Amazon's Echo smart speaker and digital assistant keeps getting smarter and smarter it seems and it's beginning to pay dividends for the company. So much so that recent reports note that Amazon's Echo is the most popular Bluetooth speaker in the etail channel right now, besting strong competitors like Bose, Sonos and...Read more...
Well here's an interesting development—Amazon today announced that its Echo smart speaker now supports streaming directly from Spotify. That means if you're a subscriber to Spotify's Premium tier, you can bark commands like "Alexa, play ZZ Top from Spotify" and in no time you'll be boogieing out to "Sharp Dressed...Read more...
Have you ever tried to pitch the merits of an ebook reader to a book lover who wants nothing to do with digital print? To them, it's the dead tree model or bust, and for various reasons—it could be the feel of the book or the smell of the papers, or even just an aversion to electronic devices. Whatever the case might be, paper bound books Read more...
Several companies have tried to topple Spotify in the streaming music space, including bigwigs Microsoft (Groove, formerly Xbox Music) and Apple (Apple Music), yet it remains one of the most popular options out there. But lest Spotify rest on its laurels, there's another big name reportedly crashing the...Read more...
Investors weren't as pumped as Amazon about its fourth quarter performance in which the online commerce giant collected $35.7 billion. That's a healthy jump of 22 percent form the $29.3 billion it registered in the same quarter a year prior and, once all the bills were paid, it left Amazon with a record Q4 profit of...Read more...
It’s hard to believe that an e-commerce company that was started over 20 years ago has yet to take part in Super Bowl festivities. But such its the case with Amazon, which has instead poured its money into building out its infrastructure, padding its vast streaming video library, and adding additional perks for its...Read more...
Wouldn't it be rad (yes, I said rad) if James Lipton was always on call to provide a dramatic reading of a novel? I'd also be delighted to sit back and listen to James Earl Jones narrate a grisly tale, or Morgan Freeman read just about anything, even a telephone book. Perhaps they'd be willing for the right amount of coin, but in lieu of what's Read more...
Remember when being a Prime member at Amazon simply meant free two-day shipping on qualified items? That perk in and of itself made the Prime membership worth it, but rather than stop there, Amazon has continually added more reasons to consider joining, the latest of which is a 20 percent discount on new...Read more...
For some, digital assistants are a part of everyday life. They're all around us. In mobile, they take the form of Siri, Google Now, and Cortana, depending on your platform of choice, and thanks to Amazon, similar functionality can be had at home without a phone through its Echo speaker. It's been a popular seller for...Read more...
Periodically, Amazon updates and revamps its lineup of tablets with upgraded models and new names. While the company's tablets have kept the Fire branding over the years, the combination of letters and numbers that follow have changed. This year, for example, Amazon removed the HDX tag and now offers tablets with simply “Fire” or “Fire HD”...Read more...
Two-wheeled hoverboards have been making headlines this holiday shopping season, though not all the attention they're receiving has been positive. Instead, there have several reports of hoverboards overheating and catching fire, and it's because of those reports that Amazon has quietly decided to remove all traces of...Read more...
If you haven't yet upgraded from a mechanical hard drive to a solid state drive, take the plunge and thank us later. The difference in performance across the board is both dramatic and noticeable, and though SSDs are comparatively pricey, there are deals to be had. One of them is Samsung's 850 EVO 500GB SSD at...Read more...
Amazon Prime started out as a nifty little program that offered members free 2-day shipping on millions of qualifying items. That perk still applies, though Prime has become so much more. It's also worked its way up to a full fledged streaming video service, and through a new partnership program that ties in with...Read more...
Are you the type of person who has to read a chapter or two of whichever book you're engrossed in before hitting the pillow for some Zs? If so, you're a prime candidate for a new bundle from Amazon that packages its previously announced Fire HD 8 tablet with some tantalizing extras, including a year of Kindle...Read more...
We're a mere 20 days away from the grandest gift-giving day of the year, and etailers everywhere are ready to embrace the glorious pain that's going to hit them as we inch ever-closer. There's no better example of an etailer having to withstand an incredible workload quite like Amazon. Its infrastructure has to be...Read more...
A special Pip-Boy Edition of Fallout 4 proved so immensely popular among fans of the Fallout franchise that once it sold out, Bethesda released a statement explaining it produced as many bundles as it possibly could and not to expect more of them. Well, Bethesda was apparently wrong, and we're sure Fallout fans won't...Read more...
Back in September, Amazon introduced a new line of Fire tablets. The revised lineup included a $50 7-inch Fire along with a Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 priced from $149 and $229 respectively. All of the tablets shipped with Amazon’s new Fire OS 5, which was developed under the codename “Bellini.”
Today, Amazon has...Read more...
Future generations won't think twice about having packages delivered by drone, it will be commonplace. In the meantime, it's still a gee-whiz concept that has yet to materialize, though it's getting close. So close, in fact, that Amazon is showing off one of its prototype drones that it plans to deploy as part of its...Read more...
Savvy online shoppers know that the best time of the year to buy electronics is during the holiday season, and especially Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Black Friday. We're seeing lots of tantalizing mark downs, one of which is Samsung's Galaxy S6 smartphone, unlocked and with 32GB of memory, for just...Read more...
In October, we learned that Amazon is willing to do whatever it takes to help its video service succeed, even if it means disallowing the sales of competing products on its marketplace. If that wasn't enough proof that the company has grand ambitions, a rumor popped-up last week which suggests that the company will...Read more...
If your wallet has thus far survived the barrage of awesome deals floating around the Web, you might want to pay attention to some great discounts Amazon is offering on its own gear.
For starters, the company's Echo has had $30 slashed off of its price, to settle in at $149. If you're not familiar with what this...Read more...
With so many Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals out there, it can be tough to spot the gems. One that undoubtedly qualifies is Amazon's offer of unlimited cloud storage for a year for just $5, which is 92 percent less than the normal selling price of $59.99. If you're a digital pack rat, this is the score you've been...Read more...