Audio Video News

Though its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player have just launched this week, allowing customers to store and access content from remote servers, Amazon is already contemplating the next steps. One imperative is to patch things up with the music industry. Another is to make the technology more convenient, replacing the unwieldy upload process with a slicker content-ownership recognition system.

First the record company politics: Amazon rushed the Cloud Drive and Player introduction to steal a march on Apple and Google, which are planning similar moves. In doing so it unnerved the major labels. One of them, Sony Music, has aired its complaint in public, commenting ominously through a spokesperson: "We are keeping our legal options open."

Amazon is aiming to put you in the holiday shopping spirit with the launch of its Black Friday Deals Store and more than a dozen curated holiday gift guides, including an Electronics Gift Guide Store featuring more than 500 products.

Jeff Bezos—movie mogul? Don’t be surprised if the next movie you see at the local cineplex was bankrolled by Amazon. Says Roy Price, VP of Amazon Studios: “Our goal is to create close to 12 movies a year with production starting later this year.” Amazon’s Original Movies would be exhibited in theaters before moving on to Prime Instant Video. Of course, Amazon has already produced content for the small screen, including a couple of dozen pilots and eight series, most recently including Bosch, an L.A. crime drama based on the bestselling novels of Michael Connelly.

Wasting no time to prime the holiday selling season, Amazon today launched the “Black Friday Deals Store” and said Prime members, who pay $99 a year to get benefits such as free two-day shipping, will get early access to its one-per-customer Lightning Deals.

Amazon is working on a couple ad-free music streaming service, one of which would be exclusive to its wildly popular Echo Bluetooth speaker/personal assistant.

Most of us think of Amazon as the world’s largest online store where you can buy anything — and it is, but the company has also become a dark horse in the race toward streaming supremacy as it rapidly expands it Amazon Music service.