Amazon takes aim at Shutterfly with photo printing service
Photo printing is the latest addition to Amazon’s slate of services and that’s not great news for the likes of Shutterfly. Amazon Prints outputs snapshots for as little as 9 cents each and offers photo books starting at $20. What’s more, options like post cards and calendars will soon be added, too. The online retailer debuted Prime Photos in 2014, giving subscribers unlimited photo storage as part of their $99 annual fee. It also offers a standalone storage option for $60 a year. With Amazon Prints, the company has a way to make money off of the photos it’s storing for customers.
Shutterfly is a popular service for printing photos, making stationery and building photo books. Despite a a stock drop of 12 percent when Amazon announced Prints yesterday, we’ll have to wait and see if there are any long-term issues for the company. That drop was Shutterfly’s largest single-day decline in over eight years, but analysts told Bloomberg it was an “overreaction.”
Customers in the US are expected to spend $2 billion for online photo printing services this year according to market research firm IBISWorld, so it’s easy to see why Amazon would want a piece of that. Couple that potential revenue stream with the company’s existing photo storage services and Amazon should be able to grab a nice chunk of that tally.
Via: Bloomberg
Source: Amazon Prints
Amazon’s Handmade store comes to Europe
Amazon has become home to millions of products over the years, but hand-crafted items weren’t something you’d typically come across. That changed late last year when the online retailer launched its Handmade store in the US, giving artisan-goods company Etsy a run for its money in the process. Now, that same store has come to Europe, launching today in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
Amazon says that customers across Europe can now shop for over 30,000 “genuinely handcrafted items” on its new store, with more being added every day. Those “factory-free” products range from baby gifts to jewelry and also include lots of interior decorations and artwork. Oh, and if you’re after furniture, there’s also a small selection of tables, chairs and cupboards to choose from.
The store features artisans from over 40 European countries and Amazon will invite you to learn more about its makers from time to time. Like Etsy, artisans are invited to create a storefront or profile, which tells you about them, their inspirations and how their products are made.
Via: Amazon (Businesswire)
Source: Amazon UK
The CoWatch brings Amazon’s Alexa to your wrist starting today
Amazon hasn’t dared to make a smartwatch of its own yet, but it might not have to when companies like iMCO have shoehorned Alexa into a wearable themselves. See, iMCO and the ex-Googlers working on the Cronologics OS have successfully turned what could’ve been another bit of crowdfunded vaporware into an actual product — the CoWatch — complete with blessings from Amazon. At last, you’ll be able to order multiple pairs of shoes straight from your wrist. Isn’t the future grand?
The CoWatch goes on sale on Amazon today with prices starting at $279, but we got to put a near-final model through its paces ahead of the company’s big day. Spoiler alert: having Alexa with you everywhere you go can be very cool, but the CoWatch definitely isn’t for everyone.
In fact, that becomes clear almost right off the bat. The CoWatch team managed to squeeze a lot into this stainless steel body: there’s an Ingenic dual-core chipset, 1GB of RAM, a screen running at 400×400 and 8GB of storage, the most I’ve ever seen in a wearable. While the whole thing is lighter than it looks, the watch’s thick body and high lug placement make things feel a little cumbersome. Even so, there’s enough horsepower here to keep things moving at a pretty reasonable clip — swiping through long notifications and launching apps to monitor your heart rate proved to be no problem for this chipset I’ve never heard of. The screen’s pretty bright too, though there doesn’t seem to be a raise-to-wake option; you’ll have to hit the crown button to do anything beyond glancing at the time. We need to spend more time with the watch to pass any serious judgments, but the hardware seems adequate so far.
The software loaded onto the CoWatch holds more promise. Instead of embracing the rigidity of Android Wear, iMCO went with an upstart Android-based OS from an outfit called Cronologics. Navigating it is simple enough: swiping down on the clock screen reveals your notifications, and swiping up brings up quick actions like toggling airplane mode and a battery meter. There’s technically a separate page for your apps, but you’re not going to use it much — Cronologics designed the interface so app shortcuts appear as complications on the watch face itself. Easy, no?
The Cronologics OS is actually built on top of Android Lollipop, and that’s where the extra flexibility comes from. The watch can technically run any standard Android app, though there doesn’t appear to be away to sideload them. (That’s probably for the best since most Android apps obviously aren’t meant to run on screens this small.) It works just fine with both iOS and Android devices, too. The real magic lies in how the OS can connect to web-based services like IFTTT for one-touch actions and yes, Amazon’s Alexa.
Using Alexa on your wrist is about as straightforward as you’d expect — you invoke her either by holding down the crown button or tapping an Alexa complication on the screen. From there, the usual hijinks apply: the watch was able to tell me how old Jeff Bezos is and the distance from the earth to the moon, and it helped me order some socks too. The process felt far from instantaneous, though. In general it took a while for the watch to interpret my questions, pass it along to the Alexa web service and give me the appropriate response. Setting the feature up can also be a little tricky since it requires the watch to be tethered to your phone — a no-go on old, grandfathered unlimited data plans like the one attached to my iPhone.
Once I paired the CoWatch with another Android phone though, it only took a few moments to get acquainted with Alexa — not bad, especially since I don’t have an Amazon Echo at home. Then again, I’m already well known among by colleagues for having poor impulse control, so the ability to buy just about anything from Amazon without even having to look at a screen seems troubling for my bank account. It appears the age of the always-connected shopping assistant is upon us, though: the Omate Rise is getting Alexa support as well.
While we’re not ready to deliver a verdict on the CoWatch just yet, the level of promise here is tough to ignore. I could personally take or leave the hardware, but if Cronologics pushes to get developers onboard and keeps hooking the OS into web services we all use anyway, the CoWatch just might become a contender. Alexa is just the tip of the iceberg, friends — there’s still plenty of smartwatch envelope-pushing to be done
Amazon algorithms don’t usually get you the best price
Have you noticed that Amazon’s searches and recommendations tend to steer you toward its own products and partners, rather than whatever happens to be the best deal? You’re not alone. ProPublica has conducted research showing that Amazon’s algorithms favor either its own gear or that of companies that pay for its Fulfilled by Amazon program, even when the price is substantially higher. When hunting for 250 commonly purchased products, Amazon-friendly placements beat significantly lower-priced items for the coveted Buy Box placement (the one most shoppers click) “about three-quarters” of the time.
Even when you’re looking at a direct price comparison, Amazon reportedly isn’t playing fair. It’ll omit shipping costs for products from itself and its partners, but not those of other third parties.
When asked, Amazon told ProPublica that its algorithms consider many points beyond price. “Vast selection, world-class service and fast, free delivery” are also important, a spokesperson says. And to a degree, that’s true. Many shoppers can attest to third parties on Amazon who lure you in with a low price, only to take forever to ship or give you the runaround when you have a problem. And of course, the initial price isn’t necessarily the lowest in practice — if you order enough items at once or subscribe to Amazon Prime, there may be no point to going with an alternative.
The problem, as you might guess, is that this could be construed as anti-competitive. It punishes those merchants that can’t afford to participate in Fulfilled by Amazon, and gives visitors a distorted view of their options. Do you offer more than a cursory glance to all the retailers selling a given item? Probably not. Much as with the EU’s case against Google, there’s a worry that Amazon is using its dominance to squeeze out the competition. It may improve some aspects of the experience by favoring itself, but it could also be hurting your chances at getting a good discount.
Source: ProPublica
After Math: The final frontier
We saw some significant developments in the field of space exploration this week. Jeff Bezos unveiled his latest heavy lift rocket. The Gaia satellite has mapped its billionth Milky Way star. China launched another piece of its Heavenly Palace into orbit. And Galaxies just can’t seem to stop exploding. Numbers, because how else are you going to accurately measure your insignificance against the infinite voids of space?
Amazon’s ‘The Grand Tour’ car show launches November 18th
If you’ve been missing Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, then it’s time to mark your calendar. The old Top Gear trio’s new show is called The Grand Tour, and will begin streaming its episodes on November 18th. You’ll need a subscription to Amazon Prime to watch, but there’s no word on if or where it will air in countries where the subscription video service isn’t available yet.
The Grand Tour’s new episodes will appear every Friday, and all three hosts are signed on for three seasons. A date reveal/teaser trailer asks “What could go wrong?,” and while the trio’s exit from Top Gear after Clarkson punched a producer provides a possible answer, we hope things work out better this time (and, better than they have so far for their replacements on Top Gear).
Source: Amazon
The best thing about Amazon’s $50 Echo Dot? It’s available to all
After accidentally announcing a new $50 Echo Dot on Twitter yesterday, Amazon has confirmed the device this morning, alongside a white Echo and UK launch . But even better than the lower price (down from the $90 previous model) is the fact that anyone, not just existing Echo users, can snap it up. Previously, you had to order the Dot using Alexa from an Echo or Fire TV.
Just like before, the new Echo Dot can bring Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to any speaker with a 3.5mm aux cable. The company claims the second-gen model is a bit sleeker than before, though it looks pretty similar to the original from photos. It includes a faster speech processor, which takes better advantage of its seven far-field microphones for voice recognition. There’s also a new feature called Echo Spatial Perception, which will activate voice commands from the Echo device closest to you. That should solve the problem of having multiple Echo devices responding to your requests.
The second-gen Dot is available for preorder today in black and white models, and it’ll start shipping on October 20th. And if you just want to blanket your home with Alexa, you can buy a six-pack of Echo Dots, which will give you one free unit, or a 10-pack, which will come with two free Dots.
Twitter comes to the Xbox One, Apple and Amazon TV boxes
Much like Shia LaBoeuf declaring that he isn’t famous anymore, Twitter is now out and proud about not being a social network. No, instead, Twitter is now a broadcasting platform, which means that it needs to put itself in the sort of places you use to watch TV. That’s why the company has announced that it’s launching apps for Apple TV, Amazon’s Fire TV and Microsoft’s Xbox One. It’ll be on these that you can watch some of the new video content that’s coming to the service, including Thursday Night Football.
Twitter isn’t just for NFL nuts, and has signed deals with other sports outfits including MLB Advanced Media and Pac-12, which covers college sports. If you’re more into current affairs, then you’ll be able to view footage from Bloomberg News and tech/finance/video for millennials startup Cheddar — which does two shows a day from the floor of the NYSE. Twitter’s ace up its sleeve is that it also has video platforms of its own: Vine for edited comedy clips and Periscope for live events.
In addition, those using the app on Apple TV are entitled to watch video and have Twitter’s video clip service running alongside. At least, that’s how the release reads, although it’s not clear why people would necessarily want to be distracted from gripping sports events with Harambe vines. What’s more valuable is that Twitter will offer-up a commentary overlay from members of the public that’ll run alongside live events. Company CFO Anthony Noto is quoted as saying that “Twitter has always been a great complement to TV, and now fans can enjoy even more premium video with live Tweets.”
Back in the day, there was an online service called Zeebox that took Twitter’s social component and used it exclusively for adding commentary to live TV. Twitter (and broadcasters) would eventually cotton onto the same idea, turning the service into a real-world peanut gallery that went alongside big name reality shows. But being the most beautifully created peanut gallery doesn’t earn you much money — which is why Zeebox transformed into a beauty blog called Beamly and then became a marketing agency.
Twitter needs to get more eyeballs pointing at its product, because it’s got something of a user growth problem. It has a core audience of passionate tweeters, but that appeal hasn’t translated across to the broader mainstream. Its monthly active user count has remained roughly stable at just over 300 million, putting it well behind services like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. Wall street has often punished Twitter for not being as popular as its rivals, even though Twitter’s cult appeal deserves preserving.
Live video, especially sports video, could be the magic bullet that Twitter needs both to invigorate its user base and broaden its appeal. It’s not the only tech firm that’s come to this conclusion, with Amazon reportedly ramping up its interest in bringing sports to Prime. Twitter will also have to fight with Facebook, which considered buying those same Thursday Night Football rights and is also making forays into live sports. Unlike those other companies, however, Twitter doesn’t have a huge war chest that could be used to buy such rights. But given that the big networks can earn up to 21 million viewers for a single game, it may be worth the risk.
Of course, Shia LaBoeuf’s still famous and Twitter’s still a social network, albeit one which is attempting to be many different things to different people. That’s why, in addition to making a big push into broadcast video, it’s encouraging people to come to Periscope with notifications and turning DMs into a WhatsApp-esque chat service. The company is also hoping to make some sort of progress in counting its toxic atmosphere through algorithmic-based abuse removal.
The new apps are launching today, with each platform offering a slightly different global footprint. Twitter for Apple TV is launching wherever you can purchase the device, while the Fire TV edition is only available in the US and UK. If you’re a rocking an Xbox One, you’ll be able to get at the goodies in the US, UK, Australia, Brazil and Mexico.
Amazon brings Echo to the UK with new white models
It took more than two years, but Amazon’s connected speaker, the Echo, has finally arrived in Europe. At a launch event in London today, the company confirmed that the standard Echo and the Echo Dot (both in a new white color) will soon go on sale UK and Germany, bringing with them the retailer’s clever AI assistant, Alexa — who now has an English accent. Pre-orders open later today, with a new white variant of the £150/€180 Echo shipping on September 28th, while the £50/$50/€60 Dot will arrive on October 20th. For the next two days, Amazon UK is knocking of £50 for Prime customers.
In the US, Echo users have enjoyed the fruits of numerous partnerships Amazon has struck up over the years. With Alexa’s help, owners have been able to hail a cab via Uber, control their smart door lock and even have their Twitter timeline read back to them. Some of these partnerships will carry across, thanks to the Alexa Skills repository, but many European (specifically UK) brands have taken the opportunity to roll out their own integrations. Today, Sky Sports, TuneIn, Just Eat, Skyscanner and Uber announced they will be supporting Alexa when she arrives later this month.
Out of the box, the Echo can connect to your streaming music accounts to free up your smartphone, read back audiobooks, create to-do lists, tell you the time and the weather and give you up-to-the-minute news updates. Even before it hosted an event to share news of the Echo’s expansion, Amazon let slip that the Echo Dot would be given a drastic price cut. Once $90, the Dot is now $50 in the US, and that lower price is set on the other side of the Atlantic too.
The company appears keen to get Alexa in every home, whether it’s via one of its connected speakers or its new Fire HD 8, allowing it to get ahead of both Apple and Google in the battle to make our homes smarter. It’s also keen to show off that Alexa can understand British spellings, tap local news sources for updates and understand the context behind “how tall is the Gherkin?”
If one thing is for sure, the Echo will be hard to get ahold of. Since the original launched in 2014, Amazon and its partners have consistently been rushing to keep up with demand. The same goes for the Dot, which has been sold out in the US since July. If you’re picking Amazon over Google or Apple’s Home platform, you may want to move quickly.
Source: Amazon Echo (UK), Amazon Echo Dot (UK)
A closer look at Amazon’s new white Echos
At its London event today, Amazon didn’t just announce European availability of the Echo, it also dropped a couple of global announcements too. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the existence of a new white Echo and Echo Dot, which will launch in Europe and the US in the coming weeks. In the case of the Dot, it’s not just a color refresh: the product itself has been given a new voice chip that is capable of detecting where you are in a room, and it’s also getting that rumored price drop.
Amazon’s so convinced that you’ll want more than one, it’s offering Dot bundle packs, which like the Fire tablet, let you to buy six for the price of five but also buy 10 and grab two extra free. If you’re interested in adding a white Echo to your home but want to see if it’ll fit in, we’ve got you covered.
Amazon says that the white Echo and Echo Dot will go on sale in the UK and the US on September 28th and October 20th respectively. As for cost, expect to pay £150/$180 for the original (UK Prime customers get a £50 discount for the next two days), but only £50/$50 for an updated Dot. The updated products are showing on Amazon UK but are likely to hit the US store later today.
Source: Amazon Echo (UK), Amazon Echo Dot (UK)
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