For a couple of weeks I've been using the new Echo from Amazon, training it in different rooms of the house and finally settling on the kitchen as its home in our house.

While it looks like just another Bluetooth speaker the technology behind this little cylinder is Amazon's next bid to change our lives, and unlike the Fire Phone this one has the potential to shake things up.

When you see it in the plain black box, you really have no idea what you are in for when you start using Echo.

Once you plug the Echo in you go through a process with either your Kindle Fire or iPhone to configure it to connect via your wifi network. Once it is on the Internet it is really just ready to work.

You can fine tune its ability to recognize your voice commands by going through training sessions, but it worked amazingly well right out of the box. As the software improves more features will be added, including the ability to interact with more content services and the ability to change the keyword used to wake it for commands.

For now you are limited to iHeartRadio, Prime Music, and Tune In Radio for audio. I would think the Amazon owned Audible will be next to be supported (and I hope so, as audio books are what I listen to most while doing chores around the house).

When they are available to everyone I would encourage anyone who has bought into the Amazon ecosystem to snatch one up. Echo is going to be the center of the home soon.

Hemingwrite is a new digital consumer product for writing composition developed by Adam Leeb and Patrick Paul. It features a distraction free experience with a singular focus on the writing experience.

The product is one of 20 new hardware devices competing in the Engadget.com Insert Coin competition this week. The competition highlights electronic hardware inventions from around the world culminating with the top teams invited to the Engadget Tech Conference in New York. Eligible companies are early startups which not have received any angel- or venture- capital financing and have not yet shipped products to consumers.

“What the Kindle did for reading, we want to do for writing,” said cofounder Patrick Paul of Hamtramck, Michigan. “Adam and I are huge fans of the simplicity of a typewriter but using one is tiresome and outdated. We set out to deliver the same distraction-free writing experience of a typewriter with all of the added benefits of modern technology: backups to the cloud, e-paper display, Cherry MX keyboard switches -- and nothing else.”

“I think what we created with our prototype is the best possible writing experience,” added cofounder Adam Leeb. “We combined all of the best aspects of the typewriter, the moleskine, and the computer to create a modern classic.”

can't wait to get my hands on one of these! This would be perfect for sitting down away from everything and just writing. Very cool in a decidedly retro way.

Hemingwrite is headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. For more information, visit http://www.hemingwrite.com.