Items tagged with 'Amazon.com'
Intel Reader To Help Visually Disabled
Intel on Tuesday introduced a new e-book reader, one designed for the visually impaired, which can read digital files of books aloud, as well as capture images from printed material via a 5-megapixel digital camera and similarly read the text aloud at a variety of listening speeds. Additionally, the Intel Reader, as its... Read More
B&N's nook Faces Spring Design IP Lawsuit
Barnes & Noble's nook hasn't even seen the light of day yet (it's pre-order only), and it's already embroiled in a lawsuit. In this case, Spring Design, which has its own e-book reader, is claiming B&N has used IP garnered from meetings with Spring Design in its nook.The lawsuit addresses Spring Design's "Alex"... Read More
Amazon.com Launches Its Own Brand
Amazon.com has announced its own house brand of electronics. The new brand, called "AmazonBasics," is, according to the giant Internet retailer, a new private-label collection of consumer electronic "basics" created for customers who want "exceptional value." In other words, basic low-priced electronics goods, which for... Read More
Amazon.com Repents For Orwellian Kindle Deletions with $30 Gift Cert.
Amazon.com, which took the Orwellian step of remotely deleting copies of "1984" and "Animal Farm" from customers' Kindles, has apologized. On Thursday, they announced a sort of "reparations program" for those customers. In an email sent to "former owners" of the e-books, Amazon.com offered to either return the deleted books... Read More
Xbox 360 Elite (250GB Version) Outed by Amazon in Germany
It's not the first time an e-tailer has outed a product early. It won't be the last. It appears that Amazon.com's German site has listed a 250GB version of the Xbox 360 Elite. It's a good time to be a gamer, eh? First the PS3 "Slim" and a $100 price reduction, then the corresponding $100 price drop for the Xbox 360 Elite,... Read More
Amazon.com Sued Over Kindle E-book Deletions
Shoot, when we were kids, the best we could get away with in terms of something similar to this was "the dog ate my homework." In this case, a lawsuit has been filed after the well-publicized e-book deletion fiasco that ending up remotely deleting legitimately purchased e-books from users' Kindles. A 17-year-old from Michigan,... Read More
Amazon.com Won't Go Orwellian Again: Promise!
Another day, another PR mess for Amazon.com. Just as they seem to have settled the row over cracked Kindles (although the lawsuit continues!), users awoke Friday morning to find e-books remotely deleted from their Kindles, and the PR storm started up all over again.The Big Brother-ishness of the deletions was only... Read More
Amazon to Replace Cracked Kindles
People usually buy cases to protect their technology. In this case, the $30 case Amazon.com has been selling as a Kindle 2 accessory has apparently been causing cracks in the Kindle where the case clips to it, that eventually cracks the screen. Not good, and also not good that it took a lawsuit to prompt Amazon.com to offer... Read More
Google Plans E-books Entry: Report
According to a report in the New York Times, Google has its sights trained squarely on the e-book market. This move would pit Google against Amazon.com, which has a big head start in the e-book market with the versions it sells for its Kindle device (pictured below). The report stated that Google had discussions with publishers... Read More
More States Look to Tax Digital Goods, Web Sales
We've previously written about the so-called "Amazon Tax," New York State's move to expand the definition of a physical presence in a state so as to be able to force a retailer to charge sales tax. WEe also wrote that this was just the beginning, and as we expected, things are accelerating. As many states face budget crises,... Read More
Protests Over Silencing of Kindle 2
The Reading Rights Coalition, an advocacy group that represents the blind as well as disabled readers, held a protest outside the offices of The Authors Guild on Tuesday. The organization hopes to get the Guild to reverse its stance on the Kindle 2's "Read-to-Me" functionality. The Authors Guild earlier placed a lot of... Read More
Amazon MP3 Joins iTunes with Variable Pricing
It's not exactly the type of price match people think of when they hear the words "price match," and it sure wasn't something we had expected so soon, but it's here. Amazon MP3 has price-matched iTunes, so to speak. On the same day that Apple rolled out variable, tiered pricing on iTunes, Amazon MP3 did the same.... Read More
Rape-Based Video Game Pulled From Amazon.com
Amazon.com has halted sales of a Japanese video game that simulated the rape of a mother and her two daughters. The Rapelay game had been offered, not directly by Amazon.com, but rather through its third-party Amazon Marketplace service. The seller specializes in "hentai" — sexually explicit anime and manga. The description... Read More
Smartphones to Get Kindle E-Reader Software?
We're already aware that on Monday Amazon.com will most likely be announcing Kindle 2. But will they also be announcing software for smartphones that will allow users to download, buy, and read Kindle books? The New York Times says that Amazon.com has confirmed that they are working on such software. According to Drew Herdener,... Read More
"Amazon Tax" Suits Thrown Out by New York Court
The days of sales tax-free purchases on the Internet edged closer to an end on Monday, as a New York court dismissed the lawsuits which had been filed by Overstock.com and Amazon.com over the so-called "Amazon Tax." New York enacted this tax on Internet retailers that have affiliates based in the state. Previously, only... Read More
Samsung digital frame ships with virus
Digital photo frames are a hot gift item these days, but anyone buying a Samsung SPF-85H 8-inch digital photo frame through Amazon.com this year may have given their loved ones a little something extra: A computer virus.Amazon reached out to its purchasers with a note just before the holiday.Here's a snippet of their warning... Read More
Sony Says "Death to the Clamshell"
Yes, Sony has declared a war on the clamshell, packaging that is. We wrote earlier about Amazon.com's "frustration-free packaging" initiative, and this is an example of a similar initiative, aimed at getting rid of those clamshell packages that seem almost lethal. We call them lethal because (and I know you've experienced... Read More
Online Black Friday Sales Show 1% Sales Bump
Despite dire predictions for this year's holiday season, Black Friday results for online retailers showed a 1% increase from last year's Black Friday sales, to $534 million, according to a report by market research firm comScore. All is not rosy in the stats, however; comScore noted that for the holiday season to date e-commerce... Read More
Amazon.com Adding Games to Software Downloads
When Amazon.com opened its software download service in early January, it seemed curious that they would create a downloader app if they didn't have something larger in mind. A job posting on Gamasutra suggests Amazon will soon start a PC game download store to compliment Unbox, its video-on-demand service, and the site's... Read More
Amazon.com's MP3 Download Store to Open in Sept.
In the spring Amazon.com said it would unveil a digital music store by year's-end. It looks like they are going to beat their timeline. Sources indicate that Amazon.com will launch an MP3-based music service in mid-September. However, it's also indicated that the date is somewhat fluid, as it has been pushed back several... Read More
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