Walmart’s latest attempt to stay competitive with Amazon reportedly includes taking the rival company’s iconic Prime service and making its own version. [More]
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Amazon’s Stupid Shipping Gang Knows Exactly Where Your RAM Is
By 5.11.15
The Stupid Shipping Gang is back to work at Amazon: indeed, it never left. The Stupid Shipping Gang are the people who package e-commerce items for shipping, using inappropriately large or excessive packaging. Matthew’s office ordered nine RAM modules for laptop computers…and received them in nine separate boxes. [More]
“Injected Ads” Are An Annoying Security Risk Affecting Millions Of Internet Users
By 5.6.15
Legitimate advertising is an annoyance that most of us tolerate and do our best to ignore. But there are more pernicious forms of advertising that aren’t just a nuisance but actually pose a potential security risk, like the “injected ads” that find your way into your web browser through software and extensions. [More]
JetBlue Will Let Amazon Prime Customers Stream For Free Onboard
By 5.5.15
Though it’s already the only airline to offer free WiFi, JetBlue is taking it once step further and will now let passengers who are Amazon Prime customers stream Amazon’s music and video content for free. Because let’s face it, you’ve got some binge watching of Transparent to get done and those two shrill, chatty 20somethings across the aisle will not shut up about their trip to Cabo. [More]
Amazon Launches New Marketplace To Sell Specialized Supplies To Businesses
By 4.28.15
Amazon is gunning for businesses – connecting them with sellers of everything from lab equipment to food service supplies. The online retail giant launched its latest marketplace Tuesday, aiming to provide businesses with the same shopping service the company offers everyday customers. [More]
Amazon & DHL Testing Delivery To Customers’ Car Trunks
By 4.22.15
It’s not uncommon for consumers to shuttle around packages and shopping bags in the trunks of their cars. While most people put those items there themselves, Amazon wants to take that task off the hands of a very exclusive group of Prime members. [More]
First Amazon Customer Spent $27.95 And Got A Building Named After Him
By 4.22.15
Being the first to try something new cost one guy just $27.95 and got him not only the book he ordered but his name on a building. The first non-company Amazon.com customer spent less than $30 on April 3, 1995 on Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter, and now his moniker is splashed on the edifice of one of the company’s buildings in Seattle. [More]
Amazon Launches Hotel Booking Business With Local Getaways In Mind
By 4.21.15
For those looking to escape the daily grind but perhaps still stick close to home, Amazon is launching a new hotel booking service called Destinations, which seeks to pair locals up with a getaway nearby at select hotels. [More]
Here Are The Most Ridiculously Long Binge-Watches Available For Anyone With 200+ Hours To Kill
By 4.20.15
If you’re like us, you like your TV. Sure you do! But let’s say you’ve been busy: you’re all caught up on the big prestige dramas. There are no secrets or spoilers left for you in Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, or Orphan Black. There’s a TV-shaped void in your life to fill, and endless reruns on cable just aren’t cutting it. You need something that can really occupy your time. Not just a few hours, but days. Weeks. You have months to kill, and you need something to binge-watch right now. And lots of it. [More]
Amazon Shuts Down Service That Let Users Test Apps Before Buying Them Because No One Was Really Using It
By 4.17.15
If you haven’t used — much less heard of — Amazon’s TestDrive service, designed to let customers check out how an app works before buying it, you’re not alone. The company says it’s shutting the program down due to “a significant decline” in usage, among other factors. [More]
Feds Give Amazon Approval (Again) To Finally Test Delivery Drones In U.S.
By 4.10.15
It’s finally time for Amazon to take its delivery drones to the sky for testing with the government’s approval: While the Federal Aviation Administration already granted the company permission to test a PrimeAir prototype last month, Amazon had complained that the time the feds took to sign off on the testing rendered the earlier design obsolete. [More]
Amazon Files First Lawsuit To Block Companies From Selling Fraudulent Positive Reviews
By 4.9.15
For the first time in the 20 years that Amazon has allowed users to review products, the company is taking legal action against businesses it claims sells fake reviews to third-party sellers. [More]
Amazon’s Echo Speaker Gets More Connected, Can Control Hue Lights, WeMo Switches
By 4.8.15
Amazon introduced its Echo web-connected speaker thingy back in Nov. 2014 with the promise of a device that would not only play music but allow you to do voice-controlled information searches and set reminders. An update to the $200 Echo will now let users operate certain “smart” lightbulbs and electric switches. [More]
Oyster, The ‘Netflix For Books’, Aims To Take On Amazon With Launch Of E-Book Store
By 4.8.15
When Oyster launched in 2013, it claimed to be the e-book version of Netflix, offering customers an all-you-can-read lending library of around 100,000 books for a monthly subscription of $9.95. A year and a half later, the company seems to have realized that a buffet of sometimes unheard of books isn’t exactly what consumers are looking for. So in an attempt to bring the latest and greatest titles to readers, the company now plans to secure its foothold in the e-book market with the launch of a retail component aimed to compete with Amazon, Apple and other online booksellers. [More]
Star Wars Films To Finally Become Digital Downloads
By 4.7.15
While almost every important movie has long been made available as a digital download by now, the six films in the Star Wars saga have not (legally) been obtainable this way. But that will finally change starting Friday when all of the movies will be released online at the same time. [More]
Report: The Next Apple TV Won’t Allow For 4K Video Streaming
By 4.6.15
Just because something is new, doesn’t necessarily always mean it’ll have the newest technology — perhaps because it’s because that technology still needs to prove itself or there’s really not a need for it yet. That appears to be the reason behind Apple’s reported decision not to have its new Apple TV support 4K streaming video. [More]
Amazon Prime Members Less Likely To Visit Target.com, Walmart.com When Shopping Online
By 4.6.15
In recent months big box retailers like Walmart and Target have attempted to thwart Amazon’s growing influence over consumers with a variety of new policies such as reducing the minimum purchase required for free shipping and allowing price-matching with the online retailer (although, that effort didn’t’ last long). But, according to a new report, those measure might amount to “too little, too late” when it comes to Amazon Prime shoppers. [More]
FCC Proposes Treating Online TV Like Cable TV; Amazon Objects If It’ll Stop You From Binge-Watching ‘The Wire’
By 4.6.15
There’s another internet-related firestorm a-brewing at the FCC. This one is not as broad or as contentious as the now infamous net neutrality ruling, but it is bringing all the big players out to have their say. And what, you might ask, has everyone worked up? It’s the big bandwidth bugaboo of the twenty-teens: online video. [More]
