The variations between Amazon’s Kindle e-readers was stark. The least expensive base mannequin had paltry storage, bitsy battery life, and a gradual, low-resolution display. Meanwhile, the extravagant Kindle Oasis luxuriated in its modern aluminum chassis, absolutely adjustable lighting, huge battery, and bodily buttons for turning pages.
But the fashions have slowly begun to mix collectively, with the cheaper Kindles adopting premium options beforehand solely present in the Oasis. The mid-tier Paperwhite received some sprucing up in 2021, when Amazon added adjustable lighting and a USB-C port. (It’s nonetheless WIRED’s choose for greatest e-reader.) At final, Amazon is juicing up the base-model Kindle as nicely.
The new Kindle will get an upgraded show—a 300-ppi-resolution display versus the earlier Kindle’s 197 ppi. Storage is doubled to 16 GB. The new Kindle additionally—lastly!—contains a USB-C port like the latest Paperwhite fashions. It fees in as little as two hours over USB-C.
Unfortunately, the costs have began to converge too. The new base-model Kindle prices $100, which is 10 bucks greater than the earlier model. Spend one other $20 and also you get a model that doesn’t bombard you with adverts on the lock display.
If you’re in the marketplace for an e-reader, take a look at WIRED’s information to the best Kindles and the best ebook readers overall.
Here’s some extra information from the world of shopper expertise.
Alexa Speaks Brand
The worst factor about looking for one thing on Google is all the adverts that present up at the high of the web page. Well, now Amazon is planning one thing like that for its Echo sensible audio system.
In a weblog submit with the not-at-all-dystopian title “Alexa Can Now Help Brands Answer Customer Questions,” Amazon laid out a brand new enterprise technique that may permit manufacturers to offer solutions to consumer questions which may relate to the merchandise the model needs to promote. Amazon gave an instance of asking Alexa the best way to take away pet hair from the carpet. Such a question may trigger a brand-backed response to spring forth, providing to ship you hyperlinks to Amazon pages promoting the model’s merchandise.
In Amazon’s model registry system, sellers will be capable to view frequent consumer questions and fix their branded solutions to them. Amazon says the questions and branded solutions shall be reviewed by content material moderators earlier than they can be utilized by Alexa. Amazon insists these should not adverts and that manufacturers gained’t be capable to pay to submit solutions. The firm additionally says branded solutions shall be attributed to the model that answered them, however it didn’t elaborate on what type that disclosure would take.
The firm plans to check the characteristic beginning in October, then roll it out throughout the US after that.
TikTok Wants to BeReal
Every app is making an attempt to be TikTok, however generally the viral video-sharing app has to play a little bit of catch-up itself.
If you might be hip and funky (learn: younger), then certainly you already know about BeReal. The well-liked app prompts customers with a notification at a random time daily that reads “Time to BeReal.” Users then have two minutes to snap a photograph that captures pictures from each the back and front cameras. The outcomes are fast and candid; the level of catching folks unawares is to encourage extra “authentic” moments than the fastidiously staged pictures you see on platforms like Instagram.
