Articles about Amazon

TiVo and Amazon have entered into an agreement that would bring the online retailer's "Unbox" movie download service to the set-top boxes of TiVo customers in the near future.

Both the rental and purchase functions will be available to broadband-enabled TiVo boxes. Amazon is no doubt banking on Unbox on TiVo as a way to jumpstart its download business, which has seen a rocky start.

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A little less than two months after IBM sued Amazon over patent infringement, the web retailer has turned around and countersued Big Blue. Amazon says IBM misappropriated technology in order to enhance its own offerings.

The move could be seen as a defensive action in an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations between the two companies. According to IBM, the two sides have tried to work out an agreement since 2002, but have been unsuccessful thus far.

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Comcast said Monday that it would offer its high-speed Internet service through Amazon, and provide a $100 gift certificate for the retailer to those who sign up through the partnership. Comcast joins broadband provider Vonage, which joined Amazon's recently introduced "broadband services" category. A promotional rate of $19.99 USD per month for six months would apply to all new activations.

"Comcast and Amazon share a commitment for offering customers the best products and services and a focus on customer satisfaction," Comcast retail sales senior vice president Bob Faught said. "By creating an online store on Amazon, we can now be even more accessible to the site's huge customer base of more than 61 million active customer accounts."

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Amazon will not hand over information on how it searches and indexes the text of books, filing an objection in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Google had subpoenaed the online retailer in its fight against the Authors Guild, which sued the search engine in September of last year.

The information that Google requested was "highly confidential," Amazon said, and would require the divulging of trade secrets. Instead, the company directed Google to publicly available information on the Web about its book search methods.

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Claiming it had come to an impasse in negotiations with the Web retailer, IBM said Monday it had filed two patent infringement suits against Amazon.com for unspecified damages. The company said it had attempted to reach a settlement with Amazon for the past four years.

"We filed this case for a very simple reason. IBM's property is being knowingly and unfairly exploited," IBM intellectual property chief Dr. John Kelly said. The suits were filed in two Texas district courts.

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After failing to generate much interest in its A9.com search engine, Amazon confirmed Tuesday that it was removing search history and mapping features that differentiated it from competitors. In its place, a simplified front page that links to other search engines has appeared.

A9 now makes heavy use of Windows Live Search and Alexa, as well as links to some 400 other sources.

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After months of rumors and speculation, Amazon on Thursday officially took the wraps off its video download store, dubbed Unbox. The service offers movies, television shows and other videos, which play in Amazon's own software player as well as on portable devices.

Like on Apple's iTunes, TV shows on Unbox cost $1.99 USD. Movies will range in price from $7.99 to $14.99 USD, with some films available to rent for $3.99 USD. Amazon is using Microsoft's Windows Media digital rights management technology for the new service.

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19-year Microsoft veteran Brian Valentine, who has led Windows development since 1998, is leaving the Redmond company to join Amazon.com. The news comes just one month after Microsoft said Valentine would transition to a new, unspecified role.

Valentine began working at Microsoft in 1987 as an Engineering Manager in the LAN Manager Group. He was largely responsible for cleaning up the Windows 2000 development mess and getting the operating system out the door.

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Online retailer Amazon.com has begun to accept pre-orders for Windows Vista, which it says "will be released on January 30, 2007." The company is charging $399 USD for the Ultimate Edition of Vista, $239 USD for Home Premium and $199 USD for Home Basic. Vista Business is priced at $299 USD.

While Amazon frequently lists products before they become available and shipping dates are often an estimate, the pricing usually does not change. Microsoft also appears to be planning a new "Additional License" pack to go along with Vista, which includes just a Product Key and enables customers to use Vista on a second computer. On Amazon, however, pricing for the license pack is only $10 to $20 less than the full retail Vista packages.

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Although it has refused to confirm, Amazon has been rumored to be readying its video download service for launch in mid-August. First reported by trade magazine Advertising Age on Sunday, the service is said to offer both movies and episodes of television shows.

Originally, the service was intended to be a music service, however Amazon executives changed their plans due to the dominance of Apple in the market. The company felt it would be too difficult to break into the market, thus they turned to video, a segment that still has no clear leader.

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Amazon took baby steps into the realm of online groceries, offering only non-perishable goods and free shipping to anywhere in the United States. The company offers a total of about 10,000 items, and features such as a shopping list, product recommendations and savings opportunities for bulk buys.

Perishable goods are not offered through the service, as Amazon said it would not be able to ship those items for free. The company gave no possible time frame as to when -- and if -- it would offer those products.

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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will review Amazon.com's claims to a patent that covers its one-click buying option after a New Zealand actor successful raised a "substantial new question of patentability," according to a ruling by the agency.

Peter Calveley, whose film credits include being a motion capture performer behind the computer-generated characters in the The Lord of the Rings, claims that he had record of prior inventions in the field. He refers to a 1998 patent filed which discussed a single action that would be used for purchasing.

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Online retailer Amazon.com has dropped Google as its search result provider and selected Microsoft's new Windows Live Search instead. The change affects both Amazon's A9.com search engine and the company's Alexa toolbar and Web site.

The move is the first public show of support for Microsoft new search technology, which will eventually replace MSN Search after it leaves beta. Although neither Amazon nor Microsoft announced the switch, it follows rumors that eBay was also talking to the Redmond company in response to competition from Google Base. Amazon, like eBay, allows its users to sell their goods through the online store.

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Amazon's Web services arm on Tuesday introduced S3, a servicefor software developers that aims to provide a scalable and reliable data storage service at a low cost. S3 -- short for Simple Storage Service -- costs $0.15 per GB per month for storage, and $0.20 per GB of data transferred.

Developers would gain access to the same data storage infrastructure Amazon uses to run its network of Web sites. The company said it aims to pass the benefits of "Web-scale computing" on to developers.

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Sources near Amazon say that the company may be close to offering downloadable movies, with discussions ongoing between the online retailer and movie studios Universal, Paramount and Warner Bros. The service could open its doors by this summer.

Amazon has already toyed with the idea of online DVD rental, and is looking into a digital music service of its own. With the success that Apple has seen by adding video content to its iTunes Music Store, some companies are looking into ways to monetize online video content.

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