Amazon Alexa and Fire TVs are now run by the same VP for the first time

Posted by Elias Saba on

If you’ve ever felt like there was a bit of a divide between Amazon’s Echo and Alexa products and other Amazon devices, like Fire TVs and Fire Tablets, that’s because they have always been headed by different executives within Amazon. The two groups of Amazon devices have always been more like cousins with related parents than siblings of the same parent. That has now changed, I believe for the first time, because Daniel Rausch, who is Amazon’s head of entertainment devices which includes Fire TV, Fire Tablets, Kindles, and more, has recently been put in charge of Alexa as well. Read more ›

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More evidence the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is being replaced with a new model this year

Posted by Elias Saba on — 35 Comments

While the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is the second newest model in Amazon’s current Fire TV lineup, there have been a few signs that the device will be replaced with a new model this year. Most notably, a recent FCC filing for a pair of devices that appear to be Fire TV Sticks carry strong signs that they are a new Fire TV Stick 4K and 4K Max. Now, what is, in my opinion, the most telling sign that a new Fire TV Stick 4K Max is on the horizon has just occurred. Read more ›

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Redbox streaming app coming to Fire TVs later this year

Posted by Elias Saba on — 3 Comments

A Redbox streaming app will arrive in the Amazon Appstore for Fire TV devices “later this year” as spotted by Cord Cutters News. Redbox’s parent company Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (CSSE), which acquired the DVD/Blu-ray rental company turned streaming service last year, has announced the new app’s release as part of a larger deal with Amazon that will bring Amazon Interactive Video Ads to Crackle, also owned by CSSE, making it one of the first third-party services to support the advanced ad format which allows customers to add a product to their Amazon shopping cart directly from the ad break screen. The ads will also make their way into the Chicken Soup for the Soul app and the upcoming Redbox app. Redbox’s streaming apps, already available on Android/Google TV, Roku, and Apple TV devices, provide on-demand TV shows and movies for free with ads or to rent and own. It also offers several free ad-supported live streaming channels.

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Fire TV’s built-in live channel guide has been updated with improved filtering options

Posted by Elias Saba on — 11 Comments

If you’re a fan of watching live channels, one of the best features of Fire TVs is the built-in program guide that combines channels from many apps and services into a single list. With a button that takes you directly to the guide on all modern Fire TV remotes, it’s handy to flip back and forth between channels no matter what service they’re from. While you can easily remove channels and services you don’t want to be included, the program guide can still easily become unwieldy with the number of channels it contains. Amazon has recently made changes to help filter through the channel guide that is already available on select devices and will, hopefully, be coming to more in the near future. Read more ›

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New Fire TV home screen layout brings focus to Games at the expense of User Profiles

Posted by Elias Saba on — 15 Comments

Amazon has been periodically tweaking the navigation menu of the current Fire TV home screen interface ever since it debuted three years ago. First, it reordered the menu, then increased app icon sizes, and then added an input switching icon for Fire TV Smart TVs before finally dropping all text and switching to an icon-only navigation menu. Earlier this year, Amazon added a new “Free” tab to the navigation menu before ultimately removing it. Amazon is now trying out another new tab for the Fire TV home screen with the addition of a “Games” tab that takes the place of the profile switcher icon in the navigation menu. Read more ›

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Exclusive: Fire TVs may soon uninstall your apps for you to free up storage space

Posted by Elias Saba on — 38 Comments

A common issue many Fire TV users run into is running out of internal storage space for their apps and games. Even though it has been nine years since the first Fire TV debuted with 8GB of internal storage, nearly all Fire TV models, including all Fire TV Sticks, still only come with that same 8GB of storage. Worse yet, as Fire OS has increased in size over the years and the number of pre-installed system apps have ballooned in both size and quantity as well, there is now less than 4GB of free space on most Fire TV models out of the box. One solution to the problem that Amazon is working on is simply automatically removing apps you don’t use much, but, thankfully, it seems like it won’t be as ridiculous of a solution as it may initially sound. Read more ›

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Two unreleased 2023 Fire TV models pass through FCC approval

Posted by Elias Saba on — 25 Comments

What appears to be a pair of new Fire TV devices have just received FCC approval, as first spotted by Janko Roettgers. Both of the two new models were submitted to the FCC by Amazon as a “Digital Media Receiver” and, while there is no explicit mention of either one being a Fire TV device, the fillings have familiar characteristics that allude to these being Fire TV Sticks. Furthermore, the two devices are variants of each other, which likely means these are either a standard model and a “Lite” model, or a standard model and a “Max” model. Read more ›

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Tablo 4th Gen OTA DVR should have better picture quality than previous Tablo models — Plus more new info

Posted by Elias Saba on — 16 Comments

Tablo just announced the next generation of its networked over-the-air (OTA) tuner and DVR earlier this week. One thing that immediately appeared in comments was concern over the device’s picture quality, since previous Tablo models were often criticized for downgrading the incoming broadcast before streaming it to devices. Jared Newman from TechHive recently interviewed Nuvyyo CEO Grant Hall and learned a lot more about the Tablo 4th Gen, including details about how and when it does and doesn’t transcode video which suggests video quality complaints may be a thing of the past when it comes to the new generation of Tablo DVRs if the device is used a certain way. Read more ›

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New JBL smart speakers are the first to have both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant simultaneously

Posted by Elias Saba on — 2 Comments

Harman has announced a series of new JBL smart speakers that have a very unique capability. While there have been smart speakers that offer a choice of using Amazon’s Alexa or the Google Assistant, namely from Sonos, the trio of new JBL smart speakers announced today are the first to provide access to both voice assistants simultaneously. This means you can, for example, set a timer using Alexa and then ask Google Assistant to stop the timer, or start playing music with Google Assistant and have that music be lowered in volume when an alarm set by Alexa goes off. Read more ›

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Tablo releases new 4th Gen OTA DVR with no subscription fee to fill the gap created by the discontinued Fire TV Recast

Posted by Elias Saba on — 55 Comments

Tablo has released an all-new 4th generation over-the-air networked DVR. The new Tablo 4th Gen, as it is simply being called, is a new direction for the company, which was acquired last year by broadcast company Scripps. The biggest difference found in this new Tablo, compared to previous models, is the complete lack of a paid subscription and the ability to both stream and record over 40 free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels. Read more ›

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