Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV stick are receiving HBO Now

HBO Now, HBO’s subscription streaming service, is coming to Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV stick today. You can now watch all of HBO’s movies, TV shows, and documentaries for $15 per month.

HBO Now was previously an Apple TV exclusive, but later opened up to Google Chromecast.

Amazon Fire Tablets already had access to HBO Now for over a month now, but they are expanding the service to the Fire TV products.

Come comment on this article: Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV stick are receiving HBO Now

HBO Now arrives on Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV Stick

We knew it was coming, and now it’s here. HBO Now, the network’s standalone streaming service, is available on Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV Stick devices after making its way to Android gadgets and the Chromecast earlier this summer. A $15 monthly subscription gets you access to HBO’s library of content, including shows like Game of Thrones, True Detective and more. If you’ve been itchin’ to give it a go on your Amazon streaming gear, a quick download is all that stands between you and rewatching The Sopranos this weekend.

[Image credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images]

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Home Entertainment, Mobile, Amazon

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Tags: amazon, firetv, firetvstick, hbo, hbonow, mobilepostcross, streaming

Four weeks with Jet (aka ‘My month without Amazon’)

I placed my very first order on Amazon.com for two very popular albums back on June 20th, 2000. I’d later go on to place about 230 orders, including everything from a mattress (no wait, make that two mattresses; don’t ask) and soap — lots and lots of soap. I loved Amazon so much that at one point I remember saying it was the kind of brand that could do no wrong. But, soon after that second mattress order, my romance with the company began to fall apart, thanks to shoddy logistics and problems with Amazon’s renowned two-day Prime shipping.

In order to keep costs at bay, Amazon uses the cheapest available shipping carrier in a given market (for me, that’s a combination of OnTrac and USPS, both of which are less reliable than UPS and FedEx). And when I’d contact the company’s customer service team, it would often take four or five emails to get a resolution when one used to do the trick. After a point, the frustration wasn’t worth it anymore. I needed to find other ways to shop and keep my sanity — until, perhaps, Amazon circumvents third-party delivery services with its own drones.

Enter Jet

Jet is aimed at people like me — frustrated Amazon customers — and is in fact run by a former Amazonian with a slight chip on his shoulder. What sets the company apart from Amazon is that it’s “part Costco, part mall and all anti-Amazon,” as Bloomberg put it. Prices on Jet are advertised as 10 to 15 percent lower than other online stores, and indeed, the website shows its prices side by side against Amazon’s. Jet encourages shoppers to buy more items to further trim the prices in their cart. (You can net additional savings by waiving the ability to return an item and/or paying with a debit card.)

The “part Costco” piece is that Jet is also a membership club. Members can try it free for three months and then pay $50 a year to enjoy the savings. This is how the site will turn a profit, not in the individual transactions. Yep, pretty similar to how Costco makes money.

Jet, in real life

I set out to spend a month shifting my online shopping habits from Amazon to Jet. In my first order, I bought a replacement WiFi hotspot with a listed shipping window of two to five days. Imagine my surprise, then, when it showed up in less than 48 hours — with a “from” address listed as a Walmart store about 20 minutes from my home. In my second order, I purchased a replacement Apple keyboard, which arrived within three days from a Musician’s Friend in Kansas City, Missouri. Unfortunately, the keyboard was defective so I needed to return it to Jet. Luckily, at least, the process was as easy as it is with Amazon — where despite my other issues, returns usually go through without a hitch.

Jet doesn’t have a litany of warehouses like Amazon (at least not yet; it currently has just one in Swedesboro, New Jersey). Instead, it farms out orders to an assortment of distributors across the country, with the idea that at least one of them is reasonably close to your shipping address. While this can work fine for one item, it presents a problem for larger orders, which are encouraged as part of Jet’s “buy more, save more” philosophy.

After two single-item orders, I wanted to step it up to really experience the savings. I set out with a list of items I could only find online and some I could easily get at my local Target. As I searched and added items, the savings grew and grew. I headed to checkout and placed the order, expecting to see my bounty within the two- to five-day window quoted. But, my order of 11 items would go on to show up over the course of 10 days in eight different packages, all from various distributors and shipping providers. Notably, a single roll of $2 paper towels arrived in a large 12 x 8 x 8 box.

The logistics might’ve been a small nightmare compared to Amazon, but I did indeed save money. The total came out to $112.77, which reflected a $31.94 savings for adding more to my cart. For the same list on Amazon, my total would’ve been $186.64.

Changing my expectations

Looking back at my own order, it wasn’t straightforward; it included a wide selection of items that, put together, wouldn’t be available at a local store (especially my precious gallons of hand soap). Jet doesn’t cater to a “get it now” culture that’s accustomed to two-day guaranteed free shipping or even same-day delivery in some cities; it’s for those who plan out shipments of everyday products or aren’t in a major rush to get something they want.

Jet is for those who want the best price and indeed, it taught me to adjust my expectations to focus on savings, not shipping. And, since Jet offers both its prices and Amazon’s up front, there’s no loss in starting with Jet before looking elsewhere. In the end, whoever can get what I need to my door in the fastest time for the best price will always win the sale.

Have you tried Jet, or had issues with Amazon? Sound off in the comments below or write about it on our Public Access channel!

[Image credit: Jet]

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Internet, Amazon

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Tags: amazon, amazon.com, ecommerce, engadgetirl, exclusive, fedex, irl, jet, jet.com, ontrac, retail, shopping, twitter, ups, usps

Amazon’s latest service test has you picking up orders

Amazon has jumped through hoops trying to speed up deliveries, but wouldn’t it sometimes make sense to eliminate the last-mile shipping altogether and pick up orders yourself? That might just happen. GeekWire has discovered that Amazon is trying out a new service, Flex, that has you collecting your package from a facility. It’s much like a visit to a government office, or Amazon’s Purdue pickup spot — you take a ticket and wait for your turn. The company isn’t commenting on Flex (even the test building in Seattle is still in rough shape), but it’s safe to say that this would be limited to areas where Amazon can set up distribution centers.

Not that you’ll have to necessarily wait for it to get your goods faster, depending on where you live. The same Seattle building is expected to handle Prime Now orders (unsurprising given that this is Amazon’s home turf), and one of Amazon’s courier partners is hiring for likely Prime Now positions in Portland, Oregon. Although it’s doubtful that either Flex or Prime Now will come to many cities, it’s not far-fetched to see these gotta-have-it-now options becoming mainstays in major urban hubs.

[Image credit: AP Photo/Paul Sakuma]

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Internet, Amazon

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Source:
GeekWire, Indeed

Tags: amazon, amazonflex, delivery, e-commerce, internet, portland, primenow, seattle, shopping

Hack Amazon’s Dash buttons to do things other than buying stuff

Amazon’s Dash buttons are tiny adhesive physical triggers that can order for you, through the magic of WiFi, anything you need to stock up on. But that’s not the limits of their power, if you’re willing to tinker with them. Ted Benson, (who works at a company that likes to perform such shenanigans with the aid of web tools), reckons it”ll you take under 10 minutes to repurpose Amazon’s physical iteration of Buy It Now. (I think he’s underestimating the degree of incompetence this editor possesses, but anyhow.) Benson managed to hack a diaper-ordering Dash button to act as an Internet Of Things-style tracker for how often his (adorable) baby poops. Or how many times he wakes up in a night. The trick lies in the fact that Amazon’s buttons aren’t constantly connected to WiFi. For the sake of battery life, the buttons only come to life when pushed, meaning the workaround picks up when your button is trying to access the internet, and registers that as a trigger for anything but buying stuff from Amazon.

With a little bit of python code, a simple program can track when the button tries to connect to the WiFi, and once it gets a hit, record a datapoint. (In this case, inside a Google Doc spreadsheet.) Of course, you need to ensure you’ve setup the button not to order something every time you press it –easily done when you first start using the button. If you’re looking to make the idea of smart diapers seem suddenly very stupid, you can find all the code and instruction needed in the Medium post right here

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Wearables, Internet, Amazon

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Source:
Medium

Tags: amazon, amazondash, dashbutton, diapers, internetofthings, poop, video

​NYT report says it’s tough (often brutal) working for Amazon

Amazon is a huge, very successful company that can make headlines with products and services years away from reality. It’s also good at selling you stuff you want really cheaply and delivering it to you super quick. According to a New York Times report, however, the incredible efficiency and continuing expansion comes at the cost of its workers, held to “unreasonably high” standards and demands. The NYT talked to over 100 current and former Amazon workers, across senior management, as well as workers in retail, engineering, HR and marketing. Some nightmare tales outline about how employees caring for relatives or battling cancer soon faced harsh feedback from colleagues and superiors. “What kind of company do we want to be?” said one former human resources exec to her bosses, after she was told to put a woman who had recently returned from serious surgery, and another who had just had a stillborn child, on performance review.

Some said the atmosphere at Amazon pushed them past what they thought were their limits were, helping them to thrive at the company. “A lot of people who work there feel this tension: It’s the greatest place I hate to work,” said John Rossman, a former executive who authored “The Amazon Way.”

According to those interviewed, continuous feedback and competition often meant colleagues would race to answer emails before anyone else. Some say that bosses helped to buffer some of these pressures, but more explained that working at the company added to eroding their work-life balance. Multiple employees praised their colleagues and the ability for anyone to contribute to the company in a major way: Amazon’s drone project was apparently co-invented by a low-level engineer at Amazon. “This is a company that strives to do really big, innovative, groundbreaking things, and those things aren’t easy,” said Susan Harker, a high-level Amazon recruiter said. “When you’re shooting for the moon, the nature of the work is really challenging. For some people it doesn’t work.”

The report calls Amazon a more nimble, more productive kind of company, due to focused, individual-based performance monitoring, but also one that’s “harsher and less forgiving.” The article has lead to multiple responses from existing Amazon employees, who note that they haven’t experienced many of the issues outlined in the article. Nick Ciubotariu, head of infrastructure development at Amazon, takes note at multiple parts of the report that didn’t fit with his experiences; noting that 60-page documents suggested by the NYT would likely be discouraged at Amazon. According to him, execs insist on a six page maximum.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos also followed up with an internal message to staff, reproduced at The Next Web. Although he doesn’t specifically tackle the issues raised in the report, he says it doesn’t represent the Amazon he knows. Bezos also asks that any “callous” HR issues be escalated at the highest level, (“Our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero”), offering up his direct email address. Here’s the entire note below.

Dear Amazonians,

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to give this (very long) New York Times article a careful read:

I also encourage you to read this very different take by a current Amazonian:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazonians-response-inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-nick-ciubotariu

Here’s why I’m writing you. The NYT article prominently features anecdotes describing shockingly callous management practices, including people being treated without empathy while enduring family tragedies and serious health problems. The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day. But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.

The article goes further than reporting isolated anecdotes. It claims that our intentional approach is to create a soulless, dystopian workplace where no fun is had and no laughter heard. Again, I don’t recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don’t, either. More broadly, I don’t think any company adopting the approach portrayed could survive, much less thrive, in today’s highly competitive tech hiring market. The people we hire here are the best of the best. You are recruited every day by other world-class companies, and you can work anywhere you want.

I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.

But hopefully, you don’t recognize the company described. Hopefully, you’re having fun working with a bunch of brilliant teammates, helping invent the future, and laughing along the way.

Thank you,
Jeff

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Internet, Amazon

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Source:
NYT

Tags: amazon, drones, jeffbezos, work, working