Amazon wants to be under the Christmas tree this year. It's cut the price of its new Fire tablet almost in half and added its popular voice assistant, Alexa, in hopes of making it a hot holiday item, despite a slump in overall tablet sales. The new Fire HD8 tablet will cost 90, down from 150. Amazon cut the price of its new Fire tablet almost in half and added its popular voice assistant, Alexa, in hopes of making it a hot holiday item, despite a slump in overall tablet sales. Mixed-use battery life is up to 12 hours from 8, and the base storage is doubled to 16 gigabytes.

Amazon is eyeing spoken push notifications for the Amazon Echo, and it could either be a really great or a really terrible thing depending on how the service is set up. For instance, if Alexa could offer notifications customized by time, place and type, it could perhaps let you know if the email you've been waiting for about that event coming up has arrived. It could alert you to terrible traffic conditions in relation to appointments you need to make. That's looking on the bright side, however, as Alexa's spoken notifications could quickly bug users, even though it's an interesting suggestion for a feature. It would need a large set of customizational tools and permissions to work as flawlessly as it should in theory, but perhaps Amazon could figure it out.

The new Sling TV app looks a lot like a slightly tweaked version of its Summer redesign. The content-centric UI still features a My TV section, with the ability to resume watching paused shows, and the more convenient browsing interface, but navigation has been moved to the left side feel more natural to Windows users. Live Tiles, Cortana voice search and touch compatibility for tablets are also baked in. Sling TV says it will continue to support it's legacy desktop app for users on older platforms and those who simply don't wish to use the Windows Store. Sadly, that application isn't getting a visual overhaul: It's stuck with the same interface the service launched with over a year ago.

For decades, science fiction authors, futurists, and movie makers alike have been predicting the amazing (and sometimes catastrophic) changes that will arise with the advent of widespread artificial intelligence. So far, AI hasn't made any such crazy waves, and in many ways has quietly become ubiquitous in numerous aspects of our daily lives. From the intelligent sensors that help us take perfect pictures, to the automatic parking features in cars, to the sometimes frustrating personal assistants in smartphones, artificial intelligence of one kind of another is all around us, all the time. While we've yet to create self-aware robots like those that pepper popular movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars, we have made smart and often significant use of AI technology in a wide range of applications that, while not as mind-blowing as androids, still change our day-to-day lives. One place where artificial intelligence is poised to make big changes (and in some cases already is) is in education.

"Star Trek" first took viewers on a voyage to the Final Frontier 50 years ago on Sept. 8, 1966. That's when the original television show aired on NBC, introducing pop culture to a crew that would become iconic over the following half-century. But "Star Trek's" vision of the future didn't just inspire adoration for the swashbuckling Captain James T. Kirk or his logically inclined first officer, Spock. It also helped spur innovators to create technologies that have changed the way people live in the real world. Here are a few examples of the "Star Trek" tech that's now reality.

Amazon's digital assistant will soon be able to talk to you even if you haven't issued a voice command, according to a new paywalled report from The Information. As the outlet put it, your Echo could tell you when your Uber has arrived rather than waiting for you to ask it about your ride's status, for example. Amazon did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment about the update, which may come later this fall. Imagine if Siri could pipe up about a package delivery when you're in the middle of an intimate dinner While it may seem inconsequential, this would represent a major shift for the product and the entire category of personal, internet-connected assistants. Over 4 million Amazon Echo devices have been sold, so a more independent Alexa would help ease a lot of people into the idea of conversing with a robot -- as long as they don't mind a disembodied voice floating through their homes at odd moments.

It is something that many companies are trying at the moment, with Google, Microsoft and Facebook all introducing personal assistants that are equivalents of Apple's Siri, originally created in 2010. Since then, with the introduction of technologies and collaborations with companies like Wolfram Alpha (who also work with several other companies), Siri has improved, but not to the extent that its potential is crying out for. One of the clearest examples of this was their move to a neural net based system in 2014, which significantly improved the virtual assistant, but still didn't allow it to achieve what many expected. In fact, few even noticed a difference.

At Apple's iPhone 7 unveiling in San Francisco on Wednesday, the tech powerhouse revealed a host of new and updated hardware and software, including a new type of headphone jack and souped-up camera. As expected, iPhone is removing the standard analog headphone jack and forcing headphones to use its "Lightning" connector, which plugs into the phone's charging port. The iPhone 7 will come with an adapter so older earphones can still be used. But Apple is pushing Apple AirPods, which CEO Tim Cook says are a "breakthrough design," wireless headphones that sync across all Apple devices and respond to touch that can access Siri. The AirPods are shipping in late October and cost 160.

Amazon announced on Thursday an upgraded Fire HD 8 tablet with improved specifications and the arrival of its Alexa voice assistant to the mobile platform for the first time. Amazon's Echo Dot, Tap, Alexa equate to Amazon Everywhere strategy The company's Alexa platform--along with integration with third parties and replenishment systems like Dash--highlight an ambitious smart home and Internet of things effort. Now available to purchase on Amazon, the Fire HD 8's price has been dropped to 90 from 150 with the same 8-inch display and 1,280x800-pixel resolution, along with the addition of a larger 4,750mAh battery with a claimed 12 hours of charge, 1.5GB of RAM, 16GB or 32GB of storage, and a microSD slot for upgraded storage. If you're expecting a beast of tablet to take on the iPad or Galaxy Tab -- think again. However, the addition of the Alexa voice assistant is a promising feature, as we've seen with the hot sales and positive reviews of Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo speakers. Alexa, working similar to Google Now and Siri, can serve users with voice-prompted information like weather, news, and interestingly enough, an Uber.

Amazon's Alexa is present in millions of living rooms by way of the Echo speaker and the Fire TV. Now, Amazon's virtual assistant is coming to tablets with new 89.99 Fire HD 8, the company announced Thursday. Amazon is also pushing Alexa to last year's Fire HD 8 tablet as well as the 49.99 Fire and 229.99 Fire 10 through a free software update over the coming months. The new Fire HD 8 will be up for pre-order starting Thursday in 16GB or 32GB storage options.