Amazon

Amazon recently announced that it was acquiring video game streaming site Twitch.tv for $970 million. For months, it looked like it was a done deal for Google to buy Twitch for about $1 billion. So what happened? Reports suggest Google was concerned about antitrust issues, because Google already owns YouTube, which competes directly with Twitch Continue Reading →

Google has been working on self-driving cars for some years now, but the company has just revealed that it is working on yet another ambitious and autonomous vehicle project. According to the BBC and The Atlantic, the secretive Google X team has been working for two years on Project Wing, a drone-based delivery system that Continue Reading →

The Twitch videogame-streaming service went offline for several hours last night (Aug. 26), possibly as a result of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which would make it the latest in a series of attacks on online gaming services. A hacker group called Lizard Squad claimed credit for last night’s disruption via its Twitter feed. On Continue Reading →

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. reported a surge in revenue and earnings for its latest quarter, driven in part by increased activity on mobile devices, though its profit margin narrowed. Alibaba’s plan for a potentially record-breaking initial public offering is prompting other companies to push back their own stock-market debuts. Telis Demos joins MoneyBeat with Paul Continue Reading →

  Amazon has officially purchased Twitch.tv for $970 million. In Twitch’s announcement of the deal, CEO Emmett Shear repeatedly thanked the Twitch community for helping build the company, and that “with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch.” The letter states that Twitch will be “keeping most everything the Continue Reading →

Amazon Inc is planning to develop its own software for placing advertisements online, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. While the in-house platform is initially planned to replace ads supplied by Google on Amazon’s own website, the new system could challenge Google and Microsoft’s advertising business in the future, Continue Reading →

Based on Amazon’s selective PR history, the company isn’t likely to reveal exact sales for its recent Fire Phone any time soon—unless the company’s first-ever smartphone goes gangbusters. A recent study appears to put any hopes for a record-smashing debut in serious doubt. Rather than wait for the official word, online advertising company Chitika Insights Continue Reading →

A new study which found that readers using a Kindle were “significantly” worse than paperback readers at recalling when events occurred in a mystery story is part of major new Europe-wide research looking at the impact of digitisation on the reading experience. The study, presented in Italy at a conference last month and set to Continue Reading →

Amazon is diving deeper into the payment processing business. The online retailer announced Amazon Local Register, a mobile point-of-sale service combining a mobile app with a secure card reader — similar to Square — that lets small businesses process digital transactions. The big draw for businesses would be Amazon’s rate of 2.5% for every swiped Continue Reading →

Amazon may be the biggest name in the world of e-books, especially with its new Kindle Unlimited service, but it’s far from the only game in town. Oyster and Scribd offer similar – and arguably better – services for about the same price. But another company is silently making a push to challenge Amazon: Apple. Continue Reading →