WebProNews

Tag: Amazon

  • Amazon Is Trying Restaurant Food Delivery in Seattle, Where It Just Became a Booze Courier

    Amazon Is Trying Restaurant Food Delivery in Seattle, Where It Just Became a Booze Courier

    Is Amazon looking to get into the meal delivery business?

    The company, which already delivers products, groceries, and now alcohol, is reportedly testing delivery from restaurants in Seattle.

    From GeekWire:

    The company has been testing the service by allowing its own employees to order meals from restaurants in conjunction with the new Prime Now delivery service in Seattle, according to delivery drivers and others with knowledge of the initiative.

     

    Several new Prime Now drivers tell GeekWire they’re the same ones handling restaurant deliveries. A sign observed by GeekWire inside Amazon’s new Prime Now distribution facility, near Amazon’s sprawling headquarters campus north of downtown Seattle, even offered instructions to drivers on how exactly to make restaurant pickups.

    The company just rolled out its Prime Now one-hour delivery service in Seattle, where for the first time in the US its delivering beer, wine, and spirits through the service.

    Amazon has tested the meal delivery thing before, in very small quantities – a couple of place in New York City as well as a pre-packaged meal option via Amazon Fresh. But what Amazon is testing in Seattle seems to be a direct challenge to the GrubHubs of the world.

    Amazon isn’t the only one looking to get into this space. Uber is also getting serious about food delivery.

  • Amazon Will Bring You Beer, Quickly, in Its New Prime Now Market

    Amazon Will Bring You Beer, Quickly, in Its New Prime Now Market

    For the first time in the US, Amazon’s Prime Now rapid delivery service is offering to bring you some beer.

    The company just launched Prime Now in its hometown of Seattle, also serving the Bellevue, Redmond, and Kirkland areas. And along with the expansion comes a new delivery option – beer, wine, and a small selection of spirits.

    Prime Now, Amazon’s most expedited Prime delivery option, is available in a handful of US cites like Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Indianapolis, Miami, and NYC. It allows Prime members to request one-hour and two-hour deliveries on products via a separate mobile app – products that include some foodstuffs.

    But not as many as Amazon’s grocery service, AmazonFresh. At least for now.

    “Prime Now is our fastest delivery option ever. With Prime Now, you can skip a trip to the store and get the items you need delivered right to your door in under an hour,” said Stephenie Landry, director of Amazon’s Prime Now service. “Customers love the convenience of one-hour delivery and we’re excited to bring Prime Now to our hometown customers in Seattle and surrounding areas.”

    No mention in the announcement of anything regarding Amazon Flex, the new service spotted in Seattle earlier this month. Flex appears to let customers pick up packages in-store.

    But hey, if you need some beer or wine and you’re too day-drunk to go get it, Amazon is starting to help you out (in a select area, of course). Liquor laws regarding delivery are different everywhere, but it’s be interesting to see if Prime Now starts carting more booze in metros across the US.

  • Amazon Puts An End To Flash Ads

    Flash-related news isn’t usually good news for Flash these days. The most recent bit comes from Amazon, which announced that it is about to stop accepting Flash ads.

    The company had this to say on its Technical Guidelines page for Amazon Advertising (via Digiday):

    Beginning September 1, 2015, Amazon no longer accepts Flash ads on Amazon.com, AAP, and various IAB standard placements across owned and operated domains.

    This is driven by recent browser setting updates from Google Chrome, and existing browser settings from Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari, that limits Flash content displayed on web pages. This change ensures customers continue to have a positive, consistent experience across Amazon and its affiliates, and that ads displayed across the site function properly for optimal performance.

    Flash was in the spotlight last month when Facebook’s Chief Security Officer called for its demise.

    “It is time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash and to ask the browsers to set killbits on the same day,” he said. “Even if 18 months from now, one set date is the only way to disentangle the dependencies and upgrade the whole ecosystem at once.”

    Then, Mozilla blocked all versions of Flash in Firefox after security researchers discovered vulnerabilities that affect various operating systems, that hadn’t been patched.

    From there, various media outlets called for Flash to be put out of its misery. The reality is, however, that many advertisers are still using it.

    We recently looked at a study from Sizmek, which called this a “major issue”.

    What’s happening is that Flash ads that would otherwise be dynamic are appearing as static images on mobile device, and this can ultimately cost the advertiser clicks and conversions.

    “This raises questions as to whether or not marketers are aware of how many of their ads are not being seen properly and how much ad spend they are wasting,” a spokesperson for the firm told WebProNews.

    As for Amazon, you can see what it wants from advertisers here.

  • Amazon Is Testing a Package Pickup Service Called Flex

    Amazon is reportedly testing a new service that would allow you to pick up your packages rather than sit at home waiting for them to arrive.

    Geekwire spotted a sign for something called “Amazon Flex” at a new Amazon facility in Seattle.

    “Welcome to Amazon Flex,” the sign reads. “Please take a ticket located behind you. Please look for your number on the top corner of the wall on your left. Proceed to pick up your package once your number is displayed.”

    Amazon has been fighting rising shipping costs for some time, and is currently thinking about crowdsourcing deliveries and letting regular people deliver packages – and Amazon Flex could be involved in that. Of course, we all know how hard Amazon is working to get its Prime Air drone delivery program off the ground.

    Letting impatient people come pick up their packages? Sounds like an reasonable concept.

    Image via Stephen Woods, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Amazon Is Ending Availability of Product Ads

    Amazon Is Ending Availability of Product Ads

    Amazon is discontinuing its Product Ads, which comes as something of a surprise given their popularity and the rise of similar ads on other platforms. The offering will be shut down on October 31.

    The company told advertisers in an email (via Marketing Land), “While your ads will no longer be visible on Amazon as of that date, you may access your performance reports through December 31, 2015.”

    The company says it knows this “may be a disruption,” and that it values advertisers’ business, and suggests selling on Amazon and using Text Ads. The email says:

    If you are not already an Amazon Seller and you are interested in selling your products on Amazon, we encourage you to consider Selling on Amazon, with the opportunity to advertise using Sponsored Products.

    If driving traffic to your own website is important to your business, we would like to introduce you to Amazon Text Ads, our newest Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising solution that enables you to run text ads on Amazon. Amazon Text Ads is already enabled in your account. Simply sign in to your existing Product Ads account (login required) to learn how to get started.

    The company goes on to tell businesses they regret any inconvenience caused by the transition. It remains to be seen how businesses will react to the news.

    Image via Amazon

  • Amazon Fulfillment Center To Open in Illinois And Create Over 1,000 Jobs

    Amazon announced on Monday that it is opening its first fulfillment center in Illinois, which it says will create a thousand new full-time jobs. This is the sixth fulfillment-related announcement from the company in about three months.

    It will be a nearly 500,000-square-foot location in Joliet. As far as jobs, employees will process smaller items, such as books, electronics, and consumer goods at the fulfillment center.

    “We are excited to create 1,000 great full-time jobs in Illinois with competitive wages and comprehensive benefits starting on Day One,” said Mike Roth, Amazon’s vice president of North America operations. “We are grateful for the support of local and state leadership in helping to bring Amazon to Illinois and we look forward to being an active member of the community.”

    “We are thrilled that Amazon has chosen Joliet as the location for its new Illinois fulfillment center,” added City of Joliet Mayor Bob O’Dekirk. “The company is not only the leader in the e-commerce sector, but it also will create quality jobs for a diverse community throughout Joliet and Will County.”

    John Greuling, President and CEO of the Will County Center for Economic Development, said, “The company is the leader in logistics innovation and technology. We welcome Amazon to Joliet and Will County and look forward to a long successful partnership.”

    The project is being developed by GLP.

    In May, Amazon announced a one million-square-foot fulfillment center in Carteret, New Jersey, which it said would create “hundreds” of full-time jobs. Later that month, the company said it was hiring for over 6,000 new jobs in its centers in Baltimore, Breinigsville, Carlisle, Chattanooga, Chester, Haslet, Hazleton, Hebron, Jeffersonville, Kenosha, Lexington, Middletown, Murfreesboro, Petersburg, Plainfield, Robbinsville, West Columbia, Whitestown, and Windsor.

    In early June, Amazon announced a new center in Dallas, creating hundreds more jobs, and then announced one in Shakopee, Minnesota, creating over a thousand more. At the end of the month, it announced the launch of selling and Fulfillment by Amazon for businesses in Mexico.

    Image via YouTube

  • Amazon Dash Buttons, Still Not a Joke, Go on Sale for Prime Members

    Amazon Dash Buttons, Still Not a Joke, Go on Sale for Prime Members

    In what could still be the the longest-running April Fools joke of all time, Amazon has just made those press-to-order Dash buttons available to all Prime customers

    Here’s how Amazon describes its Dash button:

    “Amazon Dash Button is simple to set up. Use the Amazon app on your smartphone to easily connect to your home Wi-Fi and select the product you want to reorder with Dash Button. Once connected, a single press automatically places your order. Amazon sends an order alert to your phone, so it’s easy to cancel if you change your mind. Unless you elect otherwise, Dash Button responds only to your first press until your order is delivered.”

    Basically, you can set up a Tide-branded dash button near your washing machine, and when you run out of detergent you simply press the button and two days later – more Tide. Or you can place a Huggies-branded Dash button next to the changing table and when you run out of diapers, press the button and two days later – more Huggies.

    There are a total of 18 Dash buttons currently available. Some of the products you can order by Dash are Bounty paper towels, Gatorade, SmartWater, Larabars, Gerber formula, Olay beauty products, Clorox wipes, Izze juice, Glad trash bags, and Kraft Mac & Cheese.

    You can find all 18 dash buttons here. They run $4.99 a piece. To be fair, it still seems like it could be a joke.

    But then again, I always do forget to order paper towels…

  • AWS Device Farm Is About To Get iOS App Support

    AWS Device Farm Is About To Get iOS App Support

    Earlier this month, Amazon Web Services announced the launch of AWS Device Farm, a way to automate and scale app testing on actual mobile devices. It was only announced for Android and the Android-based Fire OS, however.

    On Wednesday, Amazon announced expansion of the offering for iOS apps. While it’s not quite here yet, it will be very soon. The company plans to launch it on August 4 with support for Appium (Java JUnit and Java TestNG), Calabash, UI Automation, and XCTest.

    “You can also use the fuzz test that is built in to Device Farm. This test randomly sends user interface events to devices and reports on the results,” says Amazon’s Jeff Bar in a blog post announcing the news.

    After you upload your binary to Device Farm, you will have the opportunity to select the app to test,” he explains. “After you start the test, the test results and the associated screen shots will be displayed as they arrive.”

    Developers will be able to test cross-platform titles and get various reports on problem patterns, logs, screenshots, performance data, etc. They should be consistent regardless of platform and test framework.

    While the offering won’t be available until August 4, Amazon is suggesting you get started reading the documentation and creating test suites/scripts.

    image via Amazon

  • Amazon Wants ‘High-Speed’ Zone for Its Prime Air Delivery Drones, 200 Feet Up

    Drones are coming. Commercial drones, that is. In so many years, the sky will be filled with small, unmanned aircraft delivering you pizzas. And new iPhones.

    That’s been Amazon’s vision for years now, as the company tries to get its Prime Air drone delivery service off the ground. Standing in its way are longstanding rules and regulations concerning commercial aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration, NTSB, and other regulatory agencies have been moving to catch up with the explosion of drones, but nothing has happened as of yet that would facilitate a safe and legal drone delivery system.

    In Amazon’s mind, what is needed is a sort of air traffic control system for drones.

    “The majority of airspace integration efforts over the past decade have focused on integrating medium or large unmanned aircraft systems into non-segregated civil airspace, i.e. airspace above 500 feet where most civil and military aviation activities occur, says Amazon in a recent proposal. “However, given the rapidly growing small unmanned aircraft industry, Amazon believes the safest and most efficient environment for sUAS operations – from basic recreational users to sophisticated beyond-line-of-sight fleets – is in segregated civil airspace below 500 feet.”

    Amazon has taken its new drone proposal to NASA’s UTM 2015 convention. In a paper titled Revising the Airspace Model for the Safe Integration of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, the company lays out its strategy for building a sort of drone superhighway, between 200 and 400 feet off the ground.

    Screen Shot 2015-07-29 at 9.25.14 AM

    Amazon proposes a “high-speed transit” space between 200 and 400 feet. Below that, a “low-speed localized traffic” area – that’s for your drone hobbyists.

    There would also be a 100ft-wide buffer zone atop the high-speed lane, in order to help prevent drones from interacting with larger aircraft.

    Any drone that would fly in the high-speed lane must sport advanced GPS systems, online flight planning, the ability to communicate with other drones, and sensors to help avoid collisions.

    “Highly-equipped sUAS will be capable of navigation, merging and sequencing, communication, maintaining safe self-separation, collision avoidance and deconfliction in congested airspace without operator assistance. Again, while many of the traditional ANSP responsibilities may be delegated, the underlying authority will still reside with the ANSP and/or the civil aviation authority. To help move this model forward, Amazon will collaborate with civil aviation authorities like the Federal Aviation Administration, as well as NASA and others, on research related to delegation and federation,” says Amazon.

    This proposal is similar to what NASA and even other companies like Google have in mind.

  • Amazon Prime Music Launches in the UK

    More than a year after Amazon debuted its music streaming service in the US, the company has opened it up across the pond.

    Amazon Prime Music is now live in the UK.

    Prime Music isn’t a monthly subscription service, like Spotify or Apple Music. Instead, Prime Music is just another perk offered to Amazon Prime members alongside expedited shipping, Amazon Prime Instant Video, and Kindle perks. In the US, that’s $99 a year and in the UK it’s £79.

    Amazon boasts that “with Prime Music, you can listen ad-free to over a million songs from top artists like Daft Punk, P!nk, Bruno Mars, Blake Shelton, The Lumineers, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna.
    And we’ll be adding more music all the time.”

    And that sounds ok – Amazon Prime Music does have some good selections.

    But when compared to services like Spotify or Apple Music, it just pales. Spotify, for instance, boasts of 30 million songs compared to Amazon’s “over a million.”

    And as we’ve highlighted before, Amazon Prime Music launched without a deal with the largest record label in the world – Universal Music Group.

    Still, it is a pretty nice dangling carrot for people deciding on whether or not to sign up for Prime. With Amazon Prime, it’s never been about each individual perk being the best thing in the world (other than the shipping, which is pretty nice) – it’s always been about the totality of the service.

  • Amazon Has a Credit Card That Gives Prime Members 5% Cash Back

    Amazon Has a Credit Card That Gives Prime Members 5% Cash Back

    Did you know that Amazon has a credit card that gives Prime members an extra little something for every purchase?

    Probably not, as Amazon has not really advertised it or even put out a press release or anything. Re/code just spotted it last week.

    Amazon has offered its Amazon.com Store Card since March, but recently the company added an additional perk for Prime members – 5% back on any purchases made with the card.

    “With the Amazon Prime Store Card, Amazon Store Cardholders who are also Prime members receive 5% cash back on purchases. The cash back amount is automatically applied as a statement credit within two billing cycles,” says Amazon.

    Screen Shot 2015-07-23 at 1.38.41 PM

    You may know that Target has something similar called a RedCard, which offers 5% back on purchases (applied immediately). It’s clear that Amazon had that in mind when decided to offer this new Prime card.

    Just tack 5% cash back on the growing list of benefits of subscribing to Amazon Prime. It’s been over a year now since Amazon hiked the price up to $99 a year from $79 a year, and every little perk it can add could help sway people to join.

  • Amazon Home Services Expands To More Parts Of The Country

    Earlier this year, Amazon announced Amazon Home Services, which lets customers browse, buy, and schedule appointments with professional services via a marketplace of services in categories like home improvement, computer & electronics, lawn & garden, lessons, automotive, and others.

    The company announced on Wednesday that it has expanded Amazon Home Services to more markets in the United States, and that the offering now includes over 15 million unique service offers across 900 professional services.

    “Since launching in March, we have seen a great response from customers and services pros and are excited to announce the expansion,” a spokesperson for Amazon told WebProNews.

    “Additionally, Amazon Home Services now offers two ways for customers to shop: custom and pre-packaged services,” they said. “With custom services, customers can create free requests by simply describing what needs to be done using text and photos and submitting a request to get estimates from local pros. Customers can also select from hundreds of popular pre-packaged services, such as TV Wall Mounting, Basketball Hoop Assembly or Faucet Replacement.”

    Amazon says that since launch, it has seen service pros average 4.71 out of 5 stars and 92% of customers say they would recommend Amazon Home Services to a friend. On Prime Day, the number of custom orders placed increased to twenty times the norm, and in the first half of July, Amazon received about two times the number of orders they fulfilled in all of June. Customers leave eleven times more reviews on verified services purchases than on products, the company says, adding that in the last three months, the number of new applications from service pros has increased by four times.

    Among the new metropolitan areas where Amazon Home Services is available are Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Jose and Washington D.C. The offering is also available in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

    For more on how Amazon Home Services works, read this.

  • Amazon Is Set to Launch Prime in India: Report

    Amazon Is Set to Launch Prime in India: Report

    Amazon may be gearing up to make another sizable investment in India.

    The India Times reports that the company is preparing to launch its Prime service in the country, including Amazon Instant Video within the year.

    Apparently, Amazon is already in talks with content producers. According to the report, this move will cost Amazon more than $5 billion, much of which will be spent on content.

    “Our biggest financial backer (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos) doesn’t need a fresh pitch while deciding every new investment — we are really long on India, investment figures are easily in multiples of billion dollars,” the source told the Times.

    Amazon first launched Amazon.in in 2013, originally selling books and DVDs. Over time, the ecommerce marketplace began to sell a fuller slate of products. Most recently, Amazon.in launched a luxury beauty product store.

    Amazon made a big investment in India last year – $2 billion to “support its rapid growth and continue to enhance the customer and seller experience in India.”

    “We see huge potential in the Indian economy and for the growth of e-commerce in India. With this additional investment of US $2 billion, our team can continue to think big, innovate, and raise the bar for customers in India. At current scale and growth rates, India is on track to be our fastest country ever to a billion dollars in gross sales,” said Bezos at the time.

  • Amazon Is About to Start Delivering Groceries in the UK: Report

    Amazon Is About to Start Delivering Groceries in the UK: Report

    It looks like Amazon is gearing up to take its grocery delivery service across the pond.

    Amazon is readying its Amazon Fresh service for the U.K., according to sources familiar with the plans.

    From the Times of London:

    Plans for Amazon Fresh are at an advanced stage and it could begin operating in London in September, a development that will have the UK’s already punch-drunk supermarkets reaching for the smelling salts.

     

    The service will pit Amazon against online delivery businesses such as Ocado, as well as Tesco and Sainsbury’s, and pile the pressure on a sector that is already battling with falling prices and the rise of discount chains.

    As Re/code points out, Amazon will face stiffer competition in the U.K than it does in the States. Online sales make up an estimated five percent of all grocery sales in the U.K, and only one percent in the U.S.

    Amazon Fresh is only available in a handful of U.S. markets including Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, and parts of New Jersey and California.

  • Looks Like Amazon Gets The Last Laugh With Prime Day

    Looks Like Amazon Gets The Last Laugh With Prime Day

    Chances are you heard little but negative reactions and jokes when it comes to Amazon’s Prime Day sale, but the company announced on Thursday that it broke global records with sales exceeding Black Friday. Apparently more than a few people got something out of it. Amazon certainly did.

    The company says it sold more units than it did on Black Friday of 2014, which was the biggest Black Friday ever. Worldwide order growth increased 266% compared to the same day last year and 18% compared to Black Friday 2014.

    Despite lackluster reviews all over the Internet including popular hashtags like #PrimeFail and #PrimeDay Fail, it appears to have been a win for the online retail giant. The real goal was clearly to get more Prime members (as that is the goal of nearly everything Amazon does), and according to the company, it saw more new members try Prime worldwide than any other day in its history.

    “Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of new members who signed up on Prime Day, and our tens of millions of existing members for making our first ever Prime Day a huge success,” said Greg Greeley, Vice President of Amazon Prime. “Customers worldwide ordered an astonishing 398 items per second and saved millions on Prime Day deals. Worldwide order growth increased 266% over the same day last year and 18% more than Black Friday 2014 – all in an event exclusively available to Prime members. Going into this, we weren’t sure whether Prime Day would be a one-time thing or if it would become an annual event. After yesterday’s results, we’ll definitely be doing this again.”

    Sellers on Amazon that use Fulfillment by Amazon also saw record-breaking sales with 300% growth, Amazon says. Customers also ordered hundreds of thousands of Amazon devices, which makes Prime Day the largest device sales day in the company’s history as well.

    Not exactly a fail apparently.

    We’ll close with some stats from the announcement:

    – Members ordered tens of thousands of Fire TV Sticks in one hour, making it the fastest-selling deal on an Amazon device ever
    – Fire tablet sales on Amazon exceeded sales on Black Friday last year
    – Members ordered thousands of e-readers and thousands of Echos in just 15 minutes
    – 56,000 Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy sets
    – 47,000 Televisions sold, which was 1300% year-over-year growth
    – 51,000 Bose Headphones, compared to 8 the previous Wednesday
    – 28,000 Rubbermaid 42-Piece Easy Find Lid Food Storage Sets, compared to 428 the previous Wednesday
    – 24,000 Instant Pot 7-in-1 Programmable Pressure Cookers, compared to 182 the previous Wednesday
    – 14,000 iRobot Roomba 595 Pet Vacuum Cleaning Robots, compared to 1 the previous Wednesday
    – 12,000 Fifty Shades of Grey Unrated Edition on Blu-ray, compared to 121 the previous Wednesday
    – 10,000 Meguiar’s X2020 Supreme Shine Microfiber Towels, compared to 244 the previous Wednesday

    Top sellers by country (excluding Amazon devices):

    – US: Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy
    – UK: Lenovo FLEX 10 10.1-inch Multimode Touchscreen Notebook
    – Spain: SSD Drive
    – Japan: Green Smoothie mix
    – Italy: Logitech Keyboard
    – Germany: Croc Sandals
    – France: Monopoly Boardgame
    – Canada: Huggies Diapers
    – Austria: Croc Sandals

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Amazon’s First Original Movie Is Spike Lee’s ‘Chi-Raq’

    Amazon, which has begun to have success with its original TV series, is finally jumping into the world of original films.

    The company has officially announced its first project – Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq. In January, Amazon announced plans to produce at least a dozen original films a year. The movies will be created with theatrical release in mind, but will appear on Amazon Prime Instant Video four to eight weeks after their theatrical premiere.

    Chi-Raq stars Nick Cannon, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Hudson, Teyonah Parris, D.B. Sweeney, Harry Lennix, Steve Harris, Angela Bassett, John Cusack, and Samuel L. Jackson. A take on the classic Greek play Lysistrata, it focuses on violence in inner city Chicago. The film wrapped last week.

    “Spike Lee is one of the most distinct and visionary filmmakers of our time,” said Ted Hope, Head of Motion Picture Production at Amazon Studios. “It would be impossible to find a better filmmaker with whom to launch our studio. He has a unique voice, a distinct eye, and he tackles important subjects with humor and heart, pointing to solutions and not exploiting the problems. Chi-Raq may be his greatest, and definitely his boldest film yet—everything about it is distinctive.”

    “I’m honored to be part of the film that will launch Amazon Studios and to tell a story that is so important. Please don’t be fooled by the title of Chi-Raq, this new Spike Lee joint will be something very special. We have assembled a stellar cast,” said Spike Lee.

    Amazon’s film ambitions are starting to take shape. As Hollywood Reporter notes, Amazon has “acquired domestic rights to Elvis & Nixon, a historical drama starring Kevin Spacey as President Richard Nixon and Michael Shannon as Elvis Presley. It is also pursuing a Jim Jarmusch movie; Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a passion project about an ad executive who travels back in time, where Don Quixote mistakes him for Sancho Panza; and Eleanor Coppola’s Bonjour Anne, a romance drama starring Diane Lane, Nicolas Cage and Yvan Attal.

    Rival Netflix is also making a big original film push.

    Image via Angela George, Wikimedia Commons

  • Amazon Gives Sneak Peek of Prime Day Deals

    Amazon Gives Sneak Peek of Prime Day Deals

    As you may have heard, Amazon is celebrating its 20th birthday on by throwing a big deals party on Wednesday it’s calling Prime Day. Amazon says that there will be deals throughout the day that give Black Friday a run for its money.

    Well, we have a sneak peek at some of those deals, and some are pretty substantial.

    If you’ve been looking to buy a Fire TV stick, which is Amazon’s fastest-selling device of all time, tomorrow is the time. Fire TV sticks will be $24, $15 cheaper than normal price.

    Here’s a look at some of the other deals that will pop up at various times throughout the day on July 15th:

    – Kindle, $30 off
    – Fire HD 7, $60 off
    – Fire HD 7 Kids Edition, $60 off
    – 32-inch LED TV, $75
    – 40-inch 1080p LED TV, $115
    – Brand-name 32-inch Smart HDTV, under $200
    – 50-inch 4K TV bundle, under $1000
    – Bose headphones at the lowest price ever on Amazon
    – Chromebook laptop, only $199

    Amazon is also holding some easy-to-enter contests. All you have to do is listen to any song on Prime Music and Amazon will enter you in a drawing for up to $25,000 in gift cards. Also, you can take this quiz and be entered to win a $2,000 gift card.

    You have to be an Amazon Prime member to gain access to these deals, but Amazon offers a 30-day free trial if you’re not currently subscribed.

    Amazon hopes tomorrow will be a big shopping day, and the company is really hyping it up. Not to be outdone, Walmart threw some shade earlier this week and announced their own lineup of deals.

  • Walmart Throws Shade at Amazon’s ‘Prime Day’ Birthday Celebration, Offers Up Own Deals

    Walmart Throws Shade at Amazon’s ‘Prime Day’ Birthday Celebration, Offers Up Own Deals

    On July 15th, Amazon turns 20. In celebration of this, the company recently announced what it calls “Prime Day” – an online shopping “holiday” for Prime members that it says will trump Black Friday in terms of deals offered.

    Now, Walmart is throwing a bit of shade at Amazon over said event.

    “If you’ve shopped Walmart.com, you’ll know that every day is a special day where everyone has access to the same low prices we offer. We mean everyone: you, your neighbor, your boss, your best friend … all of whom are looking for the best price on the things they want and need. We’ve heard some retailers are charging $100 to get access to a sale. But the idea of asking customers to pay extra in order to save money just doesn’t add up for us,” says Walmart.com President Fernando Madeira.

    So Walmart is taking some steps to compete with Amazon on its big day. First, Walmart is lowering the free shipping threshold to $35, from $50.

    “We’re kicking off some awesome deals this week that will be available for everybody with no hidden costs or admission fees, and they won’t be available for just one day,” says Madeira.

    He also promises thousands of new deals and some special “atomic” deals in weeks to come.

    It’s interesting that Walmart would talk bad about the idea of a subscription service for shipping, considering the company is testing a service called ShippingPass that offers unlimited three-day shipping for $50 a year (half the price of Amazon Prime).

    But hey, Walmart making moves to go after Amazon’s online empire is nothing new.

  • Amazon Web Services Launches API Gateway, Device Farm

    Amazon Web Services Launches API Gateway, Device Farm

    Amazon just announced Amazon API Gateway, which is aimed at making it easier to build and run “reliable, secure” APIs at any scale. It’s a fully managed service that lets AWS customers create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs.

    “With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, customers can create an API that acts as a ‘front door’ for applications to access data, business logic, or functionality from their ‘back-end’ services, such as workloads running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), or code running on AWS Lambda. Amazon API Gateway handles all of the tasks associated with accepting and processing billions of daily API calls, including traffic management, authorization and access control, monitoring, and API version management. Amazon API Gateway has no minimum fees or startup costs, and developers pay only for the API calls they receive and the amount of data transferred out,” Amazon explains.

    The product lets customers to use AWS security tools they’re already familiar with like AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to verify and authenticate API requests. It also lets them run multiple versions of an API at the same time in order to develop and test other versions of APIs without affecting existing apps.

    You can get a closer look here and check out this FAQ page for additional info.

    The company also announced AWS Device Farm, which lets developers automate and scale Android and Fire OS app testing on actual mobile devices.

    Screen shot 2015-07-09 at 2.30.34 PM

    “Today, to test mobile apps, developers most often rely on manual testing of their apps,” Amazon says in an announcement. “They use emulators that try to simulate the behavior of real devices, or they rely on their own collection of local devices that only cover a small set of the overall device market. Developers also have to address variations in firmware and operating systems, maintain operation with intermittent network connectivity, integrate reliably with back-end services, and ensure compatibility with other apps running on the device. Now, AWS Device Farm gives developers access to a fleet of devices that includes all the latest hardware, operating systems, and platforms so they can instantly test their apps across a large selection of Android and Fire devices, and integrate these tests into their continuous deployment cycle. AWS Device Farm removes the complexity and expense of designing, deploying, and operating device farms and automation infrastructure so that developers can focus on delivering the best app experience to their customers. Developers simply upload their Android or Fire OS application and select from a catalog of devices. Then, developers can configure AWS Device Farm’s built-in test suite to verify functionality with no scripting required, or they can choose from a range of popular, open-source test frameworks like Appium, Calabash, and Espresso.”

    AWS Device Farm will be available on July 13. More here.

    Images via Amazon

  • Hannibal Season 4? Not on Netflix or Amazon, Says Creator

    Hannibal Season 4? Not on Netflix or Amazon, Says Creator

    Last month, NBC canceled critical darling Hannibal after three seasons. Ever since, fans of the show – who are particularly diehard – have been hopeful that it would find a savior. Maybe Netflix? Maybe Amazon?

    Well, apparently it’s going to have to be someone else. Executive producer and creator Bryan Fuller has confirmed that both Netflix and Amazon have passed on the show.

    “We have been tremendously proud of Hannibal over its three seasons,” NBC said of its decision. “Fuller and his team of writers and producers, as well as our incredible actors, have brought a visual palette of storytelling that has been second to none in all of television — broadcast or cable. We thank Gaumont and everyone involved in the show for their tireless efforts that have made Hannibal an incredible experience for audiences around the world.”

    Season three, which is currently airing, will feature a finale that could tie up the series – if it had to. But Fuller has stated that he had “radical” plans for a season four.

    And fans are clamoring for more Hannibal.

    So, where could Hannibal land? Of course there’s Hulu. Yahoo saved Community, so that’s an option.

    Or maybe the best place for Hannibal is …

    Image via Hannibal, Facbook

  • Amazon Search Results Could Be ‘Confusing’ Says Court

    Amazon Search Results Could Be ‘Confusing’ Says Court

    If you head over to Amazon and search for MTM watches, you’ll find plenty of results … for Casio watches, Luminox watches, and Suunto watches. Amazon doesn’t sell MTM watches, yet it returns over 50 results for that search.

    According to MTM (Multi Time Machine Inc.) and now an appeals court, this could constitute a trademark violation.

    MTM, makers of military style watches, sued Amazon over their “misleading” search results and a federal judge ruled against them. Now, a US Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned that decision and says that the lawsuit should be allowed to proceed.

    From Reuters:

    MTM Special Ops are a military style model of watches which are not sold on Amazon’s web site, according to the court ruling. If an Amazon shopper searches for it, however, Amazon the site will not say it does not carry MTM products.

     

    Instead, Amazon displays MTM Special Ops in the search field and immediately below the search field, along with similar watches manufactured by MTM’s competitors for sale.

     

    MTM alleged this could cause customers to buy from one of those competitors, rather than encouraging the shopper to look for MTM watches elsewhere.

    The court agreed in a 2-1 decision. The dissenter who side with Amazon said that “no reasonably prudent consumer accustomed to shopping online would likely be confused as to the source of the products.”

    Indeed, Amazon clearly labels the maker of all products listed. But there’s no distinct indication that Amazon does not carry MTM products. In the watchmaker’s eyes, its brand value is being used to sell its competitor’s products.

    Amazon has faced this claim before. In the UK, cosmetics company Lush made the same argument and won. Now, when you search for “Lush” on Amazon, the company displays a big notice at the top that reads “We don’t sell Lush cosmetics.”