Amazon’s Alexa Down for Thousands of Users, Says Downdetector

Several alarmed netizens also broached the possibility that Alexa had been ‘hacked’ – prompting an outpouring of clarifications and counterpoints.

New Delhi: Alexa, Amazon.com-owned voice assistant, was down for many users on Sunday. Alexa users took to social media to flag the issue. They also reported issues accessing Amazon’s mobile app. According to Downdetector.com, an outage-tracking website, more than 9,000 users in the United States have reported issues with Alexa.

While most users appeared to be facing problems with the voice control functions, others flagged connectivity issues.

Alexa Down: Key Takeaways

• Downdetector.com has reported that more than 9,000 users in the United States have reported issues with Alexa.
• The number of affected users in India appear to be lower
• Downdetector said that the spike in complaints starting from 6:30 pm.
• Closer to home, the issues reported by disgruntled users pertain to the server connection, website and app.

“Interesting, seems Alexa is down. Its devices work, but the voice server seems to be offline. Every time you activate Alexa via voice command, it instantly goes back to standby. It’d be nice if Amazon would report outages like this to their customers just to keep us informed,” tweeted one user.

“My toddler keeps yelling at them to play wheels on the bus,” lamented another.

Several alarmed netizens also broached the possibility that Alexa had been ‘hacked’ – prompting an outpouring of clarifications and counterpoints.

Google to Shut its G Suite App Currents

Google has announced that it will shut down Currents, the platform that was introduced in 2019 as a replacement for Google Plus for G Suite users.

According to The Verge, the company will begin winding down Currents on July 5, with data available for export until August 8, 2023, when it will no longer be available.

Moreover, the tech giant in a blogpost said that it will discontinue Currents and will replace it with Spaces (a central place where people can share files, assign tasks, and stay connected).

“With Spaces now available, starting in 2023 we are planning to wind down Google Currents and bring remaining content and communities over to the new Spaces experience,” Google said.

According to the company, the reason behind the change is to eliminate the need for users to navigate to a separate platform. Instead, they can conveniently use Chat and Spaces, which will soon be seamlessly integrated into Gmail.