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Amazon’s Fire TV lineup has gone from a perfectly simple concepta stick that streams videoto a corporate naming convention nightmare. Theres the HD, the 4K Select, the 4K Plus, the 4K Max, and the Cube. Clear as mud. Lets try to make sense of this lineup, shall we? The Budget Basement: Fire TV Stick HD The Fire TV Stick HD is your entry point. It handles 1080p, and that’s pretty much the whole story. It works fine for an older TVthe kind you put in the guest room or the garage. At $25, its cheap, it’s simple, and it’s a little slow, both performance-wise and thanks to its aging Wi-Fi 5 chipset. If you have a 4K television, walk past this one and don’t look back. If you insist on buying it, wait for a sale. They happen often. The New Low-End: Fire TV Stick 4K Select Ah, the “Select.” This is Amazon’s latest attempt to offer a budget 4K option. Yes, it does 4K, and yes, at $40, its reasonably cheap. But you need to know what youre losing. For starters, it skimps on internal memory (1GB of RAM), meaning itll feel a bit sluggish. Like the HD, its hamstrung with Wi-Fi 5. And perhaps more importantly, it skips Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Those two formats are crucial for getting the best picture and sound out of a modern 4K TV and sound system. The lag you’ll feel is a constant reminder that you saved a few bucks. If the price doesnt drop ludicrously low, proceed with caution. Middle Road Mastery: Fire TV Stick 4K Plus The Fire TV Stick 4K Plus is the renamed and now slightly easier-to-understand mid-tier offering (it was the Fire TV Stick 4K). For most people, this is the smart, safe purchase. For just $10 more than the Select, it brings back the crucial features the Select is missing: a full 2GB of RAM for snappy performance, full support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, and Wi-Fi 6 for more stable streaming. Ironically, at the time of this writing, its actually on sale for $10 less than the Select, making it a total no-brainer. Its the baseline where your 4K TV finally gets to stretch its legs and deliver the visual punch it was designed for. When in doubt, start here. Performance King: Fire TV Stick 4K Max The Fire TV Stick 4K Max is the stick for the enthusiast, the gamer, and the person who simply hates waiting for stuff to load. The $60 4K Max takes the “Plus” model and stuffs it with extra muscle: a faster processor, 16GB of storage (double the others for more apps), and, most critically, Wi-Fi 6E. If you have a compatible router, Wi-Fi 6E gives you a dedicated, fast lane for streaming, virtually eliminating buffering and lag, especially when the rest of the house is clogging the network. If you plan on doing any cloud gaming, or just want the smoothest, most responsive experience without buying a whole cube, the 4K Max is the clear winner. The All-Powerful Hub: Fire TV Cube While the Fire TV Cube is not stick-shaped, its the big dog here, a streaming box that makes even the 4K Max look like childs play. Its processor is the fastest of the bunch and includes an integrated Ethernet port for a rock-solid wired connection. Its main party trick is hands-free Alexa control. You can tell your TV to switch inputs, turn on the lights, and launch a show without ever touching the remote. This is a powerful, top-tier device built for the smart home fanatic, with a $140 price tag. If your entertainment center is your smart home control panel, and money is less of an object, the Cube is your choice. For everyone else, its probably overkill. The bottom line Skip the HD unless you have an HD-only TV Be wary of the 4K Select; it strips out too many key premium features to justify the small savings The 4K Plus is a solid, well-rounded performer If you want the best performance for your dollarthe perfect balance of speed, features, and future-proofingit’s the Fire TV Stick 4K Max If you want it all and then some, the Cube is for you
Category:
E-Commerce
For decades now, tech companies have been promising us a future straight out of Star Trek. Instead of being confined to phones and computers, our digital lives would extend to a network of screens all around us, from connected TVs and smart fridges to kitchen countertop displays and car dashboards. The tech companies called this “ambient computing” or “ubiquitous computing” and extolled how it would get technology out of the way so we could focus on the real world. Here’s what we’ve got instead: Samsung’s smart refrigerators, which range from $1,899 to $3,499, have started showing advertisements on their screens. Amazon’s Echo Show smart displays now have ads that you can’t turn off, even if you’re paying $20 per month for the upgraded Alexa+ assistant. Amazon also shows “Sponsored Screensavers” on its Fire TV devices if you leave them alone for a few minutes. Tesla recently pushed a promotion for Disney’s Tron: Ares to its car dashboards. They got the ambient part right, in that we’ve now surrounded ourselves with screens we don’t control. But instead of blending into the background, the screens are now doing the opposite, distracting us with ads in hopes of padding their makers’ bottom lines. Promises made Ambient computing got its start in a more idealistic setting, in the late 1980s at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Mark Weiser, then the head of PARC’s computer science lab (and later its chief technology officer) used the term “ubiquitous computing” to describe how an array of screens in various sizes”tabs, pads and boards“would all work in tandem to help people accomplish everyday tasks. “Machines that fit the human environment, instead of forcing humans to enter theirs, will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods,” he wrote. Tech companies started dusting off the idea a couple decades later, as lightweight processors, low-cost displays, and widespread internet connectivity made ambient computing more feasible. In 2013, for instance, Microsoft opened an “Envisioning Center” to test its ambient computing ideas, including head-to-toe touchscreens for kitchens and common areas. Cisco demoed a “Second Screen 2.0” concept, with screens that could blend into the surrounding walls and provide personalized information as needed. Samsung had an even bolder vision, releasing a “Display Centric World” concept video full of rollable, foldable, and transparent displays. “Technology begins with a love for you,” the video declared, before showing how Samsung’s screens would someday wrap around coffee cups, unfurl from night stands, light up inside car windows, and cover classroom walls. The term “ambient computing” took hold a few years later. In 2017, the tech columnist Walt Mossberg used the term to describe technology that got out of your way, and pretty soon both Google and Amazon were running with it. The technology just fades into the background when you dont need it,” Rick Osterloh, Google’s SVP of devices and services, declared during a 2019 keynote. He continued to describe Google’s constellation of connected phones, watches, speakers, and smart displays as “ambient computing” in the years that followed, and in 2022 called it the company’s “north star.” Dave Limp, Amazon’s former senior vice president of devices and services favored the similar term “ambient intelligence,” describing how cloud computing would power a network of smart gadgets from Echo speakers to Fire TV streaming players. An Amazon Developer blog post from 2021 declared that “ambient is the future,” and would “make life easier and better without getting in your way.” Once the stuff of imagination, ambient computing had arrived in earnest, but there was a problem: The utopian ideal was at odds with how these companies make money. Cheap screens you can’t control It’s not enough to merely sell the device, be it a smart speaker, connected TV, or fridge with a built-in screen. Instead, tech companies expect these devices to generate revenue over time through ads or subscriptions. In some cases they sell these products at aggressively low prices in hopes of recouping the investment later. Meanwhile, the software that runs on these inexpensive screens provide far less control than a computer or even a phone. These are increasingly dumb terminals with software controlled through the cloud, which means you have little recourse when that software turns against you. While you can swap out the search engine on your computer with one that doesn’t fill the screen with ads, no such alternative exists when your smart display starts cycling through banner ads or using voice responses to upsell shopping items. The hardware isn’t exactly simple to replace, either. You might be comfortable tossing out a single smart display or speaker, but what if you’ve filled your home with them and built an entire smart home system around them? And what happens when your TVs, fridges, and car dashboards become digital billboards well? With all this in mind, those flashy Samsung and Microsoft concept videos from the early 2010s take on a different flavor. These companies sold us on a digital utopia powered by pervasive screens and connected software without ever explaining how they’d pay for it. Now that we’re surrounded ourselves with the technology to make it possible, the bill is finally coming due.
Category:
E-Commerce
Last year, travel group AAA estimated about 80 million Americans traveled over the Thanksgiving holidays. It was the busiest Thanksgiving ever at airports across the country, and some reports are saying those records could be shattered this year. A lot of that traveling will be done by young adults making their way home from school or new cities to see family and reconnect with old friends. That last part is the crux of Facebooks first brand campaign in four years. In a new ad called Home For The Holidays, we see people making their way back home and various get-togethers being organized on Facebook. Created by agency Droga5 and set to Bob Dylan and Johnny Cashs Girl From the North Country, the spot expertly conjures the comfort and emotional security that only the warm embrace of old friends and familiar surroundings can provide. The goal here is to reintroduce Facebook to a new generation of users and remind people what made Facebook magic in the first place, according to the campaign press release. Its just the start of the brands efforts in the coming months to reach younger audiences, including upcoming partnerships with Sports Illustrated and 10 American universities tied to college sports. Facebooks Global Marketing Director Briana de Veer says that one in four young adults (ages 1829) in the U.S. and Canada use Facebook Marketplace. Hundreds of thousands of young adults in the U.S. and Canada create Facebook Dating profiles every month, and young adult matches are up 10% year over year. We see young adults using Facebook to help them navigate life stages, says de Veer. They move into their first apartment and turn to Marketplace to help furnish it on a tight budget, or using Facebook Dating to find love or joining Facebook Groups to meet people in a new city, for example. Sounds great. Except compared to Facebooks reality in culture, the new ad is as much a fantasy as hooking up with your high school crush on that next trip home. This may be Facebooks first brand campaign in four years, but its picked up exactly where it left off in serving up an image of a brand that neither reflects nor defends who it actually is in the real world. Because in the real-life version of this spot, these old friends would likely be in the bar screaming at each other over political hot takes, healthcare facts, and anti-immigrant tirades. Look, we all know advertising is about aspiration. For brands, it’s about projecting the roles they want to play in our lives. For us, it’s about seeing an image we might want to identify with. But marketers need to balance between that manufactured ideal and the reality of how they exist in the world. There’s aspiration and then there’s delusion, and it’s a brand’s job to know the difference. The bad stuff It’s hard to ignore the obvious dichotomy between Facebook’s ads and its real-life decisions. In January, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a gaggle of changes to the companys content moderation, including cutting its fact-checking program, which was originally established to fight the spread of misinformation across its social media apps. Its time to get back to our roots around free expression, Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the changes. He also acknowledged there would be more bad stuff on the platforms as a result of the decision. The reality is that this is a trade-off, he said. It means that were going to catch less bad stuff, but well also reduce the number of innocent peoples posts and accounts that we accidentally take down. Nicole Gill, founder and executive director of the digital watchdog organization Accountable Tech, told The New York Times that this was reopening the floodgates to the exact same surge of hate, disinformation and conspiracy theories that caused Jan. 6and that continue to spur real-world violence. A former Meta employee told Platformer, I really think this is a precursor for genocide [] Weve seen it happen. Real peoples lives are actually going to be endangered. Amnesty International said these changes posed a grave threat to vulnerable communities globally and drastically increased the risk that the company will yet again contribute to mass violence and gross human rights abusesjust like it did in Myanmar in 2017. That’s not all, though. As Meta plows full steam ahead on building AI superintelligence, it’s leaving a path of unconsidered consequences in its wake. In August, Reuters reported that an internal Meta memo revealed that the companys rules for AI chatbots had permitted sensual chats with children. Not quite the warm n fuzzy vibes the brand is going for. I asked de Veer about how the company thinks about balancing the parts of the brand they want to reflect back into the world with a campaign like this, and the obvious challenges that remain. We continue to invest in keeping people safe on our platforms and removing harmful content that goes against our policies, she says. That is critical foundational work that makes it possible for people to see and experience the core value of the brand, which is the focus of this campaign. Back to the Future Back at the end of 2020, I called Facebook the Worst Brand of the Year, based on the Grand Canyonsize gap between the company it was projecting itself to be, and the one defined by its actual, real-world actions. Back then, I called Facebook out for how it portrayed itself as a warm and fuzzy marketplace of ideas while knowingly facilitating the spread of health misinformation and political falsehoods. Sound familiar? In 2021, the last time Facebook launched a brand campaign, that ol familiar feeling was back again. This time it was a spot calle The Tiger & The Buffalo, which somehow hoped that dropping some friends inside a 1908 Henri Rousseau painting would distract us from revelations in The Wall Street Journals Facebook Files, the testimony of whistleblower Frances Haugen, and a study on how climate change denial was spreading unchecked on Facebook. The more things change, the more they stay exactly the same at Facebook, it seems. I actually feel bad for ad agency Droga5, which has crafted some truly impressive ads for the brand over the years, including two of the very best to come out of COVID”Never Lost” and “Survive” about a beloved NYC restaurant called Coogan’s. Not only is the Facebook algorithm still fine-tuned to feed you the angriest, most controversial content it can, its also pulling back on the efforts to combat disinformation and vitriol that are known to incite violence. With its new campaign, it’s offering yet another distraction from its problematic role in culture. The strategy here is to remind people why Facebook ever mattered in the first place. It’s to harken back to the halcyon days between 2006 and 2010, when it was actually a tool to primarily connect with people. Two decades later, Facebook is all that and a whole lot moreplus, you know, rage-baiting. Instead of living in the past, the brand needs to celebrate its best while also actively working to solve its worst. It’s definitely not a chair. Perhaps the closest the brand has come to doing just that was in an ad called Here Together. It acknowledged what Zuckerberg recently called the bad stuff, and defined its role in regulating it, saying from now on, Facebook will do more to keep you safe and protect your privacy, so we can all get back to what made Facebook great in the first place. That was in 2018, when all the people in Home For The Holidays were still in high school. Its time this brand grew up, too.
Category:
E-Commerce
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