Amazon-Pitch Dangerous Hoverboards-They’ll Credit; iPad Air3 Coming Sans Force Touch
Posted: December 16, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, Apple Watch 2, E-waste, iPad Air 3, iPhone 6c Leave a commentWith more stories coming out about hover boards catching fire, Amazon had pulled them from their site. Now, according to engadget.com, they are telling US and British customers to e-waste or get rid of them, and Amazon will credit their accounts and eat the cost. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating the safety of the devices.
The iPad Air 3 will apparently bow without Apple’s Force Touch for its 9.7 inch screen. This will be due to production issues with Force Touch on the bigger screen. It’s expected in the first half of the year, most likely early March along with the next generation Apple Watch, and probably the 4 inch screen iPhone 6c that will replace the aging 5c. 9to5mac.com reports that KGI Securities also agrees with Morgan Stanley in predicting lower iPhone 6S sales compared with the 6 models…but KGI attributes a fair amount of that to tight inventory due to production issues for the 3D Touch screens.
Online v. Store Sales; Amazon’s ‘No Blue Light Special’ For Tablets
Posted: December 2, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, Blue Light, Brick & Mortar, Fire Tablets, Kid friendly, Online Shopping Leave a commentCyber Monday, which now lasts about a week, showed an interesting trend this year. In a Reuters.com report, they found online sales were up 16% to $3.07 billion, with 26% of online shopping on mobile devices, according to the Adobe Digital Index. Amazon was up 21.1%. As for brick and mortar stores, they were down 10.4% from last year to $20.43 billion, as reported by ShopperTrak.
Amazon is introducing a new feature on its Fire tablets for night owl readers. According to thenextweb.com, Blue Shade filters out blue light to help you get to sleep better. You can find it in the quick settings menu. In addition, there are warm light filters. The online giant also added a tool called Activity Center, which allows parents to check on how long the kids are playing games, watching movies, or reading on their tablets…AND you can check their browser history. They have also introduced a kid friendly browser with a curated set of over 40,000 YouTube videos and websites. The updates are rolling out to Fire HD 10, HD 8, and other Fire models.
Bigger, Thinner MacBook Air Coming; Amazon Unveils Delivery Drone
Posted: November 30, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, Apple, Drone, iPad Pro, Jeremy Clarkson, MacBook Air, Top Gear Leave a commentThere may be new, thinner MacBook Airs on the way by next June, including one with a 15 inch screen. 9to5mac.com reports that they will sport substantial internal changes, including battery, cooling modules, and more. Apple is still deciding whether to keep the 11 inch air, with the new iPad Pro now out.
Amazon has revealed a new delivery drone design with a 15 mile range. Geekwire.com says its intended to be able to deliver a small package directly through the air to your doorstep in 30 minutes. Amazon has a new video showing off the drone featuring Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson, who along with his colleagues, is starting a new car show for Amazon. The version 2.0 drone flies at under 400 feet, and weighs less than 55 lbs. Amazon says it won’t launch Prime Air until they are able to demonstrate safe operations.
Shop ‘Till Your Fingers Drop; Uber Moves into Mobile Health Care
Posted: November 23, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, Black Friday, Chevrolet, Cyber Monday, Flu shots, Mobile health care, Target, Uber, Walmart Leave a commentBlack Friday and Cyber Monday are rapidly turning into a week to 10 day long orgy of deals from both online and brick and mortar retailers. Bgr.com notes that Amazon.com’s ‘Black Friday’ sale went live a full week before Black Friday. Target’s Black Friday ’10 days of deals’ is already live, with Target Redcard members getting an automatic 5% additional off on deals, and 25% off on toys through the day before Thanksgiving. Walmart will light off Cyber Monday deals the Sunday evening before…the 29th, starting at 8 P.M., with online only bargain prices on over 2000 products. Wanna buy a car? Chevrolet is saying it’s Black Friday ALL MONTH LONG! When it comes to retail, times and days have a very elastic meaning. Happy shopping!
Uber is experimenting with something bordering on mobile health care. For 4 hours last week, they offered customers a flu shot for 10 bucks across 36 cities. You summoned a nurse to show up and administer the shot, according to buzzfeed.com. This week, the company announced they’ve hired their first health advisor, who is director of the Computational Epidemiology Group at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is John Brownstein, and he says Uber’s drivers may someday shuttle patients to clinical trials or doctor’s offices…or, as with the flu shots, bring a medical professional by for a ‘house call!’
Twitter Replaces Stars with (Gasp) Hearts; Amazon Opens Physical Bookstore
Posted: November 3, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, Hearts, Periscope, Physical bookstores, Stars, Twitter, Vine Leave a commentTwitter has killed the star indicating you’ve favorited something, and replaced it with a heart, denoting a ‘like.’ Thenextweb.com says Vine will also get the heart and lose stars. Twitter has tested hearts, and says the heart has similar meanings across varied cultures and languages, while the star did not. Twitter’s live streaming video Periscope was already using hearts. Look for this on twitter.com, TweetDeck….basically, everywhere but Twitter for Mac, where it will show up later in a refresh. For those who hate change…let the complaint Tweets begin!
After 20 years of systematically killing off physical bookstores, Amazon has now joined them and opened one of their own. It’s in Seattle’s University Village, and resembles a Barnes & Noble, in that it has some other items like Kindles, the Echo, Fire TV and tablets. Theverge.com reports that the books are racked face out, as opposed to spine out like at most stores. In-store prices will match online prices, and each book has its amazon.com rating and an actual customer review. Amazon says this is a permanent location, and others will follow…ironic coming from a company which caused the closure of so many physical bookstores for the last 2 decades.
Amazon Prime Music Now Available Off Line; Google Merging Chrome OS into Android
Posted: October 30, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, Android, Android Wear, Chrome OS, Chromebook, Google, Google I/O, Offline, Prime Music, SD card Leave a commentAmazon has dropped a small but significant update to their Prime Music app. According to 9to5google.com, you will now be able to store offline music on a device’s SD card for playback when you’re not connected to the web. The update also adds support for Android Wear smartwatches. With SD cards becoming less ubiquitous in smartphones, no word on whether Amazon will extend the feature to the main memory of smartphones. At any rate, the updated app is available free at the Google Play Store.
Speaking of Google, it appears that they’re moving towards merging Chrome OS into Android. Theverge.com says to look for a demo of the combined system at Google I/O next year. It will take some serious changes under the hood to get Android to run everything on laptops, and when the final new system is rolled out in 2017, Chromebooks will obviously get a new name…Androidbooks, perhaps? Google has noted that they are not exactly ‘killing’ Chrome, so there may actually be 3 different systems moving forward.
Google Hasn’t Entirely Killed Off Google Glass
Posted: September 17, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alexa, Alphabet, Amazon, Echo, Fire TV, Gamers, Google, Google Glass, Wearables Leave a commentGoogle had previously said they were killing off Google Glass, but apparently, there was a change of mind. Engadget.com reports that they’ve hired engineers and software developers from Amazon’s Lab126 for what they’re calling ‘Project Aura.’ They will work on other wearables besides Glass. Apparently Project Aura will stay under the Google ‘aura,’ instead of being a separate entity under the Alphabet umbrella. Ivy Ross will still head up the operation, but she’ll report to Nest CEO Tony Fadell now.
Speaking of Amazon, they’ve shown their answer to Apple TV…it’s a Fire TV box with Alexa and 4K video support. Theverge.com says that similar to Apple’s ‘Hey Siri,’ you will be able to command Alexa to go look for shows you want to watch. Amazon plans to add reordering through amazon.com later, like with the Echo speaker. Don’t expect to be able to set alarms or timers as you can on the Echo, though. The new Fire TV box is $99. Amazon has also upgraded the Fire TV stick with newer software, and a new remote in a $50 bundle. There’s also a gamer-specific edition of the Fire TV box for $140, that comes with a useable controller and two free game downloads. It’s all open for preorder now, and all three products ship in October.
Apple Eyes Jumping into Producing Original Programming
Posted: September 1, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amazon, Apple, Lyft, Netflix, Original programming, Sharing economy, Top Gear, TV, Uber, Unions Leave a commentAs they showed when they came out with the iPod years ago, somewhat late to the mp3 player party, only to dominate that category, and later did with smartphones, Apple is eyeing getting into producing original programming. According to bgr.com, the Cupertino colossus has held early talks with Hollywood execs. It’s not known if they are looking to do TV series, movies, or both. What is known is that they’d be muscling in on the likes of Netflix and Amazon. Apparently, Apple bid on picking up the ‘Top Gear’ stars when they left BBC, but Amazon won the day, and Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richarad Hammond will be doing an automotive show for them. Some speculate at this point that Apple may build its own content capabilities, or even buy a studio outright.
Lately, radio commercials have been promoting Uber, and have featured people who drive for them singing the virtues of the flexible working conditions offered by being a contractor. A report in geekwire.com may point to why. A Seattle council member has introduced legislation that would let Uber, Lyft, and cab drivers unionize….gasp! That thought alone has sent chills through the so-called ‘sharing economy.’ The plan would allow drivers taking part in a minimum of trips to join a driver representative organization, and negotiate to make the $15 an hour Seattle minimum wage, plus other benefits.



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