Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Friday, July 12th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough today.

Amazon is developing a high-end echo speaker. The PC market's not dead yet. Postmates is

having second thoughts about going public and might shop itself around instead and of

course the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you missed today in the world of Tech.

Mark Germin Scoop Friday, but not on the Apple front.

Germin's little birdies are telling him that Amazon is developing a higher-end echo speaker

with improved audio quality to make it more of a direct competitor to the likes of Sonos home pod at all.

Oh, and Amazon is apparently ramping up work on that home robot that we've been hearing rumors about.

The company plans to release the new echo by next year, according to people familiar with the product.

Prototypes of the cylindrical speaker next year, according to people familiar with the product.

Prototypes of the cylindrical speaker are wider than the current echo to squeeze in additional

components, including at least four tweeters, said the people who requested anonymity to discuss an internal matter.

The robot, previously reported by Bloomberg, has wheels and can be controlled by Alexa Voice commands,

the people said. Both devices are being developed by Amazon Lab 126, a research and development arm

based in Sunnyvale, California.

Amazon has previously attempted to improve the Echo's sound with tweaks and offered a standalone

sub-wolfer and device that links the speakers to a stereo. Amazon is also

planning a high fidelity version of its music service according to music

business worldwide that should mesh better with the new echo end quote.

As for the robot, cod named Vesta, German says that Amazon originally planned to unveil it earlier this year

but production issues have held that back a bit.

Still no word on what function the robot would actually have in the home but apparently engineers are being pulled off of

...