Amazon

Amazon is at war with Hachette, and it sometimes seems as if it has always been that way. As a negotiating tool in the battle, which is over the price of e-books, Amazon is discouraging its customers from buying the publisher’s printed books. After six months of being largely cut off from what is by Continue Reading →

A teenager in India has discovered a major loophole in Amazon-owned audio book retailer Audible that allows anyone to download an unlimited amount of audio books for free. Security flaws in Audible mean the site doesn’t wait to authenticate credit card payments before allowing users to purchase books, meaning that anyone can provide the site Continue Reading →

  The news comes as part of an update to version 5.0 of Amazon’s own app in the Play Store, which sees a broader content shift – the new Amazon app allows users to access Amazon’s entire digital catalog, meaning that – besides instant video content – users can shop for (and install) apps from Continue Reading →

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 →