Amazon eyes ads and upcharges for Alexa Plus

Amazon’s new Alexa Plus voice assistant works with most existing Amazon devices. In the week’s least surprising news, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy revealed that the company is exploring ways to bring ads to Alexa Plus, its new generative-AI-powered voice assistant. During a conference call following the company’s second-quarter earnings report, Jassy said that “there will…

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Verizon is upping its fees again

Verizon just announced a three-year price lock in April, but now the company has confirmed that it’s “making some adjustments” that will raise the cost of your phone bill anyway. In a statement to The Verge, Verizon spokesperson Adria Tomaszewski says the “vast majority” of customers will see a price hike of “less than 30…

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Reddit pauses its paywall plans

Reddit is pausing its plans to let people make subreddits with content behind a paywall, CEO Steve Huffman said as part of Thursday’s earnings. The company is making the change as part of a shift in how it’s prioritizing its resources. Huffman said last year that the company was looking into a way for users…

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