Amazon Alexa calling + messaging now available in UK, Germany, and Austria

Amazon Alexa calling + messaging now available in UK, Germany, and Austria

Amazons Echo is able to get software updates very easily. After all, the physical device itself acts as a capsule equipped with mics and speakers for Amazons cloud service, which the Echo communicates with. Amazon Alexa gained a significant new feature a few months ago that allowed Amazon Echo owners to get in touch with their family and friends who also use the Amazon Echo. This new feature is now available to the Amazon Echos European markets: UK, Germany, and Austria. If you head into your Amazon Echo app, where the app will request access to your contacts. Once set up, youll be able to say Alexa, make a call, then state the name of the person you are trying to reach. If you know others who also use an Amazon Echo, youll be able to place calls with them or anyone mobile who has the Amazon Alexa App installed. The Amazon Alexa calling feature also comes bundled with a feature that lets you send voice messages to your friends and family. When Alexa flashes green, this means you have a message waiting, to which you can say Alexa, hear my messages. Another more recent Amazon Echo feature that we anticipate will hit Echos Euro markets is the new Drop in feature. This lets you open the mic and speaker connection between two Amazon Echo devices in the same household.

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WhatsApp finally gets its own emoji set... sort of

WhatsApp finally gets its own emoji set... sort of

After years of using Apple's emoji set across all of its versions, WhatsApp has now finally designed its own emoji set, which is available to those running the latest Android beta. One look at it though and things don't look quite different. Indeed, the set looks awfully similar to the outgoing Apple emoji set, with some elements of the new Android Oreo emoji set with a dash of Twitter emoji set thrown in. While all of these are based on a common instruction from Unicode and it makes sense for them to look similar to reduce lost in translation between devices, they are a bit too similar. WhatsApp started using Apple's emoji set back in the day because Android back then had no support for emoji. To make sure the emoji sent by iPhone users would be seen on Android devices, WhatsApp integrated the entire Apple emoji set within its application. Even later on when Android did get emoji support, it still made sense for WhatsApp to have the Apple set to ensure compatibility as not all Android devices had emoji support and some looked different than others. Right now I am not entirely sure if this set will be only available on non-Apple devices or across all platforms that WhatsApp is available on. I guess it makes sense to still use the native Apple emoji set on Apple devices as these emoji do look quite similar. Maybe that was the purpose in making them look so similar and WhatsApp probably just wanted to stop using Apple's set, possibly for legal reason (although it is still a mystery how they got around to using it all these years). This set will eventually make its way to the final build and likely to the desktop versions as well.

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New leaked image portrays Huawei Mate 10 next to its predecessor

New leaked image portrays Huawei Mate 10 next to its predecessor

Huawei may insist on saying the upcoming , but it sure leaks like one. Following the huge leak from yesterday, which brought us of the , today a new image compares that device to the Mate 9 from last year, as you can see. It's not clear if this is to scale, but if it is then expect the Mate 10 Pro to be slightly narrower and perhaps a tad shorter than its predecessor. The Mate 10 Pro has a glass back, dual rear cameras with Leica branding (and f/1.6 aperture at least on the main one), a fingerprint scanner under those, and a dual-LED flash. It will be powered by the in-house developed Kirin 970 chipset, which has a dedicated neural processing unit that will enable AI features. Alongside the Mate 10 Pro, we're expecting a regular Mate 10 to launch, but also a Mate 10 Lite and a Mate 10 Porsche Edition. (in Chinese) | |

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Pixel 2 XL shown from another angle in Walmart leak that also reveals more Google Home Mini details

Pixel 2 XL shown from another angle in Walmart leak that also reveals more Google Home Mini details

Now that we're less than 24 hours away from Google's big hardware-focused event, the new Pixel smartphones simply can't stop leaking. We've seen the in a case yesterday (and ), then both the and its bigger sibling got . How about another angle for the Pixel 2 XL? Thankfully, Walmart has provided that today, after mistakenly listing its pre-order page for the Google Home Mini smart speaker, that should also get unveiled tomorrow. The Pixel 2 XL in this image is in the 'panda' color scheme as you can see. The stereo front facing speakers are clearly visible once more, as are the smaller bezels compared to last year's model and the rounded screen corners. That display should be an LG-made 6 2,880x1,440 OLED, by the way. The once before, and the Walmart listing (which has since been pulled as you'd expect) confirms the $49 pricing. It also revealed that the speaker will be shipping on October 19. |

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Galaxy Note8 joins the iPhone 8 Plus at the top of DxOMark's smartphone camera rankings

Galaxy Note8 joins the iPhone 8 Plus at the top of DxOMark's smartphone camera rankings

Last month DxOMark crowned the , awarding it an overall score of 94 in its testing. Today DxO Labs outed the result achieved by Samsung's Galaxy Note8, and it's... also 94. The iPhone 8 Plus and are thus tied at the top of the DxOMark smartphone camera rankings, for now at least. The and will get official tomorrow, and last year the jumped on the day of its announcement. Then there's the , also a possible contender for the No.1 spot, and let's not forget the either. All in all, this may be a short lived victory for the Note8 and iPhone 8 Plus, but we'll let them enjoy it while it lasts. The Note8 receives the first ever score of 100 for photography, thanks to its excellent zoom performance up to 4x, very low noise levels in low light, fast and accurate autofocus, good detail in bright light and indoor conditions, as well as the bright and vivid colors it captures. The downsides for photo capture have to do with limited dynamic range and frequent highlight clipping, as well as frequent white balance casts in bright light and indoor conditions. The bokeh effect is sometimes not visible even when the mode is enabled. In video capture, the Note8 displays good white balance and color rendering, good exposure and fast exposure convergence, a stable and fast autofocus, good noise reduction regardless of light conditions, and good stabilization. On the flip side, there's no autofocus tracking capability in default mode, and residual motion is visible when holding the camera still during recording. There's also shadow and highlight clipping in high-contrast scenes. To read the full report from DxO Labs, with many more photo samples included, make sure you jump to the Source link below.

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iPhone X retail box shows up on Apple's site

iPhone X retail box shows up on Apple's site

Perhaps unwittingly, Apple has revealed the retail box of the . The front of the box highlights the unique screen of the flagship while the boxes for the 8 and 8 Plus show the glass backs of the phones. The iPhone 7 box also showed the rear of the devices, same for the iPhone 6 generation the 6s in between did show the front, however. So, Apple has no firm rule about which side of the device should be put on the front of the box. Anyway, you can check out the prices of the iPhone X around the world . Pre-orders begin at the end of the month (October 27) and sales start in early November. | (PDF) |

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iPhone X retail box shows up on Apple's site

iPhone X retail box shows up on Apple's site

Perhaps unwittingly, Apple has revealed the retail box of the . The front of the box highlights the unique screen of the flagship while the boxes for the 8 and 8 Plus show the glass backs of the phones. The iPhone 7 box also showed the rear of the devices, same for the iPhone 6 generation the 6s in between did show the front, however. So, Apple has no firm rule about which side of the device should be put on the front of the box. Anyway, you can check out the prices of the iPhone X around the world . Pre-orders begin at the end of the month (October 27) and sales start in early November. | (PDF) |

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