Hasta La Gadget!

Miramax has reached a deal with Lovefilm to get its back-catalog of award-winning films available on-demand in the UK and Germany. It’s an unsurprising move given the company has similar deals in place with Netflix and Hulu to let you watch classics like Pulp Fiction, Clerks and Trainspotting whenever the urge takes you. While there was no official confirmation of a launch window, a cursory check of our own account reveals that some of the titles (including Kill Bill) are already popping up on the instant service.

Continue reading Miramax arrives on Lovefilm to let you relive the golden age of Weinsteins

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet

Miramax arrives on Lovefilm to let you relive the golden age of Weinsteins originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Jul 2012 11:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When internet mega retailer Amazon kicked off its fiscal year this past spring with $13.8 billion in net sales, the prognosis for the quarter ahead was dour, to say the least. At the time, the company projected its Q2 2012 performance would see an operating loss of $40 million to $260 million versus Q2 2011, as well as a slight down tick in revenue at $11.9 billion to $13.3 billion quarter to quarter. Well, the numbers are in and it looks like the forecast was right on the money. The Seattle-based outfit posted $7 million in net income for the quarter, a year over year loss amounting to a whopping 96 percent decrease. As for net sales, that picture’s a bit rosier given the 29 percent increase over Q2 2011 that saw the Bezos-backed co. pull in $12.83 billion — a figure that would have risen to 32 percent were it not for a $272 million hit due to “changes in foreign exchange rates[.]” Operating cash flow for Q2 2012 was down by nearly half at $107MM compared to the same segment last year.

Unsurprisingly, the company’s budget Kindle Fire tab — which has enjoyed relatively weak competition up to now — is still the number one item across Amazon’s site, with titles in its Lending Library growing to over 170,000. Bezos also made note of Prime’s growth, pegging that subscription offering’s catalog of items at 15 million and highlighting the addition of 18,000 movies and TV shows to its streaming service.

As for the future, the company expects Q3 net sales to grow by at least 19 percent year-over-year, landing somewhere between $12.9 billion and $14.3 billion, with a projected operating loss of $50 million to $350 million. Hit up the PR after the break for the full load of financial highs and lows.

Continue reading Amazon Q2 2012 earnings: net income down 96 percent to $7 million, net sales up 29 percent to $12.83 billion

Amazon Q2 2012 earnings: net income down 96 percent to $7 million, net sales up 29 percent to $12.83 billion originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jul 2012 16:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2012 has been a year filled with stories about Washington trying to regulate the Internet, and now it seems that some of the web’s biggest faces are coming together to do something about it. Google, Facebook, Amazon, and eBay have joined forces to form a new Washington lobbying group called the Internet Association, which aims to “advance public policy solutions that strengthen and protect an open, innovative and free Internet.” The group will be led by former Deputy Staff Director to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Michael Beckerman.

Though we don’t technically know any of the group’s members yet, an anonymous source tells The Washington Post that the four Internet giants listed above are among the Association’s most prominent members. In a statement today, Beckerman said that the Internet’s “decentralized and open model” leads to innovation and job creation, and that we must defend against attempts to “handcuff” the currently-unregulated web. The Internet Association even has its own website up and running today, though there isn’t that much to see there at the moment.

The group will be getting things underway in September, and even though Beckerman has yet to lay out a clear policy plan, we think we have some idea of what it will attempt do in Washington. After all, those four companies have all come out in favor of net neutrality at one point or another, and lately we’ve been seeing Washington trying to pass questionable legislation that would directly affect all of them. Here’s hoping that the Internet Association sticks to its guns when it arrives in Washington later this year, because make no mistake about it – with Facebook, eBay, Google, and Amazon all apparently backing the group, it will have enough sway to essentially get whatever it wants.

Google, Amazon, eBay, Facebook form The Internet Association is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Typing in landscape mode is not comfy because the keyboard is so wide

While we do know that Amazon is working hard to roll out the spanking new Kindle Fire 2 to the masses later this fall, does that mean the original Kindle Fire will just die a quick death? Apparently not, as there are whispers going around that the original Amazon Kindle Fire will experience a price drop when its successor debuts, at least according to the good people over at DealNews. DealNews claims that Amazon will follow in Apple’s footsteps by retaining both the iPad 2 and new iPad, so that would mean the Amazon Kindle Fire will most likely see a price drop to perhaps $169, which would make it possibly one of the lowest for the Android-powered tablet market.

This might also be part of Amazon’s effort to price themselves against Google’s hot new tablet, the Asus-manufactured Nexus 7 that retails for a mere $199. What do you think about this move if it is proven to be true? Do you think that a 15% discount off a year-old tablet is compelling enough to have you part with your hard earned money? Only time will tell, so we have decided to strap ourselves in for this exciting ride.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: AOL PLAY now for the Kindle Fire, Amazon to release six new Kindle Fire tablets?,

For those of you who own a Kindle 3G, it looks like those days of free, unlimited web browsing have come to an end. According to reports online, some users are starting to receive 3G bandwidth cap warnings. Apparently users were just browsing with the e-book reader as normal and were then presented with warnings letting them know that they had hit their 50MB monthly quota. They then received another notification saying that they’d be able to surf for another 24 hours – after that period, they will only be able to use the 3G to access Amazon.com, Wikipedia and the Kindle Store. For anything else they would have to do it over WiFi.

While the limit has been in place before, it seems that it wasn’t enforced until now. Considering how users can still use the 3G to access Wikipedia and shop on Amazon without any problems, it shouldn’t be that huge of an issue. But for those of you who use the Kindle to surf the web a lot, I guess you’ll have to start changing your habits. Any of you experienced these data cap notifications yet?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Amazon Kindle Touch 3G now on pre-order to customers across 175 countries , Amazon Announces Its Attractively-priced Next-generation Kindle,