amazon

Amazon recently filed papers with the New York State Supreme Court declaring a problem tax provision to be "invalid, illegal, and unconstitutional." This was an expected response by a retailer attempting to redefine what constitutes the physical ... presence of a company within the geographical boundaries of a state. Confused? So is the state of New York, which contends that Amazon ought to be held responsible for the collection of local sales taxes because the company pays out referral commissions to its affiliates who are registered to a New York address. The provision is part of New York's $ ... (view more)

Amazon has launched a new service allowing customers to buy products via their cell phones. Those who've tested it say the service works smoothly...but is a complete waste of time. The scheme works by allowing customers to text the name of a ... product, the ISBN (for books) or the Universal Product Code (the barcode number for other products) to 262966, which spells out Amazon on keypads. They then receive a text message back with the first two products that match the search and text either 1 or 2 to make their selection, or M for more options. First time users will then need to text the email ... (view more)

Reports are now suggesting that Microsoft's highly-anticipated series of updates for Windows Vista, called Service Pack 1 (SP1), will be available for download and shipping, today and tomorrow, respectively. The news keeps with previous estimates ... that the company would be releasing a series of fixes by the middle of March. First word of the release comes to us via Amazon.com, whose web site recently revealed that users can begin downloading the free SP1 upgrade Tuesday. By Wednesday, Amazon will begin shipping boxed copies of Windows SP1. Preorders can be made now. In a statement sent to the ... (view more)

There's no denying that Apple's got itself a bountiful hold on the digital music market. The company's hardware retails for more than comparably-equipped devices from the competition, and yet the Touch, Nano, and Shuffle all manage to maintain the ... company's massive lead. However, that advantage might be threatened where Apple seems strongest: online. For some time, Apple's virtual music store, iTunes, has been the front-runner in offering individual songs or entire albums for a reasonable price. Buying one song at a time has proven a dynamite marketing dynamic for Apple, which clearly ... (view more)

Amazon.com's French subsidiary has recently lost a court case concerning its practice of providing free shipping on book deliveries inside France on orders worth more than 20 euros. A lower court has ruled that the company is in violation of French ... law and has ordered Amazon.fr to cease this practice . The lawsuit brought on by the French Booksellers' Union last December requires the company to pay damages amounting to 100,000 euros as well as imposing a fine of 1,000 euros per day until it has fixed its illegal practice of providing free shipping to its customers. (Source: dailytech.com ) ... (view more)

Amazon has signed a deal to sell MP3 files from artists on the Sony label without copy protection. It's the first site to sign such deals with all four major record labels (Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner) and is a big step forward in its battle ... with rival iTunes. The agreement means Amazon can now offer songs without digital rights management (DRM) protection. That's where files are 'locked' so that they can only be used on particular computers or players. Some systems only allow the file to work on the computer which downloaded it, while others allow a limited number of machines to play the ... (view more)

A little more than a week ago, Wal-Mart Stores quietly chucked its video download offering into the waste bin. Introduced less than a year ago, Wal-Mart appears to have given up when Hewlett-Packard, its technology partner in the venture, cut ... support. (Source: zdnet.com ). This doesn't mean that downloading video directly to the consumer is a dead issue. This week, Netflix -- the company that sends DVD's to more than 7 million consumers in little red envelopes -- joined Apple and Amazon in experimenting with ways to offer complete media "choice" to the heretofore limited selections offered ... (view more)

Amidst all the recent hoopla over Amazon's proprietary Kindle reader and the 90,000 ebooks available for it, the popular press has overlooked an product using more than 15 times the number of ebooks being made available through Amazon. The Million ... Book Project, led by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, now offers through its Universal Library the complete texts of more than 1.5 million digitized books, with all available over the Internet for free. With a complimentary text reader, no less. (Source: ulib.org ) To understand how large an effort that is, keep in mind that a typical high ... (view more)

In 1975, Rock Bottom Productions introduced a product called the Pet Rock. It was cute and it was novel. Pet Rocks sold for $3.95 each, were the rage for the 1975 Christmas season, and they made its developer, Gary Dahl, a millionaire. The following ... year, you couldn't give a Pet Rock away. On November 26, 2007, Newsweek announced Amazon's new wireless reading device: the Kindle. According to Amazon, when it was made available for sale, Amazon's complete stock sold out in 5-1/2 hours. (Source: www.newsweek.com ) Any way you look at it, the Kindle is a bold move by Amazon, and could change all ... (view more)

Last week we reported on the release of a new legal downloading page called "SpiralFrog.com," which boasts free downloading but disallows users from uploading material to an iPod. Since it's not much of a competitor for iTunes (although it will ... surely take a few customers away), Amazon has a more deadly new weapon in its arsenal. Already firmly established as the world's largest online compact disc retailer, it's really not much of a leap for Amazon to take on Apple in this sphere. Although iTunes certainly retains great name recognition when it comes to online music sales, Amazon's recently ... (view more)