The digital reading revolution is not going to look the same in developing countries as it has in the developing world, but several companies are working on ways to bring digital reading to the African continent. Read more at paidContent »
Days after a documentary alleged the harassment and intimidation of foreign temporary workers at Amazon’s German distribution centers, the U.S. firm has cut ties with security company HESS. Read more »
Amazon is numero uno in consumer appeal, beating out even Apple and Google, according to Harris Interactive. Also, Cloud Foundry gets big backer in NTT and states reconsider sales taxes on cloud services. Read more »
Can Amazon take on the giants of data warehousing and win? Now we’ll be able to find out as its Paraccel-based Redshift service comes online. Read more »
Blogger Maria Popova has come under fire from a number of critics for her use of undisclosed affiliate links on her blog Brainpickings, which highlights how heated the debate over alternative forms of advertising has become. Read more at paidContent »
ProfitBricks, which goes head-to-head with Amazon for the IT budgets of startups with a new promotion, says the time is ripe to disrupt the disrupter. Read more »
Amazon this week cut the prices on multi-availability zone deployments of its Relational Database Service. Read more »
The EU security agency ENISA has released a report on the cloud’s increasingly critical nature. Yes, it highlights the risks associated with the shift to the cloud, but also some notable security benefits. Read more »
Hashicorp was already extending Vagrant into VMware virtualized environments and now it’s adding a connection into Amazon Web Services as well. This is good news for developers. Read more »
Users of Amazon Prime Instant Video will be able to stream more shows from CBS and Showtime, including past seasons of America’s Next Top Model, Everybody Loves Raymond and The L Word. Read more at paidContent »
Oppenheimer analyst Tim Horan says Amazon will have to spin off Amazon Web Services to attain the scale it needs. Read more »
How do you highlight examples of big corporations’ lobbying proposals being copied, word-for-word, into proposed laws? For EU privacy activists, the answer lies in many eyes. Read more »
The Belgian IT automation startup is now trying to address the scaling needs of its users. But before it leaves beta, it also wants to figure out the billing piece of the cloud broker business. Read more »
For big service providers that feel “disrupted” by Amazon’s prodigious cloud, Morphlabs is pitching mCloud Osmium as a way to get up to snuff. Read more »
The long-delayed Bookish, a website backed by Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster and designed to promote book discovery and sell books, launched Monday night and is designed to be a one-stop shop for readers looking for their next book. Read more at paidContent »
Amazon announced Friday that by the end of 2013, Prime Instant Video will be the only paid streaming service to offer episodes of Downton Abbey. Hulu Plus and Netflix will lose access. Read more at paidContent »
A couple of years ago, OnApp was all about helping service providers build their own public clouds. With more than 500 customers now under its belt, it’s drawing on that network in increasingly clever ways. Read more »
Following the opening of data centers, communities in Oregon, Washington and Virginia have made new policies, built many new homes and prompted environmental activism. Read more »
Folks looking to browse or buy on Amazon.com’s site are getting a blank page. Read more »
Amazon Studios has chosen its first five pilots for children’s shows, including offerings from the creators of Blue’s Clues and Rugrats. User feedback will help determine whether the shows go into production. Read more at paidContent »
As the ebook transition moves forward, Amazon should worry that Kindle is not going to be the device leading the revolution. Read more at paidContent »
In order to recommend new events for its members, online event-management company Eventbrite must build what it calls “implicit social graphs.” It’s just one of many approaches to figuring out what content users want to see. Read more »
Lyatiss has come out of stealth mode with $4 million in funding and a product that wants to let developers immediately see problems in the cloud — and then fix them in real time. Read more »
You don’t have to pay for ebooks on your mobile device or your Mac: your local library will lend you ebooks, digital magazine and audiobooks. Here’s a quick guide to getting set up. Read more »
When Amazon launched its Kindle Fire hardware, the market knew it wasn’t making money on the devices. Turns out it doesn’t take that much in content sales for a 20 percent profit margin, according to ABI. Read more »
In an effort to compete against Toronto-based Kobo, Amazon announced Wednesday that it is releasing the Kindle Paperwhite in Canada for the first time and will also sell the basic Kindle there. Amazon launched a Canadian Kindle store in December. Read more at paidContent »
Delivering and managing the web experience isn’t just about mobile. Companies are also faced with new challenges in the desktop environment, including browser fragmentation, network evolution, and client-side technologies. They must invest in both the desktop environment as well as to create an optimized experience for mobile. Read more »
Apple’s biggest competitors — Facebook, Google and Amazon — are getting really good at finding ways to systematically insert themselves between Apple and its customers. Read more »
Amazon is reportedly on-board for a new data center build-out in Virginia; OpenStack Foundation preps for new year with board elections; another analyst declares Oracle’s cloud as a non-cloud. Read more »
Here’s the main problem with book discovery online: Right now, it doesn’t really work. New research shows that frequent book buyers visit sites like Pinterest and Goodreads regularly, but those visits fail to drive actual book purchases. Read more at paidContent »
Amazon is getting more aggressive in its attempt to muscle into the online music space. On Thursday, it announced a HTML5-based MP3 store that allows consumers to buy and play songs on their Apple devices. Read more at paidContent »
The Brazilian government is working with the private sector to shut down illegal logging operations in the Amazon by connecting trees. If a monitored tree is chopped down, environmental authorities can track it all the way to the sawmill. Read more »
In an effort to aid book discovery and battle Amazon’s dominance, iOS publishing platform Inkling will allow its roughly 400 ebooks to be fully indexed through Google search. The company plans to add a thousand more books this year. Read more at paidContent »
The issue of resiliency in the cloud has gained new life after Amazon experienced an outage that took out Netflix on Christmas Eve. Hybrid clouds are the answer to the problem, but how do you know what applications deserve such treatment? Read more »
Amazon is offering consumers a free digital copy when they buy a CD. It makes perfect sense to do the same for books — alas, it’s not going to happen. Here’s why. Read more at paidContent »
As TV viewing has gone online, the delivery of content has become fractured. With more players, there are more things to break, and it’s often the consumer that gets stuck in the middle when ISPs and the content giants like Netflix and amazon fight. Read more »
Good news for anyone who owns CDs — Amazon is now selling music on a two-for-one basis that gives every customer a digital and a physical version of an album. The company just raised the stakes in its fight with Google and Apple over “music lockers.” Read more at paidContent »
Amazon stock is up, up and away yet again — here’s the latest news and a chart that shows the company’s gravity-defying growth. Read more »
In a new research note, Macquarie Capital contends that Amazon Web Services is not only profitable, it would be a $19 billion business if it were counted as a standalone entity. That’s not peanuts. Amazon, of course, isn’t saying boo. Read more »
Amazon brings its AWS management console to Android, but not iOS, devices; Hewlett-Packard SEC filing opens up an old can of worms; and Dell will wait for OpenStack to mature before bringing out its public cloud implementation Read more »
