Commerce

How Connected Cars Will Transform Our Lives at Home

Let me put this bluntly: Smart homes are pretty dumb. Or at least historically, connected devices for the everyman’s house have seemed gimmicky at best. This week at CES, however, we saw new technology that stands to reform our very conception of how homes work. But the gamechanging device we saw isn’t really a device…

Amazon Now Sells Its Very Own ARM Chips

If you thought Amazon’s own-branded products were a little strange—baby wipes, anyone?—then things just got a little more serious. The retailer has just announced that it’s starting to sell its own ARM-based silicon chips. Amazon purchased the semiconductor firm Annapurna Labs last year, and now its readied a line of chips under the name Alpine…

Ford Teams Up With Amazon and DJI to Make Self-Driving Cars That Talk to Your House, Drone

Ford was rumored to announce a partnership with Google today at CES in Vegas, but the 115-year-old auto manufacturer has other tricks up its sleeve. Namely, curious new partnerships with Amazon and Chinese drone-maker DJI. In an email to press today, Ford first announced that it’s tripling its fleet of self-driving cars, bringing the squad…

Amazon has just added thousands of new items to its one-hour delivery scheme. But most importantly, if you live in Manhattan that now includes beer, wine and spirits. Party!

Amazon Will Give You a Year’s Unlimited Online Storage for $5

If you need some cloud-based storage in which to squirrel away your files, Amazon has just announced a tempting option: for a limited time, you can snag its unlimited online storage for $5. The company is cutting the price of a subscription to its unlimited Cloud Drive option, which allows you to back up anything…

Report: Amazon to Add Other Online Video Services to Prime Video

Amazon is planning to provide its Prime Instant Video members with access to other online, on-demand TV and movie services, alongside its usual original and licensed content, according to a new report. Bloomberg Business cites “people with knowledge of the plans” in reporting that “Prime customers will have the option of adding other online subscriptions…

Amazon: Sorry, Putting Nazi Symbols on the Subway Was a Bad Call

Following a vicious backlash from the patrons of the New York City subway, e-commerce giant Amazon seems to have realized that plastering dystopian Nazi imagery across MTA cars was maybe kinda sorta a bad idea. Good job. The ad campaign was intended to promote The Man in the High Castle, Amazon’s new, alternate history TV…

Is Amazon Secretly Flying Its Own Cargo Planes?

According to a report in Motherboard, there’s a secretive air freight business running in an old DHL facility in Wilmington. It’s impossible to say who is behind it, but as Kari Paul explains, Amazon would be a safe bet. The facility in question is Wilmington Air Park, a cargo airport in Ohio that was used…

A Gift Guide for Making Any Dumb Home Smarter

Do you or someone you love (or at least give enough of a damn about to buy a holiday gift for) want to explore this whole “smart home” idea without buying into a whole ecosystem? There are plenty of ways to get started, but these gadgets seamlessly integrate into your current, IQ-challenged abode. Best of…

You Can Now Use Two-Step Authentication on Amazon—Here’s How

Two-step authentication is one the easiest ways to make your online accounts more secure. Finally, Amazon has decided to provide the option of using the system—and here’s how you can enable it. While most of the Internet’s big players—Apple, Google, Facebook and the like—have long offered the option of using two-step authentication, Amazon has steadfastly…

If you have a thing against online shopping, but you’ve always hankered after Amazon’sEcho speaker/virtual assistant, good news: it’s now available in a bunch of big-box stores like Staples, RadioShack, and uh, Home Depot. [Amazon]

Amazon’s First Real Store Is Opening Tomorrow

Amazon, a company that made its name undercutting brick-and-mortar retailers usingcheap laborand UPS, is opening the doors to its first real book store in Seattle at 9.30AM tomorrow morning. The store, located in University Village, seems mostly to be a vanity project for Amazon in its hometown. There’s going to be about 5,000 books in…

Two Months Later, Amazon’s Still Complaining About That Times Hit Piece

It’s been over two months since The New York Times published a lengthy and rather scathing report on what it’s like to work at Amazon. (Working at Amazon is soul-crushing, by the way.) But Amazon just can’t stop defending itself. Star Amazon hire Jay Carney just published a blog post on Medium, detailing several instances…

If you use Amazon’s grocery service, brace yourself for a price-hike: the you now need a $300 Prime Fresh subscription before you can get produce delivered to your door.

Amazon is Suing 1,000 Fake Five-Star Reviewers

As well as promising the entire world in a FedEx box, Amazon also trades on the quality of its reviews. So it’s actually not surprising that the company is taking 1,114 unknown reviewers to court. https://gizmodo.com/amazon-is-starting-to-sue-sellers-of-fake-five-star-rev-1696953966 It’s not the first time that Amazon has taken legal action against fake reviews: back in April, it sued…

Amazon Just Launched an Etsy Clone to Sell Handmade Items

Amazon has just launched a new online store called Handmade. Much like Etsy, it will sell handcrafted items, serving as the middle-man between artisans and consumers. The store is divided into seven categories — Jewelry, Home Décor, Artwork, Stationery and Party Supplies, Kitchen and Dining, and Furniture — and there are already 80,000 items available…

New Chromecast vs New Fire TV Stick vs Roku Stick: Streaming Dongle Showdown 2015

There’s a new Chromecast in town and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick is getting an update — which means it’s time for another streaming showdown. Roku’s stick hasn’t been updated since last year but we’re still throwing it into the face-off. Specs For the sake of matching up the best, we’re comparing Roku’s HDMI version of…

Amazon Flex Pays You To Deliver Strangers’ Packages

Want to drive around town and deliver Amazon Prime Now packages for up to $25 an hour? A new service called Amazon Flex launched today offering that very gig, starting in Seattle and rolling out to nine other major U.S. cities in the coming months. “Deliver smiles” and “be your own boss,” the Amazon Flex…

Amazon Prime Music Finally Gets Tunes From Universal Music Group

Amazon Prime Music is one of those little perks of Prime membership that may be nice to have, but that you don’t necessarily take advantage of regularly. Today, it becomes a more complete service that you’re more likely to use–because it’s getting music from Universal Music Group, the lone major label conglomerate that has refused…

Amazon Prime Is Just $67 Right Now

Are you an Amazon Prime member? You probably should be, and thanks to the company’s Emmy victory lap, today is a great day to get a good deal on membership. Until midnight tonight, it’s just $67 to join. That’s a handy discount from the regular price of $99 a year. However, if you’re already a…