Amazon reportedly working on a standalone music streaming service
CNBC is reporting that Amazon plans to launch a free-standing streaming music service, according to sources within the company. The as-of-yet unnamed service will reportedly launch in the late summer or fall, after the company finalizes its licensing agreements, and should cost $10 a month.
This move follows the company’s similar spinoff of Prime Video, which is available for $11 a month, and appears to be an effort by Amazon to diversify its subscription structure beyond Prime’s single annual fee. What’s more, this service will exist separately from Amazon’s current Prime music catalog
Though Amazon is already tardy to the streaming music party, the company could well steal a number of subscribers from both Apple and Spotify. Heck, Pandora’s shares have already dropped nearly 3 percent since this story first broke. Plus, the new Amazon service is expected to be tightly marketed alongside the company’s Echo speaker, which has been a breakout star for the company. The synergy between an Alexa-enabled Echo speaker and a streaming music service unencumbered by Prime’s hulking per year cost could prove a potent combination. It will be interesting to see how Google, which already offers an extensive streaming catalog and is currently working on an Echo of its own, will respond.
Amazon Fresh grocery deliveries arrive in UK
After months of testing and logistical planning, Amazon has finally launched its Fresh grocery delivery service in the UK. The company confirmed today that it will offer deliveries to Prime customers in 69 postcodes across central and east London in its first expansion outside of the US.
Thanks to a partnership with Morrisons, Amazon provides around 130,000 products from brands and local suppliers for an extra £7 a month (following a free 30-day trial). That covers fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood and dairy products, as well as a range of household items. Amazon UK offers free same-day delivery for orders over £40, but anything under that will incur a £4 fee.
“We are launching with a comprehensive offer in a limited area and will take our time to hone and improve our service based on our learnings and feedback from our customers,” says Ajay Kavan, VP of Amazon Fresh. “We will be very methodical and considered in how we roll this service out further in the UK.”
Although Amazon Fresh has been available in the US for almost a decade, the UK offering differs slightly in that it utilises a monthly subscription model. American customers are asked to pay $299 before they can start getting fresh produce delivered to their door. Of course, Brits still need to have fork out £79 for a Prime subscription in the first place but Amazon believes it has the edge over the major UK supermarkets on price and availability.
Source: Amazon Fresh
Valencia CF is the next big soccer club to start an eSports team
At this rate, soccer (aka football) clubs signing eSports teams is quickly becoming an everyday occurrence: Valencia CF has become the first club in Spain’s La Liga to have its own eSports team. It’s not certain just how many games the new outfit will play (Hearthstone and Rocket League are in the mix), but it’s counting Twitch as an official partner. The first virtual match takes place roughly three weeks from now, in Madrid.
Valencia isn’t shy about the reasons behind the move. At the least, the eSports team will give greater visibility to the conventional sports club. However, the organization also sees the potential for big money. ESports are already pulling in hundreds of millions of Euros in Europe, and they’re only expected to grow in the next few years. The move could give Valencia a head start in a competitive gaming world that could easily hit the big time.
Source: Valencia CF
Valencia CF is the next big soccer club to start an eSports team
At this rate, soccer (aka football) clubs signing eSports teams is quickly becoming an everyday occurrence: Valencia CF has become the first club in Spain’s La Liga to have its own eSports team. It’s not certain just how many games the new outfit will play (Hearthstone and Rocket League are in the mix), but it’s counting Twitch as an official partner. The first virtual match takes place roughly three weeks from now, in Madrid.
Valencia isn’t shy about the reasons behind the move. At the least, the eSports team will give greater visibility to the conventional sports club. However, the organization also sees the potential for big money. ESports are already pulling in hundreds of millions of Euros in Europe, and they’re only expected to grow in the next few years. The move could give Valencia a head start in a competitive gaming world that could easily hit the big time.
Source: Valencia CF
Rakuten is closing its UK marketplace
Before Amazon became the online behemoth it is today, it used to go toe-to-toe with another big web retailer: Play.com. The site initially specialised in DVDs, video games and music — selling products from Jersey to escape VAT charges and lower its prices — before expanding into electronics and personal computers. In 2009, at the height of its popularity, UK consumers even rated it their favourite retailer.
Unfortunately for the company, that success didn’t last and Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten swept in to buy the company for £25 million in 2011. It spun it off into a marketplace for independent sellers in 2013 and it’s operated that way ever since. Well, it will until August.
In an email to sellers shared by MCV, Rakuten said that after a “strategic review of its operations in Europe,” the company has “decided to consider plans to close Rakuten.co.uk to shoppers from the end of August 2016.” It’s already started discussions with employees over the closure of its website and its Cambridge office and has told merchants that it will keep its inventory tools open until the end of the year to allow for refunds and chargebacks on previous orders.
Rakuten’s new strategy will also see it close its Spanish operation, including its office in Barcelona, but its French and German businesses will continue to trade as they have “the scale and potential for sustainable growth.” It’s a sad end for Rakuten.co.uk, and the Play.com brand that came before it. This editor remembers wasting hundreds of pounds of CDs and DVDs (and his first flatscreen LED TV) before Amazon and other big-name retailers sealed its fate.
Source: MCV
Amazon’s ‘All or Nothing’ NFL series debuts July 1st
The league first announced NFL Films’ All or Nothing back in March, and now the series is set to debut on Amazon’s Prime Video July 1st. The 8-episode show will follow one NFL team throughout the season, chronicling the 2015 Arizona Cardinals in this first installment. All or Nothing begins with the season-ending injury to quarterback Carson Palmer in 2014 and follows the team through the NFC Championship game against the Carolina Panthers this past year.
The Amazon original series will be narrated by Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and touts executive producers from HBO’s Hard Knocks. HBO’s pre-season NFL show that follows one team through training camp as it preps for the upcoming season while All or Nothing focuses on the regular season itself. Amazon’s NFL series premieres on Prime Video July 1st and will be free to view for all customers through the retailer’s video app until August 31st.
Source: Amazon
Blue Origin and NASA team up to test new technologies in space
NASA has just added Jeff Bezos’ space travel company Blue Origin to its list of carriers approved for carrying new technologies to space. The partnership is part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), which allows other space travel organizations outside of the government to test new technologies in microgravity or zero gravity environments.
Blue Origin’s part in all this is its payload system that works something like a stack of miniature shipping containers, with each one wired with power, cameras, telemetry data and control systems to carry out and monitor microgravity research on its New Shepherd suborbital vehicle.
Experiments sent up on the New Shepherd will get about three minutes time in “a high-quality, microgravity environment” at a height of over 100 km. In the future, as Blue Origin gets closer to manned flights, researchers will eventually be able to fly along for hands-on space experiments. Until then, Blue Origin will sell a benchtop development unit that can be used to program experiments from the comfort of your own lab.
Rounding out the rest of NASA’s STMD roster are: Masten Space Systems, Near Space Corporation, UP Aerospace, Virgin Galactic and World View Enterprises.
Amazon gives its Fire HD 10 tablet a classier metal shell
If you’ve been eyeing Amazon’s Fire HD 10 tablet, but aren’t a fan of its plastic shell, you’re in luck. The company now offers a metal version of the tablet, addressing one of the main gripes about the mobile device. The best part? Pricing remains the same as the current Fire HD 10, starting at $230 for the 16GB model (with “special offers”). Alongside the new aluminum design, Amazon is also debuting a 64GB version that will set you back $290.
Aside from the exterior changes, the Fire HD 10 is the same device. There’s still a modest 10.1-inch HD display that touts 1,280 x 800 resolution at 149 ppi. During our time with the slate, we did notice the lack of sharpness in the visuals, so that’s certainly something to consider. Inside, a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and 1GB RAM do the heavy lifting needed to stream that Prime content, with a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and HD front-facing lens for selfies and video chats.
If 16GB, 32GB or the new 64GB storage options don’t suit your needs, you can expand that memory up to 128GB with a microSD card slot. Amazon also promises up to 8 hours of battery life, so you should be able to get through the better part of a day on a charge. Ready to part with those funds? The new aluminum design is available at Amazon now.
Via: The Verge
Source: Amazon
OnePlus starts selling phones via Amazon UK
If you’ve been eyeing up a OnePlus phone, there’s now another place you can order one in the UK. The company is selling the OnePlus 2 on Amazon UK for £249 — the same, recently reduced price found on its own website. A spokesperson for OnePlus has also confirmed to Engadget that both the OnePlus 2 and smaller OnePlus X will, eventually, be sold through Amazon US too. The move should improve the sales of both handsets, due to the added exposure and consumer trust associated with Amazon. It could also be a useful way to sell off old stock ahead of the OnePlus 3 launch.
We wouldn’t expect OnePlus’ next flagship to show up on Amazon any time soon, however. The company’s last three phones were sold using a controversial invite system — for a while, anyway — which Amazon can’t support. We suspect the OnePlus 3 will be sold in a similar fashion, meaning the phone will be an exclusive on its own online store. At least until the company is ready to blow the invite dam once more.
Via: Android Central
Source: Amazon UK
Amazon Wants ‘Acceptable Business Terms’ to Offer Prime Video on Apple TV
At Recode’s Code Conference today, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was asked why the online retailer does not sell either the Apple TV or Google Chromecast. Bezos reiterated that Amazon chooses not to sell video streaming devices that do not include Prime Video capability and that the company wants “acceptable business terms” before bringing the the app to devices.
We sell Roku, we sell Xbox, we sell PlayStation. We’re happy to sell competitive products on Amazon and we do it all day. We sell Nest thermostats. When we sell those devices, we want our Prime Video player to be on the device and we want it to be on the device with acceptable business terms. We can always get the player on the device, the question is whether you can get it on with acceptable business terms. And if you can’t, we don’t want to sell it to our customers because they’re going to be buying it thinking you can watch Prime Video and then they’re going to be disappointed and then they’re going to return it.
When pressed by The Verge’s Nilay Patel on whether “acceptable business terms” meant paying Apple’s 30 percent cut on in-app purchases and subscriptions, Bezos declined to answer, only stating that he wanted to keep private business discussions private.
Amazon ceased selling the Apple TV and Google Chromecast last October, saying that it was important for Prime Video to interact with streaming devices it sells to avoid customer confusion. In November, Amazon confirmed to engineer Dan Bostonweeks that a Prime Video app was in development, with the company saying that it hoped to launch the app by the end of 2015.
While the app didn’t launch for Apple TV, Amazon did debut a standalone Prime Video streaming service for $8.99 a month, allowing users to subscribe to the service without signing up for the annual $99 Amazon Prime bundle, which includes free shipping from the company’s retail store, unlimited streaming music and more.
Amazon Prime Video for iOS is available in the App Store for free and accessible by Amazon Prime members. The service is also available on Android, Fire OS, Amazon Fire TV, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii, Wii U, the web and select TVs and Blu-ray players from LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Vizio.
Related Roundup: Apple TV
Tags: App Store, Amazon, Amazon Prime Video
Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Neutral)
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