Tag: #amazon

Auto Mode, a New Alexa Feature for the Vehicle. #AutoMode #Alexa #Amazon

Alexa is making it easier than ever to navigate, stay connected, and be entertained on-the-go, while helping you focus on the road ahead. Make the most of your drive with Auto Mode, a new feature that makes Alexa in the vehicle even better.

Auto Mode in the Alexa app lets you see and do more with your Echo Auto and supported Alexa auto accessories by turning your phone into a smart, driver-friendly display that enhances Alexa’s in-vehicle voice experience. Auto Mode was designed to help you stay focused on the road with easy to read visuals, large touch targets and intuitive features and shortcuts for the most common Alexa interactions used in the vehicle like navigating to saved locations, placing calls to contacts and Alexa devices, and playing recent media. Auto Mode consists of four screens — Home, Navigation, Communication, and Play — and a persistent menu bar allows users to quickly switch between them.

 

Let’s take a closer look: 

  • Home Screen: The Auto Mode home screen is designed to provide one-touch access to your frequent actions, with shortcuts to play and pause your current music source, navigate to home or work, and to make a call. You can simply tap on the shortcut to initiate the action or ask Alexa, for example “Alexa, continue playing my music.”
  • Navigate: The Navigate screen provides one click access to your favourite locations stored in the Alexa app. Choosing a destination will open your preferred navigation app and begin guidance. You can switch back to the Alexa app using only your voice by simply asking, “Alexa, go back to the Alexa app.” You can also ask Alexa to help you find someplace new, for example, “Alexa, find nearby coffee shops.” As Alexa reads back the responses, Auto Mode displays a simplified list showing only the most relevant information, allowing you to either use your voice to make a selection or simply touch on it to begin navigation.
  • Communicate: The Communicate screen allows you to easily place a call, Drop In, or make an announcement to your Alexa devices. You can ask Alexa to initiate the action or touch your selection, and Auto Mode will provide an easy to read list of recently placed calls and devices. If you want to drop in on your family to let them know you are headed home, you can say “Alexa, Drop In on my Kitchen Echo Show,” or simply tap on the screen and Alexa will do the rest.
  • Play: The Play screen shows the most recent media played using any Alexa device and a convenient button to play or pause, along with a list of most recently played media. Selecting any of the items in the list starts playing the media and brings up the Now Playing screen, which provides additional controls specific to the type of media being played and the service used. You can stay entertained while on-the-go just by asking Alexa or using Auto Mode’s shortcuts and easy touch controls.

Auto Mode is rolling out to Android and iOS in the coming weeks, and will be available in the U.K and Ireland.

Amazon – All-New Echo Family – Reimagined, Inside and Out.. #Amazon #Echo #Tech

Today, Amazon introduced its all-new line-up of Echo devices, featuring completely new designs, enhanced audio, more powerful hardware, and experiences that make Alexa even smarter, more engaging and helpful.

“These are the best Echo devices we have ever made,” said Eric Saarnio, Vice President Amazon Devices EU. “Echo and Echo Dot look beautiful and sound even better, and Echo Show 10 completely reimagines Alexa with a screen—the display moves with you, staying in view as you move around. It’s as natural as having a conversation. Plus, Alexa continues to get smarter—just ask to watch Netflix, make group calls and much more.”

The New Echo—New Spherical Design, Dolby Stereo Sound and Built-in Zigbee Hub

The next-generation Echo combines the best of Echo and Echo Plus into a single device at the same affordable Echo price.  Its all-new design and fabric finish looks great in any space, with a bright LED light ring at the base of the sphere that reflects off of surfaces for added visibility. The new Echo also sounds significantly better; thanks to a 3.0-inch woofer, dual-firing tweeters, and Dolby processing that delivers stereo sound with clear highs, dynamic-mids, and deep bass. As with Echo Studio, the new Echo automatically senses the acoustics of your space and fine-tunes audio playback – just ask to listen to your favourite music and the rich, detailed sound automatically adapts to any room. For the first time, Echo also comes with a built-in smart home hub, with support for Zigbee, and supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).

 

Echo Dot & Echo Dot with clock—New Spherical Design and Crisp, Full Sound

Echo Dot, our best-selling smart speaker is now even better. The all-new Echo Dot has the same spherical design and fabric finish as Echo, making it a stylish way to add Alexa to any space. It’s compact, but packs in a powerful 1.6-inch front-firing speaker, producing crisp vocals and balanced bass for full sound you can enjoy in any room of your home. The new Echo Dot with clock comes with the same enhancements as the new Echo Dot, plus a simple LED display so you can glance at the time, temperature, timers, and alarms. And now, the tap-to-snooze feature that customers love on Echo Dot with clock will also be available on Echo Dot and Echo.

 

 

Echo Show 10—Designed to Move with You

The all-new Echo Show 10 is a complete re-imagination of Alexa with a screen, and has been upgraded in every way. It features a brilliant 10-inch, adaptive HD display that automatically stays in view when you interact with Alexa—no matter where you are in the room. Plus, the new brushless motor is completely silent, meaning you won’t hear a thing as Echo Show 10 rotates.

Ask Alexa to make a video call without worrying about being out of frame – as you move, the screen does too, and the new 13-megapixal, wide-angle camera pans and zooms to keep you at the centre of the frame. Plus, with new Alexa Group Calling you can create a group of up to eight friends and family members, and simply say, “Alexa, call my family”.

As Echo Show 10 moves, so does its dual, front-firing tweeters and powerful woofer, providing premium, directional sound that automatically adapts to your space, making it great for all kinds of music, videos and more. Echo Show 10 will also rotate as you watch the news, flash briefings, or TV shows from Prime Video. And, coming soon you will be able to watch Netflix* simply by asking Alexa, with the ability to search, browse, and stream the entire catalogue by voice.

“Improving our member experience includes making Netflix available where people want it. We’re excited to partner with Amazon on bringing the Netflix experience that people know and love to Echo Show, making it easier for our members to browse their favourite shows and films using their voice,” Barry Smith, Partner Engagement Manager, Netflix.

 

 

Echo Show 10 uses advanced computer vision algorithms to help make your home smarter and more secure. You can also securely access a live feed on Echo Show 10 from another Echo Show device, or the Alexa app, with the ability to remotely zoom or pan the display and camera to see the entire room; or set up a Routine that automatically turns on the lights when someone enters the room. Plus, its built-in smart home hub capabilities include support for Zigbee and BLE.

As with all Echo devices, Echo Show 10 is designed and built with privacy in mind. It uses a fusion of audio-based localisation and computer vision – all processed locally on device – to power the intelligent motion that keeps the screen facing you. Turn motion off at any time by sliding the built-in camera cover closed, adjusting settings on-device or in the Alexa app, or just by saying “Alexa, turn off motion.”

Sustainable

All Echo devices announced today are built with 100% post-consumer recycled fabric, 100% recycled die-cast aluminium, and post-consumer recycled plastic. Plus, all wood fibre-based materials used in Echo device packaging are made entirely from responsibly managed forests or recycled sources. In addition to using sustainable materials, these Echo devices also have a Low Power Mode**, to intelligently conserve energy during periods of inactivity, and deliver energy savings over the lifetime of the device.

Pricing and Availability

Echo (£89.99) and Echo Dot (£49.99) will be available in Charcoal, Glacier White, and Twilight Blue. Echo Dot with clock (£59.99) will be available in Glacier White and Twilight Blue. Pre-order starts today with new devices shipping later this year. They will also be available at Argos, Currys PC World, very.co.uk, littlewood.com, and Tesco.

Echo Show 10 (£239.99) will be available in Charcoal and Glacier White. You can sign up to be notified when the new Echo Show 10 is available. All new Echo Show features announced today will be available by the end of the year.

To learn about all the products, features, and services that Amazon announced, visit the blog post here.

This year’s hottest gadgets for pupils and students of all ages. #backtoschool #tech #students

With the new school year just around the corner, help your kids to transition back to school life with these practical yet cool gadgets and accessories. Whether it’s helping them to get up in the morning or improving their homework experience, there is something for pupils of all ages, from primary school to university.

 

Groov-e Kidz

Price: £29.99 REVIEWED

Available from Groov-e

 

These headphones are ideal for online learning and group homework projects, in addition to leisure activities. The Groov-e Kidz are designed with kids in mind, the soft ear pads ensure a comfortable fit for long periods of time.

 

Suited for use with all devices, these headphones even include a built-in audio-sharing port for them and their music loving friends to listen together. The Kidz headphones offer up to 7.5 hours playtime however the optional 3.5mm headphone jack means they can continue to be used for even longer. They are available in blue or pink.

 

Groov-e Apollo

Price: £29.99 REVIEWED

Available from Groov-e

 

Perfect for students of any age – whether they’re doing homework on their computer, reading books before bed or chilling after a busy day in lectures – the Apollo is a stylish LED lamp, wireless charger and Bluetooth speaker in one.

Lightweight, flexible and USB powered, the touch-controlled Apollo can be used anywhere. To give a compatible mobile device some extra juice simply place it on the base of the lamp for safe charging with no messy cables. Simply connect to the Apollo via Bluetooth and users can hear their favourite tunes around the room through the built-in 3W speaker.

Available in black or white, the Apollo provides a warm LED light with three colour settings making it a must-have for any desk or bedside table.

 

Groov-e Light Curve Wake Up

Price: £39.99

Available from Groov-e

 

If getting them up for school in the morning is a challenge, particularly in the winter months, this radio alarm clock is ideal. The sunrise simulator function offers a more natural wake up, which is ideal for dark mornings. The Light Curve also has seven different mood light functions, perfect for bedtime reading. Older children or university students will also appreciate the FM Radio function so they can listen to music while getting ready for school.

 

Groov-e Aura

Price: £44.99

Available from Groov-e

 

The perfect home study companion, the Aura is a 3-in-1 wireless charger, Bluetooth speaker and touch control LED light. With a futuristic yet subtle design that will look good in any room, users simply place their device on the integrated charging base to give it more juice. What’s more if they want to listen to their favourite tunes while doing homework, the built-in Bluetooth speaker means they can do just that.

 

Whether reading before bed, getting ready in the morning or studying, the three LED light settings of low, medium and high mean users can choose the best lighting to suit their needs.

 

Twelve South Compass Pro

Price: £49.99

Available from Amazon UK

 

The iPad Pro is the perfect gadget for creative children and students and the Compass Pro is designed with creativity in mind. This versatile, all-metal folding stand, described as the iPad’s ‘easel’, can hold the iPad at three different angles for when they’re sketching, doing homework or learning remotely. As well as its stylish, high-quality finish, the Compass Pro folds away and so can be used at home, school, university, coffee shops and more!

 

Twelve South PowerPic

Price: £79.99

Available from Amazon UK

 

The PowerPic, a wireless phone charger disguised as a picture frame, is ideal for students returning to university accommodation. The perfect desk or nightstand companion, it charges their phone wirelessly while also displaying their favourite photo, whether that be of family, friends or pets! It also charges through phone cases up to 3mm thick.

 

Twelve South HiRise Wireless

Price: £79.99 REVIEWED 

Available from Amazon UK

 

HiRise Wireless is a 3-function beauty: a gorgeous upright desktop stand for mobile phones, a wireless charging pad for AirPods and a USB-C portable wireless charger for travel, all in one beautiful chrome and leather package. It’s a useful gadget for students who are always on the go and need to stay connected.

 

Twelve South HiRise for MacBook

Price: £59.99

Available from Amazon UK

 

People of all ages suffer from neck pain caused by poor posture and too many hours spent looking down at a screen. Having a good laptop stand like the Twelve South HiRise for MacBook will make studying instantly more comfortable and healthier. HiRise for MacBook is a beautifully designed, height adjustable stand that elevates your laptop. HiRise does what fixed stands can’t do, letting you set your screen height from a few inches up to half a foot off your desk making it perfect for MacBook users of all sizes.

 

Groov-e Artemis

Price: £34.99

Available from Groov-e

 

The sleek and stylish Artemis is a wireless charging station and LED Touch Lamp in one. Available in black or white, it is the perfect gadget for teenagers’ bedrooms or student accommodation, simply place a wireless enabled device on top of the Artemis for quick and convenient wireless charging.

 

With a unique and modern design, the Artemis also features a touch sensitive light bar which provides three brightness settings (low, medium and high) using long-life energy saving LED’s.

 

Evernote

Price: Basic package is free

Available from Evernote

 

For older children and college/university students, organisation is key but also a skill that takes time to master! Evernote takes the stress out of managing their own time and to-do lists, by offering them a digital solution with reminders. It is also compatible with voice command, which is perfect for the younger generation.

 

Pocketalk

Price: £249.00

Available from Amazon UK

 

A must-have gadget for any students studying abroad this year, Pocketalk S is a multi-sensory, two-way translation device designed for easy naturally flowing conversations, even in noisy environments. With a sleek design encompassing a large touchscreen, two high-quality speakers, noise-cancelling microphones and a text-to-translate camera, Pocketalk S is able to create connections across 74 different languages in over 130 countries and regions. By utilising the best translation engines from around the world, Pocketalk S provides a consistently accurate translation for deciphering public transportation signs, menus, and creates the best experience by picking up localised dialects and slang.

Formula 1 and AWS tap into machine learning and cloud technology to identify the fastest driver of all time #F1 #AWS

As part of the Formula 1 70th anniversary year, the pinnacle of motorsport has been working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to compare driver speeds throughout the ages and define an ultimate ranking of the fastest drivers ever. Fastest Driver, the latest F1 Insight powered by AWS, is a unique tool that uses machine learning technology to provide an objective, data-driven ranking of all drivers from 1983 through present day, by removing the F1 car differential from the equation.

Ranked by qualifying speed – the fastest that all drivers traverse the course during a Grand Prix weekend –  three-time World Champion Ayrton Senna came out on top, with the Brazilian closely followed by seven-time World Champion, Michael Schumacher with a time differential of +0.114 seconds to Senna, and current World Champion Lewis Hamilton rounding out the top three, achieving a relative time of +0.275 seconds.

By comparing teammates in qualifying sessions, the machine learning-based tool focuses on a driver’s performance output, building a network of teammates across the time-range, all interlinked, and therefore comparable. By comparing laptimes between teammates only, the Fastest Driver algorithm effectively normalises for car and the team performance. Overall, this builds up a picture of how drivers from different generations compare, by analysing the purest indication of raw speed – the qualifying lap.

As a part of F1 Insights, it also provides a unique understanding into a similar exercise F1 teams undergo to define their target drivers for upcoming seasons, but is here applied over a 37-year period of F1 history, despite the differences in rules and machinery.

By using AWS’s machine learning technology, data scientists from F1 and the Amazon Machine Learning (ML) Solutions Lab have for the first time in history created a cross-era, objective, complex, data-driven ranking of driver speed – the Fastest Driver insight.

The output from the Fastest Driver insight is a dataset with rankings based on speed (or qualifying times) in descending order of outputs including: Driver, Rank (integer), and Gap to best (seconds, to 0.001s).

The full top 10 driver rankings includes current F1 stars Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, and Sebastian Vettel, former World Champions Fernando Alonso and Nico Rosberg, and fan favourites Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli. Further drivers will be announced on F1.com in the coming weeks as the season continues and more data is analysed.

A detailed explainer video and analysis of the data can be found here..

Ranking Driver Timings
 1. Ayrton Senna 0.000
 2. Michael Schumacher 0.114
 3. Lewis Hamilton 0.275
 4. Max Verstappen 0.280
5. Fernando Alonso 0.309
6. Nico Rosberg 0.374
7. Charles Leclerc 0.376
8. Heikki Kovalainen 0.378
9. Jarno Trulli 0.409
10. Sebastian Vettel 0.435

Dean Locke, Director of Broadcast & Media F1 said: “This has been such an exciting project to work on, stripping back the man from the machine and looking at a wealth of data of each driver throughout history. With the help of AWS we have been able to address something that has been asked for many years and rank drivers by the one raw attribute of pure speed in one flying lap, across the ages, regardless of how good their car is or isn’t.”

Rob Smedley, Director of Data Systems, F1 said: “Within the team environment this type of modelling is used to make key decisions on driver choices. As drivers are more often than not the most expensive asset of the team it is important that the selection process is as robust as possible. A process such as this therefore would be deployed by the F1 team’s strategists in order to present the most objective and evidence-based selection possible. Fastest Driver enables us to build up a picture of how the drivers compare, by analysing the purest indication of raw speed, the qualifying lap – and it’s important to note this pure speed is the only element of the vast driver armoury we are analysing here, to showcase the quickest drivers ever, which is very exciting.”

Dr. Priya Ponnapalli, Principal Scientist and Senior Manager, Amazon ML Solutions Lab, AWS, said: “We’re excited to be able to continue to collaborate with an organisation like F1, which has such a data-rich catalogue of information. With machine learning, there are a number of opportunities to apply the technology to answer complex problems, and in this case, we hope to help settle age-old disputes with fans by using data to inform  decisions. For us at AWS, it’s exciting to see machine learning being used in a way that everyone can relate to.”

Amazon Prime subscription scam call renewal to watch out for. #AmazonPrime #Fraud #Scam

This morning we had two calls from the same guy who claimed to be FRANK MURPHY from Amazon PRIME services and saying our Amazon Subscription should be renewed at a cost of €79.99 These calls are automated though,however on the second call we got an operator called Frank Murphy who claims to be from Amazon but obviously not who then asked for some information which you can guess by now is credit card details. This scam has been going on a while in the UK. Earlier in the year this was happening here in Ireland but now seems to be back in action.

After being asked to press 1he said calls are recorded for training and quality purposes which is utter bullshit and once telling him the same back he then hung up, Above is the two numbers you need to watch out for and just block them on your house phone or mobile phone. Other incidents on similar scams would be to download software onto your PC and this gets them access to everything, Amazon never ask for such information or call you either to renew subscription so be aware it has already cost people millions. These calls came in on our senior posters house phone but we will try record them in full should they come back or call my mobile as I have call recording software on it,that will be interesting.

If it happens to you head here

Update. Called back again. Have a listen https://youtu.be/k0r08sScbt0

Review – The EONO 360-degree car phone holder. #EONO #Amazon #Tech

The EONO car phone holder is a dashboard mounted phone holder rather than the typical window mounted one which uses suction cups to hold the unit,this is dash mounted by a big circular pad with 3M stickers so it is not going to move,this also makes it more stable too.

Installing is simple,clean the surface area apply the base pad then remove the protective tape and you are good to go ,this is as mentioned very stable and will not budge. This has no power to it so it is stick down and job done. You can use this in a vertical or horizonal mode and is secured by three staged clips on the horiztonal and the device will not budge in any postion which is important.

This unit is ideal for passengers too and it can be rotated to either side and ideal for maps and perhaps having your music selection at hand.

  • 【Universal Compatibility】Fits most cell phones and GPS devices from 3.0-6.8 inches; compatible with iPhone 11 Pro, Pro Max, Xs Max, XR, X, 8, 7, 7s, 6s, 6 Plus, Huawei, Samsung Galaxy S20, S10, S9, S8, S7, HTC, LG, Nexus, Nokia, etc.
  • 【360-Degree Rotation】The base rotates a full 360 degrees, so it’s easy to adjust to any viewing angle and is safe to use when driving; it won’t block your windscreen whether you’re talking, navigating, listening to music, or charging
  • 【Removable and Washable】 The sticky silicone material won’t leave marks on your dashboard and can easily be removed, washed, and reused; please note that the 3M adhesive patch cannot be reused
  • 【Horizontal or Vertical Use】Can be used either horizontally or vertically; use vertically when driving or turn horizontal to let a passenger watch videos; this mount will only stick on smooth-surfaced dashboards; phone can only be charged in horizontal position

BUY HERE

AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon CodeGuru. #AWS #CodeGuru #Amazon

Today, Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company announced the general availability of Amazon CodeGuru, a developer tool powered by machine learning that provides intelligent recommendations for improving code quality and identifying an application’s most expensive lines of code. Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer helps improve code quality by scanning for critical issues, identifying bugs, and recommending how to remediate them.

Amazon CodeGuru Profiler helps developers find an application’s most expensive lines of code along with specific visualizations and recommendations on how to improve code to save money. Amazon CodeGuru can be enabled with a few clicks in the AWS console, customers only pay for their actual use of Amazon CodeGuru, and it’s easy and affordable enough to run on every code review and application in an organization. To get started with Amazon CodeGuru, visit http://aws.amazon.com/codeguru

Just like Amazon.com, AWS customers write a lot of code. Software development is a well understood process. Developers write code, review it, compile the code and deploy the application, measure the performance of the application, and use that data to improve the code. Then, they rinse and repeat. Yet, all of this process doesn’t matter if the code is incorrect to begin with, which is why teams perform code reviews to check the logic, syntax, and style before new code is added to an existing application code base.

Even for a large organization like Amazon, it’s challenging to have enough experienced developers with enough free time to do code reviews, given the amount of code that gets written every day. And even the most experienced reviewers miss problems before they impact customer-facing applications, resulting in bugs and performance issues. Even after an application is up and running, developers still need to monitor performance to make sure it is running efficiently.

Typically, developers monitor application performance through logging, which allows them to observe how much time an application takes to complete a task. However, logging is cumbersome to implement (requiring developers to instrument every function in the application), negatively impacts application performance, and doesn’t measure other metrics like CPU utilization that contribute to compute costs, leaving developers without a tool to effectively identify cost-saving opportunities for applications in production. Organizations often incur unnecessarily higher costs (sometimes upwards of tens of millions of dollars) for running applications that are in need of further optimizations because these applications consume more CPU and infrastructure than they should.

Amazon CodeGuru is a new developer service that uses machine learning to automate both code reviews during application development and profiling of applications in production. Amazon CodeGuru has two components:

  • Code Reviewer: Developers can use machine learning-powered Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer to automatically flag common issues that deviate from best practices (potentially leading to production issues), while also providing specific recommendations on how to fix them, including example code and links to relevant documentation. For code reviews, developers commit their code as usual to the repository of their choice (e.g. GitHub, GitHub Enterprise, Bitbucket Cloud, AWS CodeCommit) and add Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer as one of the code reviewers, with no other changes to the normal development process. Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer analyzes existing code bases in the repository, identifies hard to find bugs and critical issues with high accuracy, provides intelligent suggestions on how to remediate them, and creates a baseline for successive code reviews. To do so, Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer opens a pull request and automatically starts evaluating the code using machine learning models that have been trained on several decades of code reviews at Amazon.com and over ten thousand open-source projects on GitHub. If Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer discovers an issue (e.g. thread safety issues, use of un-sanitized inputs, inappropriate handling of sensitive data such as credentials, resource leaks, redundant copy and pasted code, deviation from best practices for using Java and AWS APIs, etc.), it will add a human-readable comment to the pull request that identifies the line of code, specific issue, and recommended remediation. Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer also provides a pull request dashboard that lists information for all code reviews (e.g. status of the code review, number of lines of code analyzed, and the number of recommendations). Users may also give feedback on CodeGuru Reviewer recommendations by clicking on a thumbs up or thumbs down icon, which helps improve recommendations over time using machine learning.

  • Application Profiler: Developers can use machine learning-powered Amazon CodeGuru Profiler to identify the most expensive lines of code (in terms of potential estimated dollar savings) by helping them understand the runtime behavior of their applications (including serverless applications running via AWS Lambda or AWS Fargate), identify and remove code inefficiencies, improve performance, and significantly decrease compute costs. For example, Amazon’s internal teams have used Amazon CodeGuru Profiler on more than 30,000 production applications, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in savings on compute and infrastructure costs. Further, the Amazon.com Consumer Payments team used Amazon CodeGuru Profiler from 2017 to 2018 to gain efficiencies for the biggest shopping day of the year – Prime Day – and realized a 325% efficiency increase in CPU utilization across their applications and lowered costs by 39%. To get started with Amazon CodeGuru Profiler, customers install a small, low-profile agent in their application that can observe the application run time and profile the application to detect code quality issues (e.g. recreation of expensive objects, use of inefficient libraries, evaluating null or undefined values, etc.) along with details on latency and CPU usage. Amazon CodeGuru Profiler then uses machine learning to automatically identify code methods (reusable blocks of code also called functions) and anomalous behaviors that are most impacting latency and CPU usage. This information is brought together in a profile that clearly shows the areas of code that are most inefficient and provides visualizations that identify the code methods that are creating bottlenecks, along with a time-series graph of detected anomalies. The profile includes recommendations on how developers can fix issues to improve performance and also estimates the cost (in dollars) of continuing to run inefficient code so developers can prioritize remediation. Developers can now take advantage of the same technology deployed at Amazon to improve application performance and customer experiences, while also eliminating their most expensive lines of code.

“Our customers develop and run a lot of applications that include millions and millions of lines of code. Ensuring the quality and efficiency of that code is incredibly important, as bugs and inefficiencies in even a few lines of code can be very costly. Today, the methods for identifying code quality issues are time-consuming, manual, and error-prone, especially at scale,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President, Amazon Machine Learning, Amazon Web Services, Inc. “CodeGuru combines Amazon’s decades of experience developing and deploying applications at scale with considerable machine learning expertise to give customers a service that improves software quality, delights their customers with better application performance, and eliminates their most expensive lines of code.”

Amazon CodeGuru is available today in US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), EU (London), EU (Frankfurt), EU (Stockholm), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo) with availability in additional regions in the coming months.

Teams at more than 170,000 companies rely on Atlassian products to make teamwork easier, and help them organize, discuss, and complete their work. “At Atlassian, many of our services have hundreds of check-ins per deployment. While code reviews from our development team do a great job of preventing bugs from reaching production, it’s not always possible to predict how systems will behave under stress or manage complex data shapes, especially as we have multiple deployments per day,” said Zak Islam, Head of Engineering, Tech Teams, Atlassian. “When we detect anomalies in production, we have been able to reduce the investigation time from days to hours and sometimes minutes thanks to Amazon CodeGuru’s continuous profiling feature. Our developers now focus more of their energy on delivering differentiated capabilities and less time investigating problems in our production environment.”

EagleDream Technologies is a trusted cloud-native transformation company and APN Premier Consulting Partner for businesses using AWS. “Part of application development is the creation of performant systems as well as the feedback and continuous improvement of existing systems. This starts with a strong architectural foundation but often ends in the details of the application code. When our team at EagleDream is digging into these details there are a variety of tools at our disposal, and using both static and dynamic analysis is helpful,” said Dustin Potter, Principal Could Solutions Architect at EagleDream Technologies. “We’ve found that the runtime analysis offered by the CodeGuru Profiler is one of the simplest and fastest to get running, and generates insights into the application code that are easy to remediate. Using this tool we’ve been able to quickly hone in on portions of an application that represent bottlenecks that would have otherwise been difficult to spot, then develop changes that can be implemented and tested with a very fast feedback loop. This allows us to continuously deliver and improve our own workloads and the workloads of our customers, making them more performant while saving on cost at the same time.”

DevFactory manages over 600 million lines of code across over a hundred enterprise software products. “A key component of our future roadmap is to turn all our products into cloud-native products that leverage the incredible array of managed services available at AWS. Rebuilding old school, on-prem architectures, and transforming them for the cloud brings a whole set of engineering challenges that range from keeping abreast with all the latest services to adjusting to the paradigm shift that is associated with these architectures,” said Rahul Subramaniam, CEO at DevFactory. “CodeGuru is an incredibly valuable tool that helps optimize our products’ performance while making sure that we are leveraging these services with all the best practices in place. Without tools like CodeGuru Reviewer, we wouldn’t have been able to rewrite entire products like FogBugz to be AWS cloud-native. We are now using CodeGuru Profiler to optimize a number of products including EngineYard’s container-based ‘No Ops’ platform and well as the next generation of the Jive collaboration platform.”

RENGA, Inc. is a company that operates one of Japan’s largest condominium reviews and evaluation sites used by more than 1 million people every month. “Poor quality code adds complexity to the system and can become technical debt at some point. On the other hand, as long as consistent code quality is maintained, scaling the system won’t prevent developers from extending features as the code itself is simple,” said Kazuma Ohara, CTO at RENGA. “At RENGA, the code review process is important, however, it should not increase workload for reviewers or become a bottleneck in development. Powered by machine learning, Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer helped us automate code reviews and reduced the workload required on reviewers. We could seamlessly integrate Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer into our existing development pipeline. Furthermore, learning the best practices of coding – which we were not aware of – has helped us develop with more confidence.”

​YouCanBook.me is a small, independent, and fully remote team, that loves solving scheduling problems all over the world. “Our use of Amazon CodeGuru Profiler is very simple but extremely valuable,” said Sergio Delgado, Engineering Team Lead at YouCanBook.me. “We’ve optimized our worst performant service to reduce its latency by 15% for the 95th percentile in a typical work day.”

Amazon launches Echo Auto in Ireland. Available to buy today. #Amazon #EchoAuto

Amazon today announced Echo Auto is coming to Ireland and the UK. Echo Auto is the first Echo device designed for use on the road, giving you an easy and affordable way to add the power of Alexa on the go. Echo Auto is available from today on Amazon.co.uk as well as Argos, Dixons and Very.co.uk for just £49.99.

“Customers tell us they want to take Alexa with them everywhere they go.  We’re delighted to offer them an easy way to add Alexa to the car they already own.” said Eric Saarnio, Vice President, Amazon Devices EU. “With Echo Auto, customers can now enjoy the convenience of Alexa on the road, giving them the ability to play music, make calls, continue their audiobook, play games, manage their reminders and more—all just by using their voice.”

Echo Auto features a custom-designed eight-microphone array which has been designed to account for challenging in-car acoustics, enabling Alexa to hear commands over music, air conditioning and ambient road noise. Powered by your car’s 12V power outlet or integrated USB port, Echo Auto connects to your stereo system through a 3.5 mm audio jack or Bluetooth. Echo Auto connects to Alexa through the Alexa app on your smartphone, iOS or Android, and uses your existing phone’s data plan for connectivity and to access a range of Alexa features such as music, calling and more.

With Echo Auto, just ask Alexa to hear your morning news, listen to an Audible audiobook and more. You can also set reminders to pick up your dry cleaning on your way home, control your smart home devices, build your shopping list or manage your calendar—all while your eyes stay on the road.

With tens of thousands of skills and counting, Alexa is always getting smarter. Skills are like apps and help you do more, such as play relaxing sounds or test your music knowledge. Just say, “Alexa, what are your top skills?”

Echo Auto is available from today, June 17th, from Amazon.co.uk as well as Argos, Dixons and Very.co.uk. For more information please visit www.amazon.co.uk/echoauto.

Review – Charmast 10000 mAh and 10400 mAh portable powerbanks with some extras. #Charmast #Charging

Still suffering from battery anxiety?? Yes many of us are but there are affordable solutions at hand in the form of portable powerbanks which come in all shapes and sizes and of course prices. Powebanks come in some huge formats and portable options too with some neat tricks on offer too on th emore expensive ones but today we have two portable ones that will not break the bank and both of these can be picked up for around 25 euro.

They are the typical industry look but on the slim side yet offer a bit more than the single output offerings. With the 104000 mAh option you can charge up to 3 devices at once or one device several times depending on its battery capacity but the thing is here the portability factor and sharing factor so the like of this is ideal for travel,camping and more even for just one person use especially if you carry more than one device you can charge your phone and true wireless earbuds for example.

BUY THE CHARMAST 104000 mAh on Amazon.

This device offers an LED display too giving the power status which is handy and keeps you in check of its own status so you can recharge when required. Mmost people think powerbanks are for just mobile phones,they are not you can charge any peripheral or tablet and more so there is great diversity there. These also offer faster charging than the typical dirt we see in local shops or euro stores.

The smaller of the two though has some other ideas with an in built torch and once again the option to charge more than one device on the go which again is ideal and this one is more rounded than its sister and might be better for portablility but having said that both are really portable and descrete looking but do the job they intend to do and give you a little more value for your money even though they have that industrial design look but who cares it is power at hand on the go and can serve more than one device and one person..

BUY THE CHARMAST 10000 mAh on Amazon.