Author: pekandesigns

Amazon today announced a significant partnership with Telenav, a connected car and location-based services provider. As part of the collaboration, Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, will now be part of Telenav’s in-car navigation systems. As it stands, Alexa lacks a lot of information that is pertinent to drivers. This collaboration should massively help to change that. […]

Motorola Solutions, which split off from Motorola Mobility back in 2011, has added a new license plate capture tool to it law enforcement suite with the acquisition of VaaS International Holdings today for $445 million in cash and equity. The acquisition should help enhance the company’s set of law enforcement products. “Within the public safety space [Motorola Solutions] […]

LG is opening the show with its CES press conference. Many consumer electronics companies are going to show us their new and shiny products all day long. And LG is starting at 8 AM Pacific, 11 AM Eastern, 2 PM in London. You can expect new TVs (4K? 8K? The sky is the limit), more […]

Spotify has begun testing a new type of ad in Discover Weekly, its personalized playlist of music that’s the streaming service’s flagship feature. The company says that, for the first time, it will allow a brand to “sponsor” this playlist as opposed to just running ads. It believes many advertisers will be interested in this […]

Meet KADRILJ and FYRTUR. They’re Ikea’s upcoming smart window blinds and they look great. The two product lines are battery-powered shades that can open and close through a dedicate app. They also interact with IKEA’s TRÅDFRI lighting gateway allowing homeowners to control the shades through Alexa, HomeKit and Google Assistant. Pricing is aggressive: 99 to […]

As with Android, Google’s goal with its voice-driven AI helper, Google Assistant, is to get it onto devices. Lots and lots of devices. And they’re making pretty damned good progress there. Ahead of CES this morning, Google dropped a little stat update: Google expects Assistant to be on 1 billion devices total by the end […]

Standard Cognition helps retail stores stand up to Jeff Bezos’ juggernaut. The $50 million-funded autonomous checkout startup is racing to equip bigger shops with scanless payment technology that lets customers walk out the door without ever stopping at a cashier. While Amazon Go opens its own 2,000 square foot boutiques, Standard Cognition is working on […]

Apple is reportedly gearing up for a new streaming TV service to rival Netflix, Amazon and Google this year, but in the meantime, it is also expanding interoperability with more third parties like smart TV makers to make what it already has available easier to use in the living room. In the latest development, smart TV […]