Articles about Amazon

It seems that our love affair with ebooks could be turning sour. For the first time since digital book sales were recorded, the number of ebooks sold in the UK dropped in 2015.

The drop could be partly explained by the fact that we seem to be reading less in recent years. While sales of printed books rose by 0.4 percent according to the Publishers Association, digital book sales declined by 1.6 percent.

Continue reading →

It's been a while since the boys were together on your screen. But Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are reuniting, but this time the offering has a brand new title. And on this go-around they won't be on the BBC, they'll instead be debuting on Amazon Prime.

Now the brand new show, which is currently in production, has finally got a name. It's been decided it will be called The Grand Tour, because of the way it is being made.

Continue reading →

Despite competition from the likes of Vimeo, YouTube has remained at the top of the heap for streaming videos, mostly because of content that comes from its users. While it's hard to see it being toppled anytime soon, it will have a new rival trying to do just that.

Amazon, which already runs its Prime Video service filled with TV shows and movies, is expanding its footprint, adding user content.

Continue reading →

A federal judge has ruled that Amazon is liable for sending out bills to parents of children who made in-app purchases without permission. Amounting to millions of dollars, the bills have now been deemed unauthorized, and Amazon faces having to pay back a large percentage of the money.

The case has echoes of similar legal action brought against Google and Apple for purchases made by children in the App Store and Google Play. Amazon, Apple and Google have all implemented systems to prevent unauthorized purchases since being investigated by the FTC back in 2014.

Continue reading →

Amazon Prime has become hugely popular, and it's easy to see why. For $99 per year, customers get free two-day shipping, streaming video, streaming music and Kindle lending library. Sonos is less adopted because of the price, but if you've invested in it then you have a great whole-house audio system.

Six months ago, the two came together in the US to add to your musical enjoyment and today Amazon Prime Music will be debuting on Sonos in the UK and filling British homes with tunes.

Continue reading →

Times are tough for many consumers financially, making new technology purchases a hardship. While a tablet such as the iPad is wonderful, the high starting price makes it unachievable for some. Luckily, thanks to Android, some companies, such as Amazon, have created affordable slabs for the masses.

Speaking of Amazon, its 7-inch Fire tablet -- which starts at $49 --is getting a minor refresh. You can now purchase it with a series of new colors and storage options.

Continue reading →

Tablet manufacturers are forever trying to deliver the lightest and thinnest products, and today Amazon introduces a new Kindle which is designed to feel almost weightless.

The Kindle Oasis isn’t simply light, weighing in at just 131 grams, it’s also very thin, at just 3.4 mm at its slimmest point. That makes it 30 percent thinner on average than any other Kindle. It also offers an ergonomic grip to shift the center of gravity to your palm, making it perfect for reading one handed. The built-in accelerometer automatically detects whether you are reading left or right handed, and rotates the page and page turn buttons accordingly.

Continue reading →

Online file sharing company Box today announced a new service, allowing businesses to store their cloud data across Europe and Asia.

The service, announced at the Box World Tour Europe, is called Box Zones, and it will allow Box customers to choose whether they want to store their data in Germany, Ireland, Singapore or Japan.

Continue reading →

There are many USB Type-C cables on the market, but, as it has been pointed out numerous times, not all are standard compliant. Even the cable that ships with OnePlus 2, one of the few smartphones that support USB Type-C, is out of spec, and may not work flawlessly with other handsets. And this is a serious problem.

Cables that do not comply with the USB Type-C standard can cause permanent damage, as Google's Benson Leung has explained in his reviews of various options available on the market. Amazon has taken notice, banning such products that do not comply with the official standard.

Continue reading →

The Amazon Kindle has been around since 2007, and plenty of updates have been made to both hardware software during the years since it was released. If you have an older model then it still works just fine and, while Amazon would almost certainly like to sell you a new one, the company is still content to sell you books for older models.

All models released prior to 2013 are now at risk of losing internet connectivity and the company is notifying customers still utilizing those devices.

Continue reading →

It seems as though there is a constant flow of new features and capabilities arriving on Amazon's voice-enabled platform Echo. You can play Jeopardy, listen to music and podcasts, even control your lights and thermostat.

Now the system is partnering up with Fitbit to allow Alexa to tell you about your activity. There is a new series of questions that you simply ask the device and get your answers.

Continue reading →

Look at Dropbox, all grown up and moving away from home. The company has announced that it is now using, almost entirely, its own custom-built infrastructure to hold data.

Dropbox says this is an important milestone, as it moves away from Amazon Web Services it relied on before. Still, it will continue to partner with Amazon, when "it makes sense for our users", Dropbox says.

Continue reading →

We've grown accustomed to security breaches, from Target to Home Depot and pretty much everywhere in between. It seems like daily news lately, but sometimes it seems companies are so hush-mouth that we just don't know. It's obviously in their best interest to not let word get out – bad for business, and all.

Today a story surfaced about Amazon sending some customers emails requesting that they reset their passwords. The message itself is a bit cryptic, so it's hard to say what really happened. There is also the (slim) possibility it was a scam. We say slim because there are no links to click on, the message seems legit and a carbon copy of one sent by the company before.

Continue reading →

Amazon has came out in support of encryption, following Apple's recent legal battles with the US government, saying that it "plays a very, very important role" in protecting customer data.

But you might be surprised to learn that Amazon has also decided to quietly drop support for full disk encryption on its Android-based Kindle Fire tablets. Since it is portraying itself as an encryption and consumer advocate, its decision to go in the opposite direction strikes me as sheer hypocrisy.

Continue reading →

We've covered the Amazon Echo extensively and the company has been running a series of ads as of late, featuring several amusing spots with Alec Baldwin, which began at the Super Bowl with Dan Marino featured in that particular one.

Now the company is trying to further its inroads into everyone's home with two new companion products for its popular device, even as it continues to push updates to the current offering.

Continue reading →