Owner's Parrot Uses Alexa to Play Music, Order Food

The Times writes: “The African grey parrot has become so adept at giving orders to Amazon’s smart speaker system while his owner is out that he uses it to play songs, tell him jokes and even order treats.” I wonder if the parrot instructs Alexa to open the smart home door so Amazon can bring the food to the cage.

Amazon Unveiling New Hardware at Surprise Event Today

Amazon is hosting a surprise media event 1 PM eastern time on Thursday to announce new hardware products. The company isn’t saying what it’ll introduce, but it’s a safe bet the Echo is involved. Along with new smart speakers and a rumored Echo subwoofer, we may see some other gear outside the smart speaker space. The Verge says,

Amazon could be shifting focus toward Alexa in general, with plans to unveil up to eight smart home devices this year. Rumored products range from a voice-controlled in-car accessory to a smart microwave oven. The latter is particularly interesting given Amazon recently began offering Blue Apron-style meal kits, both online and at its Amazon Go cashier-less outposts. The smart oven, if confirmed, could potentially be tied to Whole Foods as well.

So maybe you’ll be talking to your microwave oven soon, or at least sharing more of your cooking habits with Amazon.

Is It Time to Replace Your AirPort Router? – Mac Geek Gab 707

APFS support in third-party apps continues to grow, there’s now an app to search for 32-bit apps, secondary iCloud IDs might work well for you, and Apple’s official acknowledgement of the end of the AirPort router line brings up one of our favorite topics again: what Wi-Fi solution is best for your home? John and Dave talk through all of this, all for you. Just like Sister Hazel sang. Or something like that. Just press play and enjoy!

As Far As You Know He’s Not a Real Doctor – Mac Geek Gab 702

Your questions, answered! That’s what we do here. Today’s show starts with some Cool Stuff Found items, including at least one that answers a question from a previous show about auto-captioning your videos! Then it’s on to figuring out where all your storage is being used, whether or not you should ignore those iOS relogin requests, and migrating Aperture to Photos. You like Quick Tips? We’ve got those, too. All this and more, folks!

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