Amazon's little plastic cylinder packed with electronics has one purpose in life—to answer whatever inane questions you send its way throughout the day. Okay, if you happen to order products from Amazon in the process, that would be nice too, but the other stuff is more interesting.Take, for instance, the new ability to ask Alexa (that's what you call the lady that lives inside the cylinder with all the electronics) about movies and showtimes.

You can ask Alexa what's playing, when a specific movie is showing, or for background information about movies that are currently playing. Questions don't have to be exact either. You can spew out something like, "What romantic comedies are playing on Tuesday?" Alexa should then come up with a response. That's the idea, anyway.

The Echo costs 9.99 on Amazon, so folks who don't own one already are looking at spending quite a bit of money to seek Alexa's counsel.

Source: Amazon