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Amazon's next-generation smart assistant has entered its Early Access program in the UK, marking Alexa 's European debut following rollouts in the US, Canada and Mexico. Starting March 19, invitations to start using the smarter, more conversational Alexa will be sent out to "hundreds of thousands" of willing participants, Amazon said in a press release, adding that Alexa is the most popular voice assistant in the UK.
As well as its more natural communication, agentic capabilities, contextual awareness and ability to remember previous conversations across devices, Amazon that users across the pond are getting an "authentically British" AI-powered assistant. It understands slang terms like "cuppa" and might even accuse you of taking the mick in the middle of a conversation. Can we rule out some cringe-inducing cockney impersonations? Absolutely not. It also distinguishes between, for example, how people in the UK say the date — "the 1st of April" — versus how it's said in the US.
Amazon said that engineers, linguists and speech scientists have worked together at the company's Cambridge-based Tech Hub to ensure the voice assistant understands British users, with naturally flowing conversations being a crucial part of the Alexa experience.
On the agentic side of things, the current lineup of UK partners will include OpenTable and, soon, JustEat, alongside existing partnerships with services like Spotify, Philips and Apple Music. Amazon also sources news from the likes of The Guardian
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It's hard for most people to justify spending $3,299 on a monitor, but creative pros will gladly do so if it makes their jobs easier. Apple's 27-inch 5K Studio Display XDR is aimed straight at those folks and it costs considerably less than the company's previous high-end monitor, the 6K Pro Display XDR.
Thanks to the Mini LED IPS panel, the Studio Display XDR has higher brightness and color accuracy than nearly any other monitor on the market. It also has tech that boosts contrast to outperform similar displays. With its unique combination of features, the Studio Display XDR isn't as overpriced as you might think, and it has high appeal for me as a video editor. I do, however, wish it was bigger.
Design and features
If you're familiar with Apple's previous Studio Display, you'll have a good idea of the Studio Display XDR's design. The body has a high-quality brushed aluminum finish, with small holes across the top and bottom designed to vent heat from the built-in, nearly silent fan.
It has enough internal hardware to be a standalone computer, as it's equipped with an A19 Pro processor and 12GB (!) of RAM — more than Apple's new MacBook Neo laptop. That extra horsepower is required for all of the image processing, dimming algorithms, webcam operation and HDR tone-mapping.
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