Tag: Amazon

Google Ranked As World’s Most Valuable Brand

Google is ranked as the Most Valuable Global Brand in Millward Brown and WPP’s annual BrandZ study for 2016. Google’s brand value is estimated at $229.2 billion having risen 32% from 2015. Apple is ranked 2nd at $228.5 billion, losing 8% of its brand value since last year.

The Brandz study focused on a number of factors and is available in PDF format to read in full.

Amazon was the fastest rising brand having risen in value 59% since 2015, from $62 billion to $99 billion. The report explained it this way:

Amazon, which leads the Top 20 Risers, rose 59 percent in brand value compared with an 8 percent increase for the retail category. The brand introduced Amazon Fresh food delivery in three US cities and partnered with the grocery chain Morrisons for home delivery of food in the UK. In addition, Amazon delivered more merchandise using its own capacity rather than its logistics partners, a move that enabled it to better control the customer experience, which in some 30 cities worldwide included one-hour delivery for Amazon Prime customers.

The brand also introduced Amazon Dash, a program in which customers signal for replenishment of certain FMCG items at the exact moment of need. It anticipates the transition to automatic replenishment of the Internet of Things. Amazon also developed its cloud storage business, Amazon Web Services, demonstrating how the border between business-to-consumer and business-to-business brands is becoming more porous.

June 9, 2016
Bezos: Alexa Is The Beginning Of A Golden Era

Jeff Bezos talked Tuesday about the impact of its Echo product and the Alexa platform as science fiction becoming reality. He stated, “It has been a dream since the early days of science fiction to have a computer that you can talk to in a natural way and actually have a conversation and ask it to do things for you. That is coming true.” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was interviewed by Recode’s Walt Mossberg at the Recode Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. The entire video interview is below.

Bezos sees these artificial learning products as just in the very beginning of their development. Bezos told the audience, “There’s so much more to come. It’s just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do with these types of technologies! It’s the first inning. It might even be the first guys up at bat. It’s really early and I think we are on the edge of a golden era. It’s going to be so exciting to see what happens.”

Amazon has a family of products called Echo and they are driven by a platform called Alexa and they are actually licensing the technology to be embedded in applications that other companies are developing as well. Bezos elaborated, “We’ve exposed different SDK’s for Alexa. One is the Alexa Voice Service which lets you embed through a set of API’s. You can embed Alexa in your own device or app and do with it what you want. If you make an alarm clock, for instance, you can embed Alexa Voice Service in it. We also have the Alexa Skills Kit which lets you teach Alexa new skills. Those two things work together.”

Bezos was asked about the the gains in AI through machine learning and if this will be the underpinnings of tech over the next 10 years as we move from the period of frantic growth and development in smart phones? Bezos replied:

“I think its gigantic. I think natural language understanding and machine learning in general and artificial intelligence… it’s probably hard to overstate how big of an impact it is going to have on society over the next 20 years. It is big. It doesn’t mean that phones are going to go away. Its’ not like voice interfaces are going to replace screens. As long as people have eyes they are going to want screens and they still want to touch things and so on. But it has been a dream since the early days of science fiction to have a computer that you can talk to in a natural way and actually have a conversation and ask it to do things for you. That is coming true. You’re seeing similar amazing progress with extreme vision. The combination of new and better algorithms, vastly superior compute power and the ability to harness huge amounts of training data — those 3 things are coming together to solves previously unsolvable problems. They’re going to drive a tremendous amount of utility for customers and customers are going to adopt those things.”

Jeff Bezos added, “We’ve exposed to different SDK’s for Alexa. One is the Alexa Voice Service which lets you embed through a set of API’s. You can embed Alexa in your own device or app and do with it what you want. If you make an alarm clock you can embed Alexa Voice Service in it. We also have the Alexa Skills Kit which lets you teach Alexa new skills. Those two things work together.”

Mossberg asked if Amazon is “deeply committed to this being a huge part of Amazon’s business”? To which Bezos replied, “Absolutely. We’ve worked on it behind the scenes for 4 years. We have more than a thousand people dedicated just to Alexa and the Echo ecosystem. We have now a set of third party apps that people have built using are SDK. There’s so much more to come. It’s just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do with these types of technologies!”

What about competitors? “All of the major tech companies will do this, but there will also be hundred’s of startup companies. There will also be new advances. One of the things is that right now bigger companies like Amazon have an advantage, especially because of the training data sets that are required to do this because you need a lot of data to the extraordinary things with the current algorithms we have. Just remember that humans learn in a very different way. Humans are unbelievably data efficient. We learn these incredibly complex things. You don’t have to drive a million miles to be able to drive a car. But the way we teach a self driving car to drive today is we have the algorithms drive a million miles and they are still not as good in certain scenarios as a human would be. So humans are doing all kinds of things to make that possible. We’re also very power efficient. For instance, Alpha Go, which is a really impressive achievement beat the world’s best Alpha Go player. He’s operating on about 50 watts, Humans are just doing something fundamentally different than the current way that we do machine learning and machine intelligence.”

Bezos added, “The longer you’ve been around, the more humble you get about tech.”

June 1, 2016
Amazon Launches YouTube Competitor, Amazon Video Direct

Amazon today announced the launch of Amazon Video Direct (AVD), a head-to-head competitor with Google’s YouTube platform. Amazon touts it as a service that gives video providers a self-service way to reach Amazon’s huge customer base including the coveted Prime members. Individual creators and professional video story tellers can earn royalties based on hours streamed, videos rented or purchased and subscriptions.

What’s interesting is that videos uploaded as part of AVD will be available to consumers via Amazon Video where there is also unique series content, movies, TV shows and Showtime and Starz programming. AVD is clearly a big part of Amazon’s strategy to be the epicenter of Internet TV where cable and satellite middlemen are replaced.

Video providers, both professional and amateur, can have their videos included in Prime Video at no charge to Prime members, available as an add-on subscription, offered as a one-time rental or purchase or make them available to all Amazon customers with ads. If a video producer chooses the ad-supported option Amazon will give the provider 55% of the revenue which is the same as YouTube. For purchases, rentals and subscription AVD will split revenue 50-50 and for videos provided free to Prime members Amazon will pay $.15 per streaming hour topping out at $75K per year.

“It’s an amazing time to be a content creator,” said Jim Freeman, Vice President of Amazon Video. “There are more options for distribution than ever before and with Amazon Video Direct, for the first time, there’s a self-service option for video providers to get their content into a premium streaming subscription service. We’re excited to make it even easier for content creators to find an audience, and for that audience to find great content.”

In order to attract the best talent from YouTube and other video platforms Amazon is creating a $1 million monthly fund that will be used to distribute bonuses for producing the most watched videos above what video makers will already earn on the platform. Amazon is calling it the AVD Stars Program. This is designed to steal YouTube celebrities and will lead to bidding wars for today’s video stars.

Launch partners include: Conde Nast Entertainment, HowStuffWorks, Samuel Goldwyn Films, The Guardian, Mashable, Mattel, StyleHaul, Kin Community, Jash, Business Insider, Machinima, TYT Network, Baby Einstein, CJ Entertainment America, Xive TV, Synergetic Distribution, Kino Nation, Journeyman Pictures, and Pro Guitar Lessons. Their content is now available on Amazon Video.

May 10, 2016
Amazon Fire Tablet Gets New Color and Storage Options

Amazon just announced new color and storage options for its Fire tablet. There are three new colors (magenta, blue, and tangerine) to join the black option for $49.99. There’s also a new 16GB version for $69.99.

In addition to that, there’s a new green “kid-proof” case and 16GB option for the Kids Edition. This costs $119.99. The 8GB version continues to cost $99.99.

“Fire is the fastest-selling Amazon tablet ever, with millions sold since its launch,” said Kevin Keith, GM, Fire Tablets. “We’re excited to introduce Fire with bright new colors and even more storage—so that customers can enjoy a great entertainment experience on a fun, colorful tablet starting at less than $50.”

Earlier this month, the company announced a new version of its Kindle device called Kindle Oasis. This is the eighth-generation Kindle, which is thinner and lighter, and comes with a charging cover that allows for months of battery life.

Image via Amazon

April 21, 2016
Amazon Prime Video Becomes Standalone Service To Take On Netflix

Amazon is now offering the option to subscribe to Prime Video without subscribing to Prime itself. Prime Video has, until now, basically been a perk for Prime members, who also get free two-day shipping, unlimited music streaming, access to over a million ebook, early access to lightning deals, and free-same-day delivery in eligible areas.

Now, as it continues to build its original content library to truly compete with Netflix, Amazon is letting people just get its video streaming service without paying more per month to get all the other stuff. If you just want Prime Video, you can get it for $8.99 a month.

Amazon doesn’t have the volume of original programming Netflix does, but that may change in time. Currently, its original series line-up includes Bosch, Hand of God, The Man in High Castle, Mozart in the Jungle, Transparent, and Red Oaks. In the children’s department, it has Annedroids, Creative Galaxy, Tumble Leaf, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street, Wishenpoof!, and Just Add Magic. Original series that have already ended include Betas, Alpha House, and Mad Dogs.

Amazon also has a continuation of Ripper Street (Season 4) and a number of other titles slated for the future. These include: Z: The Beginning of Everything, The Stinky & Dirty Show, Sneaky Pete, One Mississippi, The Last Tycoon, Jack Ryan, Great Men, an untitled motoring show from W. Chump and Sons, and an untitled Woody Allen TV series.

Amazon also has exclusive streaming rights for a number of titles.

While a standalone subscription to Prime Video is possible and the cheaper option (in the short term), it’s still probably worth it to most people to go ahead and get the full Prime package, which is just two dollars more a month. It’s actually cheaper in the long run to pay $99 a year and get the whole package. It works out to less than the Prime Video subscription at just $8.25. Understandably, not everyone wants to drop a hundred bucks at once on it though.

The change comes as Netflix prepares to raise prices for its customers who have subscribed for two years and longer. The company announced a price hike in May of 2014. At the time, it raised the price for new subscribers to $8.99 Later, it increased the price of its most popular plan to $9.99 – again for new customers. With the 2014 announcement, they said existing users wouldn’t have to pay more for two years, but that two-year point is quickly approaching. Netflix referenced the increase in its most recent quarterly letter to shareholders.

Image via Transparent (Amazon Studios YouTube Channel)

April 18, 2016
Amazon Kindle Oasis Unveiled with ‘Months’ of Battery Life

Amazon just unveiled its 8th-generation Kindle device called the Kindle Oasis. It’s thinner and lighter, and it comes with a charging cover that allows the device “months” of battery life according to the company. This is clearly the most interesting aspect of the Oasis.

It features a new dual-battery system. When you connect the cover to the device, the battery in the cover begins recharging it automatically.

“The battery in the cover uses a custom cell architecture that optimizes power and energy while keeping an incredibly small and light form factor and delivering months of battery life,” Amazon explains. “You can charge the device and cover simultaneously while both are snapped together and plugged in. Plus, a new hibernation mode minimizes power consumption when your Kindle is inactive.”

The device has an ergonomic grip and weights only 4.6 ounces. At its thinnest point it is 3.4 mm thick. It’s 20% lighter than any other Kindle.

“Kindle Oasis is designed for extended reading sessions—with an entirely reimagined shape, Kindle Oasis shifts the center of gravity to your palm, to rest in your hand like the spine of a book so that the device feels balanced for one-handed reading,” the company says. “Effortlessly turn the page with either the touch display or physical buttons. Oasis is comfortable to read on with either hand—a built-in accelerometer detects whether you are reading with your left or right hand, and automatically rotates the page and page turn buttons to match.”

The device is now available for pre-order for $289.99. It will ship in the coming weeks. Amazon gushes more about it here.

The Kindle line-up now includes Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Voyage and Kindle Oasis.

Images via Amazon

April 13, 2016
Amazon Prime Now About to Hit Web [Report]

Amazon launched Prime Now for quick one-hour (or less) deliveries for $7.99 and free two-hour delivery in New York in late 2014. It has since expanded to other select metro areas. While we haven’t heard much about geographical expansion of the service lately, it sounds like it’s about to expand significantly in another way.

Prime Now requires customers to use a mobile app, but that will soon change if a new report is accurate. Bloomberg Business got its hands on related documents and says Amazon is planning a launch to put Prime Now on the web in May, and is preparing deals with brands to get them visibility for it. Spencer Soper at Bloomberg Business reports:

Amazon is trying to sell advertising space to major brands for the Web launch, promising them visibility with tens of millions of Amazon shoppers. The premium “Launch Hero Package” would cost $500,000 for about two weeks of placement on Amazon’s website associated with the rollout. That price includes e-mail promotions sent to Amazon customers, which Amazon said have a stand-alone value of $100,000, according to the documents reviewed by Bloomberg.

Amazon isn’t commenting on the news.

Prime Now is currently available nearly 20 cities in the United States as well as London. You can enter your zip code here to see if it’s available in your area.

April 4, 2016
Amazon Launches Payments Partner Program For Ecommerce Platforms, Developers

Amazon announced the launch of the Amazon Payments Partner Program on Monday, aimed at helping ecommerce platform providers and developers extend Amazon Payments to their merchants. The program provides these platforms with tools and services to help them enable merchants to easily integrate with Amazon Payments.

The program includes “solution pre-integration” and best practices to help merchants maximize effectiveness. Merchants themselves will be able to get knowledge-sharing and white glove integration service benefits that are exclusive to the program.

“The Amazon Payments Partner Program provides Partners with the tools and resources needed to extend the trust and convenience of the Amazon experience to their merchant customers,” said Patrick Gauthier, VP, Amazon Payments. “We are working together across geographies and industries to help merchants grow and create experiences that delight customers throughout the shopping journey.”

The program features 3 levels: Premier Partner, Certified Partner, and Certified Developer. Partners are eligible to receive account management, planning support, technical resources and training, Partner directory listing, and Partner designation with exclusive logos. Some will eligible for co-marketing activities.

The partner program is free, and available on an invitation-only basis in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan. More info is available here.

April 4, 2016
Wow, A Lot of Products Have Amazon Dash Buttons Now (Here’s the Full List)

Amazon announced on Thursday that it has tripled its lineup of Dash Button brands, which are available to Prime members. There are now over 100 different ones. Among the new ones are Red Bull, Engergizer, Illy Coffee, and Clorox just to name a few.

The Amazon Dash button kind of felt like an April Fool’s joke when it was first announced, but it was clearly not. Consumers can have everything from Air Wick to Zico Pure Coconut Water ordered with the push of a physical button.

“When a member is running low on one of their everyday essentials, they simply press Dash Button to automatically reorder the item with free, two-day shipping,” an Amazon spokesperson explains. “Dash Buttons are available to Prime members for $4.99 each, and they’re essentially free—with the first button press after setup, members receive a $4.99 credit to their Amazon account.”

“We’re thrilled with the positive response we’ve seen for Dash Buttons—and we heard loud and clear from customers that they wanted more brands, more categories, and more products in the program. We’re excited to now offer over 100 Dash Buttons representing top-name brands across dozens of retail categories and thousands of product options,” said Daniel Rausch, Director of Amazon Dash. “Prime members are using Dash Buttons at an increasing rate—over the last three months, Dash Button orders have grown by more than 75%. Customers are using Dash Buttons more than once a minute, helping ensure they never run out of their everyday essentials.”

You can buy your Dash Buttons right here.

Below is the full list of brands there are currently Dash buttons for (new ones first):

Ageless La Cure
Air Wick
Airborne
all Laundry Detergent
Angel Soft
Aquaphor
Arm & Hammer Cat Litter
Blue Sky
Brawny
Brita
Burt’s Bees
Caleb’s Kola
Carefree Feminine Liners
Charmin
Clorox
Dasani
David Sunflower Seeds
Derwent
Doritos
Downy
Eagle Pack
Energizer
Gain
Garnier SkinActive
Green Works
Hansen’s Soda
Holistic Select
Honest Kids
Honest Tea
Hunt’s Tomatoes
Illy Bottled Coffee
Illy Coffee
Jolie Paris
La Roche-Posay
L’il Critters Vitamins
Litter Genie
L’Oréal Paris Revitalift
Lysol
MegaRed
Milk Baby by Milk & Co
Milk by Klim by Milk & Co (men’s line)
Move Free Joint Health
Mucinex
Nature Valley
Near East
O.N.E. Coconut Water
Ocean Spray PACt
Old Mother Hubbard
Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn
OxiClean
Peet’s Coffee
Playtex Sport Tampons
Pure Leaf Iced Tea
Purina Beyond
Quaker
Quartet
Quest Nutrition
Rayovac
Red Bull
Rid-X Septic Treatment
Schick Men’s Razors
Schick Women’s Razors
Schiff Glucosamine
Seventh Generation
Slim Jim
Snuggle
Solid Gold Pet Food
Stacy’s Pita Chips
Starbucks Doubleshot Coffee
Stayfree Feminine Pads
Trojan
Vanity Fair Napkins
Vichy
vitafusion
Vitamin Water
Wilson Jones
Wisk Deep Clean Laundry Detergent
ZICO Pure Coconut Water
Amazon Elements
Bounty
Clorox wipes
Cottonelle
Depend
Digestive Advantage Probiotic Supplements
Dixie tableware products
Finish Dishwashing Detergent
Gatorade
Gerber Formula
Gillette
Glad trash bags
Greenies
Hefty Trash and Storage Bags
Huggies
IceBreakers
Izze
Kraft Mac & Cheese
Lärabar
Maxwell House
Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day
Olay
Orbit Gum
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Protein
Smartwater
Tide
Wellness pet food
Ziploc

March 31, 2016
Amazon Launches Cloud Drive Unlimited Storage in Canada

Amazon announced the launch of unlimited storage with Amazon Cloud Drive to customers in Canada. They’re offering two storage plans including unlimited storage and unlimited photos.

The former plan is $59.99 per year, and the latter is $11.99 per year. Both plans come with free 3-month trials.

“With the unlimited plans, customers no longer need to worry about how much storage is needed to keep their content safe and secure—they can choose either the Unlimited Storage Plan or Unlimited Photos Plan and only pay one flat fee per year,” the company says. “All their content is securely stored and available for download at their original size and resolution, so memories are protected for a lifetime.”

“Most people have a lifetime of birthdays, vacations, holidays, and everyday moments stored across numerous devices. And, they don’t know how many gigabytes of storage they need to back all of them up,” says Josh Petersen, Director of Amazon Cloud Drive. “With the two new plans we are introducing today, customers don’t need to worry about storage space—they now have an affordable, secure solution to store unlimited amounts of photos, videos, movies, music, and files in one convenient place.”

The new plans are available starting today.

March 21, 2016
AWS Database Migration Service Available to All

Amazon announced that over 1,000 databases have migrated to Amazon Web Services since January 1, and that the AWS Database Migration Service is now available to all customers.

AWS Database Migration Service is a managed service that lets customers migrate Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL databases from on-premises datacenters to AWS with “virtually no” downtime.

Of the 1,000+ databases migrated, Amazon says many also used the AWS Schema Conversion Tool to switch database engines.

“Customers migrating their databases to the cloud have faced a difficult choice: either take their database out of service while they copy the data (losing revenue and traffic in the process), or purchase migration tools that typically cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Amazon said. “The AWS Database Migration Service solves this problem by reducing the complexity, cost, and downtime of database migration, making it possible for customers to migrate terabyte-sized on-premises Oracle, SQL Server, and open source databases to the Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) or to a database running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) for as little as $3/TB and with virtually no downtime.”

“Hundreds of customers moved more than a thousand of their on-premises databases to Amazon Aurora, other Amazon RDS engines, or databases running on Amazon EC2 during the preview of the AWS Database Migration Service,” said Hal Berenson, Vice President, Relational Database Services for AWS. “Customers repeatedly told us they wanted help moving their on-premises databases to AWS, and also moving to more open database engine options, but the response to the AWS Database Migration Service has been even stronger than we expected. In the preview, one-third of the database migrations used the AWS Database Migration Service to not only move databases to the AWS Cloud, but also to switch database engines in the process.”

With the migration service, customers pay an hourly fee, and according to the company, set-up only takes ten minutes.

The service can be accessed from the AWS Management Console. It’s available in the US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), US West (N. California), EU (Ireland), EU (Frankfurt), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo) regions now. In the coming months, it will be available in additional regions.

Image via Amazon

March 16, 2016
You Can Now Do Banking With Amazon Echo Devices

Amazon announced that Capital One will be the first company to provide customers with the ability to interact with their financial information through Alexa-enabled devices like the Amazon Echo, Fire TV, or the new Amazon Tap or Echo Dot.

“Starting today, customers can stay on top of their credit card account by checking their balance, reviewing recent transactions, or making payments as well as get real-time access to checking and savings account information to understand their available funds– all hands free,” a spokesperson said in an email.

“The Alexa Skills store is quickly growing, and today we’re excited to add the Capital One skill – which is the first skill that will enable Alexa users to interact with their financial accounts,” said Alexa Direcotr Rob Pulciani. “Now Alexa can quickly provide your Capital One banking balance, latest transactions and more on Amazon Tap, Echo Dot, Amazon Echo or Fire TV devices —all conveniently with just your voice. More and more voice experiences are coming, and it’s only going to get better for our customers.”

Capital One customers can interact with their accounts by enabling the Capital One skill in the Alexa app, and then saying things like “Alexa, ask Capital One for my Quicksilver Card balance,”…for recent transactions on my checking account,” …when is my credit payment due?,” or “pay my credit card bill.”

The Capital One Alexa skill is available starting today.

Image via Twitter

March 11, 2016
Amazon Goes Home Shopping Network

Amazon announced the launch of Style Code Live. On the surface, this is a live fashion show that lets viewers get tips from expert guests, discover new fashion and beauty products, and shop while watching.

Its implications, however, are far more interesting than the show itself. This represents Amazon’s first attempt at a Home Shopping Network or QVC-like shopping experience on the web. Watch live video and order online while you watch.

Clearly there are a lot of opportunities here for Amazon to attract buyers and keep them engage as well as spring flash deals on them and whatever else they may feel like promoting.

For now, this is just one show in one vertical, but it’s not hard to imagine Amazon taking the concept much further in additional spaces.

Style Code Live features live chat, a carousel under the video player that highlights products on Amazon as they’re featured on the show, a chat host, and other interactive features.

The show is hosted by Lyndsey Rodrigues, Rachel Smith, and Frankie Grande. It’s a 30-minute show that’s free to all viewers, and streams weeknights at 9PM Eastern. The first episode premieres on Tuesday.

Image via Amazon

March 8, 2016
Amazon Unveils Echo Dot and Amazon Tap

Amazon announced two new Alexa-enabled devices called Echo Dot and Amazon Tap.

Describing the former, an Amazon spokesperson tells WebProNews, “Echo Dot is a hands-free, voice controlled device that uses the same far-field voice recognition as Echo. Directly connect Echo Dot to speakers with an audio cable or via Bluetooth, and add voice-control to your home stereo system. Plus, with its small built-in speaker, you can place Echo Dot in the bedroom and use it as a smart alarm clock, or in any room as a voice assistant to control smart home devices and more.”

The device is available for $89.99 exclusively for Prime members through Alexa Voice Shopping. To order an Echo Dot, existing Echo and Fire TV customers can just say “Alexa, order an Echo Dot.”

You can check out the device here.

“Amazon Tap is an Alexa-enabled portable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi speaker that offers rich, full-range sound,” the spokesperson says. “Just tap the microphone button and ask for music, hear the news, search for information, order a pizza, and more with the Alexa Voice Service. Amazon Tap has dual stereo speakers with Dolby processing that provide crisp vocals, extended bass response, and 360° omni-directional audio.”

Amazon Tap is now available for pre-order for $129.99. You can check that out here.

Amazon’s Echo has proven to be a popular device, particularly compared to its failed Fire Phone. The company said it was the number one best seller across all $100+ products available on Amazon.com on Black Friday. In November, Amazon Echo was added to the inventories of 3,000 stores throughout the U.S. including The Home Depot, Staples, Sears, Brookstone, Radioshack, Fred Meyer, P.C. Richard & Son, and others.

Echo gained new support from Spotify and Uber about a month ago.

Images via Amazon

March 3, 2016
Amazon Puts the Export in AWS Import/Export Snowball

Last year, Amazon announced AWS Import/Export Snowball, a petabyte-scale data transport solution enabling the transfer of large amounts of data into and out of the AWS cloud.

At the time, the ability to move data to AWS using the model was available. Now, it can be used for data export operations.

“If you have collected, generated, or stored large terabytes or petabytes of data in AWS and need to get to it more quickly than you could via a network connection, you can now use AWS Import/Export Snowball instead,” says Amazon’s Jeff Barr.

“You simply log in to the AWS Management Console, create an export request, and specify the data to be exported,” he adds. “A single request can span one or more Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets. The service will determine how many appliances are needed (each one can hold up to 50 terabytes) and create the export jobs accordingly. The appliances will be prepared, data will be copied to them, and they will be shipped to the address specified in the request. You can track each of these steps using the Console.

Barr notes that if your data is stored in Amazon Glacier, you’ll need to restore it to S3 with the Lifecycle Restore feature first.

More information about Amazon Import/Export Snowball is available here.

Images via iStock, Amazon

March 1, 2016
AWS Marketplace Gets SharePoint Enterprise

Amazon announced that SharePoint Enterprise is now available to purchase and deploy in AWS Marketplace.

Amazon’s Jeff Barr says, “Designed to suit the needs of many different types and sizes of organizations up to and including multinational enterprises, SharePoint Enterprise supports custom applications, mobile applications, social media integration, business intelligence, and advanced content management (none of which is available in the entry-level SharePoint Foundation product).”

“This new offering helps customers to migrate their SharePoint and Windows Server workload and is made possible by the folks at Data Resolution,” he adds. “As a long-time SharePoint provider and Microsoft Hosting Provider, they have the background and experience needed to design and support a scalable implementation of SharePoint Enterprise in the AWS Cloud. They are already migrating one of their on-premises SharePoint customers to AWS, and are planning to work with us to produce a customer success story later this year. Data Resolution will also be offering consulting and migration services in order to make your transition to the cloud as smooth as possible.”

The implementation utilizes Amazon’s AWS Marketplace Support for Clusters and AWS Resources.

You can choose from Sharepoint Enterprise 2013 Basic, SharePoint Enterprise 2013 Business, or SHarePoint Enterprise 2013 Advanced. You can start with a free trial, and pay by the hour, by the month, or annually. You can also choose between 10, 25, and 100 user options.

Sharepoint Enterprise can be run in the following AWS regions: US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon), or US West (Northern California).

More info here.

Image via Amazon

February 25, 2016
Amazon Helps Samsung Printers Order Your Toner Before You Run Out

Amazon announced the launch of new Dash Replenishment integration with Samsung printers so users won’t be left without toner when they need it. As the company notes, this could save you a potential jam on a time-sensitive project.

Samsung was announced as a partner for the service back in October, along with GE, August, Gmate, Obe, Oster, Petnet, CleverPet, Sutro, Thync, and Sealed Air. Amazon noted at the time that Samsung laser printers would order toner cartridges.

Now, the functionality is available for select models, and customers can sign up for Dash Replenishment through Samsung’s Mobile Print app, which lets users wirelessly print from their mobile devices or via Samsung’s Easy Printer Manager, a device management console for Windows and Mac.

The user can select which toner is automatically ordered when a replacement is needed, and the printer will then monitor toner levels. Before it runs out, an order will be placed and shipped by Amazon.

“Let’s face it, there’s never a good time to run out of toner,” said Andrew Sivori, Vice President, CE-IT Product Marketing at Samsung Electronics America. “Through our collaboration with Amazon and integration of Amazon Dash Replenishment, we can ensure that our valued customers never experience lost time or productivity due to an empty toner cartridge. Samsung is committed to improving small office productivity through advanced technology.”

“Amazon Dash Replenishment prevents the ‘oh-no’ moments of running out,” said Daniel Rausch, Director of Amazon Devices. “A Samsung printer using Dash Replenishment automatically orders toner when it’s needed, so customers don’t have to think or worry about how much is left and they won’t ever run out of the toner supplies needed to stay productive.”

Earlier this year, Amazon announced additional Dash Replenishment devices including Brother printers, a GE washer, and a Gmate SMART blood glucose monitor. The program also includes Purell soap and hand sanitizer devices and the Whirlpool Smart Dishwasher.

Image via Amazon

February 23, 2016
Amazon Raises Spending Minimum For Free Shipping

In case it hasn’t been clear by now (it has), Amazon’s primary objective when it comes to everyday users, is to get them to become Prime members, which gives them access to free two-day shipping.

Amazon has offered free shipping to non-Prime members for years, however. It just takes longer. It used to be for orders of $25 and over, but they jacked it up to $45 and over a few years ago. Now, they’ve increased the minimum yet again – this time to $49.

TechCrunch points to a an Amazon help center document, which details the current terms. It does still allow customers a $25 minimum for books that qualify for eligible free shipping.

Amazon says, “Orders including $25 or more of eligible books qualify for FREE Shipping. All orders of $49 or more of eligible items across any product category also qualify for FREE Shipping. With free shipping, your order will be delivered 5-8 business days after all of your items are available to ship, including pre-order items.”

Last year, Amazon saw a 51% increase in Prime memberships worldwide. In the U.S. it was 47%.

Image via Amazon

February 22, 2016
Amazon Is Acquiring Software Company NICE

Amazon announced that Amazon Web Services is acquiring NICE, a software and services provider for high performance and technical computing.

NICE will operate under its existing brand and continue to work with its customers and partners ad well as develop and support its EnginFrame and Desktop Cloud Visualization products.

“Like AWS, we are a customer obsessed company and we are globally appreciated for the excellence of our support and professional services”, said Bruno Franzini, Support and Professional Services Manager at NICE. “With the backing of AWS, we will pamper our customers even more!”

CEO Beppe Ugolotti added, “The entire team will be with us to open this new chapter of our history. Everybody is already dreaming about all the new technologies we will be able to develop working together with our future colleagues at AWS.”

The agreement is signed and the deal is expected to close within the quarter. Terms were not disclosed.

Image via NICE

February 12, 2016
Amazon Echo Gets Uber Integration

As Amazon prepares to put its Echo device in front of America’s collective face, it appears to be getting some more bells and whistles that will make it appealing to more people.

Amazon has already teased a Super Bowl ad for the device, which features Dan Marino and Baldwin with the hashtag #BaldwinBowl.

This week, we learned that Echo is gaining new Spotify support, which instantly make is more useful to a lot of music fans as a smart speaker. Spotify Premium subscribers in the U.S. can now listen to music on the device, operating it by voice command.

Now, The Verge is reporting that you can also use the device to order an Uber. Andrew J. Hawkins reports:

Uber is announcing Friday that its application program interface, or API, has been integrated with Amazon’s smart home hub. The update may be the purest manifestation of Uber’s mission to make getting you from point A to point B completely seamless. After all, what’s easier than speaking the words “call me an Uber” into thin air, and having the car show up minutes later? This could be the provenance of germaphobes everywhere. (Of course, you’ll still have to touch the Uber’s door handle.)

Users will be able to tell Alexa “request me a ride,” “call me a ride, “get me an Uber,” and other similar things, according to the report.

Uber also recently gained integration with Facebook Messenger.

February 5, 2016
Amazon Gives Amazon Register Customers Square Readers

Amazon announced last fall that it was shutting down Amazon Local, its daily deals service, as well as Amazon Register, its Square competitor.

Amazon Register had only been around a little more than a year before Amazon decided to pull the plug on it. Like Square, it enabled local businesses to accept credit and debit cards from a smartphone or tablet. The app that went with it offered reporting tools so businesses could track their bottom line performance, sales trends, peak sales times, etc.

Amazon stopped accepting new customers for the product at the end of October, and said existing customers would be able to use it until February 1.

Now that the date has come and gone, Amazon is reportedly offering free Square readers to former Amazon Register customers. Jason Del Rey at Re/code writes:

The e-commerce giant is offering free Square credit card readers, which retail for $10, to business owners who had previously bought an Amazon Local Register, the company’s version of a card-swiping device that plugs into phones and tablets. The offer comes three months after Amazon announced it was discontinuing this payment processing service on Feb. 1. Amazon emailed its Local Register customers with the offer and a promotion code in the past week.

Del Rey says that Square confirmed working with Amazon on the offer.

Earlier this week, Square announced that the new Square Reader is available at Apple Stores.

Image via Square

February 5, 2016