are as relevant to PC market share as desktops and laptops. If we accept that interpretation, Apple was easily on top of the heap during the fourth quarter. Combining iPads and Macs would give it 27 million computer shipments in the fall, or 20.1 percent of the 134 million computers that left factories -- the first time it would have had more than a fifth of the market. Not that Apple was the only one having a good time, however. HP reportedly took back second place from Lenovo by shipping 15 million PCs and claiming 11 percent of the market, while Samsung stepped into the top five for the first time at 11.7 million PCs and 9 percent share. The upswings may have masked deeper problems. Apple and Samsung benefited from the iPad mini and Galaxy Tab lines, but they, Amazon and other tablet makers were reportedly propping up the market. Canalys doesn't believe Windows 8 or RT moved the needle for demand, noting that laptop shipments were flat year-over-year where tablets surged 75 percent. It was a tough market for most conventional PC builders -- just ask Dell -- and there's no immediate signs that it will be any easier for them in 2013.
Chitika: Android tablet usage rises in January, iPad still dominates
Chitika's online advertising network does a great job of compiling usage share data by device and browser type over time. The company just released data showing results for tablet device usage share in the month of January, and as expected, the iPad still dominates web traffic in the US and Canada. iPad's share for the month was at 81.0 percent (represented by the long blue column in the graphic above), with the next highest share for a specific device being for the Amazon Kindle Fire at 7.7 percent. All Samsung Galaxy tablets combined pulled in a paltry 3.9 percent usage share, still better than Google's Nexus tablets at 1.7 percent. However, Apple shouldn't rest on its laurels atop the tablet heap. During December of 2012 and January of 2013, the iPad's share slowly fell from a high of about 89 percent down to 80 percent by the end of January. Those pesky Kindle Fire tablets showed an amazing growth from about 4.88 ad impressions per 100 iPad ad impressions in December, to 9.48 impressions in January. Chitika reports that Google Nexus, Samsung Galaxy, and Barnes & Noble Nook tablets all saw smaller gains. The full Chitika tablet report is available to read on the company's website.
Engadget's tablet buyer's guide: winter 2013 edition
As we begin 2013, we're stuck in a kind of tablet limbo. Most companies rushed to get devices out for the fall, while the models we saw at CES 2013 aren't yet shipping. As such, it's a mostly familiar deck, with Apple, Google and Microsoft once again striving for the top spot. That said, there are new entries from Amazon and ASUS, and many of us who didn't score some sweet loot this holiday season have a slate-sized pile of cash to spend. If you're in that situation, continue on for our first tablet guide of 2013. Note: If you're looking for tablets with an Atom or Core i5 CPU, you'll find those in our forthcoming laptop buyer's guide, since they have the same guts as notebooks (or netbooks, in some cases). For the purposes of this tablet guide, we define tablets as slate-type devices with low-power ARM processors.
Amazon buys text-to-speech software company Ivona
If you go buying a text-to-speech software maker, you're not exactly going to stay quiet about it, right? Amazon this morning announced its acquisition of Ivona, the company behind the Kindle Fire's Text-to-Speech, Voice Guide and Explore by Touch features. Ivona, currently carrying the tagline "an Amazon company" on its site, offers its technology in 44 voices in 17 languages. It also works closely with organizations for the blind and visually impaired. More information on the acquisition can be found after the break.
WatchESPN sports streaming reaches Amazon Kindle Fire tablets
Although WatchESPN viewing has been an option for Android viewers since 2011, those with Amazon tablets haven't had the same luxury -- they've sometimes had to watch on an old-fashioned TV. Thankfully, ESPN is giving them a better start to the new year by bringing its app to the Amazon Appstore. Anyone with a regular Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD or Kindle Fire HD 8.9 now has access to live games and news as long as they have a supporting TV subscription. The app is free outside of the cost of ESPN itself; if you've got the right mix of hardware and software, it's easy to get your fill at the source link.
Chitika: iPad usage still far outweighs tablet competitors
Mobile ad network Chitika has released a report that says the iPad is still far, far ahead in terms of web usage over any other tablets out there. All you need to really know here is that the iPad isn't even on the chart above -- the chart above shows average impressions on tablets per 100 impressions on the iPad, which means that the highest figure up there, from the Amazon Kindle Fire, has only 4.88 impressions per every hundred impressions on the iPad. That's pretty crazy -- the iPad isn't just winning in terms of tablet usage, it's very much dominating. These competing tablets are growing in terms of usage (the Kindle Fire rose by about 20 percent since earlier this month, and Samsung's Galaxy line rose by about 0.3 percent). But those growth rates, in terms of numbers, are tiny compared to the huge audience that's browsing the web on the iPad. And while the numbers have yet to come out, of course, there's no question the iPad mini has only made that audience even larger this holiday season. Apple has a huge lead in the tablet market at this point, and while it certainly can't last forever, it will likely be around for a while. [via Mashable]
GameStop now stocking Kindle Fire tablets, handing out free virtual bucks with purchase
The Kindle Fire line of tablets is the latest set of electronics to grace GameStop store shelves in the US, the Texas company announced recently. From the baby 7-inch all the way to the larger 8.9-inch, the entire Fire line will be carried in all of GameStop's 4,400 US-based locations after a successful test run earlier this year with various Android-based tablets -- presumably it won't be too long before discounted, used versions of the tablets become widely available, as GameStop's offering a $100 in-store credit trade incentive toward the original Kindle Fire. Sadly, you'll only snag the free $25 Amazon.com gift card (offered through the end of January) if you purchase a brand new Fire, but then there's always that $50 off sale going on today, right?
Amazon shaves $50 off the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD for today only
Amazon may already be selling its Kindle range at cost, but here's your chance to snag one for even less. The e-tailer's knocking a cool 50 bucks off the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD just for today -- valid on both the WiFi-only and the 4G LTE editions. Just use the code FIREHD89 while checking out and you can save enough to get rid of those pesky ads, load it up with apps, and still have some left over for a few literary classics.
Amazon bringing Voice Guide and Explore by Touch features to Kindle Fires for vision-impaired users (update)
Amazon's been attuned to the needs of its vision-impaired customers for years, first rolling out text-to-speech technology on its original Kindle e-reader years ago. Today the company revealed plans to add to that feature set in its Kindle Fire and Fire HD (7-inch) tablets with Voice Guide and Explore by Touch technology. Voice Guide's an improvement upon regular text-to-speech tech that reads aloud any action performed by users -- things like announcing app names and book titles when they're selected. Explore by Touch lets folks swipe their fingers across their Fire's display and identifies each onscreen item as their phalanges pass over them. Once aware of what app or piece of content's being touched, a simple tap opens the item. Ready for the new assisted navigation experience right now? Well, all you anxious Fire owners will have to wait, the update doesn't land until early next year. Update: The good folks at Amazon reached out to let us know that the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 already has both Explore by Touch and Voice Guide.
iPad, iPad mini win battery life shootout among tablets
UK consumer watchdog site Which? has tested the world's leading tablets to see how their battery life compares and both the iPad with Retina display and the iPad mini came out on top by a large margin. To be fair to all tablets, Which? took into account the screen size and brightness of each one. First, testers divided the tablets into two categories: those with screen sizes of 9.4-inches and larger and those with screen sizes of 7.9-inches and smaller. Then the company used a light meter to set the screen brightness of each tablet to 200 nits. For its tests, Which? measured the battery life of the tablets while using WiFi and 3G connections (if applicable) for web browsing and while watching videos. Out of the seven tablets tested in the 10-inch category for WiFi browsing, the iPad with Retina display handily beat out the rest of the competition. It tallied up a total of 811 minutes of WiFi browsing (that's 13.5 hours). The iPad 2 came in a distant second place at 590 minutes (9.8 hours). By comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 came in at 532 minutes (8.8 hours) and the Microsoft Surface RT came in at 501 minutes (8.3 hours). The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime came in at the bottom with a mere 335 minutes (5.5 hours). Of the five tablets tested in the 7-inch category the iPad mini was the big winner -- and by a wide margin. It came in at 783 minutes (13 hours) while the runner up, the Amazon Kindle Fire HD, came in at 591 minutes (9.8 hours). The Nexus 7 scored third at 550 minutes (9.1 hours) while the Amazon Kindle Fire came in at 437 minutes (7.2 hours) and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 came in last at 425 minutes (seven hours).
Amazon Kindle FreeTime Unlimited launches, bundles kid-friendly media, menu for a fee
We got a peek at Amazon's Kindle FreeTime during its press conference back in September, but now it's making the family-friendly feature part of a subscription package available across the family of Kindle Fire devices. More than just a submenu of video like the ones offered by Netflix and Hulu Plus, it resembles the Kid's Corner launcher in Windows Phone 8 by password locking children out of the rest of the device, but with a preselected package of content to fill it. Available to Prime subscribers for $2.99 per month, per child or for $6.99 for a family-wide license of up to six kids (don't have Prime? you can pick it up for $4.99/$9.99 a month), kids can browse through the selection of educational apps, games, books, movies and TV shows. It also throws in other features parents will dig, with a personalized login and bookmarks for the kids, plus the ability to set time limits on use that can be specifically tailored by category. All of this happens with them seeing any ads or racking up a bill for video on-demand or in-app purchases, since those hooks have been removed, creating an environment endorsed by Common Sense Media. Big names like Disney, Nickelodeon, DC Comics and PBS are all on the list, with the promise of a store of content to keep the little ones distracted/learning as long as necessary. To set it up on your device, you'll only need to create a FreeTime account if you haven't already, and hit the free trial button. Want to see it for yourself? The feature is available in an OTA software update rolling out over "the coming weeks" to the new Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9, with a free month of trial access available to owners. There are more details in the press release after the break, or beyond the source link.
Amazon declares 'best ever' Black Friday and Cyber Monday for Kindle family
Pick up a holiday Kindle over the weekend? According to today's Amazon announcement, the chances are pretty good that you did. The mega-retailer sent out a note today calling Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2012 "the best ever for the Kindle family." In fact, Monday was reportedly the biggest day ever for worldwide Kindle sales, thanks in part to a sale on the Fire. Amazon says it has "more than double[d]" last year's numbers. The line, which currently includes the entry-level Kindle, the Paperwhite and the Fire, among others, has also been eating up a good chunk of the site's worldwide best seller spots. More sales info can be found in the source link below.
Amazon offers Unity plug-ins to Kindle Fire devs, makes in-app payments possible
Game devs looking to enhance "engagement" (read: monetization) for their mobile titles now have an ally in Amazon. The Bezos-backed company has just made plug-ins available free to Kindle Fire developers using the popular Unity game engine. Now those devs will have access to APIs for In-Game purchasing and GameCircle which, in the latter case, allows for the addition of Achievements, as well as the ability to Whispersync across devices. So, what does this mean for you, the end user? Well, aside from the ability to continue playing from where you last left off on any of the company's tabs, it also brings mobile gaming that much closer to the console experience. But mostly that you can look forward to a future bill filled with micropayments.
The Daily Roundup for 11.20.2012
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Amazon Kindle Fire HD review (8.9-inch, 4G LTE)
What a difference a generation makes. While the original Kindle Fire impressed, there was only one thing that really made it worth considering: it was cheap. Really cheap. But, when we got our hands on the 7-inch, 720p Kindle Fire HD a few months back we had an honest-to-gosh nice device -- that happened to be cheap. And what do we have here? Why, it's a slightly larger version of that very same tablet, but at a significantly higher cost. It's the Kindle Fire 8.9, a tick under two inches larger at the diagonal but with a starting price of $299 for 16GB, $100 more than the cheapest 7-inch Fire HD. It goes way up from there, though, with the 32GB LTE version we tested starting at a rather more dear $499. That's far beyond the threshold of cheap, but does it still make for good value? Join us as we find out.%Gallery-171301%