Amazon letting Tap users summon Alexa hands-free

Up to now, the portable Bluetooth and WiFi-enabled Amazon Tap speaker has required you to press a microphone button to summon Amazon's popular digital assistant Alexa. By contrast, with Amazon's Echo and Dot speakers you merely had to bark out the wake word "Alexa" to ask her to play music, deliver the news, answer questions and more--those devices are always listening. On Thursday, Amazon announced a free over-the-air software update that will let you similarly exploit all Alexa can do hands-free with the "Alexa" wake word, so long as Tap is connected to Wi-Fi. You'll be able to enable this hands-free mode via a setting inside the Alexa app on your phone. From there, you can ask away: "Alexa, what's the weather in New York?" "Alexa, play Stevie Wonder," "Alexa, tell me a joke" and so on.