Amazon Rolls Out Home Services in 11 More Cities

Posted: July 22, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s been 4 months since Amazon Home Services bowed, and now they’re adding 11 more cities, to cover a total of 15. Home Services allows you to not only buy things like water heaters and wall mounted TVs, but to locate someone to install them…horning in on Angie’s List and American Home Shield. Geekwire.com says they plan to be in 30 cities by year’s end. Already available in New York, LA, San Francisco, & Seattle, Amazon has tacked on providers in: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Jose and Washington D.C.
They are offering what they call their Happiness Guarantee on the jobs.

A big gift for history buffs has dropped…AP and British Movietone have added their entire historical news archives to YouTube, dating back to 1895. That’s more than a million minutes of historical footage! 9to5google.com reports that AP may try to monetize later with ads, but for now are relying on licensing deals with documentary makers and the like.

‘Amazon Killer’ Startup Jet Launches

Posted: July 21, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jet, which has been operating in beta since April, officially launched today. They’ve raise 225 million in their effort to out-Amazon Amazon. Businessinsider.com reports the site promises prices 10-15% lower than anywhere else. Product prices start at about 8% cheaper, but Jet gives further discounts when you bundle multiple orders into a single shipment. The company claims not to take a cut of product prices, but just be about making money from a Costco like $50 annual membership fee.

Google has released a new plug in that allows you to open files for Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint right from Google Drive. When you’re ready to save, you can save right inside Drive, too. According to engadget.com, it works with Office on Windows machines, but Google hasn’t announced when the plug in might be available on Macs.

Walmart to Rain on Amazon’s ‘Prime Day’ Parade

Posted: July 13, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wednesday is Prime Day, Amazon’s way of honoring itself on it’s 20th anniversary with a sale. Now, cnet.com reports that Walmart will jump in and offer an online sale, too…plus, cut the minimum order for free shipping from $50 to $35. the giant big box retailer also mocked Amazon online for charging $99 a year for free 2-day shipping. Walmart has been testing a $50 a year rival to Amazon Prime, but it’s for 3-day free shipping, not two. The huge retailer will cut prices on 2000 items on Wednesday to compete with Amazon’s Prime Day.

Something to look forward to in Apple’s iOS 9…you may rarely use the home screen. Businessinsider.com has been test driving the upcoming OS, and found that most of the time you can use the new ‘Siri Suggestions’ screen. You get to it by swiping left from the home screen, and it ‘predicts’ what you want to use. Basically, it is a screen of your most recently used apps, and people you’ve called or texted. I have over 100 apps on my iPhone 6, but use about 8 of them more than any others, so Siri Suggests may be the only screen I use most of the time.

Amazon Cloud Drive Now Mobile

Posted: July 6, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amazon is now live with dedicated apps on both Android and iOS for Cloud Drive. According to techcrunch.com, the Amazon answer to Dropbox, Google Drive, and the rest just got the iOS app over the weekend. The Android app was out in June. Amazon has done this a bit under the radar, with no formal announcements. The mobile versions complement the desktop versions already available, and are aimed at productivity…where previously Amazon had focused more on saving your pictures and music. Amazon’s Unlimited Everything plan lets you store everything in its cloud for just $60 per year. Its Unlimited Photos service is even cheaper at $11.99 per year. Services like Google Drive and Dropbox are much pricier when you start getting up into the terabytes of storage space. Plus, Dropbox individual accounts are capped at 1 TB.

Over all of recorded history-for better or worse- a lot of tech innovation has come from military wants or needs. Here’s a project that could produced amazing results eventually for civilian use if it comes to fruition. The Department of Defense is working to develop a hypersonic jet that could fly anywhere in the world in 4 hours. Military.com says it would fly at Mach 5. The Concorde only flew slightly above Mach 2! Air Force Chief Scientist Mika Endsley hopes a joint project between the Air Force and DoD will have the blazing fast plane airborne before 2023!

Office for Android Now Available on Phones & Roost Battery Opens Orders

Posted: June 24, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

After being dropped for Android tablets in January, theverge.com says Microsoft has released Office for Android smartphones. It’s just about identical to the iOS version…not as robust as the tablet app, but great for quick drafts and edits on your smartphone. It has full Dropbox and OneDrive support for file storage.

Last fall, we covered a Kickstarter for the Roost Smart Battery. Thenextweb.com reports they’ve gone live to the public for preorders. The Roost battery turns your existing smoke alarm into a smart connected one. A 9 volt battery pack is $34.99, and a twin pack is $64.99. You can order through Amazon or GetRoost. They ship in September. The Roost batteries connect over WiFi to your home network, and they have Android and iOS apps for monitoring when you’re away.

Samsung May Be Going Extra Thin in Addition to Extra Large

Posted: June 17, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We had just reported on the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, an upcoming smartphone/phablet with a whopping 5.7 inch screen, and now it appears that the phone giant is prepping a model that’s much thinner than an iPhone 6. According to bgr.com, the Galaxy A8 is a full millimeter thinner than the iPhone 6 at just 5.9 millimeters. This svelte thinness is in spite of the phone having a 5.7 inch display like the anticipated S6 Edge Plus! No release schedule for this skinny whopper, and sources say it might even be exclusively for the Asian market.

Amazon is looking at crowd sourcing for deliveries. Forbes.com reports that their On My Way program may use individuals to deliver packages, something like an Uber or Lyft for package delivery. Amazon’s shipping costs grew 31% last year, and this would be a way for them to keep a lid on delivery costs. If they do roll the service out, it may be limited to smaller, more inexpensive items…and not larger or more expensive ones that require insuring. Smart & Final has partnered with Instacart to make local deliveries for a while, and last month Costco and Kroger joined them in doing so.

Apple TV Confirmed As the Hub for HomeKit

Posted: June 3, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment

As Moscone Center in San Francisco is being readied for Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference next week, more keeps leaking out. This week, several early HomeKit devices from 3rd parties rolled out, and now thenextweb.com reports that…as expected…you’ll need Apple TV to remotely control HomeKit gadgets. Apple has posted a setup page to help people configure the system. If you already have Apple TV, it needs to be 3rd generation or later with software version 7 or newer.

Amazon has rolled out free shipping on small and light products…that is, ones that weigh less than 8 ounces. According to geekwire.com, ‘Fulfillment by Amazon Small and Light’ will also focus on items that cost less than 10 bucks. No more $35 minimum purchase requirement or Prime membership for free shipping of these small and light items. It won’t be free TWO Day shipping though…expect your items in 4 to 8 days.

Tiny LiteOS Prepares for the Internet of Things

Posted: May 20, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Huawei is readying their minuscule operating system, LiteOS, to power everything from wearables to cars to the electronics around your home. The system is 10 KILObytes! For a little perspective, Apple’s iOS 8 takes a gigabyte of space, and ancient DOS 2.11 was 28 kilobytes! The mini-system is designed for zero configuration, auto-discovery, and auto-networking. The verge.com says it isn’t intended to compete with iOS or Android, but to power small internet connected gadgets from light bulbs to toothbrushes.

From the very small to the biggest on the block…or in this case, the planet. Despite growing competition from Microsoft and Google, Amazon is the 800 pound gorilla of the cloud world. According to geekwire.com, Amazon Web Services not only increased market share in 2014, but operates more cloud capacity than the next 14 providers combined! Google cut cloud prices by 30% just yesterday, to try to grab more share, but it’s a long climb. Microsoft’s strategy is to provide more complete services for a price, where Amazon sticks to a la carte pricing. Microsoft’s revenues from cloud were up 96%, making them the leader by that metric.

‘Googlemobiles’ Will Be On The Loose This Summer

Posted: May 15, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Don’t look now…but look later! ‘Googlemobiles’ will be hitting the public pavement in Mountain View this summer. Yes, according to the official google blog, self-driving Google cars will be tooling around…albeit with a safety driver aboard, and limited to 25 miles per hour. Google notes that 94% of crashes are caused by human error. The second generation Google cars still look like a VW Beetle that’s been hit with an ugly stick, but there’s plenty of time to get the styling right later after self driving is perfected.

Amazon may be working on making its Prime membership more valuable to members. Cnet.com reports that they have been reaching out to third party merchants, looking into letting them shop goods directly to customers, instead of drop shipping the goods to Amazon first. This would make a lot more goods in on the free two day shipping, and also expand the selection of goods available to you that way. It’s likely that the reports that Walmart is going to test free 3 day shipping this summer for a $50 annual fee is pushing Amazon to sweeten their Prime membership, which is $100.

Patent App- Amazon Drones May Stalk You With Delivery

Posted: May 8, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

With the range limited by battery power, Amazon is working overtime, trying to develop their drone delivery system. Thenextweb.com reports that FAA rules may not be in place for something to work in the next couple years, but meanwhile, Amazon is pressing ahead. One patent just granted lets them get data from a smartphone to determine the best place to deliver your item…in other words, that Amazon drone will stalk you until you get that item!

A little late to the mobile party, but Nintendo’s first smartphone game should be out by late this year. Macrumors.com says they expect to release 5 games by late 2017. Nintendo claims none are ports of existing franchises, but are all tailored for the smaller screen experience. Earlier, the company announced a partnership with Universal for Nintendo characters to be used in a theme park.

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