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Alexa is moving into Amazon․com

2026-05-13T10:43:28-04:00

Alexa for Shopping is Amazon’s new AI-powered shopping assistant. | Image: Amazon

Amazon is bringing Alexa Plus to Amazon.com, integrating its LLM-powered AI assistant directly into the company's shopping experience.

Beginning today, when you type a query into Amazon, you'll be talking to Alexa for Shopping, the company's new shopping assistant, powered by Alexa Plus. So, while a search for "toilet paper" will still return the expected list of brands, typing "What's a good skincare routine for men" or "When did I last order AA batteries" will now trigger an answer from Alexa.

Alexa for Shopping is replacing Amazon's Rufus AI shopping assistant and, unlike Rufus, it will be front and center in the Amazon app and on the w …

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Amazon’s Panos Panay addresses new Fire phone rumors

2026-05-13T05:32:51-04:00

Amazon's head of devices and services, Panos Panay, says that the company is "not necessarily" planning to release a smartphone, but has stopped short of denying it outright. It was previously reported that Amazon is developing an Alexa-enabled AI phone codenamed "Transformer," more than 10 years after it scrapped its ill-fated Fire Phone.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Panay was asked directly if the company was planning another smartphone. "It's just not the goal," he replied. "I know there's a lot of rumors out there."

"I think your black and white question is, are you going after a phone? A lot of people want me to say no, but a lot …

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Amazon’s ultrafast 30-minute deliveries are now available in more cities

2026-05-12T12:27:12-04:00

Items like groceries, medicines, and electronics are now available in less than an hour. | Image: Amazon

Following a limited test run in parts of Seattle and Philadelphia that started last December, Amazon Now is officially available to millions of Amazon shoppers across the United States. In addition to Seattle and Philadelphia, the 30-minute delivery service is now widely available in Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth, and also available with ongoing expansions in Austin, Houston, Minneapolis, Orlando, Phoenix, Denver, and Oklahoma City.

There are currently thousands of items eligible for 30-minute deliveries including fresh milk and produce, over-the-counter medicines, household essentials like laundry detergent, and even small electronics such …

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Amazon is adding a vertical video feed to Prime Video

2026-05-08T16:19:57-04:00

Amazon Prime Video is joining Netflix and Disney Plus in adding a vertical feed of videos to its streaming app. The new "Clips" feed will offer a stream of short-form videos from shows and movies, with options to jump into the full title, rent, or buy it.

Prime Video previously offered a TikTok-style feed with NBA game highlights, but now you can see snippets from titles offered on the platform by scrolling down to the Clips carousel on the app's homepage. "Every time you visit the experience, you'll see something new based on your viewing history," Prime Video says.

You can also add shows and movies to your watchlist from the Clips feed a …

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Blink bumps its budget buzzer to 2K

2026-05-06T13:01:43-04:00

Amazon-owned Blink has two new video doorbells: the Blink Wired Doorbell 2K+ for $49.99 and the Blink Battery Doorbell 2K+ for $69.99 if you already have a sync module; or $79.99 bundled with the required hub.

The doorbell cameras join Blink's 2K camera lineup announced last fall, and also work with Blink's smart video descriptions, which send alerts with text summaries of events the camera captures, such as "person playing basketball in the driveway." They're available for preorder now and will ship on May 20th.

The wired version is Blink's first wired-only buzzer and its first not to require a Blink Sync Module (although it can work wit …

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Amazon’s trying to turn its massive shipping operation into another AWS

2026-05-04T12:28:42-04:00

Amazon might have a part in delivering all kinds of stuff to your door soon, as its massive shipping network opens up to other companies outside its marketplace, more directly competing with giants like DHL, UPS, and FedEx. The new Amazon Supply Chain Services (ASCS) will offer freight, distribution, fulfillment, and parcel shipping to businesses "of all types and sizes," including Procter & Gamble, 3M, Lands' End, and American Eagle Outfitters.

With ASCS, Amazon is betting that other companies will pay to use its sprawling fulfillment network - much like they pay to use its web infrastructure, which the e-commerce giant started offering t …

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Reggie Fils-Aimé says Amazon once asked Nintendo to break the law

2026-05-03T11:24:27-04:00

Way back in the DS days, Nintendo decided to stop selling to Amazon. During a recent lecture at NYU, former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé said it was because Amazon was seeking preferential treatment that would have hurt its relationship with other retailers, and potentially broken the law.

The two sides have since made amends, and you can buy a Switch 2 through Amazon. But for a long time, Nintendo consoles had been largely unavailable on the site. In the 2000s, Amazon aggressively expanded beyond books and tried to undercut everyone on price. According to Fils-Aimé, Amazon wanted to undercut even Walmart and was looking …

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Amazon’s built-in AI price history expands to show the entire last year

2026-05-01T13:56:52-04:00

Amazon's built-in price tracking feature now allows you to see how much a product's price has changed over the past year. To use the feature, open the Amazon app and select the "Price history" button next to the item's price, or ask Amazon's AI assistant Rufus.

The expansion comes just weeks ahead of Amazon's annual Prime Day event, which California Attorney General mentioned in his "price fixing" lawsuit against the retail giant. In the lawsuit, Bonta accuses Amazon of pushing other companies to raise the price of their products at other retailers in the days leading up to its annual deals event. Bonta also claims Amazon "bullied vendors t …

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Pentagon strikes classified AI deals with OpenAI, Google, and Nvidia — but not Anthropic

2026-05-01T10:22:45-04:00

The Pentagon has struck deals with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Elon Musk's xAI, and the startup Reflection, allowing the agency to use their AI tools in classified settings, according to an announcement on Friday. At the same time, the Defense Department has left out Anthropic - which it previously used for classified information - after declaring it a supply-chain risk.

This builds upon deals with OpenAI and xAI, which have already reached agreements with the Pentagon for the "lawful" use of their AI systems. A report from The Information suggests Google has struck a similar agreement. As noted by The Wall Street Journal, Mi …

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Amazon’s color screen Kindles are finally getting a system-wide dark mode

2026-04-28T12:32:12-04:00

Dark mode will soon be available for all parts of the Kindle Colorsoft’s UI. | Image: Amazon

Most modern Kindle devices with a black and white E Ink screen offer an alternate inverted dark mode with white text against a black background across their entire user interface. Today Amazon has announced the same feature is coming to the Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft that instead feature color E Ink screens, which could previously only invert the pages of ebooks. The software update introducing the system-wide dark mode to Colorsoft devices "will be rolling out to readers worldwide" in the coming weeks, and available for download through Amazon's website.

While dark mode will be available system-wide for every section of t …

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