Articles about Amazon

Amazon is leaning on its strengths in procurement in order to make the Kindle Fire as cheaply as possible, IHS iSuppli says. The firm has begun its teardown of the device and says that the components inside offer little surprises from the virtual teardown it released in September. Each Fire costs Amazon $201.70 to build, meaning the company loses $2.70 on each device.

Previously, IHS guessed that the Fire had cost $209.63 to build, but that was based on what it new of Amazon's suppliers and not an actual teardown of the device.

Continue reading →

Online storage services can be a great way to share documents or back up key files. Of course they all have their own interfaces and clients, though, so if you use more than one then you’ll have plenty of software to install and master.

But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Cloud Turtle (from Genie9, the company behind the Genie Timeline backup package) doesn’t only work with Genie9′s own Timeline Cloud service, where it enables you to search your backed up files, restore any you need, stream music and videos, and more. It also delivers equally strong functionality with both Amazon S3 and Nirvanix accounts.

Continue reading →

Is Amazon Prime the best deal in tech? It just may be: Amazon now offers the capability for customers to loan out over 5,000 books for their Kindle or Kindle Fire devices. The Kindle Owners' Lending Library will allow for one book per month to be lent out, and there are no due dates.

To borrow a new book, the Kindle user "returns" the title on their device by lending out a new book: the older book will disappear.

Continue reading →

Leading online retailer Amazon submitted its third quarter 2011 sales and earnings figures on Tuesday, revealing a big jump in sales -- especially in its Kindle product line -- but an overall decline in income.

Sales increased 44 percent sequentially, going from $7.56 billion to $10.88 billion; this represented a 39 percent increase over the same quarter last year.

Continue reading →

The hottest tablet to debut in months has pretty puny specs. There's no camera, no Bluetooth, no sensors for orientation and no 3G radio. The device runs Android 2.1, but it's customized such your existing apps probably won't run -- and Amazon has developed its own web browser, too. But the $199 price is compelling, and seemingly everyone is talking about it. So I have to ask: Has Kindle Fire set your wallet ablaze? Amazon is taking preorders for November 15 release. As usual you can answer in comments or email joe at betanews dot com. Then there is the poll below; please take it.

I must admit to having a hearty laugh at the news coverage. For weeks, as Amazon tablet rumors mounted, bloggers and journalists posted story after story asserting that the iPad killer was coming -- like some new-found messiah they worshiped sight unseen who would vanquish the Jesus Pad from Apple cultdom. Over the last two days, many of those same sites posted about how "Kindle Fire is no iPad killer". I laughed my ass off. Seriously, there really needs to be some kind rumor-control meter for the Internet.

Continue reading →

Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet may be nearly two months from shipping, but that's not stopping the retailer from building buzz now. Amazon only just announced the Android 2.1-based tablet this morning, and the first commercials are ready to go. The 7-inch Kindle Fire goes on sale November 15 for $199. Wanna guess what the hot Christmas gift this year is gonna be? Hint: It ain't iPad 2.

While geeks, tech writers and Apple fanatics will get all hung up on what's missing -- no camera, no Bluetooth, no 3G, no Android 3.x "Honeycomb" -- ignore their complaints. Amazon isn't selling techie features but a digital lifestyle -- that's crystal clear from this one video, and it resonates with marketing for Kindle ebook readers.

Continue reading →

Amazon's unveiling of the Kindle Fire on Wednesday took the eReader ever closer to becoming a full-fledged tablet device. With the move, Amazon will now have its devices ever-more increasingly compared to tablets rather than other e-readers in its class.

The most obvious comparison is price. At $199, Amazon is clearly aiming to get as many Fires in the hands of consumers as possible. It could see the device as a loss leader, hoping to make up any lost margins on the sales of content from its music and entertainment services.

Continue reading →

Online retailer Amazon on Wednesday officially launched its first Android tablet, the 7" Kindle Fire.

Taking its name from the company's already successful line of e-readers, the Kindle Fire introduces a handful of new features to the Android tablet business.

Continue reading →

Amazon on Wednesday unveiled the fifth generation of its dedicated Kindle e-readers: the $79 Kindle, the $99 Kindle Touch, and the $149 Kindle Touch 3G. All three go up for pre-order today and will begin shipping on November 21.

The three models each offer the latest high-contrast 6" E Ink Pearl display and an even smaller profile than previous versions, but they're not all the same. The low-end Kindle offers a much smaller chassis, and weighs only 5.95 ounces, while two flagship models, Kindle Touch, and Touch 3G, have infrared touchscreen interfaces like the Nook Simple Touch and Sony Reader and slightly larger bodies.

Continue reading →

Monday, Amazon and Netflix, two major competitors in the video streaming space announced new content partnerships that broaden their catalogs and represent the next generation of carriage agreements that occur every three years in the cable and pay TV business.

Amazon announced it had signed a licensing deal with 20th Century Fox that would bring streaming movies and TV shows to its Amazon Prime Instant streaming service. It will join CBS, NBCUniversal, Sony, Warner Brothers, and Amazon's other current partners, who now bring a total of 11,000 movies and TV shows to the premium service.

Continue reading →

Last April, Amazon announced the Kindle Library Lending program would let Kindle users borrow books from more than 11,000 U.S. libraries. Today, the program officially launched at all participating libraries.

Users can search their local library's website, and when they find a book, they can choose "Send to Kindle," which then redirects them through Amazon.com and syncs their book down to their e-reader or Kindle app for Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, BlackBerry or Windows Phone, or to the browser-based Kindle Cloud Reader.

Continue reading →

If Amazon's rumored Android tablet ever indeed becomes a reality, it could quickly become one of the bestselling tablets on the market. That's the claims of Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, who expects the tablet to sell up to five million units in the fourth quarter of this year.

At that rate, sales of the Amazon tablet would surpass the 4.19 million iPads that Apple sold in the first full quarter of its availability from July through September 2010. Amazon would roughly be doing that in about two to three months.

Continue reading →

As of today, Amazon's Kindle e-reader is available on all platforms. The retailer on Wednesday launched Kindle Cloud Reader, an HTML5 Web app that gives users browser-based access to their Kindle library and the Kindle store on platforms that have no dedicated Kindle app, such as Linux and ChromeOS.

Similar to the Amazon MP3 Cloud Player, Kindle Cloud Reader gives users the option to read their e-books while connected, or to cache content to their local machine for offline consumption, and the bookstore has been integrated into the web app's experience.

Continue reading →

Amazon can't keep running away from states that require sales tax collection. Even they are now supporting a Democratic proposal to create an interstate agreement for standardized and simplified collection of taxes. Everyone's a winner except for those of you who have not been paying the use tax you're supposed to pay. It's a good and fair idea and it has no chance whatsoever of passage.

The remote buyer sales tax problem is an old one going back to the days of mail order and catalogs. The Internet has made it worse for states because the volume is so much greater, but the nature of the problem hasn't really changed. In that sense, the established court precedents might seem to close the books on the case.

Continue reading →

The Wall Street Journal shook the tech world Wednesday with news that Amazon plans to release its own Android-based tablet in October, a clear effort to take Apple head on now that it has nearly dominated the e-reader market with its market-leading Kindle device.

While the device is not a replacement for the Kindle, it's likely that the e-retailer will make it compatible with its array of services. Amazon already has a stable of offerings that could make any tablet successful: its cloud-based music service, its own music store, the Kindle e-bookstore, and its streaming and downloadable video offerings.

Continue reading →