Amazon announces new Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Show powered by AZ1 Neural Edge processor

Alongside the launch of the new Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite, Amazon today unveiled a new lineup of Alexa-powered Echo smart speakers. The latest additions to the company’s Echo product line include the new 4th-Gen Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Dot with clock, Echo Dot Kids Edition, and the Echo Show 10. All the speakers in the lineup are equipped with the company’s new AZ1 Neural Edge processor, which is designed to speed up Alexa’s ability to complete commands and answer your questions. Here’s everything you need to know about the processor and the new Echo devices:

Amazon AZ1 Neural Edge processor

Designed in collaboration with MediaTek, Amazon’s AZ1 Neural Edge processor is built into the company’s latest Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Dot with Clock, Echo Dot Kids Edition, and Echo Show 10. Amazon claims that the new silicon module is capable of speeding up Alexa’s responses by hundreds of milliseconds per response, which is expected to further streamline user interaction with the virtual assistant.

But even though all of the new Echo devices feature the AZ1 processor, only the Echo and Echo Show 10 have the on-device memory needed to support the company’s new neural speech models. Thanks to the new speech models, the Echo and Echo Show 10 feature the capability to process audio on-device, which drastically reduces the time Alexa takes to give users a response.

While the remaining smart speakers don’t include the new speech models, the AZ1 chip is expected to reduce response latency on those devices as well, albeit not as much. The company claims that these latency benefits will first be available for English in the US. But the company plans to add support for more languages and regions in the near future.

Amazon Echo

The 4th-Gen Echo smart speaker features an all-new spherical design and fabric finish, with a bright LED ring at the bottom that reflects off the underlying surface for improved visibility. The smart speaker packs in a 3.0-inch woofer, dual-firing tweeters, and Dolby processing, which is expected to deliver better audio performance than the previous generation.

Much like the Echo Studio, the new Echo smart speaker is capable of detecting the acoustics of the space its placed in to fine-tune the audio playback. It comes with a built-in smart home hub with support for Zigbee, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Amazon Sidewalk. Thanks to the Amazon Sidewalk support, users will be able to easily set up new devices with the smart speaker, extend the range of devices like Ring Smart Lighting, and offer support for devices like Tile to locate misplaced items.

The new Echo smart speaker has been priced at $99.99 (₹9,999) and it will be available in three color variants — Charcoal, Glacier White, and Twilight Blue. The device is already up for pre-order on Amazon and it will start shipping sometime later this year.

Echo Dot and Echo Dot with clock

The 4th-Gen Echo Dot has also received a design refresh and it now has the same spherical design and fabric finish as the more premium Echo smart speaker. However, due to its smaller footprint, the speaker packs in a single 1.6-inch speaker.

The 4th-Gen Echo Dot with clock is exactly what it sounds like. It’s an Echo Dot with a simple LED display which shows basic information like time, temperature, timers, and alarms.

The new Echo Dot is priced at $49.99 (₹4,499) and it will be available in three color variants — Charcoal, Glacier White, and Twilight Blue. The Echo Dot with clock, on the other hand, is priced at $59.99 (₹5,499) and it will be available in two color variants — Glacier White and Twilight Blue. Both the new Echo Dots are already up for pre-order on Amazon, with shipping scheduled for sometime later this year.

Echo Dot Kids Edition

The 4th-Gen Echo Dot Kids Edition features the same new spherical design, but it comes with colorful Panda and Tiger prints that will appeal to kids. While it features the same internal hardware, Amazon has customized the Alexa experience on the smart speaker to be better suited to kids.

Alexa’s custom-built kids experience will allow children to ask Alexa questions, set animal sound alarms, get help with homework, and call pre-approved contacts. It features an extensive list of parental controls and the ability to create voice profiles for kids. This feature has been extended to all Echo devices, which means that Alexa will automatically switch to a kid-friendly experience when it detects a kid’s voice.

On top of that, there’s a new Alexa feature called Reading Sidekick which is designed to help children improve reading fluency. To trigger the feature, you can simply say, “Alexa, let’s read,” and the virtual assistant will take turns reading with your child, provide encouragement when they’re reading, and offer support when they struggle. Previews for Alexa voice profiles for kids and Reading Sidekick will be available on all Echo devices in the coming months.

The Echo Dot Kids Edition is priced at $59.99 and it will be available in two animal prints — Panda and Tiger. The device is up for pre-order on Amazon, and it will start shipping to users later this year. All Echo Dot Kids Edition speakers will come with a 1-year Amazon Kids+ subscription, which will give you access to thousands of hours of kid-friendly Audible books, interactive games, and educational skills.

Amazon Echo Show 10

The new Echo Show 10 features a 10-inch adaptive HD display mounted on a rotating base, which can automatically change the direction of the display based on your position when you interact with Alexa. The base features a silent brushless motor that will ensure the device doesn’t make any noise as it rotates the display.

The smart display comes with a new 13MP wide-angle camera that can automatically pan and zoom to keep you at the center of the frame. It features dual front-firing speakers and a powerful woofer that also move along with the display. Much like the Echo smart speaker, the Echo Show 10 is capable of detecting the acoustics of your space to adapt its audio performance.

To ensure user privacy, the Echo Show 10 uses a fusion of audio-based localization and computer vision to power its intelligent motion. All processes happen locally and securely on the device, with no data being sent back to Amazon’s servers. There’s also a built-in camera shutter that automatically turns of motion when closed.

The Echo Show 10 is priced at $249.99 and it will be available in two color variants — Charcoal and Glacier White. The device will start shipping in time for the holidays later this year.

Amazon further notes that all the new Echo devices have the Climate Pledge Friendly badge and are built with 100% post-consumer recycled fabric, 100% recycled die-cast aluminum, and post-consumer recycled plastic. The wood fiber-based material used in Echo device packaging is also sourced from responsibly managed forests or recycled sources. Amazon also plans to introduce a new feature in the Alexa app that will show you the energy consumed by compatible smart home devices sometime later this year.

Pre-order the Echo: Amazon.com || Amazon.in

Pre-order the Echo Dot: Amazon.com || Amazon.in

Pre-order the Echo Dot with Clock: Amazon.com || Amazon.in

Pre-order the Echo Dot Kids Edition: Amazon.com

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Google Messages 6.7 prepares to let you automatically delete OTPs after 24 hours

A lot of tasks and services these days are tied either to an email account or our phone number to authenticate our identity before proceeding. As a result, we often get a load of OTPs (One Time Passwords) through the weeks — for every time you log into the service on a new device, for when you access the service, and in several countries, whenever you make payments through internet banking, and credit and debit cards. These OTPs can start clogging your inbox and make it difficult to find messages that do warrant your attention at a later date. Google seems to have taken cognizance of this issue, as the latest Google Messages update prepares to let you automatically delete OTPs after 24 hours of receipt.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

Google Messages v6.7.067 contains the following new strings:

<string name="otp_auto_deletion_promo_banner_body_text">Auto-delete OTPs after 24hrs</string>
<string name="otp_auto_deletion_promo_banner_negative_button_text">No thanks</string>
<string name="otp_auto_deletion_promo_banner_positive_button_text">Continues</string>
<string name="otp_content_description">This message is categorized as a one-time password</string>

According to these strings, Google Messages is working on a feature that will automatically delete OTP messages after 24 hours from their receipt. OTPs by very nature are temporary in nature, with most of them being valid for a short time duration of 10 minutes or so, depending on the needs of the service. Once this validity period expires, there’s little use to be derived from keeping these messages around. Users may also not always remember deleting these messages once they are done, so automatically deleting them after a day seems to be a useful addition.

Other OEMs have resorted to decluttering the primary inbox by displaying OTPs and other promotional messages in a separate secondary inbox. Google’s approach to decluttering appears to be better as OTPs practically have no future utility. The feature will likely roll out as an option, so if you do want to keep your OTP messages around, you should be covered too.

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Messages (Free, Google Play) →

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Tasker 5.9.4 beta adds support for customizing Android 11’s power menu controls

If you consider yourself an Android power user, you have very likely already heard about Tasker. And you have also heard about Android 11 and its Power Menu Device Controls. With Android 11, Google has changed the options that appear when you long-press the power button, now presenting a new UI and smart home device controls for quick access. This is a great spot for adding shortcuts, but Google limits these shortcuts to just home controls. This is where Tasker comes in, as the latest beta adds in support for customing Android 11’s power menu controls.

Tasker developer joaomgcd was already working on integrating shortcuts within the power menu. Tasker 5.9.4 beta is a continuation of those efforts, now reaching in the hands of users as the previous test was not released for users. The major highlight of the update is the fact that you can add in Tasker tiles to the power menu as clickable buttons, and these tiles could trigger virtually any Tasker tasks that you could think of. These tiles could be simple buttons for calling a task on click, or be a toggle with on/off states, or be a toggle with progress states. The dev presented a quick demo wherein a button was created to trigger a screenshot task:

If you need even more control at your fingertips, you can use the “Power Menu Action” action in Tasker to create buttons with a given id, type, title, subtitle, icon, and command. This further lets you create buttons that can change throughout the day. The new update also brings in the Tasker Command System with the new Command Event and Command Action, letting users re-use tasks and avoid duplicity in tasks. Third-party commands are also supported.

Tasker v5.9.4 beta Changelog

The full changelog for this beta release is as below:

• Added Action “Power Menu Action” which allows you to create tiles for the Android 11+ Power Menu
• Added the “Power Menu Shown” event which triggers when the Power Menu screen is shown on Android 11+
• Added Power Menu tiles for every available task on Android 11+
• Added Action “Command” which allows you to trigger the “Command” event with the AutoApps Command System
• Added Event “Command” which can be triggered with the “Command” action
• Added ability for third party apps to send commands that trigger the “Command” event but they have to explicitly ask the user for a permission to do so
• Changed the dialog where you choose an icon so that it shows an icon for each option
• Added Phone Call permission to kid apps when they use Contact Via App action
• Added text option to Signal and Telegram messages in the “Contact Via App” action
• Added option to add to new project when importing a profile or task from Taskernet
• Fixed Termux command so it’s compatible with upcoming Termux release
• Fixed dialogs not cancelling when screen is rotated while they are showing
• Removed option to insert SMS into messaging database since it wasn’t possible to do that anymore
• Fixed crash when reading a file too large to be read
• Fixed copying/moving files with weird extensions to external SD cards
• Fixed javascripts for devices that do not have recent webviews
• Fixed a few crashes

You can sign up for the beta track on the Google Play Store, or sideload it yourself from the download link in the Reddit post.

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Amazon revamps Fire TV UI and announces two new Fire TV sticks

Just a few days after we first saw a leak of an upcoming affordable Fire TV Stick, Amazon has unveiled the next-gen Fire TV Stick, a new low-cost Fire TV Stick Lite, and a completely redesigned Fire TV user experience. Here’s everything you need to know about the new Fire TV Sticks and the redesigned interface:

Next-gen Fire TV Stick

The latest update to the Fire TV Stick packs in an enhanced 1.7GHz quad-core processor, making it 50% more powerful than the previous generation. The device is capable of streaming 1080p video at 60fps with HDR compatibility, and it features a new dual-band, dual-antenna design with support for 5GHz Wi-Fi networks.

Amazon claims that the updated Fire TV hardware will ensure that users have a more stable streaming experience with fewer dropped connections. Furthermore, the updated hardware reduces power consumption by 50% than the previous generation. Along with the hardware updates, the new Fire TV Stick now also features Dolby Atmos support for a more immersive audio experience with compatible content and speakers. The Fire TV Stick comes with an Alexa-enabled Voice Remote with dedicated power, volume, and mute buttons.

The new Fire TV Stick is priced at $39.99 (₹3,999) and it starts shipping in select countries next week. Customers in Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States can pre-order the new Fire TV Stick starting today.

Fire TV Stick Lite

As seen in the previous leak, the new Fire TV Stick Lite is an affordable version of the Fire TV Stick which is also capable of streaming in Full-HD resolution. Much like the new Fire TV Stick, the Fire TV Stick Lite is 50% more powerful than previous-gen Fire TV Sticks and Amazon claims that it’s the most powerful streaming device under $30.

Despite the ‘Lite’ moniker, the Fire TV Stick Lite includes HDR support. It comes with a Lite version of the Alexa-enabled Voice Remote. While the remote features the same design as other Fire TV remotes, it doesn’t include a couple of buttons that you’d find on other versions. However, it still features support for voice commands.

The Fire TV Stick Lite is priced at $29.99 (₹2,999) and it starts shipping in select countries next week. Customers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States can pre-order the Fire TV Stick Lite starting today.

Redesigned User Experience

Along with the new Fire TV Sticks, Amazon has also unveiled a completely redesigned Fire TV interface. With the new interface, Amazon expects to make it easier for users to find what they want to watch on their Fire TV and offer a more personalized experience to discover new content on the platform.

The updated Fire TV interface includes a revamped Home Screen, which has been designed to help users find all their favorite content in one place. At the center of the redesign is the new Main Menu, where users will be able to simply scroll over their apps to get a preview of the content and jump directly into their favorite shows on supported streaming services.

The new Main Menu makes it faster for users to get right to the content they want to watch. The menu also serves as a single destination for all of Fire TV’s popular features like Find, Live TV, Library, and pinned apps.

The Find experience has also been revamped to make it easier for users to browse through popular categories like movies, TV shows, free ad-supported content, and sports. It now includes a couple of filters to help users shortlist content based on the genre. Additionally, users will also be able to use the feature to discover other experiences on their Fire TV, like cooking classes with Food Network Kitchen, daily fitness with Peloton, and more.

In case you share your Fire TV with others, you’d be glad to know that the new UI includes support for personalized streaming profiles. With this new feature, you’ll be able to set up different profiles for each user. The streaming profiles will ensure that your personalized recommendations don’t interfere with those of other users. The feature supports up to 6 personalized profiles, each with their own recommendations, viewing history, watch lists, preferred settings, and more. On top of that, you’ll also be able to set up a Kids Profile with Amazon Kids to ensure that your children can only access family-friendly content.

Alexa on the Fire TV has also been updated with new experiences and improved voice controls. It now supports commands like “Alexa, go to Live TV” and “Alexa, go to News” to help you quickly jump from one category to another. There’s also an optional Alexa Voice Profile feature, which is designed to recognize your voice and automatically switch to your user profile when you say, “Alexa, switch to my profile.”

Additionally, Amazon has also introduced Video Calling with Fire TV, which will allow users to connect a Logitech USB webcam to their Fire TV Cube and call friends and family right from their TV using Alexa. Amazon plans to add support for Zoom, but the company hasn’t revealed a launch date yet.

The new Fire TV experience will be available globally on the next-gen Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite. Amazon plans to roll it out to additional devices early next year.

Pre-order the Fire TV Stick: Amazon.com || Amazon.in

Pre-order the Fire TV Stick Lite: Amazon.com || Amazon.in

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Source: Amazon Fire TV blog

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HMD Global’s Nokia 7.3 leaks in high quality 3D renders

Nokia-branded smartphones, made by HMD Global, don’t always offer the best value proposition, but they make for some amazing smartphones nonetheless. Earlier this week, HMD Global released the Nokia 8.3 5G, the company’s first 5G smartphone which comes equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G system-on-chip, a near-stock build of Android 10, a 64MP quad rear camera setup, a 120Hz LCD, and much more. It’s not a true flagship phone, but seeing as HMD Global specializes in the mid-range smartphone space, that’s to be expected. Now, following last year’s release of the Nokia 7.2, HMD Global is allegedly gearing up to release its successor in the Nokia 7.3. Renders of the device come courtesy of OnLeaks in collaboration with a site called IPEEWorld, giving us a glimpse of the upcoming device from all angles. If you’re fond of Nokia-branded Android smartphones, you’ll probably like this one.

The Nokia 7.3’s design language is fairly similar to the Nokia 7.2, but there are a few key differences. First, the 7.3 has a quad-camera module housed in a circular, centered camera bump with a fingerprint sensor and Nokia branding below it. The dual LED flash is located to the left of the camera bump. In contrast, the Nokia 7.2 only had a triple camera module. On the front, there’s a 6.5-inch likely Full HD+ resolution flat display with a hole-punch cutout for a single front-facing camera aligned to the left side of the display. The Nokia 7.2, on the other hand, had a waterdrop notch in its display. The rear camera’s main image sensor is 48MP while the front-facing one is 24MP on the Nokia 7.3. The Nokia 7.2, meanwhile, also had a 48MP main rear image sensor, but it had a lower resolution 20MP front-facing camera. We don’t know what image sensor is used for the main rear camera on the new 7.3, and we also don’t know the specs of the auxiliary cameras.

CAD renders suggest the 7.3 has a hefty footprint with dimensions measuring 165.8 x 76.3 x 8.2mm. It’s hard to tell from the renders, but apparently, the body is made of plastic rather than glass. What we can see, though, is that there’s a very considerable chin on the device, and it houses yet another Nokia logo. On the bottom, we can also see that the Nokia 7.3 has a USB Type-C charging port, while on the bottom, we can see it has a 3.5mm audio jack.

According to the report, the Nokia 7.3 will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 chipset which has an integrated 5G modem, making it the second Nokia-branded device to support 5G connectivity. This would make the Nokia 7.3 a notable upgrade over the Nokia 7.2, which featured a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 chipset. The 7.3 is said to carry a 4,000 mAh battery with support for 18W wired charging, up from 3,500 mAh with 10W charging in the 7.2. These are areas that we’re really glad to see get upgrades. The 7.3 will very likely launch with Android 10 out of the box, though we’re hoping HMD Global can manage to launch it with the new Android 11 release on board. The report doesn’t provide any more details about the Nokia 7.3, but we’ll probably see this phone launch before the end of the year.

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Here’s when the Realme UI 2.0 beta based on Android 11 will roll out

Realme UI 2.0 was recently announced as the latest version of Realme’s custom Android software. The new version of Realme UI is based on ColorOS 11, the latest version of OPPO’s custom Android software built on top of Android 11. ColorOS 11 comes with several new features on top of Android 11, such as many theming options and Google Lens integration for translations, and Realme UI 2.0 comes with all of these features as well. But as a Realme user, you’re probably wondering when you’ll actually be getting an update. Thankfully, Realme has now released a roadmap for its “early access” program for a number of devices in the company’s lineup.

The very first device to get an early access build of Realme UI 2.0 will be the Realme X50 Pro, which is actually scheduled to receive the beta later this month. Then, we have the Realme 7 Pro and the new Realme Narzo 20, which are getting their updates in November. The Realme 6 Pro, 7, Narzo 20 Pro, and X2 Pro are all getting their updates around December. In Q1 and Q2 2020, the remaining devices in Realme’s current lineup, which includes phones like the Realme X3 SuperZoom, the Realme Narzo 10, and the Realme X, will get their beta releases.

The full early access roadmap is as follows:

Update ETA	Devices
September 2020	Realme X50 Pro
November 2020	Realme 7 Pro Realme Narzo 20
December 2020	Realme 6 Pro Realme 7 Realme Narzo 20 Pro Realme X2 Pro
January 2021	Realme X3 Realme X3 SuperZoom Realme X2 Realme 6 Realme C12 Realme C15
February 2021	Realme 6i Realme Narzo 10
March 2021	Realme C3 Realme Narzo 10A
Q2 2021	Realme X Realme XT Realme 3 Pro Realme 5 Pro Realme Narzo 20A

Keep in mind that the table above is just the timeline for the Realme UI 2.0 beta update release. The stable version of Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11 will roll out after beta testing ends. We can probably expect some of the oldest devices in the list to be getting their stable update around Q3 2021, while the Realme X50 Pro, for example, will probably get its stable Android 11 update this year. This is just speculation, though.

Source: Realme

Are you excited about Realme UI 2.0?

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The OnePlus 8T’s 4500mAh battery takes 35 minutes to charge with Warp Charge 65

OnePlus’devices have been coming with some form of fast charging since 2016 when the OnePlus 3 and the OnePlus 3T were announced with Dash Charge as one of their headlining features. Dash Charge offered 20W wired charging speeds, which was fast at the time. Over the years, other companies started to catch up and offer even faster charging speeds. OnePlus then introduced Warp Charge 30 which brought the charging speeds up to 30W, starting with the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition and more widely with the OnePlus 7 Pro. It’s 2020, though, and 30W charging can barely be considered fast now. With the upcoming OnePlus 8T, the company will be introducing Warp Charge 65, as we’ve been expecting.

As you may guess from its name, Warp Charge 65 offers even faster charging speeds than Warp Charge 30 with up to 65W of power. How fast is that, exactly? OnePlus is marketing its new tech with the slogan “a day’s power in 15 minutes” and claims that the OnePlus 8T will charge up to 58% in just 15 minutes and to 100% in just 35 minutes.

The company took to their forums to make the announcement, and they also shared a YouTube video teasing the new charging tech. OnePlus CEO Pete Lau also shared some additional details of Warp Charge 65 with PCMag. One of the key details mentioned in the interview is that the OnePlus 8T won’t support wireless charging like on the OnePlus 8 Pro, which OnePlus says would have required increasing the phone’s thickness to accommodate the wireless charging coils and other safety tech to make 30W wireless charging possible.

As you might expect, Warp Charge 65 is similar to OPPO’s 65W SuperVOOC 2.0, which is featured on devices like the OPPO Reno4 Pro and is a high amperage and low voltage charging solution. The OnePlus 8T features a dual-cell battery design with a total battery capacity of 4,500mAh, and both cells are charged at the same time. Charging two batteries instead of one at the same time allows for effectively doubling the charging speed without putting more stress on each battery. To keep charging safe, OnePlus says they added an encryption chip to the charger and cable as well as 12 temperature sensors in the phone so the OnePlus 8T can negotiate the right voltage/current combination. In addition, the phone itself has a “new heat dissipation system” to keep the charging temperature “at a comfortable level.”

With the move to Warp Charge 65, OnePlus is also changing the charging adapter design. The new charging adapter now comes with a USB-C port; previously, Dash Charge and Warp Charge 30 power bricks had a USB-A port which required the use of OnePlus’s USB-A to USB-C cable. OnePlus says the new adapter can charge other devices at up to 45W speeds via the USB Power Delivery spec, while the 8T itself can charge at up to 27W speeds using a different charger (up from 15W on older devices). The new adapter is also backward compatible with Dash Charge and Warp Charge 30, so you can use it to charge any older OnePlus smartphone that you may have.

OnePlus 8T Forums

Are you excited about the OnePlus 8T?

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