Amazon

HTC’s holiday specials on the “top-rated” HTC One are kicking into gear with special offers for Sprint and Verizon customers. That’s not to say they are the best deals around, a title Amazon current holds if the HTC One is on your radar this week.

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Amazon’s Appstore received a nice redesign this past week and while it fell under our radar early on, it’s still very much a worthwhile update. For those of you who prefer purchasing your apps from Amazon alongside Google Play or who have found many gems with Amazon’s “free app of the day” it’s nice to see the company breath new life into the store.

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From 9to5Toys.com:

Future Moto X buyers take note as Amazon just dropped the price on both AT&T and Sprint variants to match the existing $0.01 price on Verizon. The deal lacks Moto Maker customization, but that’s a small “price” to pay for the opportunity to be among the first non-Nexus Android owners to have KitKat.

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9jA2km9TKM]

Google announced today Chromecast support for the HBO GO app for Android.

This means HBO GO subscribers can now push content from their Android Devices to their Chromecast-connected HDTVs. HBO GO casting is also available from the website from Chrome browser.
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From 9to5toys.com

We are seeing one of the best deals yet on Motorola’s Moto X, now that Amazon is offering the device for just a penny with a two year contract.

For a little while there, Verizon was offering the Moto X for just $50 along with the use of its online customization tool, which allows users to choose the color of the device and its accents along with an inscription. Even though today’s deal doesn’t allow for the use of the Moto Maker customization app, with the half off promo now over, Amazon’s offer is not one to be missed for those in the market for a Moto X. It also comes on Verizon, which means customers will be able to upgrade to KitKat right away.

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Amazon’s recently released new line of Kindle Fire hardware and 3.0 Fire OS software is certainly making inroads thanks in no small part to Mayday. Well, Amazon isn’t wasting any time making improvements as they introduce Fire OS 3.1 this morning which includes Goodreads integration, “Second Screen” technology which lets you “fling movies and tv shows from your tablet to your TV” and enterprise-ready features.

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Everything about the new Kindle HDX is better than the previous HD version. The screen is brighter and has more pixels. It is lighter, thinner, has a better case, and has an improved OS. The buttons are now around the back vs. on either side (which takes a few reps to get used to). You can now jump down to the apps in much similar way to what you can in a normal Android tablet.

But that’s the problem. The OS just isn’t as good as the one you’ll find on the Nexus 7 with similar specs. And with the Nexus 7 you’ll get Google’s extremely productive Google Apps including Google Now, Google Maps, Gmail, Translate, and on and on. With the Kindle line you get a lot of nice apps, including many of the more popular ones like Facebook, Hulu, Netflix.  But you don’t get any of the long tail apps you get from the Google Play Store, and that’s kind of a bummer.

Also, I’m personally not feeling the Mayday feature. It was probably awesome when there were only 20 reviewers getting service, but I had to wait on hold for around 10 minutes before I could talk to someone – for me, that’s not worth it. Your mileage will vary, obviously.

Amazon has a ton of good content including a very passable App selection, full music and movie libraries, and of course tons of ebooks.  If you are okay with just Amazon, then you are looking at the best tablet you can find.  If you want more, then head over to Google Play. Pricing options below. 

Amazon has long been said to be working on a smartphone carrying its brand, and it looks like it HTC could be its hardware partner.

That’s according to a report from the Financial Times, which cites people familiar with the project in saying that three different smartphones are currently in development with one being “at an advanced stage of development.”

“We have been very focused on building our own brand, but we have also been very open to co-branding and collaborating with carriers and other technology brands,” HTC chief of marketing Ben Ho told the Financial Times, but declined to comment on any specific relationship with Amazon.

Shipping a phone with both the HTC and Amazon logos would mean more than just branding for the phone, as Amazon would be able to take over much of the Android operating system experience as it has done with the Kindle Fire tablets. HTC partnered with Facebook earlier this year for the not-so-popular-now HTC First featuring Facebook Home, but borrowing software features from the Kindle Fire like Mayday, an Amazon support service for users, could prove valuable to both HTC and Amazon and be very appealing to new users in a saturated smartphone market.
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Just a day after Google announced a new HP-made ARM-powered Chromebook for $279, Acer has upped the ante with a Haswell-powered one for $249.

The Acer C720 offers the same 1366×768 resolution screen as the HP. The Acer screen is anti-glare, which offers easier viewing when used outside at the expense of slightly poorer contrast. The machine has 4GB RAM against the 2GB of the HP, and the Haswell processor gives it a claimed 8.5 hours battery life, against 6 hours for the HP … 
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This morning  we reported that Amazon had trademarked FireTube, and the trademark could serve as a name for the company’s long-rumored TV product. Now, the WSJ follows up by claiming said device is on Amazon’s roadmap for the holiday season. Here are some of the details on the device:

• Will compete with the Roku and Apple TV
• Will stream Amazon Prime content
• Will run third-party media apps and gaming content
• Amazon is working on a dedicated remote for the device, but it could also be controlled via smartphone/tablet apps

Of course, the device could be shelved at the last minute, but given the uptake in reports about an Amazon TV device, today’s trademark discovery, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s want to expand his company’s hardware portfolio, it seems likely that the device truly is in the imminent Amazon product pipeline.

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We got a tip (Thanks Guy!) that Amazon had trademarked the name ‘Firetube’ in Canada and the US. With all of the news surrounding the Amazon Phone lately – I immediately thought that is a dumb name for a phone.

[tweet https://twitter.com/llsethj/status/385746818480742400]

Seconds later it hit me. Tube=TV. Amazon needs a TV product to counter Apple and Google.

[tweet https://twitter.com/llsethj/status/385748077677936640]

It makes a lot of sense.  Amazon has all of this content on the Fire and no way to put it on a TV yet. They have to release some type of Chromecast competitor and quick. There are, of course, rumors of an Amazon TV. Lots of rumors. Bloomberg thinks Fall 2013 is the planned launch window. That’s right now.

Quick thoughts: Will it play from the iOS app? Will it be cheap and cost ~$35 like the ChromeCast?  Bundled with Kindle? Will it work with older devices? I’ve reached out to Amazon for a comment.

With the name now public and the holidays approaching, it would be surprising not to see an announcement soon.

From the latest @evleak we can see the rumored new Kindle Fire third generation above. It would appear that Amazon is unfortunately keeping their big bezels and also their heavy proprietary overlay. From the image you can see updated UI improvements that will likely also hit the current lineup. We’re sadly not expecting to see a Google Play Store App like the recently announced Nook OS updates with hundreds of thousands of apps including Google’s Maps, Plus, YouTube, Gmail and more.

BGR caught the purported angular backside of this generation of Kindle earlier this week and together we can usually conclude that leak frequency increase means launch soon. As for specs, BGR’s source says:

Amazon’s new 7-inch Kindle Fire HD will feature a high-resolution 1,920 x 1,200-pixel display, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset clocked at more than 2GHz, 2GB of RAM, Wi-Fi, optional cellular data, Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage.

The updated 8.9-inch model is said to feature nearly identical specs beneath its 2,560 x 1,600-pixel high-definition display, and it also includes an 8-megapixel rear camera.

We’re told both models are lighter and more comfortable to use than the current-generation tablets they will replace.

If you are in Amazon’s ecosystem, this could be exciting news. However we’d take the new smaller-bezel Nexus 7 with an Amazon app sight unseen.

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Update:  Amazon has now said that the phone won’t be launched this year, and it won’t be free. “We have no plans to offer a phone this year, and if we were to launch a phone in the future, it would not be free,” Amazon said in a statement to AllThingsD.

According to Jessica Lessin and Amir Efrati, Amazon is considering making its upcoming, long-rumored smartphone available to consumers free of charge. However, it is unclear what strings are attached to the deal:

There are many unanswered questions about the plan and what strings will be attached for customers. One of them is whether Amazon would require its  smartphone owners to pay for services such as Amazon Prime, the company’s loyalty program. But the people familiar with the matter said that Amazon wants the device to be free whether or not people sign up for a new wireless plan at the same time. (Wireless carriers typically discount the price of devices if customers sign up for a one- or two-year wireless contract.)

A launch date for the device is currently unclear. Like with the Kindle Fire tablets, past reports have suggested that the Amazon phone will run on a forked version of Google’s Android operating system.

Earlier this year, reports emerged with claims that Amazon is working on a bevy of products, including a phone with a 3D display, and various audio/media center devices. Amazon’s hardware development division for these products is (like Apple) situated in Cupertino.

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Google Glass is generating a lot of interesting ideas lately. A couple of new ones that caught my eye are an app from Mutualink designed to assist emergency services personnel, and a Glass version of Amazon’s Price Check app.

Mutualink’s app, spotted on TechCrunch, is designed to enable emergency responders to get access to key documents on-scene. Examples they give are a firefighter being able to see layout plans before entering a burning building, a police officer being able to tap into live CCTV feeds from the surrounding area and medical personnel being able to access medical records and transmit video footage back to a hospital for review by specialists … 
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According to a new report from GameInformer, sources have informed the publication that Amazon is working on a new Android-based gaming console that could land as early as the end of this year. There’s not much to go on other than the fact that the console is said to have its own dedicated hardware controller and take advantage of content already available through the Amazon Appstore. The news follows a report from Bloomberg in April that claimed Amazon is planning to release a set-top-box to compete with Apple and Google.

According to those we spoke with who have knowledge of the in-development hardware, Amazon will be leveraging the titles already available on its platform. Each day, the company offers one productivity or game app for free and stocks a healthy library for its own devices, like the Kindle Fire. The console will also have its own, dedicated controller.

The two reports could very well be describing the same product, and VentureBeat adds that it has heard similar rumors but nothing solid enough to post prior to the GameInformer story. It’s also worth noting that Amazon has continued to hire game developers for its recently launched Amazon Game Studios, which published its first mobile title on iOS and Android last year.

Of course an Android console from Amazon makes us think of the $99 OUYA and the upcoming GamePop consoles, but whether it will be a full-fledged Apple/Google TV competitor or a dedicated gaming system is still unclear. GameInformer says the Amazon Android console will launch “most likely by Black Friday.” 
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According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon is working to expand its hardware offerings, this year, beyond the Kindle e-readers and tablets (like the Kindle Fire). According to the new report, Amazon is working on two smartphones, including a high-end model with a 3D display. Like other smartphones currently on the market, this display could be interacted with via a user’s eyes:

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Google has provided these incredible animated GIFs illustrating the Earth’s landscape changes over the decades for Time‘s Timelapse project.

The images show deforestation in the Amazon of Brazil, glaciers retreating in Alaska, and lakes drying up in Las Vegas sprawls as well as other landscapes.

Check out more illustrations below…

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