Commerce

Amazon’s Maps API is out of beta, which means developers will be adding it into plenty of new apps from now on. [Amazon]

Let’s Just Assume Amazon Has Sold, Like, Eight Kindles

There’s no doubt that Amazon sells a lot of Kindles; it’s the most popular product on a site that sells many very popular things. But we’re five years into the Kindle Age, and we still don’t have a single firm sales number to pin on them. Come on, guys! Let us quantify how impressed we…

Hot on the heels of Netflix and Hulu, Amazon has brought 140,000 movies and TV episodes to the Nintendo Wii U. [TNW]

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Teardown: A Samsung Tablet By Another Name?

With its little brother having already spilled its guts, it was always going to be interesting to see how the new 9-inch Fire compared. Turns out it owes an awful lot to Samsung. https://gizmodo.com/kindle-fire-hd-the-pretty-little-tablet-spills-its-gor-5943814 Powerbook Medic has torn the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 apart for the world to peer inside. It seems Samsung has done…

This Guy Built a Bot that Sends Him Random Crap From Amazon

What if you could give Christmas gifts to yourself but actually be surprised when you open them up? That’s exactly what Darius Kazemi did when he wrote a bot that buys him random crap off of Amazon. And he never has any idea what he’s going to get. He explains how it works on Random…

The Kindle Turns 5 Today, and It’s Come a Ridiculously Long Way

Today the Kindle turns five and it’s come a long, long way in that past half-decade. In case you don’t remember, in 2007 the first generation Kindle had a 800 x 600 screen, 250 MB internal memory, and was the only model to ever have a microSD slot. And it launched for the low, low…

Amazon Drops Monthly Prime Subscriptions After Just Two Weeks

Amazon has axed its new $8-per-month Prime subscription plan, which placed the retailer as a more direct competitor to Hulu and Netflix, after just a fortnight. Speaking to All Things D, an Amazon spokesperson explained: “We regularly test new options for our customers. At this time, we’ve completed our test and are no longer signing…

Kindle Fire HD 8.9-Inch First Impressions: Is This the Comfiest Big Tablet?

The Kindle Fire 8.9 just showed up on our doorstep. It looks as lovely as we remember it. And instead of banging out a half-baked review in a day or two, we’re giving you our quick impressions of it, and will chime in with a full review later. The first thing you notice is how…

Amazon Turns Boring Gift Cards Into Campy Personalized Videos

Gift cards are a cop-out that screams “I’m too lazy to think about this!” But if you’re going to go that route, you might as well go with an Amazon gift card because, well, you can buy just about anything on Amazon. It’s like handing someone cash. Besides, now that Amazon’s teamed up with video…

Amazon appears to be clearing out its Transcend SD card and USB thumbstick stock: go grab some cheap storage. [Amazon]

France: Amazon Owes $250 Million in Tax

Amazon has always been skilled when it comes to avoiding the tax man, but now tides are turning. Reuters reports that France is demanding $250 million in tax payments for a start. https://gizmodo.com/amazon-staves-off-the-tax-man-for-another-year-5838350 France is claiming that the online retailer owes $252 million in back taxes, interest and penalties in relation to, says Reuters, “the…

The Best Wines on Amazon

So, you like drinking wine, but hate heading outside to get more of it? Good news: You can now buy wine from Amazon. It’s a perfect mix of internet and alcohol. But is any of it any good? https://gizmodo.com/you-can-now-buy-wine-from-amazon-5958806 We went shopping with our friends at Wine Spectator to find the best bottles in Amazon’s…

You Can Now Buy Wine from Amazon

Books, hahaha! Streaming video? Whatever. But wine, the blood of Bacchus, harbinger of groping and maybe more? Now that’s what we’re talking about, Amazon—get dirt cheap bottles of wino sent straight to your door, you lush. Starting today, anyone in California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and the…

Kindle Paperwhite got a software update: it now renders comics better, and boasts a few usability tweaks, too. [Amazon]

The US is getting a bum deal from Amazon: the Japanese Kindle Paperwhite costs just $100. [Computer World]

Hot on the heels of Staples, apparently RadioShack is getting in on the act, too. So. Many. Delivery options. [Geekwire]

Amazon Now Offers an $8 Monthly Prime Plan

Amazon’s Prime deal—which offers free two-day shipping, instant media streaming and monthly Kindle book rentals—just got a new monthly price tag. Now, you can be a Prime customer for $8 a month. That means users no longer have to pony up the full $80 annual subscription fee in one go. The move also places Amazon…

Staples Is Getting Amazon Lockers

Amazon lockers are a great new idea, allowing people to pick up their parcels when it suits them. Now, Amazon has announced that it’s rolling out the scheme across the Staples chain, too. Reuters reports that the office supply stores will be the latest string of locations to feature Amazon’s ultra-convenient pick-up system. When we…

Buying Your Entire Life on Amazon Sounds Like a Hilariously Good Time

I’m pretty sure we can all agree that buying stuff on Amazon Prime is the best shopping experience outside of not shopping ever so it totally makes sense to want Amazon Prime for everything. Your dating life, your family members, your problems and even Amazon Crime for murder. What? Yes. Check out the video above…

Here’s the Horrendous First Scene of Amazon’s Original Musical Comedy “Browsers”

Rumors are flying that in a bid to get some original content, Amazon is close to pushing through a musical comedy about four interns working for a “Huffington Post-esque” website, a project that was previously dropped (and rightly so) by CBS. What could possibly come of this? We thought long and hard about it, and…