Articles about Amazon

If you shop using your smartphone you are highly informed, social and seeking a superior shopping experience -- and retailers want to have your babies.

These (apart from the last bit) are the findings of the latest research by IDC which found that surveyed respondents believe the smartphone is transforming their shopping experience.

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This was a week dominated by CES, and there were a huge number of announcements about upcoming hardware. Lenovo took the wraps off the (slightly) heavyweight ThinkPad Tablet 8, but any excess weight was countered by the ultra-light ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultrabook. HP's range of business desktops even included one device running Android, while Nvidia's new Tegra K1 promises much for the mobile market.

Competitor Qualcomm revealed two processors designed for entertainment while Pure's Connect platform opens up the possibility of using any streaming music service with its wireless speakers. Smart TVs are set to benefit from the addition of Roku software, but it seems that the technology du jour is 4K, with a new 4K laptop from Toshiba joining the streams of 4K TVs and monitors.

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While the world points fingers at companies like Microsoft and Google over recent security matters, in light of the big NSA scandal, one company goes on mostly unscathed. Perhaps it’s our love of shopping and the convenience of doing it online. But maybe, it’s just about making that experience so good.

Amazon announces today that is has been voted number one in customer service satisfaction for the ninth straight year. The online retailer isn’t resting on this laurel, but instead using it as an excuse to drum up more good will.

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Amazon has scored some big exclusives lately, bringing viewers such hit shows as Under the Dome and Vikings. Add those to new original content, and the online retailer is becoming a real competitor in the streaming video arena, taking on Netflix, Redbox and others.

Now the company claims another win, getting the latest series from producer Steven Spielberg, he of E.T. fame. The new show, titled Extant, stars Halle Berry, and is set to premiere this coming June.

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Better last than never. Colleagues Ian Barker, Alan Buckingham, Brian Fagioli, Mihaita Bamburic, Wayne Williams, and Mark Wilson have all picked their favorite tech for the year. I join them. Only things I actually have used qualify for consideration.

My list focuses on one aspect: Value. Which products I see delivering the most value for money spent. Surely your value choices will differ. You can spend 25 cents and get loads of value from something or $2,500 and little at all. With that short introduction, I present my five favorite tech products of 2013 (and one from 2005, newly discovered).

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Unsurprisingly tablets proved to be a very popular gift this Christmas. According to mobile measurement firm Flurry, device activations were up by 63 percent on Christmas day, compared to any other average day in December.

Flurry’s activation figures cover Amazon, Apple, Acer, and Samsung and reveal an interesting trend. While all four tech firms enjoyed a major bump on the day, activations were much lower this year than in the previous two years.

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This past year has been incredibly busy, and a huge amount of hardware has passed through my hands. Some of it has impressed, a lot has disappointed, but a handful was great enough to make it to my list of favorites for the year.

While I've tried out a great deal of software, this has been a year in which it has been hardware that has caught my eye. So here it is: my favorite tech from 2013.

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While the percentage of incidents was rather low, Google was forced to pull the HP Chromebook 11 from the market due to an overheating charger. Since then, the company has come out with a replacement model, and has begun shipping them out to customers who were affected.

Though the notebook has not yet reappeared in the Play store, it has now gone back up for sale via Amazon. The device is once again listed as "in stock", selling for the $279 that it previously went for.

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People may chastise American's use of credit cards; spending money on crap during the holidays. However, it is essential for the survival of retail businesses. Think your neighbor is stupid for buying a jet ski and a PlayStation 4 when he's already in hock? You are probably right; for him, it likely is stupid. But for the overall economy, it may be a good thing.

News of the economy always seems to be doom and gloom lately, so it is nice to hear good news every once in a while. Today, Amazon announces record-breaking Amazon Prime memberships and activity. This can mean that consumers have extra money to spend or are just adding to their debt like the previously mentioned neighbor with the jet ski. Either way though, it is good news that people have confidence and are spending.

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It's the big day. You've been waiting to tear the bow and paper off all those gifts that have been temptingly resting beneath the tree, and now you've finally been able to do so. We're curious what you got, but we certainly hope it was all you dreamed for. And, if your holiday haul included the latest tablet from Amazon, then we'd like to give you a bit of help.

Amazon refreshed its lineup of tablets just recently, and several of us here at BetaNews have been enjoying the latest models. Not long ago I reviewed the 7-inch version, and my colleague Mark Wilson has been reveling in the fabulous screen of the 8.9-inch model of the device.

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Right off the bat, I should mention that this pertains to our friends up in the Great White North. With that out of the way, online retailer Amazon has come up with yet one more way to push sales over the holiday season, a run it began before Black Friday had even dawned, and when other merchants were only planning Cyber Monday deals.

Much like the other deals, the company isn't waiting for the official day, which arrives December 26th. Instead, Amazon kicks off a week of deals, and it begins today.

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The holiday shopping season is well underway -- getting on towards the finish line actually. That said, there is still time to grab a few last-minute gifts and beg for the ones you wish to remove the bow from. And that is the question I now pose to you -- what tech toys are you harboring hopes for this time around?

I cannot, of course, read your mind, and likely not sway opinions, though I do plan to give you some unsolicited ideas on what I found to my liking in 2013.

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Since it launched in 2006 Amazon Web Services has become a major player in the cloud computing sector. It's now aiming to move further into the big data arena with the rollout of Amazon Kinesis. Kinesis (from the Greek word meaning movement) is a managed service to handle the real-time processing of high-volume streaming data.

By using Amazon Kinesis customers will be able to store and process terabytes of data from hundreds of thousands of sources each hour. This will enable them to write applications that take action on real-time data -- things like website click-streams, marketing and financial transactions, social media feeds, logs and metering data, and location-tracking events.

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I've worked my way through a fair share of tablets over the years. An iPad 2 with its 9.7 inch screen, a Sony Tablet S with a slightly smaller 9.4 inch display, followed by a series of 7-inchers -- the Nexus 7, Tesco's Hudl and  the GOCLEVER Aries 7o. Oh, and the Surface Pro; I have a tendency to forget this is a 10.6 inch tablet as I use it in laptop mode.

All of my tablets have been used for much the same things: checking email, writing the odd document, viewing photos, watching videos, updating Facebook and Twitter, browsing the web and playing a few games. Taking the Surface Pro out of the equation, I've always found the circa 10-inch tablets too big. I thought I was settled on 7 inches as offering the best dimensions. It seems I might have been wrong.

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Amazon has refreshed its tablet lineup, adding the HDX alongside the already solid HD, making a good product that much better. If you haven't used one of the retailer's devices, then you should know that, despite it being Android, the lineup is really about media consumption, and is particularly well suited for those who have Prime subscriptions.

But now there is another option for those who either do not subscribe to Amazon's video service, or simply want more choice. Redbox Instant by Verizon has landed in the Amazon Android App Store.

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