Tag: Amazon

David Gelles More setbacks for the Nook

November 30, 2009 11:50 pm by David Gelles

Just as Amazon’s Kindle is going all gangbusters at the start of the holiday season, the launch of perhaps its most-formidable rival is getting off to a rocky start.

The Nook, an e-reader from bookseller giant Barnes & Noble, was hailed as an improvement on the Kindle when it was unveiled in October. It supports the open Epub file format, and has a colour, touch-screen navigation interface in addition to an E-Ink screen.

But Barnes & Noble looks to have been blindsided by high demand for the Nook. A week before Thanksgiving the company said the Nook would be sold-out through the holidays.

Now comes news that while shipments will begin today, as scheduled, the Nook will not be available in Barnes & Noble stores until December 7.

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Posted in Consumer Electronics |

David Gelles Tech plays central role as holiday shopping ramps up

November 30, 2009 7:48 pm by David Gelles

Amazon and Apple must be feeling pretty good about the holidays so far.

Buoyed by Black Friday, Amazon said that November has been the best sales month ever for its Kindle. Amazon still won’t release sales figures, and e-readers could soon be outdated devices, but for now, the Kindle remains the market leader in one of the hottest consumer electronic categories of the year. (It helps that Sony’s new flagship reader and the Barnes & Noble Nook are sold out.)

Meanwhile, traffic on Amazon.com was up 28 per cent from the previous year.

Apple, too, looks to have had a big Black Friday, with online sales up 39 per cent. Sales in Apple’s retail stores appeared down, but overall, the maker of Mac computers, iPhones and iPods seems poised for robust sales this holiday season.

Even brick and mortar retailers tried to tap the web’s magic to boost holiday sales.

Continue reading: “Tech plays central role as holiday shopping ramps up”

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Posted in Consumer Electronics |

David Gelles Amazon gets into mobile payments

October 6, 2009 1:47 am by David Gelles

Part of Amazon’s success is attributable to the ease it has brought to the payments experience. Shopping on Amazon.com is made simple by Amazon storing much of a customer’s checkout information and minimising clicks, and a few years ago Amazon rolled out Checkout, which lets users on other websites pay using their Amazon credits or payments information stored on Amazon. (Amazon doesn’t reveal Checkout has been successful.)

Now Amazon has released a Mobile Payments Service. The programme will let e-commerce sites integrate the Checkout experience into sites designed for mobile phones, presenting yet another option for developers who are eager to encourage more mobile-commerce.

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Posted in Internet, Mobile |

Joseph Menn Google to US: we can work it out

September 23, 2009 8:08 pm by Joseph Menn

While some cast yesterday’s news in the Google books saga as the death of the settlement that would have resolved the search king’s long fight with publishers, the bigger picture is that out-of-print books for all just got a lot closer to reality.

True, the New York federal court filing was officially a request to withdraw the deal Google struck late last year with publishers and authors, in the wake of objections Friday from the US Justice Department. But that version had a good chance of getting rejected by the judge, given that the regulatory concerns followed major objections from the non-profit world, other interested parties and the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo.

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Posted in Digital media, Internet, Software, Tech |

Richard Waters Amazon sets its sights on enterprise IT

August 26, 2009 11:59 pm by Richard Waters

In the evolution of the Amazon Cloud, Wednesday’s news of a trial service designed specifically for the core applications of large companies seems to mark a watershed.

So far, the Amazon pitch has mainly been directed at smaller companies, or at bigger ones looking for somewhere to host high-volume Web services. It is now trying to take things one step further.

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Posted in Internet |

David Gelles Amazon sued for Big Brotherish behaviour

August 1, 2009 1:30 am by David Gelles

Amazon.com was taken to task earlier this month after it deleted unauthorised copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, with critics accusing the leader in the e-book industry of Big Brotherish behaviour.

Amazon eventually gave the affected customers refunds, and chief executive Jeff Bezos apologised for the episode, calling it “stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.”  But the damage to Amazon’s reputation had already been done.

Now the incident has sparked a lawsuit.

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Posted in Digital media |

Joseph Menn Apple ties tablet release to music sales drive

July 27, 2009 3:39 pm by Joseph Menn

Apple is aiming to ship its oft-rumoured tablet-style touch-screen computer this fall, we reported over the weekend, combining a big screen with the functionality of an iPod Touch.

The company has been striving to perfect the device for years, while attempt by PC makers to peddle Microsoft-powered tablets have fizzled.

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Posted in Computers, Digital media, Hardware, Mobile |

David Gelles PayPal gets a platform

July 23, 2009 11:08 pm by David Gelles

PayPal said in March that it planned to double revenues in two years, growing from $2.4bn to $5bn by 2011. It was an audacious goal, but today PayPal gave some indication of how it hopes to achieve as much.

With the official introduction of its platform on Thursday, PayPal invited third-party developers to tap into the PayPal experience and weave it into their own applications and websites. Called Adaptive Payments, the platform should expand PayPal’s reach, bringing it to iPhone, Facebook and Twitter applications, and perhaps into the physical retail world.

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Posted in Internet, Mobile |

David Gelles techfile 21.07.09

July 21, 2009 6:00 am by David Gelles
  • Barnes & Noble unveiled its challenge to Amazon’s Kindle e-book service with an expanded online store selling more than 200,000 e-book titles for both laptop computers and mobile devices. The chain also said it would provide the e-book store for a wireless portable e-reader being developed by Plastic Logic that is scheduled for launch next year.
  • Texas Instruments, the second largest US chipmaker, reported a surge in demand for its products in the second quarter as it beat revenue and profit expectations. Following Intel’s positive outlook last week, TI gave another boost to the tech sector, forecasting solid growth in the current quarter.
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Posted in Techfile |

Richard Waters The lesson from Amazon’s book deletion

July 19, 2009 8:36 pm by Richard Waters

Amazon’s woeful decision to delete unauthorised copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from its customers’ Kindles hammers home an uncomfortable lesson.

The idea that you can “own” digital data, in the same sense that you can own a book, was always suspect. But at least some forms of digital media have conveyed many of the attributes of ownership. With local storage, the bits have been delivered onto a device that you can unplug and put in your pocket. The information, at that point, is “yours”.

Continue reading: “The lesson from Amazon’s book deletion”

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Posted in Internet, Tech |
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