Alexa comes alive with Echo Show
Addition of screen puts popular device on a whole new level
EDWARD C. BAIG AND ELIZABETH WEISE
Amazon wants Alexa to be able to show as well as tell.
On Tuesday, the Internet’s powerhouse retailer announced the aptly named Echo Show, a new speaker on which Amazon’s increasingly popular digital assistant can lend a voice — and helping hand.
As with the original Echo speaker, Echo Show contains an array of microphones that are always listening for the “Alexa” wake word.
What sets Echo Show apart is the addition of a 7-inch color touch-screen, coupled with a front-facing (5-megapixel) camera. The product, available in white or black, resembles an old kitchen countertop TV set. It must be plugged in. According to Amazon, you can comfortably view the screen from about 7 feet away, even in a bright environment.
Such a screen lets you eyeball a weather forecast, peek at pictures, watch Prime movies, play Jeopardy!, follow song lyrics and even — this will be the killer selling point for some — show off the newborn to grandma. In some respects, Echo Show will be an answer to Skype or FaceTime.
You can preorder Echo Show for $229.99; it ships June 28. Amazon is taking $100 off the total price for people who buy a pair to encourage customers to engage in two-way video exchanges, by gifting friends and family with the second device.
Amazon has been leaning on its vocal digital assistant to spread the company’s artificial intelligence system everywhere, into phones, appliances and other products. There are now some 12,000 Alexa “skills.” Just last month, Amazon unveiled Echo Look, for now an invitation-only version of Echo that aims to help you pick out stylish outfits to wear. And competition in the space is heating up, with Google Home and its own vocal Google Assistant, plus a new entry from Microsoft and Harman Kardon called Invoke, which leverages Microsoft’s Cortana.
It’s not much of a stretch to consider various ways someone with an Echo Show could benefit from the presence of a screen.
Instead of just having Alexa announce the results of a ball game, for example, you can watch highlights or check out a box score. Rather than have Alexa read your upcoming appointments, it can show you your calendar. And if Echo Show is in the kitchen, Alexa might help you prepare a feast on command: “Alexa, show roast turkey recipes on YouTube.”
Of course, Amazon being Amazon, you can also use Echo Show to buy ingredients for your meal, not to mention the myriad other items you can purchase through the retailer.
You can also expect to see star ratings for various products you’d purchase through Amazon on the screen; at this stage, anyway, there’s no deeper dive into customer ratings.
And you can control a gaggle of third-party, smart, Internet-connected appliances in and around your home, such as the Ring Video Doorbell that could take the mystery out of who rang your bell: “Alexa, show the frontdoor camera.”
Echo Show will be available in white or black. On top are volume and camera/mute buttons. It takes advantage of an eight-microphone array, noise cancellation and so-called beam-forming tech. The product supports Bluetooth, so you can stream music from your smartphone to Echo Show or from Echo Show to another Bluetooth speaker.
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Retirement may feel like a lifetime away, but post graduation is the best time to start saving for it.
Thanks to compound interest, you’ll earn more money over time if you start investing in a retirement account in your 20s than if you start in your 30s. Plugging some examples into a compound interest calculator illustrates this:
22-year-old who invests $100 a month will have $226,304 by age 65, assuming a 6% rate of return and annual compounding.
32-year-old who invests $100 a month will have $117,535 by age 65, using the same assumptions.
Starting earlier allows more time for earned interest to grow. In this example, the 22-year-old invests just $12,000 more than the 32-year-old over time and has nearly double the amount of money at age 65.
Saving for retirement may not be doable right away, but — like the rest of these tips — it’s a healthy habit for new graduates to aspire to.