via Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com

Bringing to market a collaboration that was first announced a year ago, the integration of Amazon's Alexa and Microsoft's Cortana will be available to all U.S. users as part of a public preview releasing this week, according to a Microsoft blog post.
The preview will be limited and will not include features like streaming music, flash briefing and setting alarms, but additional skills and devices will be added to the integration over time. Consumers interested in participating in the early access preview will be asked to engage with new features and offer feedback which engineers will use to improve the collaboration between Alexa and Cortana.

Amazon's global share of smart speaker shipments fell to 41% in Q2 2018 from 76% a year earlier, while Google boosted its share to 28% from 16% during the same periods, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. The firm estimated that device makers shipped nearly 12 million smart speakers in Q2 2018, about 8 million more than a year ago.​
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba came in third place with a 7% share for its smart speakers after introducing the Tmall Genie last year. Its AliGenie digital assistant powers the device with voice commands for news, music and other apps. Apple had a 5.9% share for its HomePod, which shipped in February after delays around the holidays.

Amazon is beta testing mobile video ad placements in product search results, according to a blog post from the e-commerce giant. Procter & Gamble, Gillette and Lamps Plus are among the brands that are piloting the video ad format, per Digiday, while Amazon's blog also shows ad examples from Neutrogena, littleBits and Sonos.
Amazon said its "video in search" format is a premium ad product that requires a marketing budget of $35,000 or more to get started. The ads are shown below the fold in the search results for keywords selected by the advertiser. Customers can then click on the ad to see the product's details page or to see another landing page such as a merchant's storefront on Amazon.

via Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com

via Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com

“it’s precisely because such fervent competition exists that these companies and so many others have been pushed to build their best-in-breed products: Kindle is better because of iBooks, Spotify is better because of Apple Music, and iOS is better because of Android. This list goes on and on and on”

A hack that allowed recording without any indicator.