Amazon officially launched the updated version of the Fire TV Stick on Thursday. The streaming device now supports Alexa, thanks to its new voice-controlled remote. Aside from the new Alexa support, the new Fire TV Stick also received major upgrades on its hardware.

According to Tech Crunch, the new Amazon Fire TV Stick sports a quad-core processor which is 30 percent faster than the original. It also has support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi compared to the 802.11n of the last generation model. The device now supports High Efficiency Video Codec which offers higher resolution videos without the need of high bandwidth.

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Amazon claims the new Fire TV Stick has improved accessibility through the VoiceView screen reader. The device now supports a resolution of up to 1080. It also received a boost in its memory and internal storage. The new Fire TV Stick has 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage space.

Regarding its Alexa support, the new Fire TV Stick essentially works the same way as it would on an Echo speaker. All a user has to do is ask the smart digital assistant anything from news, weather, and sports update, check to-do lists, read tweets, and even to call Uber.

At $40, the Fire TV Stick is seen by many tech experts as an affordable way to take advantage of Amazon's Alexa digital assistant. Amazon has also updated Alexa which can now search not only Amazon Video, but also third-part services like HBO Now, Hulu, and Netflix. Amazon claims that Alexa can tap into the archives of more than 90 channels and apps.

TagsAmazon, Alexa, Fire TV Stick, fire tv stick upgrade, Alexa support, Amazon Alexa