Amazon’s making digital homework easier to assign, ugh
If you’ve ever seen a 6th grader lugging around a 30 pound backpack, you’ll understand the allure of e-readers and tablets as a replacement for traditional textbooks. To help school districts make the digital transition from physical textbooks, Amazon launched Whispercast, a free content management and distribution tool. Schools can buy or rent books directly via the online tool and push them to anything that supports the Kindle app including: Kindles, Fire Tablets, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and Chromebooks. Today, the free two year-old online tool gets an upgrade with tiered administration, support for purchase orders, an easier-to-use online interface and an assisted setup service for new schools.
Whispercast aims to make distribution of digital media in schools and businesses as easy as a few clicks. The service enables central content administration of e-books, documents, apps and other media on multiple devices.
Today’s update adds more administrative deployment options. Instead of just having the IT department in charge of everything, tiered permissions can be given to teachers and other staff members. Educators can now control which of their classes get which documents with the online tool. “You want the ability to have this centralized, but when it comes to reading material, you want to give schools and teachers the power to deploy,” said Rohit Agarwal, general manager of Amazon Education.
To help those teachers deploy materials, Amazon says the tool itself has been redesigned to make it easier to create groups and distribute items thanks to a new step-by-step setup wizard. Of course, setting up an entire school or school district is another matter. To handle that, Amazon has launched a Digital Transition Service for K-12 and higher education customers. A representative will help get a school up and running.
Finally, the service now supports purchase orders and purchase cards for digital goods — something most schools require to help tracks costs. When it comes to shrinking school budgets, Whispercast could be the solution to buying physical books, especially books available in the public domain. Also, it’ll help reduce the chances of kids having lower back problems.
Filed under: Misc, Tablets, Software
Source: Amazon
From garage to campus: a look at the digs of tech’s Big Five
Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon: These juggernauts are at the forefront of the tech industry. And with that success comes an ever-expanding workforce, and the need for a place to put them. To keep pace with growth, these companies have been making the requisite real-estate deals in order to build physical spaces to match their forward-thinking business approach. Fortunately, their designs are also more environmentally conscious than ever before. With the eyes of the world upon them, they’ve taken the well-being of the Earth, as well as their employees, into account, building innovative work spaces in an attempt to harmonize with the world around them. Below, we take a look at some of the steps these giants of industry have made over the years as they’ve moved from garage operations to vast campuses.
[Image: NBBJ]
Filed under: Misc, HD, Mobile, Alt, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook
[Deal] Pick up a discounted Pioneer Android Auto stereo through Amazon
If you’ve been waiting for a good deal to get started with Android Auto, Amazon is hosting a deal that just might push you over the edge. They’re offering up Pioneer’s AVIC-8100NEX stereo with a heavy discount off the MSRP, you can pick up one for roughly 900 bucks. It’s definitely not cheap, but considering these things have an MSRP of 1400, that’s a hefty discount.
The stereo has a full touch screen interface and works with your Lollipop-powered device and the Android Auto app. Pioneer’s own interface and Apple CarPlay also work, in case you like to mix and match devices.
Amazon is currently sold out of the devices, but several third party sellers are still offering the units at a discount, some of which are even eligible for Prime shipping.
source: Amazon
Come comment on this article: [Deal] Pick up a discounted Pioneer Android Auto stereo through Amazon
Quirky wine rack could refill itself using Amazon Dash
Do you wake up in the middle of the night, soaked in cold sweat and frantically worrying, “Oh God, is my wine rack sufficiently full?” Well, fear not, because this automated wine rack from Quirky not only keeps tabs on your vital vino supply, it could even automatically restock its cellar when you run out of wine. The Poppy Reserve, as it’s called, is a two-part system consisting of a smart rack and its associated app. The semi-autonomous wine rack comes packed with temperature, weight and humidity sensors. That way it can monitor how much wine you have left as well as whether they’re being stored under the proper conditions.
The Poppy Reserve app could serve as equal parts sommelier and wine assistant with the ability to track your favorite brands, styles or reserve years as well as suggest new ones to try. And by assigning specific bottles to each numbered rack slot, the system could even incorporate Amazon’s Dash Replenishment Service to automatically replenish your stock when a bottle runs dry. Though, given that this project is still firmly in the vaporware phase of its development, it’s also fair to say that it could eventually incorporate laser cats and rocket thrusters. The idea is currently under Expert Review at Quirky, though there are no set plans to produce it.
Source: Quirky
Amazon Web Services is a $5 billion business
Even though Amazon Web Services has taken off in recent years to become the cloud computing solution of choice for businesses, not much was known about how much money it was bringing in. Now, however, we do. In its first quarterly earnings report today, Amazon has reported the financials for its AWS division for the first time, stating that it is a “$5 billion business and growing fast.” In Q1 alone, AWS brought in $1.57 billion in revenue, which is up from $1.1 billion this time last year (in previous Amazon reports, this info was simply filed under a mysterious “Other” column). On the whole, AWS seems to be one of a few operations within Amazon that is profitable, with about $265 million in profits in Q1. Despite that, however, the online retail giant still reported a net loss of $57 million overall for the quarter.
Filed under: Amazon
Source: Amazon
Developer makes Amazon’s Echo control Wink and Nest devices
After Amazon gave select developers access to an SDK for its Echo wireless speaker last month, we now have a few examples of what you can do with it. Developer Jeffrey Bachand has built apps allowing Echo to control his smart lights, which are connected to Quirky’s Wink hub, as well as his Nest smart thermostat. In the video below, you can see the apps in action. Unfortunately, there’s still no way for developers to publish apps to the Echo platform, but you can be sure Amazon will fix that soon once there are more apps lined up. Bachand also notes that the NDA for SDK testers has just ended, which means you can expect to see more Echo apps soon. Amazon added support for Belkin WeMo and Philips Hue devices to the Echo earlier this month, but the addition of third-party developers should dramatically increase the amount of devices it works with.
Amazon trial delivers packages directly to Audi cars
Tired of having to stay home (or ship to the office) just to collect your online orders? If you live in Germany and drive the right car, you might not have to. In an expansion of what Volvo tried last year, Amazon is teaming up with Audi and DHL for a trial that delivers Amazon Prime purchases directly to connected Audi cars in the Munich area. All you have to do is provide the rough location of your car during the delivery window — after that, the DHL courier gets temporary access to the trunk of your vehicle to drop off your packages. Suffice it to say that this could be more than a little handy if you’re busy working or visiting family. The trial will only involve a handful of people when it kicks off in early May, but here’s hoping that it expands quickly… the days of staring anxiously at your front door could eventually come to an end.
Filed under: Transportation, Internet, Amazon
Via: Financial Times
Source: Amazon.de (translated)
Amazon Destinations handpicks hotels in LA, NY and Seattle
Amazon’s rumored new travel site has appeared and it’s well, exactly as rumored. While the company previously sold flash-sale hotel rooms as part of Amazon Local, alongside steep discounts, Destinations is more about curated hotels. The service currently focuses on areas around LA, New York and Seattle, with the aim of selling short-term getaways that are near to those aforementioned transport hubs. There’s no news on whether it’d roll-out the new service to other US areas (let alone other countries), but it wouldn’t be a shocker if it did. The site is already accepting user reviews, but expanding the service will likely depend on how many people are looking to pay typical list prices – if only because it’s paired with the ubiquity of Amazon.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Amazon Destinations
Deal: Pick up an Amazon Fire HD 7 Tablet for just $79 ($60 off)
As part of the Gold Box Deal of the Day, Amazon is offering a number of discounts on its Fire HD 7 Tablets for today only. For just $79, you can pick up the 8GB Fire HD 7 with “special offers”, or upgrade to the ad-free model for $94. If you choose to opt for more storage on your tablet, the 16GB model with ads will cost you $99, and the ad-free version costs $114. Most of the variants are available in all five colors – Black, Magenta, White, Citron and Cobalt.
Read more: Best Amazon Fire HD 7 cases
In addition to the tablet being on sale, you can also pick up a few official accessories for cheap. The Standing Leather Case is available for $30.99 (normally $44.99) and the Standing Protective Case is being offered for $27.99 (normally $34.99).
The Fire HD 7 isn’t the best tablet on the market when it comes to specifications or hardware, but it does offer a great way to consume media if you already use Amazon services. The tablet has a 7-inch display with 800 x 1280 resolution, a 1.5GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, a front and rear-facing camera, Dolby Digital Plus sound enhancements and a battery that will last up to 8 hours on a single charge.
Remember, this deal is only available until midnight tonight, so check out the deal link below before it’s too late!
Amazon TestDrive service to cease functionality, effective immediately.
It appears that Amazon has finally decided that the world no longer has a place for its TestDrive Service, as the retail giant has announced that they will be pulling the service, effective immediately.
For those of you that might now know what I am talking about, TestDrive was a feature that was exclusive to Amazons Apps Store, that allowed you to test an app right from the web browser before you purchased it. A handy feature, perhaps, but Google takes a much better approach by allowing you a 15 minute test drive instead. This allows you to get a better feeling on how the app works and whether you like the app or not, as its a different experience using it on your actual mobile device than on your computer. It might also be one of the reasons that Amazon decided to end the service, as Amazon stated that they saw a decline in the actual usage of the service. No point in having something around if no one is using it, right?
Well, there is nothing to do now but bid the service adieu. For more information regarding the service, and Amazons official press release, follow the link provided below.
Source: Amazon
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