amazon

The dust has settled after another Black Friday and Cyber Monday , and already statistics are suggesting they've both been very successful for retailers. However, it seems online sellers have benefitted the most this year, with Amazon.com and ... Wal-Mart leading the pack. As the first nation-wide holiday within striking distance of the Christmas season, Black Friday has become renowned for big sales and big lineups at malls and big box retail stores (making it more or less infamous with consumers more prone to frustration). However, over the last few years more and more shoppers have been ... (view more)

When you buy something online, sometimes waiting is the hardest part. Waiting several days, a week, or even longer is simply painful for many consumers, particularly as the holiday season approaches -- which is why Amazon announced late yesterday ... that it would begin shipping packages to homes in seven select cities, arriving the same day. Residents of Boston, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Seattle, and Las Vegas will soon have the opportunity to order and receive goods from Amazon.com in the very same day. It's expected that those living just outside these cities will also be ... (view more)

It appears as if Windows 7 will not need to reach its designated release date to make a big splash in Europe. According to several sources, Microsoft's European online store crashed within hours of offering discounted pre-order copies of the new ... operating system. The sale officially encompassed the major markets in the United Kingdom (UK), France and Germany, where both Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional editions were being sold at very reasonable discount prices. Win7: More than Half-Off the List Price Windows 7E Home Premium is now selling for 49.99 GBP (Great Britain Pound) ... (view more)

Google is set to challenge online retail giant Amazon by selling contemporary electronic books. And unlike Amazon, it will let publishers set the prices. The move is a new development for the Google Book Search scheme, in which the firm scans texts ... so that users can search for particular phrases. While Google does intend to bring in paid access for full editions of some books covered by Book Search, the vast majority of titles in the scheme are either out of print or out of copyright. At the moment, most modern books included in the scheme only have 20 per cent of their pages available for ... (view more)

If you've been keeping up with the latest news on Infopackets.com, you might recall a recent article titled " Software That Improves... Wait, What Was it... Oh, Memory ". The article reported that IBM and Microsoft were in the process of testing new ... software designed to improve individual memory. While humans have been battling memory loss since the dawn of time, only now is software and technological resources being used to help us remember. Kwiry is the latest in a string of companies committed to help recall important information. The California-based company has launched an open beta ... (view more)

Tivo has made a deal with Amazon that could genuinely revolutionize how TV advertising works. Viewers will now be able to order products mentioned in shows with a click of their remote. The system will initially involve chat shows such as Oprah, ... Ellen DeGeneres and the Colbert Report. Whenever a guest talks about a product, such as an author publicising a book, viewers will see a link in the corner of their screens. Clicking on it will either allow them to order it instantly by typing in a PIN code, or to put the item in their Amazon shopping basket to examine on a computer later on. At first ... (view more)

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)