Hasta La Gadget!

For the sake of this story, let’s pretend The Hunger Games is a TV show. M’Kay?

Amazon may not be building a $99 Kindle Fire, but it is rolling out its X-Ray for Movies feature it introduced six months ago on its Kindle Fire HD to now be able to offer the same service to its library of television shows.

The X-Ray for TV will allow Kindle Fire users to be able to access IMDb while they’re watching a TV show, giving them immediate access to everything the database has to offer to give them the information they might be looking for on that particular show or episode. The update will be available for “the most popular TV shows on Amazon,” which in layman’s terms means not every TV show will use Amazon’s X-Ray for TV. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: ASUS Teases Upcoming ‘Metallic Miracle’ MWC Announcement, Apple Launches Two New iPad Commercials Highlighting Apps,

Back in September, Amazon announced a new feature for Kindle devices called X-Ray, which essentially gives users more information about the movie they’re watching using data from IMDb. However, Amazon announced today that the feature is now expanding to include TV shows, meaning that you can now find out more information on that new television series you just started watching.

X-Ray is an Amazon feature that is also available on Kindle ereaders, and the feature first launched for books, allowing readers to gather more information about the story’s characters and even more information on the author. Now that X-Ray is available for TV shows, viewers can tap on an episode to learn more about the show, including characters, actors/actresses, and quick facts.

Amazon says that the X-Ray feature gives users a unique experience when watching streaming content that you won’t be able to experience anywhere else. Amazon wants the content portion of its physical products to be the most important aspect of the user experience, since that’s what the company makes a profit on mostly.

Of course, X-Ray only works with content from Amazon’s Instant Video library, so it’s an exclusive feature that the company hopes will encourage more people to choose Amazon Instant Video over other streaming services like Hulu or Netflix. Amazon will be expanding X-Ray to the Wii U, but there’s no word on whether or not they’ll put it on other platforms like iOS or Android.

Amazon expands X-Ray feature to TV shows is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Amazon just announced that it is adding its X-Ray feature to TV shows. The feature already worked with movies thanks to data from IMDb, but the company will now use this very same data for other video content. The entire Kindle Fire family will receive the feature and the Amazon Instant Video app on Wii U will get is as well.

As a reminder, X-Ray allows you to discover more about the content you are reading or watching. It first appeared with books — it shows you the different characters, where they appear in the book and how they are related to the story. Then Amazon added X-Ray to movies back in September 2012. In that case, watchers can instantly know the name of an actor in a scene. IMDb is owned by Amazon, allowing the Kindle team to tap into a very comprehensive movie database. As IMDb provides data for TV shows as well, adding TV shows to X-Ray was just a matter of time.

The idea is to make the video experience unique on Amazon’s devices, making people want to buy those tablets or download those Amazon apps and stay in the Amazon ecosystem. It’s been known that Amazon doesn’t make much profit from selling hardware. Instead, it wants people to use the Kindle Fire tablets to buy content.

Of course, the X-Ray feature only works with videos you buy or rent from Amazon Instant Video or videos from the Amazon Prime collection. X-Ray could be one of those little features that make you choose to watch a movie or TV show on Amazon over Netflix or iTunes.

In addition to providing the X-Ray feature to Kindle Fire users, the feature will make its way to Amazon Instant Video’s Wii U app. This fact shows that what matters for Amazon is that people consume content from Amazon, even if it’s not on an Amazon-branded device. X-Ray for movies and TV shows may eventually come to Android and iOS as X-Ray for books is already available in many Kindle apps.

X-Ray is more important than you may think at first. If the experience is not compelling enough, customers will neglect their tablets and Amazon won’t make any money from those users. That’s why Amazon cut the price of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ as well from $299 to $269 for the base model. It’s still the best way to tap into Amazon’s ecosystem. Amazon now wants to get the best tablet they can make in everyone’s hand so that people can start reading and watching content — Amazon’s content.

SAI reports that Spotify plans to expand beyond its on-demand streaming music service into the wild world of streaming video. According to unnamed sources, Spotify wants to take on VOD services with exclusive content, which would put the company in direct competition with companies like Netflix, Amazon, and even, if you’re willing to stretch you imagination, with HBO. More »

Did the word free in the headline grab your attention, or was it the cake? Either way, Amazon’s Appstore is throwing a party to mark its second birthday, and there’s a goody bag of software for anyone who attends. It’s been a good month for Android users, as Google’s Play store had its own shindig recently, and like last year, Amazon’s been treating Appstore patrons to discounts all week. For its official anniversary today, though, a tray-full of apps can be downloaded gratis. Admittedly, the selection isn’t fantastic, but you should find one or two things worth at least the time it takes to click ’em — Chu Chu Rocket, may we suggest (long live Dreamcast!). Remember, you’ve gotta be quick, as the offers expire at the end of the day. But enough from us. Head to the source link for cake and more.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Amazon

Comments

Via: PhoneArena

Source: Amazon