Amazon

The U.S. State Department, which was considering a $16.5-million no-bid contract with Amazon to provide Kindles, content and services for overseas language programs, has officially withdrawn its proposal, saying it “intends to conduct additional market research and reexamine its requirements for this program.” Gary Price at Library Journal’s Infodocket blog first discovered the notice about Continue Reading →

Amazon has announced the release of a “Send to Kindle for Google Chrome” extension for Google’s web browser and has promised that support for the Firefox and Safari browsers is coming soon. The new extension (via The Verge) sends Web content such as articles, blog posts and text selections straight to one or more Kindle Continue Reading →

Barnes & Noble Inc. says it’s reducing by $20 the price for its less-expensive model Nook tablet computer, undercutting by that amount the rival Kindle Fire sold by Amazon.com. The biggest U.S. traditional book retailer said Sunday it’s cutting the price for the 8-gigabyte model Nook tablet to $179 from the current $199. The Kindle Continue Reading →

At the end of July, Amazon updated its Cloud Player to be in fighting form as an iTunes killer, with a load of new audio features like Scan and Match technology and licensing deals with a number of labels. And at the time, Amazon said that Sonos support would be “coming soon.” Today, that functionality Continue Reading →

It’s official: people really do like their tablets. The latest survey of around 6,000 tablet users from comScore found that tablet users on the whole are more satisfied with their tablets than with smartphones, and that Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire score particularly high among owners. ComScore asked participants to rank their satisfaction with Continue Reading →

In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed. First my Google account was taken over, then deleted. Next my Twitter account was compromised, and used as a platform to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. And worst of all, my AppleID account was broken into, and my hackers used it to remotely Continue Reading →

Amazon is committing itself to gaming much more seriously than providing a storefront: it just launched its own game development house. The simply titled Amazon Game Studios is starting out gently by producing a Facebook hidden object game, Living Classics, that lets the socially inclined dig around through scenes from well-known literature — what else Continue Reading →

Juggernaut Amazon is striking another blow at the traditional textbook industry by offering semester-long rentals of physical books. The listings for a number of textbooks now include a “rent” option that’s usually around $50 for a title that sells for $170. According to Amazon’s FAQ, the books are rented out by the semester (counted as Continue Reading →

Amazon has revealed that consumers in the UK are now buying more Kindle eBooks than printed books for the first time, with British Kindle owners buying up to four times more books than before they owned the popular Amazon e-reader devices. The Guardian reports that for every 100 paperback and hardback books it sells, the Continue Reading →

A day after upgrading its cloud music player, Amazon has delivered a native Amazon Instant Video app for iPad (not iPhone or iPod Touch, yet) to the App Store. It has access to streaming Prime Instant Video for subscribers, as well as downloaded or streamed video on-demand. Other key features include access to the Watchlist Continue Reading →