Amazon is offering deep smartphone discounts for Prime members
If you’re an Amazon Prime member in the market for a new smartphone, you might consider one of these enticing offers. The retail giant is offering exclusive pricing on select unlocked Android phones, including the BLU R1 HD for $49.99 ($50 off its retail price of $99.99) and the Motorola Moto G for $149.99 ($50 off its normal price of $199.99.)
Both phone deals are exclusively for Amazon Prime members, but you’ll have to be willing to put up with ads displayed on your phone’s lockscreen, much like the “special offers” version of Amazon’s Kindle reader. That’s where the discount comes from, so if you’re looking for an unlocked phone on the cheap and don’t mind seeing ads so much when you lock your device, it’s a good deal.
You can preorder the BLU R1 HD and Moto G starting today, though the phones won’t be releasing until July 12th. If ads aren’t your thing you can always get a regular version of either phone for full price whether you’re an Amazon Prime member or not.
Amazon’s new Dash buttons restock Nerf, Play-Doh and more
Since first introducing its connected buttons for easily ordering the goods Prime members use most, Amazon has regularly added new Dash options to its arsenal. Today the retailer tacked on 50 more, including easy ordering for Nerf, Play-Doh, Goldfish crackers, Campbell’s soup and dozens of others. You know, in case you lost all of your Nerf darts the day after you bought that last pack. There are new additions for toilet paper, cleaning supplies, groceries and beverages as well.
The same deal still applies for the buttons: You’ll pay $5 for the device when you order it, and after you use it for buy a product, the company will reimburse you. This editor continues to find the buttons to be quite handy for re-ordering staple goods, but don’t take my word for it. Consult the full list of available Dash buttons right here and don’t forget about the new IoT version that can be programmed to do a lot more than knock out your shopping list.
Source: Amazon (Business Wire)
Ask Alexa to add new features to your Amazon Echo
Amazon opened up Alexa to developers a year ago, and there are now over 1,400 apps or “skills,” as the company calls them. To take the hassle out of installing those on your Echo product, it now lets you do it automatically just by asking Alexa. For instance, if you want to test your trivia skills, you say “Echo, enable Jeopardy” and it’ll add that third-party app. Up until today, you had to go to the Alexa app, find the skill and then add it manually, so the new feature will save you some time.
Amazon says that around 10,000 registered developers are working on Alexa projects, meaning you’ll soon have even more choice. It’s also invested in 16 startups to help them build wearables, smart home devices and other products via the Alexa Fund.
The company has also redesigned the skills section of the Alexa app, letting you browse by categories like “Lifestyle” and “Smart Home.” It revealed a pair of new skills from Lyft and Honeywell that will let you order a car and turn down the thermostat, I assume. Some of the most popular are Jeopardy, Daily Affirmation, Magic 8 Ball, Fitbit, and The Bartender, a skill we all can use in these trying times.
Source: Amazon
Amazon Debuts Book-Skimming ‘Page Flip’ Feature for Kindle Devices and Apps
Amazon has announced that a new feature called “Page Flip” will be rolling out to its iOS and Android apps, Fire tablets, and Kindle e-readers as a free, over-the-air update beginning today. The feature gives users a digital approximation of skimming through a book, making “it easy to explore books while always saving your place.”
When activated, Page Flip pins the current page to the bottom left of the screen to remember your current reading spot, allowing you to skim through the rest of the book to find a specific passage, map, or simply peek ahead at what’s next. A new “bird’s eye view” feature truncates an entire book into a scrollable column of pages, making it easier to find highlighted passages from previous pages.
Page Flip is a reimagined Kindle navigation experience that makes it easy to explore books while always saving your place
At a glance, easily recognize specific pages as you jump around. Pictures, charts, your highlights, and the layout of each page are easy to see with Page Flip’s pixel-accurate thumbnails that automatically adjust as you change your font and margin settings.
At launch, Amazon says PageFlip is available “on millions of books,” with plans to continuously add new entries “every day.” Similar to Kindle’s X-Ray feature, supported books will be identified on their eBook store page with a “Page Flip: enabled” marker in the feature list.
The Amazon Kindle app is available from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Tags: Amazon, Kindle
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Amazon made flipping through books on Kindles and tablets easier
As useful (and as crazy-svelte) as e-readers can be, there’s something terribly satisfying about thumbing through a sheaf of processed plant matter with words on it. While you’ll never get the same sensory experience using a Kindle, Amazon at least tried to make it easier to skim through digital books, and you’ll get your chance to try it for yourself today. The feature’s called PageFlip, and it’s coming to Amazon’s Kindle app for iOS and Android, along with certain Kindle readers and Fire tablets by way of an automatic, over-the-air update.
PageFlip, in short, is basically the digital equivalent of sticking your thumb between two pages and scouting through the rest of a book looking for the juicy bits. If you’re using the Kindle app on a tablet or phone, tapping on a page gives you a zoomed-out view of that page, along with a progress bar along the bottom to mark your place in the book.
While you flick through the pages, a little window remains in the corner of the screen — that’s the page you just came from, and one tap brings you back to where you left off. If that doesn’t get you skimming through prose fast enough, there’s also a grid view option that shows off even more pages at once. Even better, page previews — be they big or packed into the grid — change on the fly when you fiddle with your margin, line spacing and typeface settings.
Getting PageFlip to work on Kindles was a little trickier, considering the differences in displays, refresh rates and touch sensitivity. Still, the concept scales to these more basic devices without much trouble — you’ll be able to pin pages and view the grid (albeit with less detail), and there is a pair of new shortcut buttons to help you jump between chapters. Simple enough, no?
I didn’t spend much time with PageFlip, but there was one thought I couldn’t shake while I was seeing it: this would be kind of amazing to have before you buy a book. After all, who among us Luddite bound-book readers doesn’t thumb through a tome before trudging up to the checkout line? When asked, a pair of Kindle product managers declined to answer directly; they mentioned the “Look Inside” feature on book listings has been “really helpful,” so I wouldn’t expect much more than that for a while. Speaking of book listings, I haven’t been able to find a book that isn’t PageFlip-enabled, though Amazon concedes that not every digital book they carry is compatible right now.
Twitch introduces ‘Cheering’ emotes for tipping streamers
Twitch, the popular game-streaming site, has a funding problem. Not related to the company — it’s owned by Amazon and is just fine — but its streamers. Like on other video platforms, creators are paid based on ad views and subscriptions, and by all accounts not at a very high rate. While popular streamers make a living — helped in part by sponsorship deals and the like — it can be hard for smaller channels to make ends meet. That’s why the sub-economy of donations and tips exists, and today, Twitch is trying to formalize that economy with a new feature it calls “Cheering.”
It all starts with a new Twitch currency called Bits. You can buy Bits “starting at $1.40 for 100,” and then fritter them away while supporting your favorite streamer. A Cheer, to be clear, is an animated chat emote. Typing “Cheer1” will generate a grey bouncing triangle, and cost you 1.4 cents. “Cheer100” brings up a dancing purple diamond, and costs you $1.4. You can Cheer any amount you please (including irregular figures, and the corresponding emotes get larger and larger, up to a “Cheer10000,” a $140 tip represented by a fractured red star. “If channel subscriptions are the equivalent to holding season tickets for your favorite sports team,” said Twitch CEO Emmett Shear, “Cheering is like getting a crowd wave started during the game.”
As well as feeling warm and fuzzy inside, viewers that Cheer will (probably) get visibly thanked. Streamers can make use of third-party integrations from Muxy, TwitchAlerts and others to automatically generate on-screen messages to thank people for their donations, if they please. Given the positive feedback loop that provides, you’d imagine many broadcasters will take advantage of those integrations. Cheerers will also earn “special badges that make them more visible to the community” in chat. Purchasing a Twitch channel subscription has similar in-chat benefits.
At present, only 30 or so big-name streamers are participating in the Cheering program, which is in a “limited beta.” All these streamers are “partners” on Twitch, meaning they can already take advantage of the platform’s monetization features like subscriptions. Many of these channels take donations and the like through PayPal and other services, and this is a clear play to bring tips within the Twitch ecosystem.
There are still some questions to be answered about the program. It’s not obvious how much of the money will go to streamers, and how much Twitch will take as a cut. Twitch never discusses such revenue details publicly, but top-tier streamers have previously said (under anonymity due to non-disclosure agreements) that subscription revenue shares are pegged at 70% for streamers, 30% for Twitch. Given all the beta testers for Cheering represent similarly popular channels, it seems likely that a similar figure is in play here.
It’s also unclear how widespread Twitch wants Cheering to be. It says the feature “will eventually be rolled out on a broader scale as we refine the program based on community feedback,” adding that it’s “always thinking in terms of how to benefit the broader broadcasting community.” But although the vast amount of money will change hands via the massive “partner” channels, Cheering has the potential to be a great way for more niche outfits to make some money for their efforts.
Update: We’ve updated this article to clarify the split between subscription revenue shares.
Dolby’s wide color range technology comes to Amazon Video
Amazon has already dipped its toes into the waters of high dynamic range video, but it’s now ready to get its feet wet. The internet giant has started integrating Dolby Vision HDR into its video subscription and purchase services. Watch the right shows (currently Amazon’s Bosch and a handful of Sony movies, like Fury) and you’ll get a wider color range as well as more details in highlights and shadows. The big catch? Right now, you’ll need one of LG’s HDR-capable 4K or OLED TVs to notice the difference — until there’s more content and hardware support, this is more of a technology showcase than anything else.
Source: Dolby
Amazon helps teachers share free digital education tools
Part of the promise of digital education is the ability to share knowledge between schools, but that’s not easy when there isn’t a central hub for making that happen. Amazon, however, thinks it can help. It’s launching Inspire, a free service that helps American educators find and share resources. If a teacher creates useful material for a grade 8 science course, it’s just a matter of uploading it and giving it the right tags — classrooms around the country can then find it when they need to bolster their curriculum.
The service is only in beta testing right now, but it’s already getting support from numerous school districts, publishers and contributors. The Folger Shakespeare Library is offering material to help teach Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, while the Department of Education is giving prospective college students a leg up by providing its scorecards. While it may be odd to see Amazon serving as an educational gateway, it’s clearly not messing around — this could be a go-to hub for teachers who’d rather not search the web (or whip up their own content) to get digital material.
Source: Amazon Inspire, Amazon PR
FAA fines Amazon for two more shipments of unlabeled chemicals
Last week, the FAA announced a $350,000 fine for Amazon after the retailer mishandled chemical shipments that resulted in injuries to UPS workers. Today, the agency hit the company with two more fines totaling $130,000 for similar incidents. In 2014, Amazon shipped separate packages, corrosive rust remover and a flammable gas used to clean air conditioners without properly labeling the boxes or sending along the required paperwork. Failure to do so violates the FAA’s hazardous materials guidelines. The box containing Rid O’ Rust Stain Preventer Acid leaked through, but there were no injuries reported.
These two new fines come just days after the FAA cited Amazon for shipping commercial-strength drain cleaner without the appropriate markings and papers. In that case, nine UPS workers had to be treated with a chemical wash after the container leaked and exposed them to the contents. The two penalties come from incidents at FedEx and UPS facilities in which the FAA says Amazon not only failed to mark the boxes and include paperwork, but it also didn’t include emergency response instructions in the event of a chemical spill or leak.
Via: Wall Street Journal
Source: FAA (1), (2)
Amazon backs ‘Vainglory’ mobile eSports tournament
Amazon is throwing its weight behind mobile eSports yet again. The company — the Amazon Appstore, in particular — is the main sponsor of the 2016 Vainglory summer eSports season. Vainglory is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game for touchscreen devices, which Apple demoed on stage back in 2014 to show off the power of its A8 chip. It has become the biggest touchscreen eSport since then, convincing Amazon-owned streaming website Twitch to ink a deal with its publisher, Super Evil Megacorp, to broadcast its tournaments.
Amazon and Super Evil Megacorp are doing things a bit differently this season. Starting today until September 11th, the top eight teams in North America and Europe will be facing each other every weekend. The Appstore will reward players with discounts and Amazon Coins throughout the tournament. By the end of the season, the e-retailer will host a huge championship event. It’s not clear at this point where it’s going to be held, but you can watch Twitch’s coverage of the tournament on the official Vainglory channel.
Source: Vainglory
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