Apple Now Testing Amazon Echo Competitor; Google & Salesforce May Bid on Twitter

Although Amazon smartphones bombed badly, they’ve had pretty good success with the Kindle tablets, and surprising success with the Echo- the voice controlled assistant in a speaker and now in the new Echo Dot. Now, Bloomberg says Apple has been working on something similar powered by Siri for a couple years, and it’s moved into the prototype testing phase. The Apple device may also include a camera and facial recognition that would let it identify household members and their preferences. It would be used less for purchases, and more to control appliances, locks, lights and curtains via voice activation. Considering a couple of recent Apple acquisitions, it may also detect a user’s emotional state. No indication of how soon it might be in users’ hands.

Rumors have been flying for a while now about some company picking up ailing Twitter, which gets tons of eyeballs, but hasn’t been able to convert users to money through ad sales or otherwise. Now, CNBC.com is reporting that both Google and Salesforce- and some media and carriers- Verizon has been mentioned, may be readying formal bids on the 140 character firehose platform.