Technologies

9 Amazon Prime Benefits to Use in 2023

2023 is almost here. Here’s how you use your Amazon Prime membership for access to exclusive deals.

The new year is coming up in just a few days, and there are Amazon deals going strong with more to come for the new year. If you’re a Prime member, there are a slew of perks included with your subscription that you’ll want to use all year round.

No, we’re not just talking about free two-day shipping. Amazon Prime members have access to tons of other perks and bonuses you might not know about.

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For example, Amazon Prime members can get deliveries much faster than two days, sometimes in a few hours. They can also schedule delivery dates for convenience or to avoid times when they’ll be away from home. And they even get exclusive deals simply by using Alexa on an Amazon Echo.

If you’re thinking about signing up for an Amazon Prime account (here’s how) or don’t know much about all of the included features, here are some ways you can get the most out of your membership while shopping for Black Friday deals.

You can get free same-day delivery on qualifying items

If there’s a product you want immediately, you can see if it’s available for delivery the same day you order. To check a product’s eligibility, look for delivery that’s marked as «Prime FREE Same-Day» while shopping. Note that your order will need to contain over $35 of qualifying items. If not, you’ll have to pay a small fee.

Amazon will deliver from morning until evening, so you won’t have to worry about receiving your order at 3 a.m. However, same-day delivery isn’t available in all locations, so enter your ZIP code on the Amazon Same-Day Delivery page to see if you’re eligible.

Alexa can share extra discounts when you shop on Echo

You can use your Amazon Echo to ask «Alexa, what are my deals?» anytime. Alexa will then share Prime-exclusive deals and you’ll have the option to add the item to your cart, buy it now or move on to the next deal.

Schedule a convenient shipping date for your package

Everyone knows about Amazon’s free two-day shipping, but another option is to choose a delivery date during checkout. It’s called Amazon Day and it’s helpful if there’s a specific day you know someone will be at home to answer for packages — especially if it’s something pricey that you don’t want to risk leaving unattended.

If you order multiple items on different days, you can have them delivered on the same day as long as they’re eligible for this offer.

Use your Amazon Echo to help track packages

If you have an Amazon Echo of any kind, you can use it to track your orders.

Just say «Alexa, where’s my package?» and your Echo will let you know where it is, who it’s for and when it’ll arrive. Once your order has been delivered, the Echo’s ring light will pulse yellow and if you have the Echo Show, the delivery notification will appear on the screen.

Shop Early Access deals before non-Prime members

If something you’ve been eyeing says «Prime Early Access,» as a Prime member you can shop that sale 30 minutes before non-Prime members. However, you’ll still have to compete with other Prime members who are interested in the product before it sells out.

Amazon can leave your package inside your house

When you know you’re not going to be home for a while and you’ve got a shipment on the way, it’s much safer to have an Amazon employee leave your items inside your house to avoid theft.

For in-home delivery, you’ll need a Key-compatible smart lock and an (optional) Amazon Cloud Cam. The Amazon driver will send you a notification when they’ve arrived at your house and will request to unlock your door. Amazon will verify the package is at the right address and the driver is near the door, then will turn on Amazon Cloud Cam and unlock your door.

If you’re wary of letting a complete stranger into your home, keep in mind that you’ll also receive notifications during the entire process. Note that you can opt to block delivery access to your home — for example, if you know you’ll be home during that time.

You can also have packages delivered inside your garage

«Porch pirates» — thieves who steal packages left in front of homes — are no joke. Security site SafeWise told CNET that about 260 million packages have been stolen from home exteriors in 2022. The Amazon Key in-garage delivery service can stop porch theft completely and is free for all Amazon Prime members.

When you use Amazon In-Garage Delivery, select Key Delivery at checkout. The garage kit is $29 right now and turns your garage into a smart garage. It works the same as in-home delivery so Amazon will do all the verifying for you.

Send a gift to someone without knowing their address

An Amazon Prime feature lets you send someone a gift, even if you don’t have their address. For instance, if you’d like to send a coworker something for the holidays or their birthday but don’t know what their address is, you can still send a gift. But there’s a catch — that person must also have a Prime account and you need either their phone number or email address associated with the account.

Just note that not every item on Amazon is eligible.

Share Prime perks with family

If you’ve got another adult living in your household, like a significant other or friend, you can share your Prime membership with them. You’ll still be able to keep your personal accounts separate, but you’ll both have access to all the same Prime benefits.

You can also share your account with up to four teens and up to four children in your household. While they’ll have their own logins, you can still manage their profiles.

For more shopping tips, here’s how to send your Amazon packages back the fast, easy and free way.

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Technologies

Google’s AI Mode Is Getting New Agentic Features for Restaurant Reservations and More

AI Mode can now do most of the work to find dinner reservations for you.

Google’s AI Mode is getting new agentic capabilities and expanding to 180 new countries and territories around the world, Google announced Thursday. AI Mode allows you to ask questions directly to Google and it’ll kick off a series of searches on your behalf. From there, it will surface relevant information to your query without the need to do any of the deep research yourself. It changes the way you search for things online, and it’s getting even smarter with this latest rollout.

Powered by DeepMind’s Project Mariner, the latest additions bring us further into the agentic AI future we’ve been promised for some time, directly from a search box. Instead of just finding things for you, AI Mode can now do things for you, like finding dinner reservations, flights or concert tickets. The update also brings personalized recommendations and link-sharing capabilities for easier collaboration with friends and family.

Most of the new features are either limited to premium AI subscribers and tucked behind an experiment in Google Labs, but it might not take long before they’re a standard part of your future search experience.

Google did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for further comment.

Restaurant recommendations

Instead of searching for restaurant reservations and then clicking on a specific website to make a reservation, AI Mode surfaces everything you need to complete the action right there. Since it’s contextually aware, you can add specificities to your query that a typical Google search wouldn’t handle well.

You can add the type of cuisine, number of people, time and location to a single query, and AI Mode will get to work and display real-time restaurant reservation time slots to choose from.

Google says it’s partnered with OpenTable, Resy, Tock, Ticketmaster and several other companies to make finding and doing what you want easier, since you won’t have to put in the legwork yourself.

This feature is currently rolling out to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US who have enabled the specific experiment in Labs.

Personalized recommendations

Another experiment that’s currently available in the US (that also needs to be enabled in Labs) is personalized recommendations. Google says it’s starting with dining-related recommendations, which implies more options will be on the way in the future.

The experiment will use your past conversations with AI Mode, places you’ve interacted with on Search and Maps to provide suggestions tailored specifically to you.

Share AI Mode links with others for collaboration

If you’re planning a vacation or a party, you can now share your research directly with others with a new link-sharing feature built into AI Mode. People who interact with the link will be sent to the last response sent by AI Mode and can continue the conversation on their own to do more exploration on the topic. The original sender of the links can manage them and delete them at any time.

For more, don’t miss everything Google announced at its Pixel 10 event.

Technologies

IPhone or Android, Here’s How to Finally Escape That Endless Group Chat

Done with a group chat? Here’s how to ghost it on any service.

One reason people prefer group chats in Apple’s iMessage or RCS texting is the extra control and security these platforms provide. If everyone in your group is using iPhones, or if you’re on Android chatting through RCS, you’ll get features like typing indicators, high-quality media sharing, and the option to mute or leave a conversation when you need fewer notifications.

The biggest advantage is privacy. Both iMessage and RCS group chats offer end-to-end encryption, so your conversations stay secure. The only time that doesn’t apply is when a thread includes a mix of iPhone and Android users, which limits encryption support.

Knowing these differences can help you manage your chats more effectively, whether you’re keeping up with friends, planning events, or just looking for a little more control over your notifications.

And with RCS support with iOS 18, group chats that include a mix of iPhone and Android participants have more features than ever — but it’s not at the level you’ll experience when a conversation is fully on iMessage or Google Messages. «Green bubble chats» from an iPhone to an Android phone can now include typing indicators, higher-quality media and easier group chats.

However, RCS conversations between the iPhone and Android phones don’t include encryption now, but it should be added in a future update. This will hopefully give these conversations a similar level of privacy that we expect when using chat services like iMessage, WhatsApp or Signal.

Regardless of how you’re in a group chat with others, you can leave a chat. Here are the steps to leave any conversation from your phone’s texting app, regardless of whether it’s happening on iMessage, RCS or as a mixed MMS chat.

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Leaving group chats on an iPhone

You can leave group conversations on your iPhone in two ways. You can either mute a chat,which keeps you in a conversation but you no longer receive notifications about it, or you can outright leave and no longer have access to the chat.

On an iPhone, open Messages and go to the chat thread you want to leave. At the top of the screen are conversation controls, a group of icons with the participants. Tap this to open a pop-up menu. As long as your conversation has four or more participants, iOS gives you the ability to tap Leave this Conversation with red text. If your chat has three or fewer participants, though, the option is grayed out, but you can tap Hide Alerts to prevent the conversation from notifying you further. Tapping Hide Alerts also allows you to mute a conversation, letting you keep access to a chat without necessarily leaving it. These steps apply to both iMessage conversations and to those over RCS.

Hide and block MMS chats on an iPhone

Although you can’t officially leave MMS group chats, you can hide or block the conversation. It’s not as good as outright leaving a conversation (other participants will still see you as in it), but you at least have no personal evidence of the conversation continuing.

On an iPhone, visit the group chat and tap the conversation controls. Instead of seeing Leave this conversation, you will see the option to Delete and Block this conversation. If you’d rather just mute the conversation instead of deleting and blocking it, you can hit Hide Alerts to mute it.

Leave group chats on an Android phone

On an Android phone using Google Messages, visit the chat thread you want to leave. Tap the conversation’s name to bring up the Group Details menu. Within this menu is the Leave Group button. Unlike with iMessage, you can leave chats with as few as three participants.

If you want to just mute notifications, tap Notifications on the Group Details screen to bring up a window with notifications controls. This includes options to make the conversation stay Silent to prevent it from ringing your chat, and if you tap Lock Screen, a pop-up menu will give you the option to prevent notifications. Tap Don’t show notifications at all to enable.

Hide and block MMS chats on an Android phone

On an Android phone with Google Messages, follow the same steps to access options for controlling notifications. This includes visiting the MMS chat thread and then tapping either the name of the conversation or the names of the participants at the top to bring up the Group Details menu. You won’t see a Leave Group option like you did with an RCS thread, but you do get the same ability to tap Notifications to access controls for hiding the conversation. This includes the same options for turning the conversation to Silent and to select Don’t show notifications at all.

SMS vs. MMS vs. RCS

SMS stands for Short Message Service and debuted in 1992. Text messages are limited to 160 characters. MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service and supports sending photos, videos or other files and messages longer than 160 characters. MMS supports a group of people chatting in a single conversation thread, while SMS can text multiple people at once but is sent as individual messages to each person. RCS, which launched 15 years ago, is short for Rich Communication Services and can show typing indicators, read receipts and has end-to-end encryption.

While cross-platform chat apps like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram have better controls for conversations, encryption and privacy, regardless of the type of phone participants are using, they don’t support SMS, MMS or RCS. That’s why the default messaging app on most phones is still widely used, even if it means that a group chat is on a less feature-filled, unsecured standard like MMS.