Amazon Product Scraping: April 2013

Friday 26 April 2013

Amazon to sell set-top box to challenge Apple TV: report

Amazon.com Inc will release a set-top TV box later this year that will stream video over the Internet, challenging Apple Inc's Apple TV device and a similar gadget sold by start-up Roku, BloombergBusinessweek reported on Wednesday.
The box will plug into TVs and give viewers access to
Amazon's digital video content, which the company has been expanding, BloombergBusinessweek said, citing three unidentified people familiar with the project.

An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment.

Amazon's video content is already available on other devices, including Roku, Microsoft Corp's Xbox and Sony Corp's PlayStation 3. However, it is not available on Apple TV.

Having its own gadget will help Amazon put its content more directly in front of consumers and give developers another reason to create apps for Amazon's digital platform, BloombergBusinessweek said.

"Amazon has a good content distribution strategy but not a great one," said Ron Josey, an analyst at JMP Securities. "Doing their own box may be them admitting that it's a little bit harder to get embedded in all these different devices and platforms."

Amazon has been investing heavily in licensing, distributing and even creating its own digital content such as video, music, apps and games. The company has focused on getting that content on as many devices as possible, rather than building a lot of its own hardware.

However, the company has designed its own gadgets in situations where it believes it can bring a different approach to a market. When it launched its Kindle Fire tablet computer in 2011, for instance, the device's screen was 7 inches which at that time was not a popular size.

JMP's Josey, who said he was not privy to any Amazon plans in this area, speculated on Wednesday that any Amazon set-box device could include the ability to stream music, play games, access other apps and even shop through TVs, rather than just watch videos.

The set-top box is being developed by Amazon's Lab126 division, based in Cupertino, California, near Apple's headquarters. It's being run by Malachy Moynihan, a former vice president of emerging video products at Cisco Systems Inc, BloombergBusinessweek added.

BloombergBusinessweek also said that while Netflix Inc's video streaming service will likely be available on Amazon's TV box, Amazon's own video and music services will be more prominently integrated.

A Netflix spokesman declined to comment.

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/technology/Chunk-HT-UI-Technology-OtherStories/Amazon-to-sell-set-top-box-to-challenge-Apple-TV-report/SP-Article1-1050149.aspx

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Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Yelp Data Scraping, Linkedin Profile Scraping, Yellowpages Data Scraping, eBay Product Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Tripadvisor Data Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping.

Amazon Plans an Internet Video Device

SEATTLE — Amazon created the Kindle to breathe life into electronic books. Now it is preparing a device to bring Internet video to television sets.

The company is developing a television set-top box and has begun discussions with outside providers of content to distribute their video services to the device, according to three people briefed on the plan, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the Amazon product had not yet been announced and remained confidential.

Amazon is planning to introduce the set-top box in the fall, one of these people said.

Bloomberg Businessweek first reported news of Amazon plans on Wednesday.

Kinley Pearsall, an Amazon spokeswoman, declined to comment.

It was not immediately clear why Amazon would bother designing its own set-top box. The device will most likely showcase Amazon’s own online video offerings, which include Prime Instant Video, a Netflix-like subscription video service with more than 40,000 movies and television episodes that is included as part of Amazon’s broader Prime membership.

Among other benefits, Prime members, who pay $79 a year, get free two-day shipping on orders bought through Amazon’s site.

Amazon also offers a much broader library of video content, totaling 150,000 titles, that anyone, including people who aren’t Prime members, can buy and rent.

But Amazon’s video services are already available on hundreds of devices, many of which connect to television sets, like game consoles, digital video recorders and Blu-ray players. An app for using Amazon’s video service is even embedded in some television sets, including models from Sony, Panasonic and Samsung.

Although Amazon was an early entrant in the e-reader market with the Kindle, the company is late to the market for set-top boxes, where the incumbents include Apple’s Apple TV device and a family of products from Roku.

Amazon, though, has considerable strengths and has shown an aptitude for reinventing itself in new categories, like cloud computing and tablet computers. One media executive who has participated in discussions with Amazon about its set-top box said he thought the company’s standing as a top shopping destination would allow it to promote its new device and give it a strong chance of attracting an audience.

The company could use other creative techniques for getting its set-top box into more living rooms.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said one approach that could make sense was for Amazon to sell the device for $100 or less, about what Internet set-top boxes cost today, and to include a free year of its subscription video service.

At the end of the term, customers would have an incentive to sign up for Amazon Prime to continue receiving all of its membership benefits, including the video service. “I think this is a Trojan horse to get people to join Prime,” Mr. Pachter said.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/technology/amazon-plans-an-internet-video-device.html?_r=0

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Thursday 25 April 2013

An Easy Way For Data Extraction

There are so many data scraping tools are available in internet. With these tools you can you download large amount of data without any stress. From the past decade, the internet revolution has made the entire world as an information center. You can obtain any type of information from the internet. However, if you want any particular information on one task, you need search more websites. If you are interested in download all the information from the websites, you need to copy the information and pate in your documents. It seems a little bit hectic work for everyone. With these scraping tools, you can save your time, money and it reduces manual work.

The Web data extraction tool will extract the data from the HTML pages of the different websites and compares the data. Every day, there are so many websites are hosting in internet. It is not possible to see all the websites in a single day. With these data mining tool, you are able to view all the web pages in internet. If you are using a wide range of applications, these scraping tools are very much useful to you.

The data extraction software tool is used to compare the structured data in internet. There are so many search engines in internet will help you to find a website on a particular issue. The data in different sites is appears in different styles. This scraping expert will help you to compare the date in different site and structures the data for records.

And the web crawler software tool is used to index the web pages in the internet; it will move the data from internet to your hard disk. With this work, you can browse the internet much faster when connected. And the important use of this tool is if you are trying to download the data from internet in off peak hours. It will take a lot of time to download. However, with this tool you can download any data from internet at fast rate.There is another tool for business person is called email extractor. With this toll, you can easily target the customers email addresses. You can send advertisement for your product to the targeted customers at any time. This the best tool to find the database of the customers.

However, there are some more scraping tolls are available in internet. And also some of esteemed websites are providing the information about these tools. You download these tools by paying a nominal amount.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3517104

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Amazon Kindle Fire Review - Best Gift This Christmas?

Priced at approximately $199, the New Kindle Fire is both the iPad and the Kindle e-reader combined. What sets the Kindle Fire apart however from the iPad is that Amazon Prime Membership you have access to over 10'000 streaming movies and TV shows for free. You also get to borrow the latest best selling books for free from the new Kindle owners lending library.

Kindle Fire Features:

    Impressive Color Touchscreen - Amazon argue that movies, magazines and children's books come alive on a 7" vibrant color touchscreen that delivers 16 million colors in high resolution.
    Magazines in Rich Color - Magazines are now available in colour! With glossy, full-color layouts, photographs and illustrations.
    Simple and Easy to Use - You can now spin effortlessly through your recent titles and websites straight from the home screen.
    100,000 Movies and TV Shows - Over 100,000 movies and TV shows, including thousands of new releases and your favorite TV shows, are available to stream all just one tap away.
    Fast Dual-Core Processor - This new Kindle fire processor now argues that you can now stream music while browsing the web or read books while downloading videos.
    Choose Your Favorite Apps and Games - The Weather Channel and more, or Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, the Fire offers numerous internet and Amazon applications.
    Amazon Silk - The new cloud-accelerated browser that uses a "split browser" architecture to leverage the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services cloud, is argued to offer Ultra-fast web browsing.
    Millions of Books - The Kindle Store offers over 1 million books, including 800,000 titles at $9.99 or less. Free if you opt for Amazons Prime package.
    Free Cloud Storage - You can now forget about USB sticks or additional external memory devices as you can now store your books, movies, music and apps in the Cloud which can be available instantly to stream at a touch of your finger.
    Easy to hold in one hand - Light enough to hold in just one hand, you can browse, play, read and shop on-the-go.
    17 Million Songs - DThere are now over 17 million songs in the Amazon MP3 Store.
    Extra Durable Display - 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic its resistant to accidental bumps and scrapes.
    The New Kindle Owners' Lending Library - Kindle owners can now choose from thousands of books to borrow for free - including over 100 New York Times Bestsellers.
    Amazon Whispersync - You can now start streaming a movie on Kindle Fire, then pick up right where you left off on your TV and thus avoid the frustration of having to find your spot again.
    Free Month of Amazon Prime - This allows the buyer to experience the benefits that millions of Amazon Prime members enjoy, including free unlimited instant streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows, books etc plusmany of the additional features listed above.
    Read Your Documents - You can email your Word, PDF and more directly to your Kindle so you that you can read them anywhere anytime.
    Email - Much like Microsoft Outlook, you can now import Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL etc into a single inbox.

Advantages of Kindle Fire:

    More than half the price of the iPad.
    Kindle now provides both an e-reader and an alternative iPad in color at last.
    Unlimited storage using the new Amazon Cloud.
    Convenient, portable size of 7 inches and a rich catalog of books, movies and music offered through Amazon's Web-based services.
    Prime users get unlimited, instant streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows.

Disadvantages of Kindle Fire:

    When Kindle Fire travels internationally, outside the U.S, it is still unsure as to what if all of these features listed above remain still active. Always check user reviews as the Kindle Fire features are constantly changing and evolving.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6688135

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Amazon building television set-top box

Amazon is planning to introduce a set-top box to make it easier for customers to stream video to their television, according to sources.

The device is due to debut later this year and will offer access to Amazon's growing on-demand catalogue, which includes LoveFilm in Britain.

It will intensify the online retailer's rivalry with Apple, which already sells a set-top box called Apple TV to make it easier to stream video from iTunes, and is rumoured o be preparing to introduce a full connected television.

It will also set Amazon against Roku, which makes a device similar to the existing Apple TV, and Microsoft and Sony, which are both planning to promote their next games consoles as home entertainment hubs.

The move will also concern cable and satellite broadcasters, who increasingly offer on-demand services as part f their packages. Amazon typically aims to undercut rivals when it enters new markets: the Kindle Fire, for instance, is among the cheapest tablet computers available.

Many set-top boxes already give access to Amazon's video catalogue via apps. By building its own device, the firm will get more direct access to consumers' living rooms, while giving developers another reason to create applications for Amazon’s digital ecosystem.

Amazon is in the midst of expanding its hardware product range. It already makes Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets, and as well as a set-top box, is expected to introduce a smartphone this year.

This strategy, combined with the firm's massive international scale and unmatched distribution network, means Amazon it is seen by industry obsevers as one of the four or five giants poised to battle it out over the full "ecosystem" of hardware, software and services in the next few years. The others are Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung. Facebook is also seen as a major force, but shows no interest in competing in hardware.

"It would certainly make some sense," said Jason Krikorian, a venture capitalist at DCM and internet television specialist.

"They have a ton of content, an existing billing relationship with millions of users."

Amazon's set-top box, along with its other hardware products, is being developed by Lab126, a secretive unit that the firm has rapidly expanded by poaching staff from rivals. Malachy Moynihan, a former vice president at Cisco, who worked on the networking giant's various consumer video initiatives, is in charge of the set-top box project. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Moynihan spent nine years at Apple.

Amazon has been ramping up its efforts on video content for several years, too. This week in Britain, it announced plans for a customer vote on which of 14 pilots should be turned into a full original series. The plan is LoveFilm's answer to Netflix's critically-acclaimed remake of House of Cards.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/amazon/10017100/Amazon-building-television-set-top-box.html

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