Hasta La Gadget!

Isn’t it annoying when you want to click a link, but because of your clumsiness or because the link is positioned badly, you end up clicking something else? This isn’t a big deal since you can always hit the back button, but what if you clicked away from a form page and thus had to fill up the page again, or if a recommended link you wanted is no longer there after you went back? Amazon apparently understands your frustrations and has patented a technology called gravity-based links. As its name implies, this technology creates links on websites that have a gravitational pull for your mouse cursor, thus drawing your mouse to certain links on a website. In Amazon’s case we expect that these gravity-based links will include links such as add to cart, checkout now, purchase, as well as other recommended links that will ultimately add more books/items to your cart, and add to Amazon’s revenue.

While seemingly nefarious in nature, Amazon claims in the patent that these gravity-based links have potential to help those who are disabled or have poor motor skills, stating, “Some users may lack the fine motor skills desired to operate a variety of input mechanisms due to declining health, injury, etc.” Seems legit. Since this is a patent, there’s no telling if and when Amazon will implement such a technology, or if it will be relegated to the files stored at the USPTO and collect dust in the years to come. However if you are surfing Amazon’s website one day and find your mouse cursor being dragged towards certain links, well, you have your answer there.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: BitTorrent Intros Live Streaming Service That Makes Buffering A Thing Of The Past, Facebook Likes Accurately Depict Your Personality Traits,

We’ve heard a lot about a possible Amazon smartphone last year, and rumors have been all over the place as far as what to expect and when to expect it. However, the latest rumor is that the supposed Amazon smartphone is delayed yet again and won’t see a reveal until later this year. The phone was previously expected to make an appearance sometime next quarter.

According to DigiTimes, sources at Foxconn say the production process of the new Amazon phone hasn’t been going smoothly. As for what the hold-up is, it’s said that the phone is “still under its engineering verification test (EVT) period due to issues related to its mobile platform.” Manufacturing of the phone is being handled by Foxconn subsidiary Ensky Tech, which has produced Amazon’s e-book readers and tablets in the past.

According to the sources, production of the phone was originally planned to begin sometime in June, but it looks like that timeline will be pushed back to later this year at some point. Of course, Amazon doesn’t need to be in any kind of a rush at this point, since the market is already saturated with iOS and Android, so it’s not like they need to beat anyone to the punch.

Of course, this rumor comes from DigiTimes, which has a mediocre track record as far as rumors go, so we’re taking this one with a grain of salt. In fact, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that the smartphone industry really isn’t something the company is interested in, but new devices would be on their way at some point in the future.

Amazon phone reportedly delayed until later this year is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Considering that Amazon has been known for being a place to buy books, digital or physical, it is not surprising that they have been thinking about registered top level domains such as “.book”, “.author”, and “.read”. In fact to a certain extent this makes perfect sense, but unfortunately publishers represented by the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers have filed their objection to Amazon’s desire to own such domains. According to their complaint, they told ICANN that by placing such domains into the hands of a company like Amazon could be considered anticompetitive, and that this could lead to Amazon abusing their market power as well. Unsurprisingly Amazon’s rival, Barnes & Noble, protested, claiming that Amazon would use these TLDs to “stifle competition”. We’re not sure what ICANN’s decision will be, but what do you guys think?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: YouTube Co-Founder Teases Launch Of New Video Service, Fraunhofer IIS: Surround Sound with Video Streaming on Android ,

Publishers represented by the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers have filed objections to Amazon’s pursuit of new generic top-level domains “.book,” “.author” and “.read.” While some of those gTLDs have already come under fire from entire countries, the influential book groups told gatekeeper ICANN that “placing such generic domains in private hands is plainly anticompetitive,” adding that it would allow “already dominant, well-capitalized companies” to abuse their market power. ICANN plans to assign rights to organizations or companies to manage domain suffixes like the current “.com” or “.org” and firms like Google, Microsoft and Amazon have sought names like “.app” and “movie,” often in competition with each other. Competitor Barnes & Noble filed its own protest, saying that Amazon “would use control of these TLDs to stifle competition in the bookselling and publishing industries.” If such protests are persuasive enough, companies could lose not only the domain name in question, but 20 percent of the $185,000 application fee — admittedly pocket change for outfits like Amazon.

Filed under: Amazon

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Via: WSJ (subscription)

Source: ICANN (1), ICANN (2)

Man, this is some bad news for EA and Maxis. Yesterday afternoon, Amazon temporarily stopped selling download copies of SimCity. Yes, the version that was just released this week. The game has already received over 1800 reviews on Amazon. The problem is that it has an average rating of just one star.

That’s because the majority of of those are one star reviews. Looks like only a handful of people gave the game more stars. I’d say thats a big fail. A note from Amazon states that many customers are having connection issues and they have no idea when it will be fixed, but to check with EA for more info. EA is bringing new servers online over the next few days to solve the problem, and Maxis is fixing bugs as quickly as they can, but the damage has been done.

After the temporary suspension, it looks like Amazon is yet again allowing downloads, but who is going to want to buy a copy after seeing these reviews?

[via Geek]