Amazon Echo now reads your Audible books on command ... Other capabilities recently added involve accessing services outside Amazon's walls ... Getting traffic info - sports scores ... Controlling lights in the home.

Amazon updates their Echo voice assistant and speaker to add direct read of Audible books

This has been a big request.  Earlier, people had to pair phones or tablets with bluetooth to have their Audible books read through the convenient and very clear Echo speaker system.

Amazon's wording:

' Listening to audiobooks from your Audible library is easy. Here's how:

- Start any book you own with "Alexa, read [Audible book title]"
- Resume the current book you're reading by saying "Alexa, read my book."
- Control playback with "Alexa, go back/forward."

[You can, of course, also pause it as needed.]

Echo also supports Whispersync for Voice, which allows you to seamlessly switch between reading and listening with your eligible Kindle books.  You can read on your Kindle, tablet, or smartphone and then continue listening on your Echo, right where you left off. '

While Amazon is offering "complimentary extended samples from popular titles and a free trial," there are ongoing monthly Kindle Book specials that feature inexpensive Audible narrations paired with some of the Kindle books featured at larger discounts for the month.  The product page for that month will sayk, "Add narration for a reduced price of ____ when you buy the Kindle book."

  For June's specially discounted Kindle books ($1.99 to $3.99), you can find the listing of 104 Kindle books that are paired, for June, with reduced-cost Whispersync for Voice here.  (In March there were only 53, so they seem to be expanding these.)

And for those who want to try a free Audible example with a free Kindle book to see how Whispersync works, here's the only one available currently.

Here's the help page for using Whispersync with more information.


Amazon's latest Echo features that allow you to escape its semi-walled garden
The Verge's Josh Lowensohn reported, in early May, on the Echo's new ability to work with Twitter, Gmail, and Evernote, "...plus a few others, thanks to the If This Then That" ("ITTT)" feature.  I'm repeating this section for those who had no interest in the Echo at the time but may be interested in some of the newer features.

  Lowensohn mentioned the recent updates already reported here, "things like Pandora, traffic reports, sports scores, and support for Belkin's WeMo and Phillips's Hue products" and describes the new features' capabilities:

' ... the IFTTT 'recipes' for Alexa let you send your shopping and to-do lists out to third-party services like Google Drive, Evernote, and Todoist

... There are 54 combinations in total.  Enabling them requires signing up for IFTTT, then linking it up with your Amazon account.  You also need to go through the motions of activating the various third-party app channels, and approving your accounts there so IFTTT can link everything up behind the scenes. Some of the really good examples so far are:

. Adding your Echo shopping list items to Evernote
. Sending someone a short email with your voice
. Sending someone an SMS with your voice
. Adding Echo shopping list items to the iOS Reminders app
. Adding Alexa to-dos to Microsoft's OneNote '

See the Verge's full article for illustrations and more details on what's involved in using the feature.

Amazon Echo was recently updated to control Wemo switches and Philips Hue smart bulbs in the home, to turn lights on or off in named rooms or to dim or brighten them.

Pandora was added, in May (in addition to iHeartRadio and TuneIn radio features).

The updates are coming quickly lately with more meat to them, and Amazon's obviously serious about making it a key device, as Boston Business Journal's David Harris pointed to Amazon's dedicating an entire floor of its Cambridge, Mass. Kendall Square office "to working on the Echo" and is still recruiting more staff for it, with "a hiring event on May 14, 2015 for roles that run the “gamut of distributed systems, speech/voice recognition, and big data.”


My own use of the Echo
I'm music and info-oriented, so while the device is not super knowledgeable about the universe, I tell 'Alexa' to "Wiki [subject]" which has it go to Wikipedia to read me the first couple of paragraphs, and then it sends the rest of the article to my tablet (or phone). This is helpful when I'm not near my computer and think of something.  It's also good for adding to my Echo Todo and/or Shopping lists when I think of things in the kitchen, and I can just say "Alexa, add [whatever] to my todo list" [or to my shopping list].

  For music, I ask it to "play playlist [name]" and I get about an hour of my favorite music, depending on the genre I feel like listening to.  If interested in an artist, I ask it to play [artist] from Prime (which is free Amazon music for Prime members) or I ask it just to "play [artist] and it asks if I want to listen to the musician on iHeart Radio or Prime, sometimes it chooses TuneIn.  I signed up for Pandora but haven't used it with Echo yet.  The local classical music station sounds surprisingly good on it, though this isn't true of some other stations.

The speaker is very clear, is loud enough that I can't use it at max for most material, has more bass than I thought it would for its size, but it's best with really well-recorded tracks. If the treble range is edgy, it's very edgy on the Echo.  I'd like loudness compensation added in the next version for late night listening at lower volume.

 It's great for my kitchen where I have no speakers and no computer. They've added news-sources for flash news but I'm waiting for them to allow direct-access to specific sources instead of my having to say "Next" a few times when not interested in the current source.

I really like that I can control the volume by just saying "alexa, louder" or "alexa, not so loud" when I'm working in the kitchen. Or asking it, "what's playing?" or "who's singing?" and it tells me the artist and album. If you like a track, you can of course buy it (but you need a confirmation code to do it), and I've added a lot of good, free Prime tracks to my library while listening, by just saying "add this to my library."

  Others are interested in being able to get current sports scores or scores for ealier games, and in getting traffic reports, when we give it starting and ending addresses.  (I haven't used it, as I have lifetime traffic status and recommended alternate routes on my Garmin Nuvi, which is a bargain for what it does, well.)

A post on the Kindle Forums mentioned that TuneIn offers a lot of nearby scanner stations if you use the Echo app to enter, in the Search field at the top,
  'fire and police' -- but it doesn't work well by voice.  Just a curiosity.  TuneIn offers local, national, and int'l radio stations (music, talk) with clear, easy access.

  What's struck me most about the Alexa voice is that its answers are often lightning fast, which I wouldn't expect when it needs to go to the servers, access whatever, and then get back to me with an answer, and even then the speech is so natural, I have found myself saying, 'Thank you.'

  I also found that I sort of enjoy ordering something around :-) ... "Do this, do that, get me this, or that. What, you don't know? Take a class, get trained!"

I do shut off its hearing often, by pressing the microphone icon down, because I don't want it to waste electricity waiting for the word-string 'alexa' to fly by so it can say "Your command is my wish."

  I often just use the remote and press the mic and talk without needing to say her name.  She tries to obey, does what she can, and then stops listening for anything unless I press the remote button.  When will Amazon give us a male voice that takes orders from us?


Echo now does Google Calendar
This is one I waited for, except that i started to use a small printed calendar lately.  Why? I don't know, but it's sort of convenient :-)

  I had a bit of difficulty finding out how to do the linking, but finally found this help page on how to link your Google calendar to Echo, and its instructions are very clear.

  Richi Gupta, with octafinance.com has good details on what you can and can't do with Google calendar, from Echo.


Some Echo tips from the Kindle forums

' Beauty Fool says:
Wow... I just discovered you can get the latest episodes of various NPR, APM, etc shows by simply asking for them.
Case-in-point: "Alexa, play Splendid Table."
Reply: "Getting the latest episode of The Splendid Table from Tune-In."

+++
romper says:
If you ask, "what's the weather or forecast" she will give you only today's weather.  Ask "what's the extended forecast" she will give you the next 7 days...

+++
Cheryl Jones says:
as for the weather you can ask her for 10 days. so you can ask for the weather next sat or the weather for may 30 etc. or you can ask if it will rain next sat.... '

Recent mainstream reviews from mainstream tech writers who use it quite a bit
• "Five months in, it's the most used gadget in my home" - James Kendrick, ZDNet, May 15, 2015
• "It sucks.  It's awesome.  It sucks.  We want two more" - David Gewirtz for DIY-IT - May 21, 2015
• "Amazon Echo review" - Margaret Dornbusch - Gadgeteer, May 31, 2015
• "Amazon Echo talks to Google Calendar (and you)" - (more tips) David Gewirtz for DIY-IT, June 1

---

Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button


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How to import music from iTunes or Windows Media to your Amazon library ... Shortcuts to find Prime Music for Echo and Prime Instant Video for FireTV and Stick+tablets ... Today's Kindle Daily Deal: 45 'Summer Reads' instead of one .

I've been collecting my PRIME-info shortcuts for friends new to FireTv and to Amazon Echo, which I still haven't done a fuller report on -- still hunting things down when here.

  These shortcuts include what's available on Instant Prime and --for the Echo --  what is included in Prime Music (and helpful for getting Echo to play what you intend).
  Details will follow on another post I'm working on today.

  Re Kindle books -- I noticed today the changes to Kindle Owners Lending Library and where that appears on Kindle Fire tablets now, as that was changed recently.  The e-Ink Kindle eReaders are clearer in that this borrowing feature appears in the main store menu, up front oon the older Kindles, the Paperwhite and Voyage readers.  So will show that later today and/or tomorrow with some screen shots.

  In the meantime, included with this post are shortcuts for Prime Instant Video info and the less easy to find Prime Music pages that are very useful for the Echo.

  With the Echo, you've a lot more to work with if you join (for free) iHeart Radio and Pandora, which now both work well with Echo.  Echo users use these sites by identifying them and your free accounts in the Echo app's Settings/Music after joining those two music sites. Both are free for the basic service.

  Until then I say, 'Alexa, play [artist] from Prime Music' if wanting to hear something I don't already have.
  If you're a Prime shipping member, the Prime music songs are free, and there are well over a million involved.
  From your own playlists, you can just say, 'Alexa, play playlist [playlist-name]'

Will have somewhat more interesting things in the follow-up Echo report - these are just what some are asking about on the first day of use.

At any rate, here are some Prime feature shortcuts for finding what you want in connection with accessing them on  Fire TV, tablets, or the Amazon Echo.

Prine Instant-eligible Video: Movies and TV
1. http://amzn.to/primeinstantvideo3 (by category)
2. http://amzn.to/primeinstantvideo
    (Listing of ~18,000 Prime Instant-eligible videos
      You can narrow these down by using the search box at the top of the page. )
3. http://bit.ly/instantvideowebplayersetting
    (Settings to use for instant video web player -- for tablets use, 'flash' instead if 'silverlight'

Prime Music for streaming from your library at no added cost/
1. http://bit.ly/primemusicpage (by category
    (Free Prime music by categories. You can just add these to your library
    On tablets and on Fire TV many songs have scrolling lyrics w/ current line highlighted
2. http://bit.ly/primemusic-amazon (help page)
3. http://bit.ly/primemusic-who
    (Who and what's included in Prime music (artists and albums, as of 6/12/14)


Importing Music from iTunes or Windows Media Player to your Amazon Library
  (source: Amazon help pages)

  To import your music:
Go to your Music Library from a web browser on the computer you want to import music from.
Click Upload your music in the left menu,
  If prompted to install the Amazon Music Importer, follow the on-screen instructions.
Once you've opened or installed the Amazon Music Importer,
  click Start Scan to automatically scan your iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries for songs to import.
  You can also click-Browse manually to choose files on your computer to find music.
    This process may take some time to complete.
After the Amazon Music Importer has located your music,
  click Import all to add the entire selection to your music library.
    OR, click Select Music to choose which songs you'd like to add."

  However, what is free and what isn't when importing music?
  Amazon limits free uploads to 250 songs.
  Anything bought from Amazon does not count against the 250 songs limit.
    The alternative they have is to pay $25/yr to be able to import up to 250,000 songs...



Saturday's Kindle Daily Deal - today only (May 23, 2015 only)

Sending this mid-day for people who didn't check the Kindle Daily deal today, which is good for only one day (or remaining night for east coasters, at the time I write this).

This consists of not the usual one book but 45 books, some of which are priced considerably higher usually.  For instance, I never got Amy Tan's latest book, but at $1.99 I will probably click on that today.

---

  For daily free ebooks, check the following links:

Temporarily-free books - Non-classics USA: by:    Publication Date      Bestselling   High-ratings UK: PubDate   Popular The Kindle Daily Deal What is 3G? and "WiFi"?       Battery Care Highly-rated under $1,  Newest: $1-$2, $2-$3

Most Popular Free K-Books U.S. & Int'l (NOT UK):    Top 100 free UK-Only:    Top 100 free USEFUL for your Kindle Keyboard(U.S. only, currently):   99c Notepad 1.1,   99c Calculator,   99c Calendar,   99c Converter

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button


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Amazon's holiday content, free, or on special sale only during this week. A few deals are -were- only until midnight Christmas Day.

Special sales announced by Amazon for this holiday week

On Dec 24, I focused on the 40 Android apps worth $220 available for free "until" December 26.  I don't know whether Amazon means until December 26 starts (which is the normal meaning) or until the end of December 26.  In the past, they've stipulated 11:59pm on a given date or they've used the word "through" a particular day.  So, to be certain you get the apps you want from these, aim for the end of Christmas day.


For those just opening new Kindle tablets and e-readers or those who have not looked at the free and low-cost specials available at any given time, there are ongoing specials for a day or for a month (or unstipulated "limited time") at Amazon.  These are listed and linked to at the recent Free and low-cost Kindle books article.  There are a lot of varied free offerings included in that article.


Today-only through tonight, special Goldbox deal
The ongoing daily Goldbox page is featuring for today and tonight (Dec 25, 2014) this Gold Box Deal of the Day: Up to 50% Off Digital Music, Books, Movies, Games, and Apps


Amazon added a "Kindle Book Sale: Up to 65% off" page of books at $1.99 each, which appear to be from the Kindle-Unlimited feature.
  This one started December 25, 2014 and is "through January 25, 2015."
  Note that some at Amazon are clearer by using "through" a given date rather than 'until' (which can be misleading.)

What Amazon calls its Kindle Book Deals for the current day, including the Daily deals, Monthly Deals and Countdown Deals (had never heard of the latter).  These include books with up to 85% discount.

  Amazon's press release adds that: "Starting December 25th and running through the New Year popular Kindle books from best-selling authors will be up to 85% off, including titles from James Patterson, David Baldacci, Rick Riordan, Sandra Brown, Kristin Hannah, Jeff Kinney and Barbara Freethy."
  These will change, though, daily, as to what is featured, from what I can see.


Amazon Device Deals - Amazon's statement on holiday specials for its Kindle tablets and eReaders

' Amazon Device Deals
For a limited time, customers can get $20 off Amazon Fire TV (now $79), $25 off Fire HD 7 (now $114), $20 off [basic] Kindle (now $59) and $20 off Kindle Paperwhite (now $99). '

Amazon's new pages for gifting of Digital Content
There are now pages dedicated to
. gifting Prime Content and
. gifting Kindle books.
  The benefits that come with the gifting for the recipient are described in their statement from the holiday press release:

Customers can easily gift friends and family all the digital content they love.

Give the gift of Amazon Prime and customers automatically get access not only to
  fast, free Two-Day shipping on millions of items,
      but they can immediately start streaming
  tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video,
  one million songs and
  hundreds of playlists with Prime Music,
  free unlimited Photo Storage with Cloud Drive,
  early access to select Lightning Deals and
  access to more than 700,000 books to borrow with the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.
Learn more and schedule your gift delivery at amazon.com/giftprime.

[The giftprime page clarifies that
    'If the recipient is already a Prime member, the gift can be exchanged for an Amazon.com Gift Card.
     The one-year gift membership does not automatically renew.' ]

Kindle books can be given as a gift to anyone with an email address, and
recipients can read a Kindle book gift on any compatible Fire or Kindle device, or free Kindle reading app.
Learn more at amazon.com/kindlegifting [which is actually Kindle book gifting].

Amazon Coins provide an easy way to give the gift of apps and games--simply choose the amount of Coins to gift, who[m] to gift them to and when to have them delivered.  Learn more at amazon.com/giftcoins.

And, in connection with Amazon Prime membership, Amazon's holiday week deals include the following in Amazon Prime Music, Amazon writes:

Prime members can also listen to a variety of popular holiday albums and songs on Prime Music without added cost, including the Christmas album from a cappella group Pentatonix--PTXmas (Deluxe Edition), Mariah Carey's fan-favorite and classic Merry Christmas album and the Christmas album from crooner Michael Bublé, among many more.

  Prime members can also explore a selection of hand-crafted holiday playlists on Prime Music including 50 Great Christmas Songs and Yule Love This as well as Prime Music Stations such as Holiday Classics, Holiday Favorites, Country Christmas and Relaxing Christmas for easy, ad-free holiday listening.

In addition, on [what's left of] December 25th, Amazon's Digital Music Store will offer top albums, including Ariana Grande--My Everything, Frozen (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), Imagine Dragons--Night Visions, OneRepublic--Native [+digital booklet], Sam Smith--In The Lonely Hour, and more for $3.99 as part of the Digital Gold Box Daily Deal at amazon.com/gp/goldbox.

Since I didn't get the Christmas Day Prime Music apps listed before the day but there are still 3 hours left on the East Coast and 6 hours on the West Coast, I'll stop here and get this up for those who are still exploring with their new tablets or eReaders.


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Amazon's 3D Fire Phone now 99 cents with a 2 year data plan. A free year of (normally $99) Prime is included also. UPDATE1 for 64GB model price. UPDATE2 for AT&T Next 18 option

Amazon indicated today that the 3D Fire Phone is a key device for them and they've decided to be ultra competitive (the iPhone 6 is due to be announced tomorrow but it won't be a low-cost item nor have most of the features described below), and Apple is finally catching up to Android phones by making the larger phone so many have wanted but which Apple said was not the ideal size, until now. Those who rely on Apple apps should stay with Apple though!

FIRST, an UPDATE on November 2014, 2 months later than this article: - Amazon also made available the UNLOCKED version of the Fire Phone.  For details on the Unlocked phone, which can be used with any service (not tied to AT&T then) so that you can use the phone with better service plans for you, see the article on the updated offer.  This version, without a required data plan, is $199 but includes $99 Prime member for a year (or for an additional year for existing Prime members). [End of Update]

Below, I'm including most of the blog entry I made of the points made about the Fire Phone during their launch, with the original $199 cost now lower by $198, at 99 cents.

  And below that, I'll re-print the pertinent portions of their press release so you can read their new-pricing points, without interpretation.

  NOTE: Some reviews have said that the Fire Phone can't access Google Play for its apps.  However, as with the tablets, the phone has the regular Android Setting to enable installation of apps from "unknown sources" (meaning Non-Amazon store), I'm told (my review copy is late getting here), and that includes 1Mobile appstore, which has over 800,000 Android apps, most from Google, many from Amazon.  Get the apps from Amazon appstore when available there, as they go through heavy testing.

Here are added FIRE PHONE info-updates.

  Amazon still includes the Limited time offer that
offers a full year of Amazon Prime" (normal cost of Prime is $99)
  If you aren't a Prime member, you'll get a full year of Prime with Fire phone. If you already have Prime, we'll extend your membership for a full year."

UPDATE1 - 2:30 PM
  The Fire Phone starts now at $0.99 for 32GB and I received an answer to my question about the 64GB model this afternoon -- it'll be $99, down from $299, with a 2-year monthly data plan with AT&T.  That's for people who expect to store a lot on the phone, even with access to the Cloud storage.

  Essentially then, the phone with 32GB is is 99 cents with Prime also, thrown in (normally $99), with 2 yrs of a monthly data plan.
  And the 64GB model will be $99 (earlier it was $299).  The product pages are being updated.

UPDATE2 - 10:15 PM
Amazon's wording at the end of the Press Release mentions the cost of AT&T's "Next 18" plan (for those buying the phone and AT&T's new plan on a monthly basis and who plan to use only 2GB per month during a month):

' Fire is available exclusively on AT&T - the nation's most reliable 4G LTE network. Fire with 32GB is available for 99 cents with a two-year contract or $0 down and $18.75 per month (for 24 months) with AT&T NEXT 18. '

  The Nitty Gritty - Here is Amazon's Comparison Chart of actual costs for:
    the "Next 18" plan against the normal 2-year plan.
    BOTH require a 24-mo. plan.  However, after 18 mos. on the Next 18 plan,
      you're eligible to a free Update to a new smartphone, and the
    the activation fee is $0 vs the 2-yr plan's no free update plus $40 activation.
    It's a minor difference down the road.

  So, the normal 2-year plan saves almost $5 per month for 2 years, but there's no free update eligibility after 18 mos, and there's an activation charge.

  Phone-buying Reality -- As usual, even with $0 smartphones, one must pay the tax on the actual or normal cost of the phone, in this case $450 (even if paying just $0 or 99 cents for the phone).


The 3D-simulation on Amazon's product-page image is pretty impressive.  Am not placing it here, as eInk Kindle subscribers to the Kindle Edition of the blog can't view video. :-)  Thanks again to the subscribers for continued support of the blog.

Content described during launch is shown below

---

While the 3D aspects should be novel and fun for awhile, many were looking forward to a good plan but especially since it's been said to be exclusive to AT&T (which seemed a hint they may have worked out a good deal for customers and Amazon with AT&T to get that exclusive).

 The limited-time offer of 1 yr of free Prime made it a better deal than most even at the original pricing, and now the cost of a new, very high-tech smartphone with advanced features is only $1~, coming with a Bonus of free Prime ($99 value) for the first year as well, if you get a 2-year monthly data plan with AT&T.

In addition to the five total front cameras, the back camera uses optical character recognition that can capture and convert text (and will recognize many videos and songs by 'hearing' or 'seeing' them).

  Turns out that the Fire Phone can read an image to get, say, a phone number but, not only that, it can realize that a graphic element confused it and that the area code is not a valid one and then can fetch the information to correct it).

Prime apparently has "tens of millions" of subscribers -- and we know that Prime will be the big factor here, as we've seen with video and music features (along with Kindle book loans and 2-day free shipping) on millions of items.  As you saw in a previous blog entry here, the original 5,000 Kindle books in the Prime Library for free lending of one-book per calendar month has grown to over 500,000.

Opening PR at the launch reminded us that Foresee and YouGov branding charts both list Amazon as No. 1 in customer service.

The Fire Phone with FIREFLY scanning
Claims on slides shown, for the most part:  (I'll double space these after editing, and also highlight a few aspects that were more interesting to me, for easier reading.)

. Rubberized frame, Gorilla Glass, aluminum buttons.

. Premium materials, scratch resistant

. 4.7" inch IPS LCD HD display

. Quad core 2.2 Ghz processor, Adreno 330 graphics processor, and 2 GB of RAM.

. Designed to be "Beautiful, comfortable, durable"

. Injection-molded steel connectors

. Focus on making it Better than usual for outdoor viewing

. Great imaging hardware
      with 13 MP rear-facing camera, f/2 5-element lens, optical image stabilization

. "Don't miss the shot" -- instant fast access to camera from a button.

. Free Unlimited Photo Storage

. Dual stereo speakers (Stereo audio in Landscape), Virtual surround sound, Dolby Digital Plus

. Free Mayday Help/Support feature -- (video support by customer reps and AT&T reps within 15 seconds when you need help) is included.  You see the rep, who does not see you but you can hear each other, and the reps can not only show you how to do something, they can do it for you.)

. You can watch material on HDTV, 2nd screen, Miracast, plus Xray for movies and tv

. Flat cables, earphones included

. Netflix, HBO Go, ESPN, Youtube, and Showtime apps are included and ready to go.

. includes of course the new Prime Music feature (free for members) -
      over 1 million songs with unlimited free streaming.

. More than a few Music apps and services

. "Semantic Boosting" helps to get the phone number right by eliminating invalid numbers.

. Firefly scanning feature "scrapes" the image for relevant info [via optical character recognition], compressing a large image file to a smaller one with only small bits of info.  That helps the phone send the info to its cloud service to process the image and get appropriate info or answers quickly.

. Reminder about the X-ray feature, now using Firefly also.  As with tablets, if it recognizes the show, it pulls up info on the actors, specific episode, and scene via Amazon's IMDB database.  I expect this works with Amazon Prime but not with Netflix and Hulu Plus etc., as they control the stream with Prime video.

    HOWEVER, the Firefly scanning feature has had a lot of training by Amazon and itself can "recognize" movies, TV episodes, music, and get info for X-Ray.  I've added Amazon's description of Firefly functions at the bottom of this post, as it is a very impressive feature, activated by the press of a physical button on the phone.

. Firefly recognizes a hundred million different items in real-world situations.

. The image changes as you move your phone (or head) and perspective.

. A MAP application was shown next, in 3D

. They zoomed into the Empire State Building image, and it's said this looks a lot better than previous attempts at 3D on similar devices

. Various web sites are very impressed with the 3D implementation.  Most writers I read had been skeptical about it based on previous attempts by other companies.

. In the web browsing -- "auto scroll" - you can scroll by tilting the phone (I'm not sure I'd want that, but they pointed out that can be turned off when wanted, which is what I would do.)

. You can pin other apps to the app grid.  They have the Carousel with latest apps accessed at the top.

. Get in and out of apps with widgets (shown on slide) without having to load up a full app

. Music app.  As with the tablets, we can see the lyrics synchronized (highlighting current line) with songs for which they received the rights for that.
      Song info is in one panel - lyrics in a panel to the right.

. Games: You can tilt the phone to look at different perspectives in a game.

. "Dynamic Perspective" - They started working on this 4 years ago and had prototypes working in the first week.

. The phone has a wider range of view for the front camera to cover the area needed for tracking head movement and whatever else needed to make the 3D simulation work well.

. At least two of the Fire Phone's four corner cameras and center camera can find your eyes, creating stereovision.

. To have it work in the dark, they added infrared lights, one in each camera.

. Dynamic Perspective sensor system -- "uses four ultra-low power specialized cameras -- the smallest globally shuttered cameras in existence -- plus four infrared LEDs for invisible illumination, real-time computer vision algorithms, and a custom graphics engine rendering at 60 fps" [frames per second]."

. They used "millions of images from thousands of faces from all around the world" while testing this.

. While trying to find the user's head and eyes for perspective-use, the cameras -could- during development be fooled by another head that happened to be in the picture (as in an image on a t-shirt).  They say they fixed the usual problems with seeing multiple-faces in that case.

. Developers can develop 3D apps for viewing homes while shopping, etc.

. You can silence your ringer for 3 hours.  After that, it turns back on.
      This would help me since I forget to turn it back on and then can't use a landline to call my cellphone to find out where it is :-)

. Price: Now 99 cents for 32GB phone (to be $99 for a 64GB model), with a 2 year monthly data plan, and this includes a limited-time offer of a free one-year Prime membership, w/ 2 yr contract and same Prime deal.

Addendum: More about Firefly and what it does (from product page)
  You just press the physical button on the side of the Fire Phone to "take action on"

' Phone numbers, web, and email addresses
Firefly identifies printed text on posters, magazines, and business cards -- make calls, save new contacts, send emails, and visit websites without typing long addresses.

Movies & TV
Firefly recognizes over 240,000 movies and TV episodes, and 160 live TV channels.  Firefly uses X-Ray, powered by IMDb, to show information on actors, plot details, and related content -- add titles to your Watchlist or download to watch later.

Music
Firefly recognizes songs so you can access artist information, play related songs, download albums direct to your Fire phone, or add them to your Wish List to purchase later on.  With Firefly-enabled apps like iHeartRadio and StubHub, you can create radio stations based on an identified artist, or even find tickets for their next show.

Over 70 million products
Recognize household items, books, DVDs, CDs, video games, and more.  Access product details, add items to your Wish List, or order on Amazon straight from your Fire phone. '

Amazon's 3D FIRE PHONE at 99 cents with a 2-year plan is available here

---

From today's press release

Title: Amazon Fire Phone Now 99 Cents with Two-Year Contract

Date(s): 8-Sep-2014 11:11 AM

Plus, one year of Prime membership included

Free unlimited cloud storage for photos

World-class customer support with Mayday--24x7, 365 days a year

32GB Storage--Standard

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep. 8, 2014-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)--Dynamic Perspective, Firefly, world-class customer support with Mayday, free unlimited cloud storage for photos, 32GB of storage--and, for a limited time, customers get 12 months of Prime membership with Fire phone, which includes unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes from Prime Instant Video, access to over a million songs to download or stream from Prime Music, over 500,000 books to borrow from Kindle Owners' Lending Library and free two-day shipping on tens of millions of items. Now there's another great reason to buy Fire--it's just 99 cents with a two-year contract. Customers can purchase Fire on [and at AT&T stores nation wide].

"Fire is now 99 cents with a two-year contract, plus customers get one full year of Prime included," said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Devices. "With access to all of the Prime content, Mayday, 32GB of memory and free unlimited cloud storage for photos, plus the exclusive Dynamic Perspective and Firefly features, Fire is another example of the value Amazon delivers to customers."

See what Amazon Fire customers are saying:

• "The best part of the phone is the integration with Prime - I've switched all of my iTunes music over to Amazon Music and have bought a few albums from my phone. The sound from the included headphones is amazing. I've watched some movies and read some books - all synced to my Kindle Fire HDX and the movies with my Fire TV."
• "Mayday: I feel this truly separates this phone from every other phone in the market. It's like having someone available 24x7 to help you out with your phone...and, there is no charge for that 'ever.'"
• "Love it, better than the iPhone I had, Better pictures and better screen...My wife is switching from her iPhone 5 to Fire since she has checked out my FIRE."
• "I've had three Kindle Fire tablets, and this Fire phone hooks seamlessly to their ecosystem of books and videos, which I use heavily in my professional work so that's important to me."
• "The Firefly feature is fun, and the camera takes fabulous pictures and videos."
• "If you're an Amazon Prime user, it can't get better than this. The support for the Amazon ecosystem is amazing."

Fire is the only smartphone with Dynamic Perspective and Firefly, two breakthrough technologies that allow you to see and interact with the world through a whole new lens. Fire features an advanced, 13MP rear-facing camera with backside illumination, LED flash, 5-element f/2.0 lens, Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), and high dynamic range (HDR) capabilities for beautiful, crisp photos, even in low-light conditions. Fire also includes a 2.1MP front-facing camera, and photos taken with Fire receive free, unlimited cloud storage.

Additionally, the Amazon Appstore has seen tremendous growth with the rate of app submissions to the Appstore more than doubling in the weeks following the Fire phone launch in the U.S. Recent additions include: Fly Delta, Bank of America, MLB.com At Bat, Tetris Blitz, Uno With Friends, Venmo, and World Series of Poker as well as the tens of thousands of others already available for Fire - Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Flixster, Instagram, Pandora, Pinterest, Spotify, StubHub, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Customers are also enjoying the use of Dynamic Perspective within apps and games--3 of the top 7 downloaded apps and games, incorporate features of Dynamic Perspective.

In the U.S., Fire is available exclusively on AT&T  - the nation's most reliable 4G LTE network. Fire with 32GB is available for  99 cents with a two-year contract or $0 down and $18.75 per month (for 24 months) with AT&T NEXT 18.

[ End of the press release segment ]

Note you can also buy it from AT&T at one of their stores.  But when buying a device, many prefer to buy from Amazon.

Again, in addition to the 32GB model at 99 cents with a 2-year data plan with AT&T, Amazon is pricing the 64GB model at $99 ($200 off the opening price in July), although the product page isn't updated for that yet.

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Kindle Fire HDX and HD 2nd Gen tablets: How to get free Prime Music working. Reactions to the Mayday Help feature.

Getting Prime Music feature activated on current Kindle fire tablets
There have been reports of difficulty getting the current Kindle Fire tablets updated software to access the Prime Music feature.  I had difficulty at first too.  The tablet kept seeing only the old Amazon MP3 icon after I tapped "Music" at the top Home menu and clicked to get an album or song that was followed by a popup asking me to use "Amazon Music" icon to launch or play the Prime Music that had just been put into my Music Library via the Cart.

    Even after I Powered Off, and did cache clearing with Application Management for the Amazon mp3 icon that kept showing up, it did let me access the Prime music feature.

   What did work to activate Prime Music on the Kindle Fire tablets?
* I clicked on 'Web' (instead of  'Musc') to bring up Amazon's default Silk web browser.  
* Then I accessed the Prime Music offerings page
      *OR*  typed in http://amazon.com/cloudplayer
    When the webpage loaded, it changed the Amazon mp3 icon to the Amazon Music one and I suddenly had access to all the Prime Music features.

    The expert-recommended Prime playlists have a lot of today's music on it but most of it wasn't that interesting to me.  However, when I viewed the resulting limited number of examples of Songs or Albums showing but then clicked on "See more" at top right of each, I got a lot more.

    If I clicked on an album or a song, then I was also shown, at the bottom, related albums or songs by that artist and sometmes similar artists, or compilation albums.

  What worked best for me was to SEARCH, using the magnifier-icon for songs or artists I wanted to hear and then I got very good results.  I have an interest in the old stuff from the 60s as they're harder to find without getting malware popups, and I did find the Platters, the Drifters, The Rays, Little Anthony, the Righteous Brothers et al.  I was fond of "On Broadway" and found it and then of course "Under the Boardwalk," for which there are scrolling lyrics, with the current sung line highlighted (with Amazon's X-ray feature)

   However, for the 70s, I couldn't find Prime-free songs from JJ Cale, John Mayall, Leon Russell, Rolling Stones, Traffic, or Steppenwolf's "The Pusher" -- but at least I found that I could, if I wanted any that much, pay 99c to $1.29 for a song if I wanted. and did, so that's how Amazon makes money off of this, after paying music publishers for the unlimited use of some  for Prime.

   On the other hand, almost every recording Elvis ever made is there on free Prime Music.  And some Springsteen too.   I already use Amazon's Cloud Player a lot, so this is a boon in my case.


Reaction to Kindle Fire's direct video MayDay customer support feature
I've found that friends don't use the MaydaY function for some reason, and it's a shame because it's the most amazing type of customer support I've encountered - an actual human to contact and answer questions even at 3am in the morning, who can either 'show' you how to do something on your tablet or even do it FOR you.
    You can see and hear them, not by phone where it's hard for them to see what you're talking about and not by computer-typing-chat which is always slow and not particularly helpful.

    The customer reps are unusually adept and helpful, and I can't think of another company that  would go to these lengths, spending that kind of money in support, to make it easier on the customer -- but that's how Amazon has decided it will get customer loyalty and our dollars, but this kind of live, video-style advanced support (well-informed reps) is expensive, especially with their goal of 15-second response time !  U.S. travelers access it when in other parts of the world.  It turns out they've seen an average 9.75-second response time

This morning Amazon had a press release to remind people who don't use it, what a boon it is.
    Also, for those who gift a tablet to family members etc., almost no support time is needed from the gifter. And the tablet user doesn't deal with uncomprehending, impersonal first-level support from people working in data centers in other countries where effective communication between U.S. customers and support is often a struggle.

    I'll "reprint" below MOST of the press release but you can read there some unusual and often entertaining situations in which Mayday customer-support representatives have found themselves involved (or in which they decided to help in ways uncommon for customer technical support).

    The basics of the press release otherwise

PRESS RELEASE

June 13, 2014, 9:01 a.m. EDT

75% of Kindle Fire HDX Customer Questions Now Come via the Mayday Button—Average Response Time is Just 9.75 Seconds

SEATTLE, Jun 13, 2014 (BUSINESS WIRE) --AMZN +0.64% —Eight months ago, Amazon launched the Mayday button, connecting you to live, on-device tech support 24x7, 365 days a year—for free. Today, Amazon announced that the Mayday button is now the most popular way for Fire HDX customers to contact customer service, and the average response time is just 9.75 seconds.

“When we set out to invent the Mayday button, we wanted to revolutionize tech support—and we’re happy to report it’s working!” said Scott Brown, Director, Amazon Customer Service. “75% of customer contacts for Fire HDX now come via the Mayday button. Even as the Mayday button has grown to become the most popular way for customers to ask questions, the team’s been able to beat the response time goal of 15 seconds or less—our average is just 9.75 seconds.”

Unusual Mayday anecdotes include::
    [Omitted for space - see the actual press release]
 
Here’s what customers are saying about the Mayday button:

• “Un-freaking-believable”
• “The Mayday feature of my new kindle is fantastic. To have a person who can hear your voice answer your questions immediately, and solve your issue within seconds is just invaluable.”
• “MAYDAY is officially the coolest!!!”
• “I wasn’t disappointed. It’s everything you said it would be. Mayday is terrific.”
• “Sensational”
• “The Mayday feature ROCKS! I’ve used it twice already and both times the tech support was just the best! Amazon you have the best device support on the market today!”

Here’s what reviewers are saying:

• “An amazing idea well-implemented.” – TechCrunch
• “But in Mayday, we get a glimpse into what the future of online customer support could look like.” – Fortune
• “Mayday is amazing and truly practical…” – New York Times
• “It’s called Mayday, and it’s the most remarkable customer service tool I’ve ever seen.” – The Verge
• “It’s pretty cool that Amazon has invested so heavily in customer service that it has real humans waiting to help you out 24/7 at the push of a button.” – Business Insider

The Mayday button is free and available 24/7, 365 days a year. To use, you simply tap the Mayday button in Quick Settings, and an Amazon expert will appear on your Fire HDX and can co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself, or doing it for you—whatever you’d prefer . . .

  -- [End of reprinted portions of the press release]

---

Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

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Amazon's PRIME MUSIC feature launches with more than a million songs for unlimited streaming by Prime members at no additional cost. Update2: Prime Music apps are ready for Android and iOS

Update2 - Amazon sent out an email today that said the iOS and Android apps are ready.
  Go to the new Prime Music apps page for these.

  Also, apparently, per the email just now, the software updates for the Kindle Fire HDX and HD 2nd Gen tablets also include the Prime Music capabiility, although the software pages linked to in this morning's blog article on the software updates did not say that.

[Blog article posted yesterday]

---

Amazon's new banner alert today explains it pretty well.  To see the listing of some of the artists, songs, and works included in the newly launched Prime Music program's free, unlimited streaming, see the separate blog page I made for the info on artist and recommended playlists (we can of course create our own and add to existing ones):
  Prime Music - What and who's included in that Million plus?

The Prime Music feature is included at no added cost under the Prime program (free 2-day shipping is the basic feature, and Amazon's no-added-cost streaming Instant Video (over 40,000 movies and TV episodes) was added on top of that along with free rentals (one per calendar month) from an Amazon library of over 593,000 Kindle books -- no waiting-periods, no due dates -- and the new "free" music feature is, furthermore, ad-free, even with a base of over 1 million songs and "hundreds of playlists" with unlimited listening.  Negotiations with music publishers must have been interesting.

Amazon's press release is printed on several news sites this morning.  Included is this:

' Prime members can choose exactly which songs and albums to listen to, or they can sit back and listen to hundreds of expert-programmed Prime Playlists.

  Discovering music is easy thanks to Amazon’s personalized recommendations.  Music fans will find tons of music they’ll love, from Grammy winners to indie breakout singers, along with a huge music catalog that can easily be combined with their own collection.

  Prime members can also download songs from the Prime Music catalog to their mobile devices for offline playback on planes, trains and anywhere they’re without an internet connection. '

The new Prime Music streaming service is available only in the U.S. and Puerto Rico though.

Amazon adds examples of how this would be used.  I updated the blog to include the points below]:

' What Prime Music means for Prime members:

* Your music collection just got a lot bigger—for free with Prime: Over a million songs from artists like Daft Punk, P!nk, Bruno Mars, Blake Shelton, The Lumineers, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna, and hundreds of Prime Playlists, are now available for streaming and offline playback at no additional cost to your Prime membership, with new music added all the time.
* Your mix. Your music: Mix Prime Music songs with your own personal music collection to create the library you’ve always wanted.
* You be the DJ or let us be the DJ -- it’s your choice: Build the perfect playlist by choosing songs you already love or songs you just discovered through Amazon’s personalized recommendations. Or, just sit back and listen to one of our hundreds of Prime Playlists designed for all types of genres, occasions, artists, moods and activities, like “Feel Good Country,” “Bad Boy Rock,” “Beards & Baristas: Indie Beats,” “Hip-Hop Workout,” “'90s One-Hit Wonders,” and many others.
* No interruptions from ads: Enjoy an ad-free listening experience with unlimited skips and repeat plays.
* Listen where you want: Enjoy Prime Music on Kindle Fire HD/HDX, iOS, Android, PC, Mac and any Web browser.
* Take it offline: Download your favorite songs and Prime Playlists for offline playback on mobile devices.  With offline playback, you can enjoy your music wherever you are—and you can avoid costly data plan charges.

Prime members in the U.S. can start listening to Prime Music today at http://www.primemusic.com (Kindle Fire HD/HDX devices will get Prime Music in an automatic, over-the-air update
  [Note from ab:I don't know if this was included in the June 6 Kindle Fire software update.]

  Customers can [will be able to] also download the latest Amazon Music app in the Android and iOS app stores.  Eligible customers who are not already Prime members can try Prime Music with a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime by visiting www.amazon.com/prime. '

The first mentions I saw of Amazon's new Prime feature were from ZDNet and AppleInsider sites last night.

ZDNet's Matthew Miller writes:

' Until the iOS and Android Amazon Music apps (currently known as Amazon MP3) are updated you can log in through your web browser and stream music.  You will see buttons to add songs to your library, which can take a while to build up your library.  It is easier to go through their created playlists and add and enjoy these titles.  The mobile apps should be released soon.
  . . .
Amazon lets you upload just 250 of your own songs for free or pay $24.99/year for up to 250,000 songs...
  . . .
  . . .with today's release of Amazon Prime Music, I can now stop paying monthly for Google Music All Access and stream and download all the songs I want from Amazon's server.  I also like that I can access Prime Music and my own uploaded collection of songs from multiple devices and computers. '

He mentions that that now he's saving $95/year, as he no longer feels he needs the Google Music subscription, although Google has more songs available.

From AppleInsider:

' A mix between existing free services like Pandora and for-pay options like the Apple-owned Beats Music, Amazon's solution takes a middle-of-the-road approach by focusing on ad-free playback, loosely curated playlists and manual track searching.
  . . .
' Playlists range from 20 to 30 songs, are curated by "Amazon's Music Experts" and come with titles like "Pop to Make You Feel Better," "Boss, Not Bossy" and "Bedford Ave. Hipster Hits."  More generic collections include hits from popular bands and artists, while single tracks can be found by searching the Prime Music library.
. . .
Users can add to a Prime Music library, which is accessible on Macs and PCs via Amazon's CloudPlayer, while smartphone playback is handled by the Amazon Music app.

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