Items tagged with Lab126
There’s no question that the Fire Phone has been a spectacular flop for online retail giant Amazon. While the company has found success with its Kindle e-Readers and Kindle Fire tablets, Amazon found that breaking into the cutthroat smartphone market takes more than a strong brand name and some decent hardware specs. When the Fire Phone launched last year, it cost $199 (32GB) with a new two-year contract from AT&T (the exclusive carrier for the Fire Phone; another big mistake). Pricing off-contract climbed to as much as $650 off-contract for the 64GB Fire Phone, which was a lot to ask in the face of competition from the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Apple iPhone 5 -- its contemporaries at the...
Read more...
Amazon had high hopes for its Fire Phone; especially after the success it's seen with its Kindle and Kindle Fire tablet releases. Unfortunately for Amazon, it's not as easy to compete in the mobile phone space, and to compound the problem, Amazon now admits that it priced its Fire Phone all wrong at launch. This was a pretty big flop for Amazon, and probably not by coincidence, it's now being reported that Amazon is reorganizing operations at Lab126, its R&D group based in Silicon Valley. News of the reshuffle comes from Fast Company, which cites multiple unnamed sources that are supposedly familiar with Amazon's efforts. Those sources say that the changes have been...
Read more...
Technology companies have been talking up smart homes for years at trade shows, but it’s a concept that has a hard time getting significant traction – until now. Google recently entered the market in a big way with its $3.2 billion purchase of Nest, which makes Wi-Fi connected home thermostats, smoke alarms, and surveillance cameras. Now, Amazon is showing signs of taking the smart home seriously, as well. According to sources for Reuters, Amazon is in the process of testing a device that would give users a way to order certain home supplies with the push of a button. Amazon has had success with some of its hardware ventures, like the Kindle Fire tablets (the Kindle Fire HD 7 and...
Read more...
