Amazon takes aim at your TV: the full story – The Verge

Amazon announces Fire TV, its own set top box: 90 Seconds on The Verge

2014-04-02T15:00:02-04:00

We at Amazon are so pleased with Fire TV. It shows the true potential of our Prime video service, as well as what kind of products our remarkable team can build, but we don't want to stop there. That is why we are also announcing Amazon Prime Rib, our first step into the culinary world. With Prime Rib, you can order a fat slab of meat and have it delivered to you in just two days. Need your steak by tonight? No worries because thanks to our fleet of shipment drones, that giant hunk of juicy cow will be raining from the sky and landing right on your doorstep within the hour. We are so excited about Amazon Prime Rib and we think you'll be too.

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Amazon Fire TV hands-on: Prime comes to your living room

2014-04-02T12:09:08-04:00

Amazon has just unveiled Fire TV, its first attempt at a set-top box for streaming movies, television shows, photos, games, and more straight to your TV. The Fire TV is all black and consists of a small, square box that connects to your televisions along with an even tinier remote. When turned on, the FireTV immediately displays a selection of new movies and TV shows in addition to various apps and games that you may want to dive in to. Options to browse through specific categories appear on the left-hand side of the screen, but if you know what you're looking for, you can easily begin a search from any screen just by speaking into a microph …

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Amazon’s tablets will be a companion for FireTV music listening and TV watching

2014-04-02T11:39:34-04:00

Amazon just announced its new set-top box the FireTV, and along with it comes some impressive features. One of the more exciting is the device's second screen integration: FireTV supports Amazon's X-Ray feature for movies and television, and you can view that information on your tablet while you enjoy video on your TV. This includes information on programs and films pulled from IMDB, and when you're using an Amazon tablet you'll get X-ray notifications sent from the FireTV. The feature will even support music, so you can check out lyrics as a song is playing. It sounds like a similar tool to Microsoft's Smart Glass integration with the Xbox …

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Amazon’s FireTV set-top box is also a gaming console

2014-04-02T11:39:27-04:00

Amazon's FireTV set-top box will also act as a home console. The FireTV is billed not as a competitor to the Xbox One or PlayStation 4, but as a way for people who wouldn't otherwise buy a console to play games. Amazon claims it's made the FireTV three times as powerful as its competitors from Roku, Google, and Apple, giving it a dedicated graphics processor and 2GB of RAM. This will also presumably give it a boost in gaming. To go with the FireTV, Amazon has also announced a custom controller that will sell separately for $39.99 and come with 1,000 Amazon coins ($10) to buy games. Some games will also be playable with the default remote, an …

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Amazon announces $99 Fire TV set-top box, available now

2014-04-02T11:12:58-04:00

Apple and Roku have a new competitor in the living room. Amazon just announced its own video streaming device: the $99 Amazon Fire TV. It starts shipping today. "We need to invent and simplify on behalf of customers," said Amazon's Peter Larsen. During the presentation, Larsen went over three pain points of current devices: search, performance, and "closed ecosystem." Fire TV promises to avoid the problems that plague other living room hardware, according to Larsen.

In terms of performance, FireTV features a quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, which Larsen said should eliminate any hint of lag. Amazon claims it's three times faster than the …

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Amazon may reveal its set-top box next week in New York

2014-03-27T12:24:37-04:00

In just a week from now, we'll likely find out the truth about Amazon's living room ambitions. The company has sent out invites for an event in New York at 11:00AM ET on Wednesday, April 2nd that promises to offer an "update for our video business." Amazon has long been rumored to be working on a set-top box for the living room to compete with the likes of the Apple TV, Chromecast, and Roku's popular streaming boxes.

The most recent rumors say that the device will run a version of Android and will be able to play games. A leaked image even revealed what the game controller for the set-top box could look like. It's expected that the set-top …

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Amazon is making a box for your living room, and this is what its game controller looks like

2014-03-14T08:15:59-04:00

Images of an Amazon-branded game controller have leaked, all-but confirming the existence of an Amazon set-top box for your TV. The images were first posted by media blog Zatz Not Funny, and come from a Brazilian regulatory agency similar to the FCC. They depict a traditional-looking game controller with media control buttons at its bottom. It actually looks remarkably similar to the controller for OnLive, but with Xbox-style offset analogue sticks. The controller also features three central buttons that look like Android's back, home, and menu keys, and a button beneath that bears the logo for GameCircle, Amazon's service for cloud saves, l …

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Amazon’s Android set-top box reportedly set for March release

2014-02-21T07:21:01-05:00

It didn't make its intended launch window of the 2013 holiday shopping season, but Amazon's web TV set-top box is apparently still very much on the roadmap. Recode reports word from multiple sources today that Amazon is aiming for a March rollout of its Apple TV and Roku competitor. Having invested in developing a rich and varied Prime Instant Video library, Amazon has done a good job of distributing that content across platforms, but there are obvious benefits to the web company controlling and selling its own hardware.

Up to this point, the anticipation has been that an Amazon set-top box would run on Android, likely a customized version …

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Amazon denies reports it’s planning live internet TV service

2014-01-21T16:36:29-05:00

Amazon is considering moving far beyond its Instant Video streaming service, according to a new report out today. The online retail giant is working on offering a live TV service that would stream over the internet, reports The Wall Street Journal. It seems that the project is in its "early stages," and the paper's sources say that Amazon has contacted no less than three major media companies to begin working out licensing deals to stream programming. Such a service, if it's ever released, would compete directly with cable and satellite television providers.

It's not clear how Amazon's live television service would integrate with its Prime …

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Amazon’s set-top box runs into further delays

2013-10-23T21:06:31-04:00

Amazon has been rushing to finalize and release a set-top box in time for the holidays, designed to compete directly with the Apple TV and Roku. However, The Verge has learned that the company recently made the decision to delay the device, possibly beyond the holiday season. Sources say that the box is based on a fork of Android just like the company's Kindle Fire tablets, and that Amazon was going to allow third party apps in addition to its own services. In fact, much of the same code that works with Amazon's tablets can also be applied to Amazon's TV product, implying that the box runs some version of Fire OS.

Although third party apps …

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