So far this year, only about 2% of Alexa users have made a purchase with the Amazon’s voice assistant, The Information reports. “It appears that only a small fraction of smart speaker owners use them to shop, and the few who do try it don’t bother again,” it writes. Yet, “Some forecasts call for annual voice shopping sales to reach $40 billion in just a few years.”

Alexa is testing “Answer Update” -- a feature that will notify users when Amazon’s voice assistant learns the answer to a question it didn’t know when first asked. “The idea is to allow people to better take advantage of Alexa’s quickly improving Knowledge Graph,” TechCrunch writes. Amazon tells TechCrunch that customers will be able to opt into the new “experience.”

Facebook is fighting back against a report in The Wall Street Journal thatsuggests the social giant is moving into financial services. “It’s not asking for credit card transaction data from banks and it’s not interested in building a dedicated banking feature where you could interact with your accounts,” TechCrunch writes, citing comments by a company spokesperson.

Twilio just reported strong-than-expected second-quarter earnings. “Twilio’s non-GAAP earnings rang up to three cents a share on revenue of $147.8 million, up 54 percent year over year,” ZDNet reports. “Wall Street was expecting a loss of five cents a share on revenue of $131 million.”

When Google Maps users share their location with other, the service will now share their battery level. “When checking a contact’s location, there’s now a battery icon right next to the distance,” Android Police writes. “There’s a battery percentage, and the icon indicates charging status.”

Music streaming service Deezer just raised $185 million at a valuable of roughly $1.16 billion, Variety reports. The Paris-based startup also announced a partnership with the Rotana Group, a Dubai-based media company. “Under the agreement, Deezer will distribute Rotana’s content across the Middle East and North Africa, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates,” Variety writes.

The New York Times reports on political campaigns using peer-to-peer texting apps in order to circumvent anti-spam laws. “Welcome to the age of the political mass-text,” it writes. “In a mobile-first age when TV ads are skipped and email inboxes automatically filter out junk and promotions, it’s not surprising that campaigns are desperate for a tool that can reliably get voters’ attention.”

Venture Beat talks with Tim Sweeney about why the Epic Games CEO decided to make the Android version of Fortnite exclusively available on Fortnite.com, rather than the Google PlayStore. “The nature of Fortnite determined the direction here,” Sweeney said. “Fortnite is the same game on all platforms, including high-end consoles and PCs.”

The Atlantic considers the art of memes, and how their creators are relying on increasingly complex, multiplatform approaches to get traction. “As memes become increasingly visually complex, they’re forcing meme makers -- from professionals who run massive pages, to amateurs, to those just starting out -- to rely on a patchwork of unreliable photo-editing tools,” it writes.

Amazon now commands 70% of the U.S. smart speaker market, CNet reports, citing fresh findings from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. By contrast, “Only 6 percent of smart speaker users in the US had one of [Apple’s] HomePod devices as of the end of June,” it writes. Coming in at a distant second place, Google controlled 24% of the U.S. smart speaker market, as of June.