Amazon might be known as one of the biggest e-commerce companies in the world, but it also makes plenty of its own hardware.
New Fire TVs, Echo smart speakers and Kindles could all be on the agenda at the company’s biggest hardware event of the year. Here are all the new products it could launch.
But with Amazon keeping a tight lid on any leaks, we have no idea which will actually be revealed. So, with no public stream of the event, join us live to find out the news as it happens.
Amazon September 2023 event: Live updates
14.55 UTC: The Amazon event will begin in five minutes. Join us live for all the announcements.
15.00 UTC: We’re underway! Amazon is showing off some of its most popular products, giving us an indicator of what’s on the way…
15.03 UTC: Amazon’s outgoing hardware chief Dave Limp is on stage, and it looks like Alexa is first on the agenda.
15.06 UTC: First up: the all-new Echo Show 8. It has upgraded audio to cut down on background noise. There’s new room adaptation technology that fine tunes playback. The new Echo Show will respond to where you are in the room and show different content. The response time is up to 40% faster too.
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
15.08 UTC: It costs $149.99. You can pre-order one today, and it will begin shipping next month.
15.11 UTC: Next – AI. Generative AI will drive Amazon’s new ambient technology. Alexa will up its game where natural conversation is concerned. It’ll be just like talking to another person.
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
15.14 UTC: Personalised home technology is another biggie for Amazon ambient tech, powered by an LLM (Large Language Model).
15.15 UTC: It’s montage time! People are happily discussing the way they use Alexa.
15.18 UTC: Dave Limp is now chatting in real-time with Alexa. It’s not going brilliantly.
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
15.20 UTC: Alexa has composed and sent a message to Dave’s friends to the app. Was it efficient? Yes. Was it a little creepy? yes. Yes, it was.
15.22 UTC: News! Once a conversation with Alexa has started, you won’t need to keep using the wake word.
15.24 UTC: Instead, computer vision recognises you are looking at the Echo Show screen. And that’s done locally with on-board processing.
15.26 UTC: Just a reminder, folks: we are still on the Echo Show 8. All new language features will be available on earlier models, right up until the original Echo. But the part where you don’t have to keep saying Alexa will be only on new devices.
Jim Martin / Foundry
15.27 UTC: New speech to speech model: a unified model that means that Alexa can express laughter and surprise.
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