Amazon

This weekend only: get a 1-year Amazon Prime membership for just $73

Cody Lee ∙ January 15, 2016

Amazon is currently offering a significant discount on its popular Prime service, cutting the one-year membership fee from $99 to $73. The promotion is in celebration of the company’s success at the Golden Globes earlier this week, and is good from now through 11:59 p.m. Sunday night.

For those of you who aren't particularly familiar with Amazon Prime, the service includes a number of benefits. There’s free 2-day shipping (and same-day in some areas) on millions of products, and free access to Prime Video, Prime Photos, Prime Music and the Kindle Lending Library.

Ex Top Gear presenter shows off Amazon’s drone delivery system

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 30, 2015

Jeremy Clarkson, the former host and presenter of BBC's Top Gear show, has been hired by Amazon to promote its products. In addition to a recent commercials aired in the United Kingdom which promotes Amazon's Fire devices, Clarkson can be seen in the most recent Amazon video showing off the Prime Air, the online retail giant's drone delivery system first announced back in December of 2013.

Amazon allegedly confirms that Instant Video is hitting Apple TV before year-end

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

Online retail giant Amazon is bringing its Instant Video service to the new Apple TV after all. As a quick refresher, Amazon recently pulled both Google’s Chromecast HDMI dongle and Apple’s Apple TV from sale because the two set-top boxes, in Amazon's own words, don’t “interact well” with its video subscription service. Confirmation of a tvOS version of Instant Video was inadvertently leaked by Amazon itself in response to a question on Twitter.

The app should hit the Apple TV App Store by the end of the year.

Puzzle platformer To-Fu Fury is Apple’s new Free App of the Week

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 28, 2015

To-Fu Fury from Amazon Game Studios, regularly $1.99, is available at no charge until next Thursday as Apple's new Free App of the Week via the App Store's weekly promotion.

Released in July 2015, this puzzle platformer challenges you to save the Fortune Kitty playing as To-Fu, a stretchy, sticky, flingy and combative cube of bean-curd. Expect a lot of puzzle solving and physics-based action in this game.

Amazon Video for iOS gets X-Ray, 3D Touch and multitasking support & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 24, 2015

Amazon pushed a nice update to its video-streaming app in the App Store this morning. Amazon Video version 3.3 now includes 3D Touch shortcuts on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Home screen for quick access to the following features: Library, Downloads, your Watchlist and Search.

In addition, the app is now fully optimized for the iPad Pro and supports iOS 9's new Picture in Picture mode and Slide Over multitasking on supported devices.

Apple, Amazon, Google, PayPal and Intuit form coalition to promote financial technology

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 20, 2016

Silicon Valley giants Apple, Amazon, Google, PayPal and Intuit have formed a coalition to promote the benefits of financial technologies in order to help the U.S. government better understand these technologies and ensure greater innovation in financial services, Re/code reported Tuesday.

The initiative is called the Financial Innovation Now and aimed at accelerating the pace of change in financial services, according to the official website.

Amazon pulls all Apple TV hardware from sale

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 30, 2015

Responding to the Apple TV 4 launch day and the warm reception the device has received from reviewers thus far, online retail giant Amazon has now removed all Apple TV models from sale on its online stores.

Earlier this month, Amazon warned customers that it would stop selling both Google's Chromecast HDMI dongle and Apple's set-top box in an effort to prevent “customer confusion” over devices that don’t “interact well” with its Prime Video service.

Amazon said to be in talks with networks regarding live TV service

Cody Lee ∙ October 7, 2015

Amazon is exploring the creation of a live, streaming television service, reports Bloomberg. Citing sources familiar with the matter, the outlet says the online retailer has reached out to major media companies including CBS and Comcast's NBCUniversal to discuss carrying their channels.

The talks are assumed to be in the preliminary stages. Analyst Dan Rayburn wrote on Tuesday "those I have spoken with haven’t disclosed how far along Amazon is with regards to a live OTT service." He added that it's possible Amazon is simply examining the economics of the business.

Today only: get a 1-year Amazon Prime membership for just $67

Cody Lee ∙ September 24, 2015

Amazon is currently offering a significant discount on its popular Prime service, cutting the one-year membership fee from $99 to $67. The promotion is in celebration of the company's 5 Emmy wins earlier this week, and is good through 11:59 p.m. PT Friday night.

For those unfamiliar with Amazon Prime, the service includes a number of benefits. There's free 2-day shipping (and same-day in some areas) on millions of products, and free access to Prime Video, Prime Photos, Prime Music and the Kindle Lending Library.

Amazon responds to new Apple TV with updated Fire TV box with 4K support and Alexa search

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 17, 2015

Eight days have passed since Apple has taken the wraps off its fourth-generation $149 Apple TV featuring downloadable apps and games, universal search with Siri and more, and now Amazon has conveniently rolled out its second-generation Fire TV.

Unlike the new Apple TV which disables 4K video output in software, the new Fire TV supports 4K video streaming right out of the box. It includes a new voice-enabled remote and comes outfitted with Alexa, which is basically Amazon's version of Siri.

Amazon Prime Music gains search suggestions, curated collections, sleep timer and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 4, 2015

Following a major update to Amazon's video-streaming client for iOS which now allows offline playback for Prime movies and television shows, the online retail giant today gave its Prime Music app a little love, too.

The new Amazon Prime Music 5.0 for iOS introduces curated collections featuring hand-picked music, search suggestions to make music discovery even easier, a brand new sleep timer feature and more.

Amazon Video app updated to allow offline playback for Prime movies and TV shows

Jeff Benjamin ∙ September 1, 2015

Amazon Video received a fairly significant update today, which brings a compelling new feature to its video streaming app—offline viewing for Prime movies and TV shows. In version version 3.2 of the app, users can now download videos for offline viewing, which means that you can queue up TV shows and movies for watching when you're low on signal, using airplane mode, or for the purpose of saving on mobile data usage.

The addition of offline viewing may not seem like a huge deal to some, but it could signal a change for mainstream video streaming apps in general, which for the most part, have only been capable off online viewing.