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Alexa Can Now Deliver Long Form News Descriptions

 

The news you need, brought to your ears on command.

If you enjoy listening to your Amazon smart assistant summarize all the news headlines of the day using its ‘Flash Briefing’ function, then you’ll certainly enjoy its newest update. Amazon is now rolling out a new feature to allow Alexa owners to listen to long form news from their favorite news providers such as Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, NPR, and Newsy.

Previously, users were only able to access news headlines. After the update, users can use voice commands such as “Alexa, play news,” or “Alexa, tell me the news” to launch longer, more in-depth news stories. Users can also specify which news providers they want by saying “Alexa, play news from…” and mentioning the name of the news provider.

The stories can also include news from popular radio shows on NPR, top headlines from CNN, and video news from Newsy. Also, both Newsy and CNBC will offer news stories featuring videos on Alexa devices that have screens, such as the Echo Spot and the Echo Show. Meanwhile, the rest will be available only on audio.

Customers can binge-listen or binge-watch all the news stories from their favorite providers just by saying verbal commands such as “Alexa, next” or “Alexa, skip.” Settings for the long form news stories will be available in the same settings as the Flash Briefing stories.

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