Tech News Today 1806

Amazon has quietly started offering in-home installation of smart home devices, treading on Best Buy’s Geek Squad turf. Amazon Smart Home Services is live in seven markets, and has a focus on smart home installations that integrate Amazon’s voice assistant platform into the home.

Twitter announced new advanced filter settings for your personal war against trolls and bots. You can now mute any user who doesn't follow you, or any user who has a brand-new account. All of these measures are designed to control how much hate speech and misinformation you see, while simultaneously not blocking anyone's free speech.

Facebook announced another drop in the price of the Oculus Rift VR headset down from $499 to $399, and that includes an Oculus Touch controller! However, this price drop is for a limited time as the deal only lasts during the “Summer of Rift” promotion that should last through the end of the Summer.

We also talk to Adam Burakowski from The Wirecutter about how to find the best deals on Amazon Prime Day and Rob Reid tells us about his new science fiction publishing experiment and his new podcast with Tom Merritt.

 

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Links

• Best Buy Falls as Amazon Service Puts Geek Squad in Jeopardy
• New Twitter settings let users filter notifications
• Facebook drops the price of its Oculus VR hardware yet again
• The Best Amazon Prime Day Deals We’ve Seen So Far
• After On
• Dare!
• After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley
• After On - a novel of a Silicon Valley startup by Rob Reid
• How musician Shawn Wasabi helped develop the arcade-inspired Midi Fighter 64