Category: Technology

Uber Eats will finally catch up with its peers and start accepting food stamps as payments for grocery deliveries. Starting next year, users will be able to pay for fresh groceries using their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from right within the app. The service is also working with Managed Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans so that people with flexible spending account (FSA) and Flex cards can use them to pay for eligible items, such as fruits and other healthy foods. It also sounds like Uber is adding more “relevant waiver payment” methods nearer launch. 

By accepting these forms of payment, Uber Eats is making fresh produce and other quality food items more accessible. It could especially benefit seniors and other people who have mobility issues, as well as those who live outside town centers and don’t have ready access to transportation. Uber Eats is just the latest restaurant and grocery delivery service accepting SNAP payments, though. Instacart has been accepting food stamps since 2020, starting with a partnership with the grocery chain Aldi. In June, DoorDash announced that it was also accepting SNAP payments in partnership with 4,000 groceries and convenience stores across the US.

Before these new payment methods become available, Uber Eats will launch a new AI-powered assistant later this year. Users will be able to chat with the assistant to discover new cuisine, find deals on restaurants and groceries, as well as to quickly reorder meals.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uber-eats-will-begin-accepting-food-stamps-for-grocery-deliveries-in-2024-095521987.html?src=rss 

With its latest Instax camera, Fujifilm has separated the camera from the printer. The Instax Pal is a tiny palm-sized 4.9-megapixel (MP) camera that takes digital photos, then lets you print them to the bundled Instax Mini Link 2 printer with a variety of effects via the new Instax Pal app. Designed for users 13 and up, the idea is to “capture life’s spontaneous moments for photo printing,” the company says. 

The camera is automatic, but aperture and shutter settings cover a wide range of shooting conditions, from interior to exterior. It’s equipped with a wide angle lens and flash, and lets you shoot in a variety of ways. You can capture images by pushing the large shutter button on the back, or trigger it remotely using the Pal app. It supports interval shooting to capture scenes with 3, 6, 11 or 21 continuous images at three-second intervals. 

There’s a detachable ring for use as a finger strap, simple viewfinder (lol) or a camera stand for remote shooting. Other features include a speaker for audio prompts, a USB-C port for charging, a microSD card slot (the internal memory can hold 50 images) and even a screw mount for a tripod. 

Via Bluetooth, the Instax Pal app gives you a view through the camera’s lens for composing images and triggering the shutter. Images are then automatically copied to the app. You can adjust the exposure by +/- 2 EV and choose two between two quality settings, Rich mode (vivid, with more detail) and Natural mode. When you’re ready to print, there’s a bundle of effects that includes sepia, cool, vivid and soft, along with controls for brightness, contrast, rotate, crop, text, stickers, emojis and more. 

Printing from the app is possible, but unfortunately requires a second Fujifilm app for the printer. It lets you print Instax Mini pictures (2.13 x 3.4 inches) in about 15 seconds, with a 1.5-minute development time. Quality is about the same as you’d get with an Instax Mini camera like the SQ40, since the process is the same — the only difference is that the Pal’s camera is separated from the printer. The advantage to the second app is that you can also print photos from your smartphone’s camera reel. 

Photos can also be sent to friends via the Pal app, or posted to social media — all fitting for a camera marketed to teens. The only challenge is that it isn’t cheap. The Instax Pal bundle arrives in late October (along with the app) for $200, while the new Soft Lavender Instax film designed for the bundle is $15.75 for a 10 pack (regular Instax film is about $13 for a ten pack). If you only need physical photos, other Instax Mini models are far cheaper at less than $100 — but the Pal does support both physical and digital photos, while giving you a smartphone printer to boot. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fujifilms-instax-pal-is-a-tiny-digital-camera-that-lets-you-print-later-091509085.html?src=rss 

How many times am I going to buy this game? I’m still waiting on the answer to that, but I recently played two demos for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the (poorly named) second chapter of what’s set to be a three-part remake of the 1997 RPG.

Across two separate demos, I played roughly an hour of the game, due to launch in February 2024. The first demo was a flashback tale of hero Cloud and villain Sephiroth’s journey into a problematic reactor found in Tifa and Cloud’s hometown of Nibel. This chapter featured in the original 1997 game, soon after the party left Midgar, but the twist is that you can play, control and fight as the silver-haired antagonist, Sephiroth, in battles. And at this point in time, Sephiroth and Cloud are totally cool with each other.

This flashback, with an unnaturally chipper Cloud, reintroduces the battle system of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which offered battles that combined real-time attacks and defense with more specialized techniques, magical spells and all things Final Fantasy. The result was a satisfying hybrid, even if fans of turn-based RPGs weren’t into it.

This is a sequel, so of course there are new facets and tricks. This time, there’s a new focus on characters teaming up to attack together, something teased during the Remake DLC chapter, which centered on Yuffie and Sonan.

These synergy skills are now available to Cloud and the rest of the core party. You might get two options depending on who the controlled character is fighting alongside. In the case of Sephiroth and Cloud, you get a chargeable sword attack, augmented by… whatever magic Sephiroth seems to control, or a ranged attack. Unlike the standard abilities and spells, these synergy skills may not hit hard, but they’re instantly reusable. They’re also initiated while pressing square or triangle buttons while guarding, helping to decide which one to use, while keeping your character a little safer.

I saw examples of synergy skills that would launch Tifa, your close-range heavy-hitter, into the air, so she could close in on flying enemies, while Aerith, the magical glass cannon, could call an ally to offer her some defense from attacks. Honestly, it was these strategic skills that I’m most intrigued by. Others are more typical attacking collaborations, like Yuffie’s fiery ninjitsu spells attached to Barret’s gun barrage.

Sidenote: One of my issues with FF7 Remake was the arbitrary behavior of aerial attacks — is this the solution? A simple, repeatable skill? I hope so.

Then, there are new synergy abilities (not to be confused with synergy skills). These are more like ‘ultimate attacks’ for your paired-up heroes. Similar to the solo limit break attacks, which are still here, a gauge builds up as you use the synergy skills, regular attacks and defend. These are the showstoppers: In the case of Cloud and Sephiroth, it’s a combination sword attack that really shines against the bigger beasts.

I was intrigued to see how the development team would deal with transferring established characters across. I wouldn’t be surprised if some narrative MacGuffin wiped out something, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, so far.

Many moves and special attacks (if not all — I didn’t check the entire moveset inventory) already earned in the first part of the trilogy are ready to use in the demo. However, there’s no word on whether equipment or materia (the spell-slinging orbs you equip on weapons) will transfer across. I noted some new materia, including one that ‘levels up’ paired materia to offer up even more powerful spells.

You’ll need them, as there are bigger beasts and fights. The first part of this remake project was a pretty game, especially the polished-up Intergrade version that landed on PS5 and other platforms. Can you see the improvements with this new game, now built for 2023’s consoles and PCs? Already, yes, a little.

Square Enix advised we play the demos in graphics mode, so that’s higher-res textures but at the sacrifice of smoother frame rates. Rebirth seemed to offer healthier frame rates during this demo than Remake, which is a good sign. (But I’m still likely to play most of Rebirth in the frame-rate priority mode)

The second demo was more indicative of stronger game hardware, taking the game into an open-world area around the military city of Junon – an area more expansive than what we saw in FF7R.

Characters can now sprint and vault over low-level hazards and hills. It makes the world feel less on-rails than its predecessor, even in the more constrictive reactor demo. There’s more to explore, even if traversal seems a bit crunchy, compared to games like Horizon series or Assassin’s Creed – not that I’m expecting protagonist Cloud with that giant sword to parkour with the best of them.

Sprinting only gets you so far, however, and the second demo started off with the party mounting the trusty Final Fantasy steed of choice, a giant bird species known as chocobos.

As I explored the area, I also unlocked several quick-travel points to speed things up further. Time was limited, but I could face off against a few challenging enemies, which came with additional battle challenges. These were good for deepening my understanding of the new battle system, saving up specific attacks to unleash at the right moment.

Battles still feature the dynamics of building up stagger gauges or pressuring an enemy with elemental attacks, well-timed dodges, or hitting weak points. Each character is unique enough to come into their own against different monsters and threats. Gunner Barret and the aforementioned Aerith are both long-range attackers, while brawler Tifa and cat-wolf Red XIII are more agile, but focused on short-range. During the demo, I got to switch between different (but predetermined) party groupings, which usually ensured a balanced team.

As I guided Cloud and the rest of the gang around the cliffs and grassland, I’d collect items that can be combined in a new crafting menu, to create healing items on the fly. These crafted potions, however, often feature extra benefits, whether that’s magic point recovery or status healing. Like those new synergy attacks, Square Enix is teasing a game that feels very much like it’s deepening the gameplay of Final Fantasy VII Remake. The bigger question is: how are the team going to twist the story further, when Remake teased alternate timelines and something a little different to the story of the PS1 original?

We’ll have to wait until February 2024 to see.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-hands-on-broader-horizons-and-deeper-combat-030012766.html?src=rss 

It’s the day after the largest document leak in Xbox’s history, and now that the important news is on the record, we can all take a step back and process the ridiculousness of the whole situation. One facet that made the debacle so delicious was the insight into Xbox’s corporate communications, from executive emails simmering with ill-concealed annoyance to internal slide decks filled with imaginary quotes from fictional, diehard Xbox fans.

Here we’ve collected a handful of email messages and slides from the Xbox leak that made us giggle, raise our eyebrows, or enact some strange combination of the two:

The emails

Wild rumors can lead to actual product discussions

Five months before the launch of the Xbox Series X/S, division chief Phil Spencer was pleased to discover that, due to a series of logistical hurdles, Yakuza: Like a Dragon would be a next-gen Xbox exclusive. He was so pleased, in fact, that he wrote in an email to other executives, “They are really doing a nice job support us, great to see. I love the rumors that we’d launch our Xbox in Japan with a Sega logo on it.” Just 16 minutes later, Spencer followed up with a pitch to actually roll out a limited-edition Sega-branded console in Japan, writing:

There is a root of an idea here. The idea that Sega could have an LE version of XSX in Japan is very interesting. They are doing good work with us on a lot of fronts and it could be something to consider, not the traditional LE but something special if they are up for it. Maybe even a Sega wrap with their IP (including JSR, PSO, Rally, Sonic etc).

The proper people were roped into the thread and it seems the conversation eventually fizzled out, but we’ll still call this a win for the rumor mill.

Valve, a Microsoft company

One of the biggest headlines to spawn from the leak was the fact that Phil Spencer really wanted to buy Nintendo at one point in 2020, calling it a potential “career moment” for himself. We already knew that Microsoft was interested in purchasing Sega and a handful of other major game studios — including ZeniMax, which it successfully acquired in 2021, and Activision-Blizzard, which is the reason we’re reading these internal messages in the first place. The leaked emails reveal additional businesses that Xbox wanted to gobble up, including Warner Bros. Interactive, Valve and TikTok.

“Our BoD has seen the full writeup on Nintendo (and Valve) and they are fully supportive on either if opportunity arises as am I,” Spencer wrote.

Warner Bros. Interactive makes a modicum of sense here, but Valve feels as out-of-reach as Nintendo in terms of a potential acquisition. Valve is a private company and it doesn’t publicly share financial data, but one of Xbox’s slides estimated its 2021 revenue total at $7 billion, about the same as Electronic Arts or Activision-Blizzard. But more than profitability, Valve has a stable position as the leading distributor of PC games via Steam, and it would be completely out-of-character for the company to entertain a buyout.

This whole email thread started because Microsoft Commercial Chief Marketing Officer Takeshi Numoto sent an email to Spencer with the subject line, “random thought.” In it, Numoto expressed confusion over internal discussions to purchase TikTok, suggesting Nintendo as a better option. Neither of these purchases happened, of course.

Mark Cerny talks too much

Sony unveiled the first details about the PlayStation 5 on March 18, 2020, and Microsoft executives discussed the specs that same day in an email chain. The initial breakdown included commentary about PS5 architect Mark Cerny’s presentation, complete with the lines, “Cerny talked at length about the move to SSDs,” and, “Cerny also spent what seemed like a disproportionate amount of time on audio innovations.” In an otherwise sterile, completely professional email, these lines might as well have been direct insults about Cerny’s lineage.

Spencer shared his summary of the PS5’s capabilities with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella that same day, concluding with, “This was a good day for Xbox.”

Leave Baldur’s Gate 3 alone

Baldur’s Gate 3 is the surprise, smash-hit RPG of 2023, so it’s interesting to see how Xbox classified it in last year’s internal Game Pass projections. While some games were described as, “Huge PC nostalgia play with new title from legendary designer” (Return to Monkey Island), or, “Sequel to strong GP performer” (Wreckfest 2), Baldur’s Gate 3 was called a “second-run Stadia PC RPG.” It may have technically been true at the time, but it still feels like a personal attack, you know?

Get ’em, Jean-Emile

At one point, Xbox Partner Software Architect Jean-Emile Elien sent an email to Spencer that essentially asked, “Is the Game Pass model going to screw over developers?” Spencer argued, in vague terms at first, that it shouldn’t. The two traded emails over two days, with Elien asking for clarification on how the company will measure a game’s success, and repeating that he wasn’t trying to armchair quarterback. The bureaucratic tension builds up beautifully with each sent message. Here’s a sampling of their discussion:

Elien: “So how should studios now measure their worth to the portfolio? I know you dislike the Netflix analogy, but I am trying to understand the equivalent of ‘ending a show’ in their model.”

Spencer: “Different games perform differently, some are very high on play and therefore a higher impact on retention, others are good top of funnel for attract but don’t get much play. You need both. I’d be lying to you if I told you we had the excel sheet of the value of a game completely figured out.”

Elien: “I’d be really saddened if the reduction of an inherently creative endeavor to a single cell going red was the determinant. How about looking back on the studio closures of the past —would a product like Game Pass have changed your mind on any particular studio’s closure?”

Spencer: “I feel like the highlighted question is a preview of an opinion you have. Do you think gamepass would have saved a studio we once owned?”

Elien: “My turn to say: Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t really know what goes into closing a studio: how much funding vs. personnel vs. output feeds into the decision.”

Spencer: “I don’t think we’ve ever closed a studio due to the studio’s P&L. It’s almost always been either from leadership leaving (Lionhead as an example) or team just losing it’s passion (Ensemble as an example).”

Elien: “Fair. … This is also the second time you’ve called me on a ‘question that sounds like an opinion’ which leads me to believe this happens to you a lot. I promise, if I have an opinion that is worth me sending an email, I will give it. I appreciate this forum too much to be disingenuous.”

King King

This is your regularly scheduled reminder that Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Activision-Blizzard is actually all about King, the mobile developer behind Candy Crush. Even though “King” is often left out of the Activision-Blizzard moniker entirely, this studio consistently brings in the most money of any segment.

Here’s how Spencer put it in an email on January 28, 2020, before acquisition talks began: “Activision is unique partner given their King acquisition. Q3 revenue for King was $500M (all mobile) while Activision (Call of Duty) was $209M and Blizzard $394M (leaning PC but also includes mobile and console). Activision is really a mobile first publisher (through their $6B King acquisition).”

Just something to keep in mind as the Microsoft-Activision acquisition continues to play out in court.

Phil seems chill

One of the most adorable takeaways from the leaked Xbox emails is how approachable (and downright nerdy) Spencer seems to be. In the included messages, Spencer responds quickly and thoroughly, and he offers fun ideas for branding and software partnerships amid the corporate speak. It seems like senior-level employees feel comfortable emailing him with feedback and even questioning his goals, which says a lot about his management style.

Also, Spencer’s tone becomes noticeably more formal when he’s emailing Nadella, which is endearing and relatable. Everyone has a boss.

The slides

Go to the American Southwest?

If you need us to explain why an Xbox-branded photo of an American highway next to an “inspirational” quote attributed to African Proverb is funny, then we really don’t know why you’re here.

The Voice of the Player™

These appear to be made-up, not-real, imaginary, fictional, fake quotes extolling the virtues of the Xbox ecosystem, placed under photos of people who didn’t say these things. Also, there’s a Series X with sprouts growing out of it. Manifest it, Microsoft.

ZeniMax’s sales pitch

Microsoft’s financial year ends and begins in July, which makes this chart from 2020 even harder to digest. This is how ZeniMax presented its release calendar to Microsoft during acquisition negotiations, and it starts with Starfield coming out by summer 2021, followed by Bethesda’s Indiana Jones game by summer 2022, Doom Year Zero by summer 2023 and Elder Scrolls VI and Dishonored 3 by summer 2024. In actuality, Starfield came out this literal month, and we’ve heard very little — or nothing at all — about Indiana Jones, Elder Scrolls VI or Dishonored 3. Elder Scrolls VI likely isn’t coming out for five more years, in fact. And you thought you were bummed out by major game delays.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/all-the-hilarious-corporate-bs-you-might-have-missed-in-the-xbox-leaks-204552352.html?src=rss 

Amazon’s fall hardware event was chock full of updates. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the generative AI boom from the last year, the company began transforming Alexa into a much more versatile and conversational personal chatbot. But it also had plenty of new hardware to introduce, with new models of the Echo Show, security cameras, Echo Frames, a 10-gigabit router and more. Here’s everything Amazon unveiled on Wednesday.

Alexa with generative AI

As generative AI has exploded in popularity during the last year, task-focused personal assistants like Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa now seem even more dated than they did before. Amazon began to rectify that on Wednesday with a new Alexa chat feature that responds to a much wider variety of requests by using generative AI. When saying, “Alexa, let’s chat,” the assistant switches to a chatbot mode built on a large language model (LLM).

Alexa’s new AI chat mode makes the assistant more conversational and expressive, and you won’t need to keep repeating “Alexa” each time you speak. If you enroll in the company’s Visual ID, you can start a conversation just by facing the screen on an Echo device with a camera. Alexa can now adjust its tone and “emotion” based on context. The company says it also works around your pauses and hesitations for a more free-flowing conversation. However, Amazon’s live presentation had a couple of hitches where the assistant forced presenter Dave Limp to repeat himself.

Amazon says Alexa will move further in this direction with an upcoming speech-to-speech update. “And we’re working on a new model—which we refer to as speech-to-speech,” said Amazon senior VP Rohit Prasad. “Instead of first converting a customer’s audio request into text using speech recognition, and then using an LLM to generate a text response or an action, and then text-to-speech to produce audio back—this new model will unify these tasks, creating a much richer conversational experience.”

Echo Show 8

Amazon launched a new Echo Show 8 on Wednesday, boasting upgrades to its display, camera and microphones. Proximity sensing is a marquee feature on the new model, as it can adjust its UI depending on how close you are to it. For example, a demo showing the weather app used a larger font as the person stood farther away, but it shrunk the font and added finer details as they moved closer.

The device includes spatial audio capabilities for “a wider and more immersive sound experience,” as Limp described. The Echo Show 8 also has a centered camera, which should make video calls feel more natural for your partner, and upgraded audio that minimizes background noise. It also has a faster processor and a built-in smart home hub.

The new Echo Show 8 costs $150 and is available for pre-order now ahead of an expected October ship date.

Echo Frames

Amazon updated its Echo Frames smart glasses for the first time in over two years. The wearable device has a longer battery life: up to six hours of continuous media playback. Perhaps even more importantly, the new models are 15 percent slimmer than the previous generation, making them look more like regular glasses and less like a bulky tech product strapped to your face.

The new Echo Frames also have a “redesigned audio experience,” including more balanced sound, better audio clarity and less distortion. Their onboard speech processing is also improved, which could lead to more reliable responses in different environments. They’ll ship in seven new styles, including both glasses and sunglasses variants. (There’s also a more expensive version through a partnership with Carrera called “Carrera Smart Glasses.”) 

The Echo Frames cost $270, while the Carrera Smart Glasses variant will cost $390. They’re available for pre-order.

Eero Max 7

Amazon describes its new Eero Max 7 as a combined router, range extender and repeater. The device offers 10-gigabit Ethernet connections, with advertised download speeds of a 4K movie in 10 seconds or a 50 GB game in less than a minute.

The device supports the 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6 GHz radio bands with speeds up to 4.3 Gbps for wireless connections and 9.4 Gbps for wired connections. It includes four Ethernet ports and covers 2,500 square feet of wireless coverage, and you can link them together to create a mesh network to cover even more ground.

The Eero Max 7 costs $600 and will be available “soon.” It, too, is available for pre-order today.

Echo Hub

The newly revealed Echo Hub is a new device for managing various smart home gadgets around your house. It has an 8-inch display and is meant to be mounted on a wall, although Amazon says it will also offer a stand accessory. “Today, smart home panels are expensive, they require professional installers, and they don’t age well. We set out to change that,” said Amazon smart home chief Charlie French.

Although it includes Alexa controls and can behave like standard Echo speakers, it also supports the major smart home protocols, including Matter and Thread — supporting over 140,000 smart home devices. The device supports Wi-Fi by default but can connect to compatible ethernet routers with an optional USB-C cable. The Echo Hub’s infrared sensors can even tell when someone is nearby and shift into a default clock mode when nobody is around.

The device lets you arm your security system with a quick tap, and it will display multiple live camera feeds simultaneously. It can control select smart home devices locally, leading to faster response times. “Now, when a customer taps to turn on a light from their Echo Hub, it can turn on in as little as 300 milliseconds—it feels like flipping a light switch,” the company said on Wednesday.

As with many Amazon devices, the Echo Hub’s killer feature may be its price. It will be available later this year for $180, and you can pre-order it today.

Ring and Blink security cameras

The Ring Stick Up Cam Pro is a $180 indoor / outdoor camera with intelligent tracking features. The device adds 3D motion detection (already found in the Ring Video Doorbell 2, Floodlight Cam Pro and Spotlight Cam Pro) to provide what Amazon describes as more refined and accurate motion alerts. It employs radar technology to track people’s paths across the camera’s field of view. It can monitor where people in its frame are going and the route they took to get there. You can pre-order it today.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s other security camera unit, Blink, got several new accessories. First, the $50 Sync Module Pro extends the range of the Blink Outdoor 4, saying it will reach “the furthest corner of your property.” There’s also a new $160 wireless floodlight mount for the Blink Outdoor 4 that will blanket your yard in light with its motion-triggered LEDs. Finally, Amazon is launching a battery extender for the Outdoor 4 that can supposedly stretch its battery life to “up to four years.” The three accessories are available for pre-order and are slated to ship beginning on October 17.

Fire TV updates

Amazon launched the new Fire TV Soundbar, a Bluetooth-enabled audio device compatible with “all Fire TV streaming products and TVs,” according to Amazon VP Daniel Rausch. The soundbar is available starting today for $120.

The Fire TV 4K Max received an incremental update on Wednesday, bumping its processing power by 0.2GHz and its Wi-Fi from 6 to 6E. The device supports HDR, HDR10+, Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. It’s available for pre-order for $60 and is scheduled to ship on September 27. Amazon also updated the standard 4K Fire TV Stick with more processing power, 4K support and Wi-Fi 6. 

The company also rolled out a new Fire TV Ambient Experience for the device, making it easy to view info like your family calendar, reminders and local forecast. In addition, it’s adding “hundreds of new images” to its free “gallery-quality” art selection for TVs in standby mode.

Fire TV devices will add a new search experience that uses Amazon’s LLMs to make on-device search more natural and conversational. They’re also adding a unified Continue Watching row that aggregates favorite content (from providers like Prime Video, Disney+, Max, Peacock and more) in one spot. Amazon says it focuses on recency, making it easier to resume the last thing you checked out — regardless of the service.

Accessibility features

Amazon’s Echo devices are receiving some new accessibility features later this year. Eye Gaze on Alexa is a new feature for the Fire Max 11 tablet that lets people with mobility or speech disabilities perform preset actions using only their line of sight. You can play music and shows, control smart home devices or call loved ones without using your hands or voice. The feature will arrive later this year.

Call Translation is a new feature for the Echo Show that will transcribe calls with onscreen captions. It can translate speech into over 10 languages, including English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. The feature will arrive later this year on Echo Show devices (and in the Alexa app) for users in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

Map View

To make homes full of smart home devices simpler to manage, Amazon introduced Map View. The feature lets you view and control your home devices using a digital floor plan.

Map View will let you create an indoor map of your home using your phone. (It will initially launch on LiDar-enabled iOS devices.) The idea is for the feature to serve as an alternative to the (often messy) Alexa app’s devices list, displaying them room-by-room. It lets you quickly glance at your setup, control devices and even view live camera feeds by glancing at the floor-plan layout.

The opt-in feature will launch in the US later this year.

Kids’ stuff

Amazon is extending Alexa’s new generative AI powers to kids’ devices. However, as you may expect, it should be a heavily guardrailed version of the feature that supposedly protects children from unsavory material. The company says it “gracefully redirects kids back to the conversation at hand and away from inappropriate or sensitive content.”

The company also showcased the Echo Pop Kids, a new smart speaker for children. It ships in two variants: Avengers and Disney Princess. You can pre-order the $50 speaker now. It ships in October and includes six months of the Amazon Kids+ subscription service.

Alexa Emergency Assist

A feature that could benefit seniors or people with disabilities, Alexa Emergency Assist lets you contact first responders by saying, “Alexa, call for help.” The feature will connect you with a “dedicated, professionally trained agent” available 24/7.

When you set up Alexa Emergency Assist, it will save your home address, medications, allergies and device info to save you from having to pass that on to the person on the line.

Alexa Emergency Assist will launch in the US and is “coming soon.” It will cost $6 per month or $59 annually when it arrives.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/everything-amazon-announced-at-its-2023-devices-and-services-event-194621706.html?src=rss