Articles about Amazon

The Great Firewall of China is renowned for the restrictions it places on what Chinese citizens can access online. Free speech advocates have long called for the Chinese government to allow access to the wider web, so people in China can get a better idea of what is going on elsewhere in the world. Now GreatFire.org, working with the BBC, has found a way to deliver uncensored Chinese language news to those on the wrong side of the firewall.

GreatFire.org is an anti-censorship group that monitors web blocking in China and campaigns against censorship. Various techniques for getting around the Great Firewall of China have been publicized in the past, but they have relied on VPNs and other tools that can be complicated to set up. The latest method requires no special tools.

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If you have grown tired of hardback and paperback books, then a Kindle may be your answer. Coincidentally, Amazon has released two new models, a standard and the Voyage, which my colleague Brian Fagioli reviewed recently. These complement the existing Paperwhite, which has not yet been updated.

If you've never before owned a Kindle, a club I fell into, then you'll find many interesting aspects to the device, which we'll discuss as we go along. The most prominent feature is obviously e-ink, and that isn't new to the platform. But it's important for several reasons -- one, it makes your books look like actual books, and two, it preserves battery life beautifully. You can go weeks without charging.

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I get it -- you own a tablet and don't think you need a dedicated e-ink based e-reader. While I respect your opinion, I must tell you that it is wrong. Sure, reading a book on a back-lit LCD display is passable, but hardly a good experience. Not only can this be fatiguing to your eyes, but most tablets are unusable as a reader in direct sunlight. If you read a lot, you want to go e-ink.

So yes, there are benefits in owning an e-ink based e-reader, and quite frankly, it is affordable. Amazon's entry-level reader is a paltry $79 -- a great value. Today, the value of the retailer's newest readers increase, as an update introduces many cool new features.

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Many people shop online to save money and avoid tax; who doesn't want to save a buck? However, online shopping is more than just savings; it is a great way to avoid leaving the house too. Don't get me wrong, I like going out to a nice restaurant or the beach, but a trip to the mall or store like Walmart is enough to drive me insane. Human beings can be very annoying and for whatever reason, Walmart appears to attract some of the most annoying. If you take a trip to that retailer, you can expect people that smell, crying children, and for reasons unknown, butt-cracks. Don't ask me why, but Walmart shoppers don't seem to wear belts, so their buttocks often peak out to say hello.

Today, it is revealed that all Walmart stores will begin price-matching Amazon and other online retailers. On the surface, you might think Amazon is in trouble, but I say otherwise -- even if the prices are on parity. I personally would avoid Walmart even if it was beating Amazon's prices, just to maintain my sanity. Getting a package delivered is just easier. Do you agree?

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Securing data and making sure that it's stored in compliance with regulatory standards is a key task for all businesses, but it relies on knowing where the information is stored in the first place.

That isn't always as easy as it sounds but a new solution from database security specialist GreenSQL allows enterprises to easily identify all sensitive and regulated data fields across their Amazon Relational Database Service databases.

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Enterprises can be reluctant to move some functions into the cloud because of security and other concerns. So services that can allay these fears have big potential in the market.

Data flow specialist Axway already hosts secure private cloud portfolio solutions with AWS and has now announced that it’s making a Cloud B2B service available.

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Amazon has been producing its Fire tablets for the past few years, and the devices have remained among the retailer's top selling items. For one reason, they are always good solid products, but for another, Amazon sells them at a good price and frequently discounts the devices. Now the company has released its latest iteration of the tablet, but what new features does it bring along?

In all honesty, there are not a lot of big changes, but many minor updates to both the operating system and the hardware have been made. The new tablet comes in both six and seven inch models, though there is also a new 8.9, which retains the HDX name used for last year's models of both 7 and 8.9 devices.

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I so requested to buy Amazon Echo, which promises to bring Star Trek-like responsive computing to the home. The cylindrical device, announced today, is a Bluetooth- and WiFi-enabled speaker that responds to users' questions. Just say "Alexa" and ask something. "What's the weather?" "What is the largest dinosaur?" This is how search information should be, assuming Echo resounds as strongly as Amazon's product information and demo video claim.

Touchless interaction is by no means new. Apple got the jump with personal assistant Siri, which responds to requests and commands on iOS devices. Google Now, available on multiple platforms, is far superior, and Windows Phone now has Cortana. All three cloud-based touchless-response systems make your voice the primary user interface. But Echo, like the Moto X smartphone, is always listening, such that the interaction is almost completely hands-free. That's the difference.

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For those with tons of family photos, and probably the occasional selfie, safe storage can be an issue. Phones get lost and stolen and computer hard drives have a nasty tendency to die. Having a backup to a cloud service is a good option, and there's no shortage of solutions for it, with Amazon being one of them.

That option just got a whole lot simpler and cheaper. The online retailer is announcing that its cloud storage will take on the task of unlimited photo storage for Prime members, adding one more benefit to the growing list already available.

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Having a web presence means that companies are open to greater scrutiny than ever before. Post-NSA there was huge interest in learning just how much data the likes of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft had shared with the government and its agencies, and the next target for attention has been the racial and gender make-up of these same companies.

We have already seen diversity reports from Twitter and Apple, and now Amazon has thrown its hat into the ring. The Diversity Report's figures show that -- perhaps unsurprisingly -- the company is dominated by white men, particularly in the higher positions. But while the numbers and graphs tell one story, the photographs released by Amazon to accompany the report try to tell a rather different tale.

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As my colleague Brian Fagioli said yesterday when reporting on the launch of Amazon’s new Fire TV Stick, there’s no shortage of streaming devices available to choose from, and knowing which to go for can be tricky.

If you use Chrome, have an Android phone, and love YouTube, then Chromecast is probably for you. If, on the other hand, you are an Amazon Prime member, then the Fire TV Stick is a good choice, especially as it can currently be had for just $19. The Roku Streaming Stick has over a thousand channels to choose from and loads of options. Still not sure which to go for? Let’s take a look at what they all have to offer.

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There is currently no shortage in the market when it comes to streaming devices. Quite frankly, there are so many available, that it can be very hard to choose; Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku -- it is dizzying.

Today, Amazon further complicates the decision with the all-new Fire TV Stick. Yes, the company already offers the Fire TV box, so the Fire TV Stick, in some ways, competes with its existing offering. However, the big selling point of the Fire TV Stick is the price -- $39. But wait, you may be eligible to get it cheaper!

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It seems like everyone has a tablet or phablet nowadays. These devices are wonderful as they let you do many things, like listening to music, surfing the web and reading. Yes, you can read a book on an iPad, Nexus 7 or Galaxy Note, but you shouldn't  -- your eyes do not want you to. You see, it's debatable, but generally accepted, that back-lit LCD displays can strain eyes and lend to eye fatigue. Also, they tend to have poor readability in bright sunlight.

Amazon solved these dilemmas in 2007 with the original Kindle -- an e-ink based e-reader, that worked well in sunlight and was easy on eyes. Since then, there have been many upgrades to the original design, leading up to the all-new Kindle Voyage. I have been reading many a book on the device and want to share my impressions with you.

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Amazon didn’t have a good third quarter, reporting a net loss of $437 million, which is up significantly from the $41m loss it reported for the same quarter last year. Contributing to that loss is the abject failure of the Fire Phone.

My colleague Brian Fagioli described Amazon's handset as Android done differently in his review, and although he liked it, he said it wouldn’t be for everyone. It turns out it’s for hardly anyone.

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Amazon recently released a new line of Kindle products, featuring two new tablets and readers respectively. With the release came an update to the retailer's version of Android, known as Fire OS. It's a highly customized take on Google's mobile platform -- almost unrecognizable, in fact.

Now Amazon is rolling out an update to it, bringing the system to version 4.1.1. The update doesn't seem to have hit the 2013 models yet, but those with the latest tablet should be seeing it now, or at least very soon.

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