Hasta La Gadget!

Amazon Studios has been forging ahead with its push to develop original movies and TV series, and it has now introduced a new tool that it’s hoping will help foster further development. Dubbed Amazon Storyteller, the tool lets writers quickly turn their script into a storyboard without the need for any actual artistic skills. As Amazon explains it, the tool first scans the writer’s script and then “identifies the scenes, locations and characters from scene descriptions, and ‘casts’ them from a library of thousands of characters, props and backgrounds.” Writers and filmmakers can then choose to customize the storyboard or upload some of their own images if they like, before sharing it with others to solicit feedback (naturally, it’s only available if you submit your script to Amazon Studios). According to the company, the tool works best with contemporary dramas or romantic comedies given its current art assets, so you may still have your work cut out for you if you’re looking to storyboard your post-apocalyptic fantasy epic.

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Source: Amazon Storyteller

Amazon feels for indie devs. So much so, that it’s set up a standalone Indie Game storefront on its site specifically to highlight these gaming gems that might otherwise get overlooked. The new portal, designed to “increase discoverability,” will feature select games for Mac, PC and the browser, but Amazon’s not just leaving it at that. To properly promote this new storefront launch, it’s tossing in some limited time promos to entice gamers to click and explore the catalog. From today until July 23rd, Amazon customers can purchase Indie Bundles containing up to 10 games for $10, as well as receive download codes, good for three pre-selected games, with every purchase (available until July 17th). The company’s also throwing its considerable weight around in the publicity department, with a weekly spotlight Q&A feature aimed at shedding some light on developers and a Gamer’s Choice award; a distinction that nets a game prominent storefront promotion. Feel like rewarding innovation, creativity, your penchant for slack-jawed amusement and the little guy? Yeah, us too. So check out the source and vote with your dollars.

Filed under: Gaming, Amazon

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Source: Amazon, (1)

Amazon resurrects the Kindle DX.

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Amazon has made official the return of a device many thought was bound for the e-reader graveyard, the Kindle DX. The DX is Amazon’s big-screen reader, with a 9.7-inch e-ink display and a full keyboard at the bottom. It’s almost comically oversized compared to the more popular and current e-reader models, which include the Kobo Aura HD and Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, and the technology within is now almost three years old.

Dedicated e-readers as a category seem to be suffering at the hands of ever-cheaper tablets. So why did Amazon bring back the odd duck out in a family of weird waterfowl? Amazon isn’t saying, at least not in any great detail. The company says that it’s “excited to offer customers this option” in an official statement we received when we contacted them about bringing the mammoth reader back (and said the same to The Verge), but that’s about as deep as they go in discussing both the absence and the return. We’ve reached out to see if they can provide more context.

Kindle VP Jay Marine did say back in October that Amazon was likely through with the DX, though he did specify that it wouldn’t abandon it. The DX was originally positioned as an education-market-oriented device and essentially offered a way to better present textbook content. I actually bought one, but not for education purposes; I hoped that the larger screen would provide a better reading experience for long-form articles from publications like The Atlantic.

Amazon has never broken out sales numbers for specific models of Kindle, or even for the Kindle itself. But the lumbering DX, with its $379 price tag (which has since been reduced to $299, the same price as the 32 GB Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch tablet), it likely never had more than a small cult following. The DX returning to the store might be tied to Amazon’s efforts with WhisperCast, which offers easy provisioning for educational institutions and organizations, because at this price, who else but those types of groups would buy it?

Amazon’s burgeoning online empire is growing today with yet another country-specific store: Amazon India. The new site, located at Amazon.in, only offers third-party products due to India’s law prohibiting direct sales to Indian citizens by foreign companies over the internet, and only carries a small selection of what Amazon offers in other regions, but there are plans to expand into mobile phones and cameras “in the coming weeks.” Currently, the store offers books, DVDs and Blu-rays for sale. Amazon requested India’s law prohibiting online sales by foreign entities by changed this past February, and the status of that request is currently unclear. The company previously pushed into India with its Kindle store late last summer, and its angling to do the same with its Android Appstore some time this year.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Amazon

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Source: Amazon