Amazon

Samsung’s official launch of its new Galaxy Note 4 kicked off in Korea late last month, but now an unlocked variant of the device is available in the US through Amazon. The sales come ahead of the device officially shipping through carrier partners in the US later this month.
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HP this afternoon quietly took the warps off of its latest Android tablet. The HP 10 Plus is available today from both HP’s website and on Amazon for $279.99. The company has yet to issue an official press release for the tablet, but the listing on its website explains most of what potential buyers will need to know.

The 10.1-inch device features a 1920×1200 resolution and is packing an ARM Cortex A7 quad-core processor clocked at 1 GHz. The processor is coupled with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage, as well. HP touts (which it shouldn’t) that the device gets 6 hours of battery life out of its 7700 mAh supply. The HP 10 Plus is running Android 4.4.2.

While the specs of the HP 10 Plus are nothing to get too excited about, the tablet offers another option for potential Android tablet customers.

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Google chairman Eric Schmidt and former product manager Jonathan Rosenberg are currently on tour promoting their new book How Google Works, and as the co-authors continue making their rounds, they’ve been engaging in some rather assertive interviews. This time around the duo stopped by Bloomberg’s Market Makers with hosts Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle. The group talked about the search giant’s biggest competitors like Apple, Yahoo, Amazon and others. Here are a few highlights from the 15 minute segment.

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Despite the Fire Phone’s unfavorable reception from critics and consumers alike, Amazon isn’t scaling back its hardware efforts. The company’s Lab126 division that develops Amazon’s mobile products is reportedly increasing its staff in order to further pursue its interests in home automation and wearables. According to Reuters, Amazon is in the process of testing a WiFi device that can be added to a closet or cupboard, allowing consumers to order relevant products like detergent with the press of a button.

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Following a big day of Apple news, Kindle has unleashed a massive refresh of its Kindle lines, including three refreshed Kindles and—interestingly—one completely new Kindle model. The lineup includes the company’s new flagship e-reader dubbed Kindle Voyage, a new entry-level Kindle that now packs a touch screen, an updated Kindle Fire HDX, and a new Kindle Fire HD, which is starting at just $99.
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Amazon seems to have finally accepted that access to Amazon Instant Video still isn’t going to make anyone want to buy a Fire Phone. As of today, Amazon Prime members in the U.S. can watch Instant Video on any Android device using the updated Amazon app.

Prime members in the US can stream unlimited Prime Instant Video from inside the Amazon app using the Prime Instant Video player, including HBO shows The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Six Feet Under, and The Wire …

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Is the Amazon Fire Phone simmering out? Recent estimates reached by The Guardian pegged the device at having sold less than 35,000 units and today Amazon and AT&T are bringing down the price to 99¢ on a two year contract less than two months after launch. The device was previously priced at $199 for 32GB with a two year commitment, which many observed was a rather high price point for a not-so-remarkable handset mostly differentiated by its 3D effect and Amazon Prime services…
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Earlier this year, Amazon unveiled its plans for using drones to deliver products to customers, and now Google has revealed that it is working on something similar. According to two separate reports from The Atlantic and BBC, the secretive Google X team has been hard at work on Project Wing, a drone-based delivery system, for more than two years.

The idea of Google using drones to deliver goods is something that 9to5Google has reported on for some time now, including as far back as October of 2012, and again a few months later. Google said the following in a statement regarding Project Wing:

Project Wing is a Google[x] project that is developing a delivery system that uses self-flying vehicles. As part of our research, we built a vehicle and traveled to Queensland, Australia for some test flights. There, we successfully delivered a first aid kit, candy bars, dog treats, and water to a couple of Australian farmers.

We’re only just beginning to develop the technology to make a safe delivery system possible, but we think that there’s tremendous potential to transport goods more quickly, safely and efficiently.

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CyanogenMod—which is probably the most well-known fork of Android—lets users customize their phone beyond what Google intends, and touts having as many as 12 million active installs across a variety of devices. But the company behind the famed alternative operating system is reportedly getting a lot of attention, notably from companies that would consider themselves some of Google’s biggest rivals.

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According to numbers crunched by The Guardian‘s Charles Arthur and based on data from Chitika and comScore, it appears as if the Amazon Fire Phone isn’t exactly setting hardly anything on fire. In fact, if this report is to be believed, Amazon hasn’t sold more than 35,000 total Fire Phone units since the much-hyped unveiling of the device in June.

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Almost a month ago, it seemed like Google’s reported $1 billion acquisition of the video game streaming website  Twitch was a done deal. However, according to The Information, Amazon is in “late-stage” negotiations to purchase the company instead. The financial terms of this rumored deal have not been disclosed, so it’s unknown what would cause talks between Mountain View and Twitch to fall apart.

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6YXllIqD_E]

Small businesses looking to take occasional card payments without paying monthly fees now have a third option as Amazon has launched Local Register to compete with Square and PayPal Here – as we predicted last month over on 9to5Mac. The $10 card-reader is currently only compatible with the Samsung Galaxy S3, S4 and S5, along with the Kindle Fire HD and HDX tablets, but more devices are expected to be added.

Amazon is undercutting both competitor services with a flat fee of 2.5 percent per transaction (vs 2.7 percent for PayPal Here and 2.75 percent for Square). Not enough? Amazon is sweetening the deal with a special introductory rate of 1.75 percent until the end of 2015, and will also credit the $10 cost of the cardreader in full against transaction fees … 
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Chromebooks are already making waves with educators and school districts and of course retailers are no exception. Amazon is currently running a back to school promotion that knocks $20 or more off the regular asking price of select Chromebooks. This brings some device’s like the Acer C720P Chromebook to an all time low. Other machines like the HP Chromebook 11, which features an Exynos 5 processor, 2GB of RAM and an 11.6-inch 1,366 x 768 display are available for $200.

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There will be some nervous faces in Amazon’s headquarters as Google today partners with rival booksellers Barnes & Noble to extend the Google Shopping Express service to books, reveals the New York Times.

Starting on Thursday, book buyers in Manhattan, West Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area will be able to get same-day deliveries from local Barnes & Noble stores through Google Shopping Express, Google’s fledgling online shopping and delivery service …

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From 9to5Toys.com:

Amazon has just kicked off a 2-day Android App sale that includes 30 different apps for free. These “essential” apps cover a range of categories including games, utilities, travel, finance, fitness and more. This sale is a great way to pad your app library without spending a dime.

Before you get started, make sure you have the Amazon Appstore for Android installed on your smartphone or tablet.

Here’s our top picks:

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The reason Amazon’s Fire Phone has failed to impress is that it spent so much on the “gimmick” of dynamic perspective that it only had enough cash left to build an otherwise mediocre phone – the conclusion of a component analysis of a teardown of the phone.

Dynamic perspective allows the phone to detect and respond to head movements when viewing the phone’s display, but has been widely seen by reviewers as a novelty or gimmick.

Following iFixit’s earlier teardown of the Fire Phone, re/code has been given sight of a component costing following a separate teardown by research form IHS. This reveals that the total component cost of the Fire Phone is around $205 – more expensive even than Apple’s flagship iPhone 5S. The cost of the dynamic perspective technology left little room for anything but mid-range specs in the rest of the handset, says IHS … 
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