amazon Archives - Memeburn

Amazon, WhatsApp score poorly in EFF’s annual privacy report
By Hadlee Simons on 12 July, 2017
When you sign up for the world's biggest services/apps, you're giving loads of information to these firms. But who can be trusted with your data? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released its annual "Who Has Your Back" report to answer this very question. The report grades some of the biggest companies in five categories, namely whether they follow best practices, tell users about government data requests, have a pro-user public policy, stand up to gag orders and promise not to sell out users. The worst offenders? US networks AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile and Verizon all scored one star out of five -- a...
Amazon’s S3 outage temporarily killed some of the internet
By Andy Walker: Editor on 1 March, 2017
The last time the internet literally lost itself was October 2016, when global DNS giant Dyn suffered a DDoS attack. That was bad, plunging a vast majority of the internet and the services we use everyday into an inaccessible mire. Roll on four months, and now Amazon is the culprit. For S3, we believe we understand root cause and are working hard at repairing. Future updates across all services will be on dashboard. — Amazon Web Services (@awscloud) February 28, 2017 Amazon Web Services division announced yesterday that its S3 cloud service -- which allows some of the internet's biggest websites and services...
Amazon wants to take over the boardroom, silence Skype with Chime
By Andy Walker: Editor on 15 February, 2017
Internet behemoth Amazon has announced a new workplace messaging and conferencing facility. Dubbed Chime, the product is billed as a "communications service that transforms online meetings with a secure, easy-to-use application that you can trust". According to the company, the Skype-rival works across multiple devices, much like the service its going up against. "You can use Amazon Chime for online meetings, video conferencing, calls, chat, and to share content, both inside and outside your organization," Amazon adds. The company claims that a number of features makes its offering unique, including a meeting facility that calls you when a meeting begins. There's also...
Crime-drama Sneaky Pete kicks off Amazon’s 2017 Originals roster
By Staff Reporter on 25 January, 2017
We're pretty much spoilt for choice when it comes to series this year. Along with Netflix's strong lineup and ShowMax's South African content, newcomer Amazon Prime is also starting to make in-roads. And it's latest shot, Sneaky Pete, brings with it the backing of Walter White himself. When not reciting Kanye West lyrics on James Corden's Late Late Show, Bryan Cranston also produced a good few shows. For Amazon and Sony, he teams up with Graham Yost and David Shore to launch the crime/drama Sneaky Pete. Sneaky Pete itself tells the story of con-man Marius (played by Giovanni Ribisi) who assumes the...
Amazon Prime Video: originals to watch in SA?
By Hadlee Simons on 3 January, 2017
Let's be honest for a second... Amazon knows that many people are only tuning into Prime Video for The Grand Tour. After all, the trio of Clarkson, Hammond and May are pop culture icons thanks to their escapades. But what if you don't care for the motoring stuff? Or do you need a bit more justification to subscribe to the service? Here are a few more notable original shows that are available in South Africa. It's worth noting that a few Amazon Originals are still missing from the SA selection though... The Man In The High Castle One of the more popular Amazon...

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Amazon Prime Video is officially in South Africa
By Hadlee Simons on 14 December, 2016
The Amazon Prime Video streaming service has officially gone global, launching in South Africa as well. "Amazon today announced that Amazon Prime Video is now available to customers in more than 200 countries and territories around the globe," the company announced in a press statement. "Customers can sign up for a Prime Video membership at PrimeVideo.com and watch on Android and iOS phones and tablets, Fire Tablets and popular LG and Samsung smart TVs," the company explained. The service is available to new regions at an "introductory price" of US$2.99 (or €2.99) per month for the first six months. Thereafter, users can...

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Grand Tour is most pirated show of all time – report
By Hadlee Simons on 12 December, 2016
Amazon's The Grand Tour, featuring the Top Gear trio, is the most pirated show of all time, surpassing Game of Thrones, according to a new report. The first episode of the series was downloaded 7.9 million times, the second was downloaded 6.4 million times and the third episode saw 4.6 million downloads, the Daily Mail reported, citing data from analytics firm MUSO. British viewers were the top culprits, the publication reported, accounting for 13.7% of downloads. MUSO claims that Amazon lost potential revenue of £3.2-million on episode one. It's unclear how the analytics firm arrived at this figure though. The first episode of...
Weekly Round Up Podcast #88: Nintendo Switch, Fitbit, Amazon Go & more
By Staff Reporter on 9 December, 2016
Welcome to Weekly Round Up, our podcast discussing the latest tech trends, innovation, and news from the last few days. This week, Hadlee Simons plays host to Andy Walker. In this edition of the Weekly Round Up, the team talks about the Nintendo Switch's possible GameCube compatibility as well as Samsung ditching the 3.5mm audio jack for its Galaxy S8. The duo also discuss Fitbit's surprise buy of smartwatch maker Pebble and Amazon's new checkout-less grocery store Go. Finally, we chat a bit about South African GT racer, David Perel. What are we watching, reading, playing: Andy is working his way through The Last...

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Amazon Go: a grocery store with no checkout lines
By Hadlee Simons on 6 December, 2016
Who says that brick and mortar stores have to make way for online storefronts? Certainly not Amazon, as the company recently launched its Amazon Go grocery store in Seattle. Customers simply use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, using the app's QR code at the turnstile, then take whatever items they need. There are no checkout lines or cash registers involved in the process. "Anything you pick up is automatically added to your virtual cart," the company explained in a video. If you change your mind about the product, you simply have to put it back on the shelf...

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Netflix, Amazon are outspending HBO on TV programming
By Hadlee Simons on 18 October, 2016
A new report finds that Netflix and Amazon are outspending several big traditional networks when it comes to TV programming. According to the World TV Production Report 2016 from IHS Markit, the two internet streaming firms spent a total of US$7.5-billion last year. Amazon spent US$2.67-billion last year, compared to Netflix and its impressive US$4.91-billion figure for 2015. Both streaming services outspent HBO (US$2-billion), while Netflix also shelled out more cash for TV programming than Turner Broadcasting (US$3.8-billion). Next in Netflix's sights is CBS, having spent US$5.7-billion last year, according to IHS Markit. However, the streaming service still trails Disney and NBC Universal, being pegged at US$11.8-billion and US$10.2-billion...

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6 takeaways from Dr Werner Vogels’ Amazon Summit keynote
By Hadlee Simons on 13 July, 2016
Amazon held its Amazon Web Service (AWS) Summit in Cape Town this week, aimed squarely at developers and enterprises looking to learn more about their cloud offerings. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be something to pique my interest, but the presence of Dr Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon and cloud pioneer, made for an interesting keynote. Amazon's cloud efforts have an SA link It might not come as news to some, but did you know that Amazon's EC2 cloud computing offering was actually developed in South Africa for the most part. An Amazon executive said that EC2 effectively started at "a small office in Constantia"...
How do tech giants contribute to the clean, green energy economy?
By Jared Lawrence on 24 June, 2016
Most of us consider the internet to be a virtual world in which we can learn, communicate, store data and perform a host of other useful activities without actually having much of an effect on the physical world. It's important to note, however, that the energy required to run the internet must come from actual, brick-and-mortar electricity suppliers. As the popularity of computing devices increases, particularly in the mobile and home automation spaces, we can expect there to be more Internet traffic and therefore a corresponding increase the the amount of energy expended. While the ink's still wet on December’s...
PayPal severs app support for BlackBerry, Amazon Fire & Windows Phone
By Staff Reporter on 26 May, 2016
It's not uncommon news for BlackBerry, Windows Phone or Amazon users to hear that a company is discontinuing app support for their platforms, but this time, the player is 170-million user strong PayPal. The company took to its blog to announce that it will no longer support BlackBerry OS, Windows Phone or Amazon Fire by the end of June 2016. This is largely thanks to the new version of its mobile app, which brings new functionality. "Version 6.0 of the PayPal mobile app has enhanced features and a new look and feel. We have brought features that our customers use most...
Jeff Bezos offers to send Donald Trump to space, the world cheers
By Myolisi Sikupela: Staff Reporter on 9 December, 2015
Donald Trump, since announcing his intentions to be the US president, has been in the media a lot recently thanks to his racist and Islamophobic foreign policies. And as one should expect, there has been a fair bit of social media outcry from the public and other prospective candidates. His latest vitriol was against the Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, calling it a scam and a big tax shelter. The @washingtonpost, which loses a fortune, is owned by @JeffBezos for purposes of keeping taxes down at his no profit company, @amazon. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2015 The...
Amazon has a mixed Q4, scores at least some profit
By Myolisi Sikupela: Staff Reporter on 30 January, 2015
This week has been financial reports. The figures give us an idea of how tech companies are doing in the market and against each other. The latest figures to come for its fourth quarter is Amazon. Amazon has just released its fiscal Q4 earnings, reporting US$29.33-billion in revenue, $214 million in net profit representing US$0.45 per share. For the past two quarters, Amazon unexpectedly posted losses. It’s $29. 33 billion revenue falls short of the $29. 67 billion in revenue which analysts had predicted for the company. Good news for Amazon is that shortly after the report even though it...

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