Amazon Instant Video for iOS update allows for streaming to Apple TV via AirPlay

Amazon has brought an update to its instant video iOS app that allows its content to play nice with Apple's set-top box hardware. Amazon Instant Video customers can now stream content to Apple TV with AirPlay for the first time.

The app allows Amazon Prime customers to enjoy a selection of video content like TV shows and movies for free. The updated instant video app comes along with improved content recommendation and what sounds like much deeper IMDB integration as well as the new AirPlay feature. You can now search down through other projects from the same director or by customer recommendations, for example.

Amazon privately tests wireless network in California

Amazon has tested a wireless network in Cupertino, California, that could allow customers to wirelessly connect to the Internet in a manner that isn’t unlike those offered by traditional wireless providers. The trial run was conducted with the help of satellite communications company Globalstar Inc. according to people familiar with the matter as reported by Bloomberg.

Amazon to open international media development center in London

Amazon has announced plans to combine the teams of the two UK-based media companies it purchased last year, creating job opportunities in the area and opening a new international center for digital media development near Silicon Roundabout in central London, England.

The new center will be fully open within the coming weeks, with the center's new managing director Paula Byrne saying London was the obvious choice. "London is a hotbed of tech talent, and testament to that fact is Amazon choosing the capital as the location for its new global digital media development center […] innovation is part of the Amazon DNA, and we are creating a British center of excellence to design and develop the next generation of TV and film services for a wide range of digital devices."

The plan will see Pushbutton and LoveFilm move their entire design and development teams into the eight-story, 47,000sq.ft building in Glass Yard.

Amazon purchased LoveFilm, a European film subscription service with over two million members in UK, Germany and the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark and Norway back in February 2011. The company then followed up by acquiring Pushbutton, a company specializing in the design and building of user interfaces to enable viewers to select and watch digital media content across a wide range of device platforms. The design firm also worked with the media content provider to create the LoveFilm Instant streaming service, among many other projects.

Both firms will work jointly on interactive digital services for TVs, game consoles, smartphones and PCs. The new center in London will also become the main hub for the engineering team responsible for improving the retailer’s website experience around the world, the company added.

Mayor Boris Johnson was equally happy with the US retailer's move, saying it was a "splendid feather in our cap” in regards to London’s growing technology presence. “We know we have the talent, the space and infrastructure to make the most of the digital economy. Amazon's investment propels us well up the league table of global tech cities and we thank it for its vote of confidence," he added.

Amazon said its headquarters would remain in Slough, and didn’t quote the exact number of staff relocating offices, except for saying “hundreds” of LoveFilm and Pushbutton staff members would move in next week, ahead of the US firm embarking on a hiring spree.

Dropbox doubles space for Pro accounts at no extra cost

Cloud storage and syncing startup Dropbox is beefing up its paid offerings in the wake of increased competition from the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, among others. Starting today Dropbox Pro subscribers will see twice as much storage space on their accounts for no additional cost.

Those who previously paid $9.99 a month or $99 per year for 50GB of storage will be upgraded to 102GB (100GB plus the 2GB of free space provided to all users), while those paying $19.99 a month or $199 per year  will now get 202GB instead of 100GB.

The company also says that it is giving any current Pro members a 3 month 100GB trial to share with friends. The new plans will go into effect tonight.

Although the bump in storage space is certainly welcome Dropbox is still among the priciest alternatives out there. Google Drive offers 100GB on top of your free storage at $60 per year, for example, while Microsoft’s SkyDrive offers the same deal for $50 a year and Amazon at $100 a year.

Free Dropbox accounts are not receiving any upgrades. They still start at 2GB, which is considerably less than rival offerings, but Dropbox allows you bump that up to 18GB through referrals and other promotions.

"Leap second" bug, Amazon EC2 outage brought down major websites

A surprising portion of the web went dark on Saturday thanks to a major storm which knocked out much of Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud. Clients of Amazon's EC2 include the likes of Netflix, Instagram and Pinterest -- all of which went dark on Saturday. Of course, this is not the first time Amazon's web services have been rendered helpless by intense storms. Believe it or not, Amazon's servers account for nearly 1 percent of the Internet.

However, it wasn't just Amazon's data centers wreaking havoc upon online service availability. As it turns out, a number of websites fell prey to a leap second bug which also caused disruptions. Amongst the sites affected by the bug were Gawker (Parent of Lifehacker, Gizmodo and others), Reddit, Mozilla and most likely many others.

Every so often, International timekeepers add one second to global time standards in order to offset differences between our ultra-precise atomic clocks and the natural rotation of the planet -- a rotation which is ever so slightly irregular. Because the spin of our blue marble isn't as exact as the oscillation of atoms, these tiny time adjustments are performend whenever they are needed and not necessarily done at fixed, periodic intervals. The last change was made in 2008.

The new and improved time eventually propagates via NTP (Network Time Protocol) to many computers across the world. Many web servers, too, are configured for NTP as well. Somehow though, some software isn't able to handle this unexpected change in seconds and the result is what we saw on Saturday.

Hours, minutes, seconds -- these are all man-made constructs with measurably precise definitions. However, the rotation and orbit of the Earth are actually less perfect than human standards and the instruments we use to measure them.

Even though the differences between atomic clock read outs and Earth's ballerina-like spin may be too miniscule for you and I to notice, the difference adds up. In fact, it adds up enough to offset human time from planetary time by minutes -- even hours -- over the course of many years. For this reason, we continue to make adjustments in order to ensure morning, noon and night line up with what we've come to expect.

RIM to split handset and messaging services into two companies

Research in Motion has been fighting an uphill battle to remain relevant in the handset market for a number of years but according to one report, they will soon concede defeat. RIM is planning to divide their handset and messaging service into two separate entities and sell the handset division, according to Gizmodo as first reported by the Sunday Times (login required).

The newspaper claims that RIM would keep the messaging and data capabilities like BBM, BIS and BES but would license out their usage to third parties. This idea to license BBM has reportedly been tossed around before with some inside the company thinking it would help brand recognition while others believe it would give customers yet another reason to switch to Android or the iPhone.

The newspaper suggests a few other options as well, including the possibility of selling the business to Amazon or Facebook, handing over the messaging division to Google or Apple if the price is right or continue to remain a single entity but sell a stake in RIM to a large company like Microsoft or someone else with handset ambitions.

Forbes points out that none of these ideas are new and some are pretty comical at the core, like Microsoft investing in RIM. After all, they have Windows Phone and Nokia to work with. Adding RIM would seemingly do next to nothing for their handset division.

We’re not sure what will eventually happen to RIM but they certainly can’t continue on their current path without changes for too much longer.

Source : http://techspot.com

Amazon sued for bullying Kindle accessory maker M-Edge

M-Edge, an accessory maker for the Kindle and other such devices, has sued Amazon for "unlawful corporate bullying." Filed in Maryland, the federal suit alleges that Amazon attempted to "hijack" M-Edge's products through threats, deceit, interference with customer relationships as well as patent infringement.

M-Edge has been building protective cases for Amazon's Kindle since it first launched in 2008, addressing a common complaint about the e-reader's flimsy default cover. At the time, Amazon commissioned 8% of M-Edge's sales, but that changed as the Kindle (and inherently, M-Edge's products) grew more popular.

After the Kindle appeared on Oprah Winfrey's show in October 2008, M-Edge's inventory sold out. That drew attention from Amazon, which requested that the accessory firm become a "special partner" in January 2009. As part of the relationship, Amazon vowed to give M-Edge pre-launch details about next-generation Kindles.

A month later, M-Edge entered a "Kindle Compatible" agreement that placed its products in Amazon's "Kindle Store" page. In exchange, Amazon requested another 7% slice of the sales (totaling 15%). Amazon wanted to advance the relationship in May 2009 by making M-Edge a "first-party" seller, but the firm declined.

Fast forward to November 2009, the companies penned a three-year agreement that locked M-Edge into the 15% commission while affording it special status as a preferred seller. Only two months into that deal, the e-tail giant demanded a new contract that would grant it 32% of sales and make M-Edge a "first-party" seller.

M-Edge refused and that's where Amazon proceeded with various strong-arm tactics. The company supposedly threatened to "de-list" M-Edge from Amazon.com unless it complied. Although the parties never signed a new agreement, in February 2010, Amazon demanded that M-Edge retroactively pay the 32% commission.

Unwilling to part with the $600,000, M-Edge told Amazon to take a hike. The harassment continued through May 2010 as Amazon kept pushing new contract terms, demanding unfair retroactive pay as well as threatening to "de-list" and bury M-Edge's products on Amazon.com. M-Edge caved to the pressure in July 2010.

The revised contract granted Amazon a 32% commission, allowing it to "extort" an extra $6.5 million from M-Edge. Despite making more cash, Amazon failed to honor its old agreement to share pre-launch details about the Kindle. The third-gen e-reader launched on July 28, 2010 and M-Edge only received a one-day notice.

What's more, the filing implies this was an attempt to hijack M-Edge's sales. Amazon launched its own covers that bared a stark resemblance to M-Edge's designs, all the way down to the colors chosen. M-Edge took the beating and in January 2011, Amazon demanded even more cash -- another $150,000 a year, to be precise.

Amazon resorted to similar bullying methods, demanding onerous reporting requirements, vowing to de-list M-Edge's products and withholding payments. By March 2011, Amazon allegedly owed M-Edge nearly $2 million. That's a summarized version of the filing's background section. You can read the full 15-page complaint here.

Kindle Fire update to address performance and privacy issues

Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet launched to much fanfare this past November, poised to steal some thunder from  Apple's popular iPad 2 with a tempting $199 price tag. The device went on to become a best-seller among Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers at Amazon.com as well as Best Buy and Target stores.

As the excitement over the Kindle Fire begins to wane, Amazon is now moving to address some of the criticism surrounding its tablet with an upcoming software update. Specifically, the company said the update should improve overall performance and multitouch navigation, while also adding a feature that will allow users to delete their browsing history -- something that will by welcomed by those concerned about privacy.

The update will be made available to users over the air in less than two weeks, according to Amazon spokesperson Drew Herdener. It's unclear if other common complaints, such as occasional lockups that require a hard reset as well as insufficient volume for movies and Wi-Fi issues will be addressed as well.

Not all issues can bee fixed by software, though. The Kindle Fire has been criticized for its lack of physical volume buttons and an awkwardly placed power button that makes easy to turn the device off inadvertently.

Amazon sees the Kindle line of devices as critical for its future strategy and thinks about them in terms of its lifetime value. This is why the company is willing to lose money on the sale of each device, making up for the loss with market share, and the sale of accessories, content, advertising and special offers.

Amazon to hold press event on September 28, tablet unveiling likely

Amazon could be set to release their anticipated tablet or a new Kindle as early as September 28. The company sent out invites to select media today, inviting them to attend a press conference scheduled for next Wednesday.

While it’s very possible that Amazon could simply be planning a Kindle refresh for the event, most media believe that the online retailer will unveil a 7-inch Android-based tablet, dubbed the Amazon Kindle. Earlier this month Tech Crunch claimedto get some hands-on time with the new tablet (sans photos or videos, unfortunately), saying the device resembled a BlackBerry PlayBook in terms of form factor.

TC further described the device as having a capacitive, full color touchscreen and a price point of $250. The Android software looks nothing like what we have seen thus far as the interface is all Amazon and Kindle. There is no Android Market or any Google app.

The unit was suspected to have a single-core CPU, but this couldn’t be confirmed. Expect around 6GB of onboard storage with more available in the cloud and no cameras. A Wi-Fi only model is expected at launch with 3G-enabled products coming a bit later.

The press event potentially solidifies rumors that we could expect the device to launch sometime in September, although it remains to be seen if Amazon can move an estimated five million tablets in the upcoming quarter as speculated by Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps last month.

Samsung to build an Android tablet for Amazon

Gdgt just posted an excellent article claiming that Amazon is getting Samsung to build them an Android tablet, which may run Android 3.0 (codenamed Honeycomb) or even a custom operating system based on Google's Android platform. It could be released by the end of this summer.

Furthermore, author Peter Rojas, co-founder of Gizmodo and Engadget, argues that the biggest competitor to Apple in the tablet space is actually Amazon:

It's something of an open secret that Amazon is working on an Android tablet and I am 99% certain they are having Samsung build one for them. Does the world really need yet another tablet? If it were anyone else, I'd say no, but I think Amazon is uniquely positioned to layer in a set of products and services that would differentiate its tablet from the flood of Android tablets hitting the market this year.

The article is a great read and reminds me of other whispers that the company is building a tablet that builds on the Kindle. From everything I've read, I would say there are three main reasons why Amazon will likely move further into the tablet space.

The first reason is exactly because of the Kindle. It is the best-selling product on Amazon and the company has surely learned a lot from it. The company has built a brand that consumers recognize and appreciate even if they do not own the device or use the mobile app on their phones. In short, it's a very solid base to expand from.

The second reason is sheer retail size. Amazon is huge. One of Apple's biggest advantages over other tablet makers is its retail stores, and while Amazon doesn't have this, its online presence is massive enough to make sure it sells millions of whatever it features on its website, like it has with the Kindle.

The third reason is Amazon's recently launched services. In addition to the Kindle ecosystem, there's the Amazon Android App Store and the Cloud Drive. If that doesn't scream tablet, we don't know what does.

There are still many unanswered questions like exact timing and pricing. I would be seriously surprised if it didn't arrive this year, and if it was more than $500.

Amazon introduces cheaper, ad-supported Kindle

Amazon is making its popular Kindle e-reader more affordable for anyone to enjoy as long as they can put up with the occasional advertisement. The hardware is identical to the standard $139 model, but the new Kindle with "Special Offers"shaves $25 (18%) off that price down to $114 in exchange for showing you some publicity. It's worth noting that these ads aren't popping up in the middle of reading a book -- they're just replacing the Kindle's screen saver while the device is idle and a small strip at the bottom of the home screen. For many, that will be a fair trade off.

Some of the sample deals in the press release included: $10 for $20 Amazon.com Gift Cards, $6 for 6 Audible Books (valued at $68), $1 for an album in the Amazon MP3 Store, and 50% off Roku Streaming Player. Clicking on a deal via the five-way controller will generally trigger an email with the offer, but some deals can be redeemed right from the Kindle. A full list of active offers will be available from the menu of Kindle with Special Offers at any time.


Amazon also introduced a Kindle app called AdMash that will allow users to vote on the most attractive and engaging display advertisements. The most popular ads will be more likely to appear as sponsored screensavers.

Although $99 would have been a much better psychological price point for the Kindle that doesn't mean it won't get there eventually if the initiative is successful. Amazon still has to see how well buyers respond to the ad-supported device, advertisers have to measure the reach and effectiveness of their campaigns, and it remains to be seen if people won't just hack the device to get rid of ads while paying the discounted price.

Kindle customers who don’t embrace the idea can still purchase an ad-free Wi-Fi only Kindle for $139 or a model with 3G wireless for $189. What do you think? Is the $25 discount and promise of sweet Amazon deals good enough to get you on board? And as a gadget buyer, would you like to see more ad-subsidized devices from other manufacturers?

Amazon Android App Store goes live, gets sued

Amazon is officially launching its Android App Store today with around 3,800 free and paid apps from all the big developers names on there. The storefront for Android mobile applications will compete directly with Google's official marketplace, and it looks like Amazon is ready to take on the fight by offering a few things that its rival lacks, throwing the full weight of its marketing and e-commerce expertise behind the app store.

For one thing the Amazon Android App Store will use the recommendation algorithm that the online retailer uses on its website to suggest certain apps and boost app discovery. In fact, it might recommend applications to users even when browsing physical goods on Amazon -- say, if you are looking for a camera you could see a camera app suggestion.

Apparently there will also be some exclusive (or at least timed-exclusive) Amazon-only Android apps, such as Angry Birds Rio, as well as a 'free app-of-the-day' feature where Amazon will select one premium application each day and make it free to consumers. Also, for those wondering whether an app is worth the asking price, Amazon will offer a 30-minute Test Drive facility that will let you try out a program you might fancy for your phone before purchasing.

One notable difference compared to Google's approach is that the Amazon App Store will have an approval process for apps to gain access. The company says it's going to take a somewhat relaxed stance as far as what's allowed on the store -- basically just blocking porn and anything related to illegal activities -- and that's probably a good thing. As Google certainly knows by now being "too open" can lead to a flurry of malware apps compromising devices.

The launch didn't go without a hitch, though. Apple has decided that the name is just too similar to its own App Store andissued a formal complaint. According to the iPhone maker, Amazon is "improperly using" Apple's trademark in connection to its mobile software developer program and its application download service.