Amazon’s $200 Kindle Voyage is the Rolls-Royce of e-readers
Perhaps Amazon sold a lot of 3G Paperwhites without special offers. Or maybe Kobo’s Aura HD has quietly taken the world by storm and Jeff Bezos decided he needed an answer. Whatever the impetus, Amazon has decided there is room in the world for a $199 e-reader. The Kindle Voyage was built for people who “love to read.” Clearly the company thinks there is a place out there for a premium e-reader and, while we can’t vouch for the vibrancy of the high-end e-reader market, we can confirm that Amazon has put together a stunner of a device. The familiar Kindle software has even picked up some neat new software tricks that the Voyage taught its more budget-minded siblings.
In many ways, the Voyage looks like your standard e-reader. It’s small, rectangular and there’s a crisp, beautiful E Ink screen up front. But once you start poking at it a bit, you realize this is a different beast from most of its predecessors. For one, like the Kobo Aura, the screen is flush with the body — there’s no raised bezel here. Secondly, the materials are decidedly more luxurious. The shell is made of a gorgeous matte magnesium that would feel at home on Lenovo’s top-of-the-line ThinkPads, while the front is a chemically hardened glass. That plate of glass is also micro-etched, which pretty much eliminates glare and lends a pleasing texture to the device. Amazon likes to say it feels like paper and, while that’s a bit of a stretch, the company isn’t completely off base. The small amount of resistance the etching adds delivers a tactility that is missing from a smooth, glossy panel.
Underneath the glass is a next-generation Paperwhite display that packs 300 pixels per inch in a 6-inch panel. To say text and images were “crisp” would be an understatement. Simply put, it’s the best screen we’ve ever seen on an e-reader. Even on complex images, you’d be hard-pressed to spot an individual pixel. And the lighting continues to be in a class above most of its competitors — it’s smooth, even and almost blinding at its highest settings. Amazon even sneaked some sensors into the Voyage, which allow it to automatically adjust the front light based on your surroundings.
The Voyage is also incredibly thin and light. At 7.6mm, it’s the thinnest Kindle yet and only 0.1mm thicker than an iPad Air. Obviously, we couldn’t sit and read for hours on end during our brief introduction to the device, but we can’t imagine you’d have any trouble holding it. And, even if your arm did get tired, there’s an Origami cover that can also act as a stand for your Kindle.
The Voyage also marks the return of page-turn buttons… sort of. Underneath the bezel is a force sensor that can trigger “PagePress” — Amazon’s fancy way of describing turning the page without touching the screen. You can still swipe if you want, but as any of you who read while standing on a bus or train know, one-handed swiping can be difficult. A small, vibrating motor even provides some haptic feedback to let you know you’ve turned the page (in case you couldn’t figure it out by looking at the screen).
The Kindle software has also picked up a few new tricks. Notably X-Ray has two new modes: an image browser for all your picture-heavy titles, and notable passages, which collects all the most important moments in a timeline view. While you could potentially use it like CliffsNotes, it seems more useful for quickly catching up if you’ve put a book down before finishing it. (I, for one, could really use this with my copy of The Wilderness Warrior, which has taken me almost three years to read.) There’s also WordWise, which puts definitions right on the page as you’re reading them. It’ll certainly be handy for students working to build their vocabulary, but it’s definitely too cluttered to use for everyday reading.
All of the new software features will be making their way to the refreshed Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite as well. The Paperwhite is getting only the mildest of upgrades — going from 2GB to 4GB of storage. The truly budget $79 Kindle, on the other hand, is getting a relatively significant revamp. The new design, other than its bulky body, is almost indistinguishable from the Paperwhite. The navigation buttons are all gone and the interface has gone all-touch. You also get a much beefier processor and twice the storage as before. While you don’t normally think about the processor in your e-reader, as Amazon keeps packing in features, you’ll be thankful for the extra horsepower. Even with the new CPU, you’ll probably notice a stutter or two as you poke around in X-Ray or start turning on features like WordWise.
Both the Voyage and the new Kindle will start shipping in October and are available for pre-order today. Now all Amazon has to do is convince someone that any e-reader, even one as lovely as the Voyage, is worth $200.
Filed under: Amazon
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Amazon announces new Fire HD Kids Edition tablet ships in October for $149
Amazon PR went nuts this evening with a slew of new goodies to share. One such announcement is the release of a new kid friend and kid orientated Fire HD Kids Edition tablet. This isn’t a toy tablet, this is a full-blown Android tablet.
As you can see in the render, the Fire HD Kids Edition is very kid orientated in the look and design. Yes, that is just a case that surrounds it and it comes in blue, green or pink. Amazon doesn’t detail the internal specs, or even the screen resolution. They do make mention that it is a HD scree, so I assume at least 720p. It does offer up a front and rear facing camera along with Dolby Digital audio and a quad-core processor.
The Fire HD Kids Edition offers quite a bit for the kids that run our lives. This tablet comes with 1-year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited. That gives the kiddos access to 5,000 books, movies, TV episodes, educational apps and games.
Amazon is really on point with this one. The tablet also comes with a 2-year worry-free guarantee. I am sure there is some fine print, but essentially if the tablet gets broken in the two years Amazon will replace it for you. That is probably one of the biggest fears I have when my son roams around with my tablet. Parents have additional control such as setting up individual profiles for each child, personalized screen time limits, educational goals and age-appropriate content settings. For instance, with the screen time limits, a parent can set it up to allow for unlimited reading time, but only a few hours of game time per day.
Keeping it kid friendly also makes it parent friendly in the bank account department. Amazon has priced these really well. There are two versions of the tablet, a 6-inch and a 7-inch. The 6-inch will set you back $149 and the 7-inch will set you back $189. Pre-ordering for the Fire HD Kids Edition is already underway with a shipping time line of October, no specific date given in the press release. If you are interested then head on over to Amazon for a closer look and to get your pre-order in now. I can already see the glow on the little tikes faces.
Via Amazon
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Amazon announces all-new Fire HDX 8.9 with 2.5GHz Snapdragon 805
We suspected it was coming, and now it is finally here. Months of speculation have ended after Amazon announced its follow-up to last year’s Fire HDX 8.9 with an all-new Fire HDX 8.9, boasting some very premium hardware. Chief among these is the processor, a Snapdragon 805 clocked at 2.5GHz, the fastest that Qualcomm has to offer at the moment. The Fire HDX 8.9 also boasts a 8.9-inch 339ppi display, and is allegedly 20% lighter than the iPad Air. In fact, Amazon has marketed the Fire HDX 8.9 to directly compete with the iPad Air with almost all its features compared directly to the tablet market’s darling.
Amazon is also launching a new version of its forked Android OS, calling it Fire OS 4 “Sangria”. Fire OS 4 is essentially Android KitKat under the bonnet, but has been customized with Amazon’s wares. Of course, this means that Android apps will easily run on the Fire HDX 8.9, after a bit of fiddling. If that sounds like a good deal to you, Amazon is launching preorders for the device at $379 USD and there is also a 4G version of the device which will be available for $479 USD (on the website it seems to say $529 however) and can be preordered today as well – both tablets will start shipping in October. If 8.9-inches is a bit too big for you, Amazon will still be selling the Fire HDX 7 for $199 and will be updating it with the Fire OS 4 “Sangria” update in the near future.
If you’re interested to find out more about the new Fire HDX 8.9 devices, we have links to the Amazon pages below.
http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&Operation=GetAdHtml&ID=OneJS&OneJS=1&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=wwwandcom-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B00HCNHDN0&asins=B00HCNHDN0&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&MarketPlace=UShttp://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&Operation=GetAdHtml&ID=OneJS&OneJS=1&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=wwwandcom-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B00HCNFEE0&asins=B00HCNFEE0&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&MarketPlace=US
Press Release
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sep. 17, 2014– (NASDAQ: AMZN)–Amazon today introduced the all-new Fire HDX 8.9, which combines a startlingly light design and stunning HDX display with a new, more powerful processor, exclusive Dolby Atmos and the latest Dolby Audio, and all-new Fire OS 4 “Sangria” features and services. The new Fire HDX is available for pre-order starting today for just $379–learn more atwww.amazon.com/hdx.
The new Fire HDX features:
- Powerful 2.5 GHz processor with a 70% faster graphics engine for exceptional speed and fluidity, especially for graphically-intensive games.
- Exclusive HDX display with incredible pixel density (339 ppi) and perfect 100% sRGB color accuracy–now with Dynamic Light Control, which makes the pages of a book more closely resemble a real piece of paper in different lighting conditions.
- Startlingly light design–20% lighter than iPad Air.
- Exclusive new audio–twice as loud as iPad Air, with crisp, clear sound and no distortion; plus Fire HDX is the first tablet with Dolby Atmos.
- Fastest Wi-Fi, with support for 802.11ac MIMO which delivers up to 4x the peak bandwidth.
- Available with ultrafast 4G LTE wireless.
- New Fire Keyboard is the thinnest and lightest full-featured tablet keyboard, with a trackpad to make productivity and navigation easier than ever.
- Powered by the latest version of Fire OS–Fire OS 4 “Sangria”–with hundreds of new and upgraded features, platform updates, and Amazon-exclusive services.
- Family Library lets all members of your household access your apps, games, audiobooks, books, and Prime Instant Video content, even if they use a different Amazon account.
- Free, unlimited cloud storage for photos taken with new Fire tablets,automatically backed-up wirelessly.
- Front-facing HD camera makes it easy to stay in touch with Skype; 8MP rear-facing camera allows for high-resolution photos and 1080p HD video, and includes an LED flash, Electronic Image Stabilization, and a wide-aperturef/2.2 lens. The Camera application also allows customers to capture panoramas, lenticulars, and HDR recommended shots, and the film strip gives access to recent photos and videos, along with the ability to view, edit, share, and delete right from the camera.
- Firefly lets you quickly identify printed web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, plus over 100 million items, including movies, TV episodes, songs, and products.
- ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) predicts which movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and buffers them for playback before you even hit play, so videos start instantly.
- The Mayday button delivers revolutionary live tech support–one touch connects you to an Amazon expert who can guide you remotely through any feature–24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. Nearly 75% of Fire HDX and Fire phone customer questions now come via the Mayday button.
“The team has packed an incredible amount of technology and innovation into the new Fire HDX–an exclusive HDX display, a powerful quad-core processor, a 70% faster graphics engine, exceptional audio with Dolby Atmos, and the fastest Wi-Fi–and it’s still startlingly light,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Fire HDX combines best-in-class hardware with exclusive features and services from Fire OS 4 including Firefly, the Mayday button, Family Library, ASAP, and more.”
Exceptional Performance, World-Class Hardware
2.5 GHz, Quad-Core Processor Plus 70% Faster Graphics Engine
Fire HDX is the first tablet powered by the most advanced quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor, with each core running at up to 2.5 GHz. With the updated CPU and a 70% faster GPU than the previous generation Fire HDX, the all-new Fire HDX provides fast and fluid gaming and video.
Exclusive HDX Display–Plus Dynamic Light Control
With 30% more pixels than iPad’s Retina display, Amazon’s exclusive HDX display combines exceptional pixel density (over 4 million pixels, 339 ppi) and perfect color accuracy (100% sRGB) resulting in the most lifelike images. The HDX display features Dynamic Light Control, which changes the white point of the display based on the ambient light of the surroundings in order to make the page of a Kindle book more closely resemble a piece of paper–this makes the best reading experience on a tablet even better on the new Fire HDX. Dynamic Light Control will be enabled starting later this year as part of a free, over-the-air software update.
Exceptional Audio–The First Tablet with Dolby Atmos
Fire HDX is twice as loud as an iPad Air, delivering crisp, clear audio without distortion. The new Fire HDX is the first tablet with Dolby Atmos, which creates a new mobile headphone experience with multidimensional sound that flows above and around you. In a movie with Dolby Atmos, sound moves around you to match what you see on the screen–rain on a roof, airplanes taking off–so you’ll hear the sounds where they would be in real life.
Startlingly Light Design–20% Lighter than Air
Fire HDX is startlingly light, 20% lighter than iPad Air. Weighing just 13.2 ounces, Fire HDX’s frame is made of a single piece of machined magnesium with a blend of glass and nylon molded onto the unibody to create openings for the antennas and maximize signal strength without sacrificing weight or durability.
Incredible Real-World Battery Life–Even Longer with Smart Suspend
Even with a faster, more power-hungry processor, Fire HDX delivers incredible battery life–up to 12 hours of reading, surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos, and listening to music–without adding weight or thickness to the design. The new Fire HDX also has weeks of standby battery life, so you don’t have to worry about waking up in the morning to find your tablet battery depleted because you forgot to plug it in. This standby battery life is made possible by combining power-efficient hardware components, low-level software improvements, and a new feature called Smart Suspend. Smart Suspend develops a device-specific profile for when the tablet is typically not in use and proactively turns wireless off and on to save power. Smart Suspend will still turn on Wi-Fi periodically to fetch new emails or app notifications, so when you pick up your tablet it’s ready to go and up to date.
Fastest Wireless–4x the Peak Bandwidth with 802.11ac
Fire HDX supports the latest-generation wireless standard 802.11ac, which is capable of a peak bandwidth of 600Mbps, 4x the peak bandwidth of the previous generation Fire HDX.
Fire Keyboard–Thinnest and Lightest Full-Featured Keyboard with a Trackpad
Tablet keyboards have been frustrating to use because they work for typing but not for navigation, so you have to keep switching between typing on the keyboard and reaching up to tap the tablet display. Fire Keyboard solves this by including a trackpad within its incredibly thin and light design–it weighs just 7 ounces and is 4.8mm thin, 30% thinner than a #2 pencil. Fire Keyboard also includes Instant Search–just start typing and the search bar will appear, letting you search across your content libraries, Amazon.com, and the web. The keyboard connects magnetically to the new Fire HDX 8.9 Origami cover making it simple to carry and easy to remove if you aren’t using it–since the Fire Keyboard is detachable you can place it as close to or as far from the tablet as you’d like for the most comfortable typing position. The keyboard is available for $59.99–learn more at www.amazon.com/keyboard.
Origami Cover
The new Origami cover is nearly 20% lighter than the previous generation, and attaches magnetically so it’s easy to take on and off. The Origami design provides a stable stand for both portrait and landscape positions, and automatically turns the tablet on when it’s opened, and off when it’s closed. The cover features a custom slide feature that quickly exposes the rear-facing camera and automatically launches the camera application so you won’t miss a great photo opportunity. The cover is available starting at $54.99–learn more at www.amazon.com/origami.
Connect to TV, Monitor, or USB Accessories
Fire HDX’s microUSB port is used not only for charging, but also to connect Fire HDX to your other devices. With the Amazon HDMI and VGA adapters you can connect Fire HDX to your TV, a computer monitor, or projector. With the Amazon USB adapter you can connect USB flash drives, SD card readers, or a wired keyboard or mouse. These are available at www.amazon.com/fire-accessories.
Introducing Fire OS 4 “Sangria”
Fire HDX is powered by the newest version of Fire OS–Fire OS 4 “Sangria”–which introduces hundreds of new and updated features. Fire OS delivers the most customer-friendly Android user interface–it starts with Android KitKat, and improves upon it by deeply integrating the hardware, platform, software, content, and the Amazon cloud. If an app runs on Android, it can run on Fire OS with little to no work. Read more:www.amazon.com/fire-os.
Profiles
Give everyone a personalized experience–each family member gets his or her own Profile, including individual email, Facebook and Twitter accounts, settings such as display brightness, page in the book, spot in a movie, and game levels, without taking up extra storage on the device for multiple copies of large files like videos and games.
Family Library
Never again worry about whose account has the Prime membership or who bought that book you want to read. Family Library links your Amazon account to that of your spouse or partner so you can easily share apps, games, audiobooks, books, and Prime Instant Video content within your household without changing accounts. Family Library lets family members share their content while using a single Fire tablet with different profiles, or across multiple devices–including Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Fire phone, and Amazon Fire TV–as well as on all of the other most popular devices and platforms with the free Kindle, Audible, and Amazon Instant Video apps.
Firefly
Available for the first time on a tablet, Firefly combines Amazon’s deep catalog of physical and digital content with image, text and audio recognition technologies to quickly identify web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, plus over 100 million items, including movies, TV episodes, songs, and products. Simply tap on Firefly in the Quick Settings menu to use Firefly for text, songs, videos, products, and more.
ASAP–Advanced Streaming and Prediction
You shouldn’t have to wait 10 seconds for a video to buffer after you press “Play”–it should start immediately. The new ASAP feature predicts which movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and prepares them for playback before you even tap play. This feature is smart–the caching predictions get better over time, so ASAP will continuously improve as you use your tablet.
The Mayday Button–Revolutionary On-Device Tech Support
On Fire HDX, simply hit the Mayday button in quick actions and an Amazon expert will appear via live video to co-pilot you through any feature on the device. Amazon experts are able to draw on the screen, talk you through how to do a task, or do it for you–whatever works best. Mayday is available 24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. Amazon’s response time goal for Mayday is 15 seconds or less.
View, Edit, and Create Office Documents, for Free
Fire HDX comes pre-loaded with WPS Office, the most popular Android Office app with over 245 million customers and 250,000 five-star reviews. This lets you create, edit, and view Office documents, and is fully compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. WPS Office also integrates with Cloud Drive, so Office documents created or edited on Fire HDX are automatically backed up and available through the Cloud Drive app on other mobile devices and computers.
All the Content
Amazon offers the best selection of digital content–over 33 million movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, audiobooks, and magazines–including hundreds of thousands of exclusives:
- Over 200,000 movies and TV episodes–stream or download, purchase or rent.
- Tens of thousands of popular movies and TV episodes are available at no additional cost for Prime members with Prime Instant Video, the exclusive subscription streaming home to shows like Downton Abbey, Extant, 24, Dora the Explorer, Blue’s Clues, and many more. Prime Instant Video is also the exclusive online-only subscription streaming home to award-winning HBOoriginal shows such as The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, Six Feet Under, and many others.
- Over 300,000 apps and games in the Amazon Appstore, including the most popular titles like Facebook, Netflix, iHeartRadio, Twitter, Angry Birds Stella, Minecraft: Pocket Edition, and more. Apps are tested for the Amazon Appstore and Fire tablets.
- Millions of songs–purchases are stored for free in the cloud for access anytime, anywhere.
- Prime Music–unlimited ad-free access to over a million songs and hundreds of custom-built playlists. Download songs from the Prime Music catalog for offline playback. Free with Amazon Prime.
- Hundreds of magazines and newspapers are available for a free trial subscription, including popular titles like People, Vogue, Better Homes & Gardens, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and many more.
- Millions of books, including hundreds of thousands of titles that are exclusive to the Kindle Store. Over a million titles are $4.99 or less, over two million are$9.99 or less.
- Kindle Unlimited–enjoy unlimited reading of over 700,000 books and unlimited listening to a selection of thousands of audiobooks for just $9.99 a month, including Flash Boys, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Life of Pi.
- Over 150,000 professionally-narrated audiobook titles from Audible, with free samples to listen to before buying.
The Fire Family
Fire HDX 8.9 is $379. It is available for pre-order starting today atwww.amazon.com/hdx and will start shipping in October. The 4G version is $479–you can pre-order today at www.amazon.com/fire-hdx-8.9-4g and it will begin shipping in October.
Fire HDX 7 will continue to be available and will receive the Fire OS 4 update with many of these features later this year. Order today at www.amazon.com/fire-hdx-7 for just$199.
Amazon also today introduced the new Fire HD which comes with a stunning 6″ or 7″ HD display, quad-core processor, Dolby Digital Audio, front- and rear-facing cameras, and an incredibly reliable design–and starts at just $99. Order today atwww.amazon.com/fire-hd.
About Amazon
Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS,Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire phone, Fire tablets, and Fire TV are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon.
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Amazon listing details new smaller, high-res ‘Voyage’ Kindles
You don’t need supernatural powers to realize that it’s been 12 months since a Kindle Paperwhite refresh, ergo we could be due a new one. It also kinda helps when Amazon’s own web-store lets slip a little bit of info. Some eager searchers spotted a listing for Kindle “Voyage” on Amazon’s German and Japanese stores. The listings don’t have too much information, but do mention a 300 ppi display on the 6-inch device that comes in the usual WiFi and 3G versions. The 112 x 116 mm dimensions suggest the Voyage will be smaller and at 8mm deep, the “thinnest Kindle up to now” (thanks Google translate). The (now-pulled) product page was even kind enough to give us details on price — $190 or $250 with 3G — all set for a November 4th launch date. It could be that the Paperwhite name is on the way out, too, with the with the Spanish version of this support page replacing “Paperwhite” with the new “Voyage” name.
[Image credit: Caschy’s blog]
Filed under: Amazon
Via: Stadt Bremerhaven
Source: Amazon (cached)
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Accessory of the Day: Amazon premium headphones $9.99
Regularly priced at $24.99, these headphones are part of a time-sensitive deal that Amazon is offering today. The magnetic earbuds, coupled with a flat cord, are designed to keep you tangle-free while pumping crystal-clear sound comfortably to your ears. Calls are supported with the built-in mic and remote. At only $9.99 (Prime eligible) and having 3.5/5 star reviews, these little wired headphones are worth their salt.
Deals, Discounts, Freebies, and More! Click here to save today!
The post Accessory of the Day: Amazon premium headphones $9.99 appeared first on AndroidGuys.
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Kindle security flaw can be exploited by hidden codes in e-books
Next time you come across a Kindle e-book link somewhere other than Amazon itself, you may want to make sure it’s not some dubious website before you hit download or “Send to Kindle.” A security researcher by the name of Benjamin Daniel Musser has discovered that the “Manage Your Kindle” page contains a security hole — one that hackers can take advantage of with the help of e-books hiding malicious lines of code. Once you load the Kindle Library with a corrupted e-book (typically with a subject that includes <script src=”https://www.example.org/script.js”></script>), a hacker gets access to your cookies, and, hence, your Amazon account credentials.
Based on the updates Musser wrote at the bottom of the report’s web page, he first discovered the flaw in October last year. Amazon patched it up shortly after he reported it, but it made its way back after a “Manage Your Kindle” overhaul. Still, he believes the issue should be easy to avoid, so long as you don’t download e-books (pirated or otherwise) from websites you don’t know. Aside from Kindle, another Amazon-owned service was also thrust into the spotlight earlier for exhibiting a security flaw. Audible, the company’s audiobooks service, apparently allowed users to use fake emails and credit card numbers in order to download as many files as they want. An Audible spokesperson stressed, however, that transactions made using fake credit cards were “closed quickly” and that the service takes credit card fraud seriously.
Via: The Digital Reader
Source: B.FL7.DE
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Amazon shutting down little-used person-to-person payment service
On October 13th, you’ll have one less option for sending cash to individuals online. Amazon’s WebPay, a feature of the company’s broader Payments platform, will be shuttered. According to a FAQ posted on its site, the service is being closed down because it’s “not addressing a customer pain point particularly better than anyone else.” Users have until the 13th to initiate any transactions, then there will be a 30-day grace period in which customers can claim their funds before WebPay disappears completely. Axing the unpopular service will allow Amazon to use its resources elsewhere — perhaps by turning Payments into a more full-fledged mobile wallet service à la Google Wallet or Apple Pay. Of course, there are no shortage of options out there if you want to send money to friends and family electronically. Apparently there’s a company called PayPal, or something, that’s been doing it for a long time.
Via: The Next Web
Source: Amazon
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You can now send Spotify tunes to Amazon’s Fire TV
Amazon’s Fire TV hasn’t had a lot of choices for on-demand music; for the most part, you’re been stuck with either the company’s own music service or Vevo. As of today, though, you can add Spotify to the list. The set-top box now serves as a Spotify Connect target, letting you send songs to the Fire TV using your mobile devices as remote controls. You’ll still need a Spotify Premium subscription to get those streams going, but that may be a small price to pay if you’re hoping to use your TV as a jukebox.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD, Amazon
Source: Spotify
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Audible flaw lets you download free audiobooks using fake accounts
You expect subscription services to verify your details before granting you access to their content — that’s how they make their money, after all. However, it appears that Audible isn’t quite so rigorous. Alan Joseph has revealed a flaw in Amazon’s service (verified by Business Insider) that lets you download as many audiobooks as you like using both a fake email address and an equally bogus credit card. Audible only checks your payment details after you grab a book, and you just have to renew your ill-gotten membership to get more credits.
Amazon and Audible were reportedly told about the exploit as far back as March of last year, but haven’t addressed those concerns so far. We’ve reached out to Amazon for its current take on the situation, and we’ll let you know if it can comment. Whatever its response, it may need to move quickly — there’s bound to be at least some abuse of the flaw now that it’s public knowledge.
Source: Business Insider
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Motorola’s UK store will now sell you the new Moto G and other devices
Although Motorola has offered phones in the UK for decades, the company has never let you buy direct. Even when it was owned by Google, it chose to point customers in the direction of retailers like Amazon. Now that Motorola is now part of Lenovo, however, the company has decided to take matters into its own hands by opening its first UK-focused store. From today, you’ll be able to order the second-generation Moto G in black or white for £149.99, although they both currently show pre-order availability. While it’ll cost you £5 more to buy it from Motorola over Amazon, the online retail giant does note it could take between 1-3 weeks to reach your doorstep. Sure, only the Moto G is available today, but Motorola’s UK launch does show that it’s ready to handle the upcoming release of the Moto X and Moto 360. For the first time, Brits will be able to customise their Moto X using the company’s Moto Maker tool, which is set to go live later this month.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
Source: Motorola Store, Amazon
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AIVAnet 