Apple and the federal government are about to go to trial over an alleged conspiracy to fix ebook prices — but recent court filings show that Amazon will play a large role in determining the outcome. Read more at paidContent »
Don’t like the cost of your cloud datastore? Wait a second, it’ll probably go down. Watch for rivals to jump in. Read more »
Amazon is making its Kindle Fire HD tablets broadly available internationally, with preorders shipping in June. The tablets were already available in Europe and Japan. Read more »
Amazon Publishing is launching Kindle Worlds, a publishing platform that lets authors sell fan fiction based on properties like Gossip Girl. Amazon Publishing retains the rights to the works and will set the prices. Read more at paidContent »
Pinterest is unveiling a new pin structure for different types of products and an integration with a large number of retail brands, as it continues buildng up the platform and paving the way for growth. Read more »
Google is expanding its cloud platform with a “NoSQL-like” database called Cloud Datastore. It’s a fully managed database that’s replicated across data centers and built to scale. Read more »
AWS has big plans for its Trusted Advisor and other enterprise support offerings but giving more metrics to customers will irk third-party service partners. Read more »
Amazon has acquired Samsung’s color screen display technology, Liquavista. The technology could be used to create low-power color screens for Kindles. Read more »
Amazon’s virtual currency, Amazon Coins, launched Monday. It can be used to buy apps and games and make in-app purchases on the Kindle Fire and in Amazon’s app store. Read more »
Amazon Publishing is launching a weekly romance podcast, “Kindle Love Stories.” The podcast will include a discussion group at Goodreads, the reading-focused social network that Amazon recently acquired. Read more at paidContent »
Something Amazon is really good at and something Apple is not: the cloud. Amazon hones in on its competitors’ cloud-based photo territory on Apple’s own platform with a new app. Read more »
Metaswitch is bringing the cloud model to telcos by open sourcing it’s new IMS core software that runs on commodity hardware. IT’s a good first step for the telcos but they must go further. Read more »
Shhhhh, it looks like cloud computing is not immune from industry consolidation and Amazon Web Services gets testy about private cloud adoption. Read more »
Building on Amazon’s Peritor purchase last year, the company is to hire more than 70 engineers in Berlin and Dresden to work on various cloud management and machine learning technologies. Read more »
Amazon and Facebook are looking for engineers to work on deploying next-generation software-defined networks. Amazon’s project could bring new services for its cloud customers. Read more »
Carriots, a Madrid startup, wants to build a PaaS for the internet of things. Is this the right model to help spur more hardware development, or should companies build out their own infrastructure? Read more »
No one outside of Seattle really knows how big Amazon Web Services is. But we do know that its overall category hit the $750 million mark last quarter. Read more »
Here are the best of the best of this year’s Structure Launchpad startups. Come check them out at Structure in June. Read more »
Developers who make apps for Amazon do so because it’s convenient, not because they believe Kindle Fire hardware is great or they’re widely anticipating it overtaking Android or iOS someday. Read more »
Amazon’s secretive Lab126 unit is building a TV set-top box that will stream Amazon Instant videos straight to your living room, according to a Business Week report. Read more »
GE said it will use its 10 percent stake in the nascent Pivotal Initiative to bolster its industrial internet push Read more »
Platform companies from Apple to OpenTable take a commission from developers or merchants. But figuring out how much to take has huge repercussions on the business explains Benchmark’s Bill Gurley. Read more »
Google spent $1.2 billion on property and equipment in the first quarter of 2013, nearly doubling last year’s first quarter. Read more »
Content owners, whether they are publishers, retailers, or marketers, are always looking for new ways to deliver a unique experience to their customers. We call this content personalization. Key trends in this area are led by a collection of technologies that we call post-programming curation. These technologies use the best of behavioral tracking, collaborative filtering, audience targeting, and dynamic content presentation. Read more »
For online media companies, social platforms like Facebook and Twitter bring many opportunities as well as risks. An intelligent and proactive social media strategy can expand a brand’s reach. But the more heavily a media company relies upon a social media platform the more it relinquishes control over the customer experience. Read more »
Microsoft Windows Azure GM Bill Hilf calls Amazon a competitor, a partner and a neighbor: But that won’t stop Microsoft from launching an IaaS price war against Amazon Web Services. Read more »
Amazon’s chief vows to keep up the AWS feature race; OpenStack gets two more big backers as vendors cue up news for the OpenStack Summit. Read more »
Many long-standing legal rules of engagement between publishers and consumers tilted the playing field in unexpected ways in the first quarter. The period also saw a major expansion in the amount and quality of original productions for web-based video platforms and a major move by chipmaker Intel to stake a claim in the digital living room. Read more »
With data gathered from nearly a million of its users, Animoca’s information shows that five of the top six Android tablets are small slates. That’s good for Microsoft, if it is indeed planning a smaller Surface tablet. Read more »
Social business technologies remain in the foreground of discussions about business transformation, but the events of the first quarter of 2013 raised as many questions as they answered, or more. Read more »
Can’t get enough cloud? Just wait till next week when OpenStack and Amazon Web Services host simultaneous events 3,000 miles apart. Read more »
The mobile platform wars escalated once again in the first quarter of 2012 as BlackBerry finally took the wraps off its much-anticipated new operating system. Meanwhile Android continued to build on its dominance both worldwide and in the U.S., cementing a two-horse race with Apple. Read more »
In a new book, former Kindle exec Jason Merkoski examines where e-reading platforms are now and how they could change in the future. If you’re looking for secrets about Jeff Bezos, though, you’re in the wrong place. Read more at paidContent »
Cloud computing is finally starting to add value to business, as those in charge of cloud within enterprises are moving from talking to doing. That much was very evident in the first quarter of 2013. Read more »
Its a unicorn. No it’s a phone. Actually it is Facebook Home, for now; Apple’s China Syndrome is making it think different; The Bit coin boom (& bust); Chrome & WebKit go to war and did Vdio really kill the Rdio star? Read more »
Goodreads, the popular social network and review site for book lovers, is now part of Amazon. Imagine if it had instead paired up with Readmill, which offers a superior user reading experience. Read more at paidContent »
Amazon’s purchase of Goodreads, an influential and independent social network for book lovers, is drawing fire from the Authors Guild. Read more at paidContent »
VMware is banking that its brand and customer base will make it a power in public cloud infrastructure. Others bet that VMware’s “hybrid public” cloud plan is too little too late. Read more »
Amazon is acquiring Goodreads, a book-focused social network with 16 million members. The acquisition is likely to decrease Goodreads’ reputation as a neutral hub for authors and publishers. Read more at paidContent »
Don’t like the cost of your cloud deployment? Wait a second, it’ll change. And Rightscale says it can help you make sense out of all those changes and cut your costs. Read more »
