Rumor: Amazon building brick-and-mortar store to stay competitive with iPad and Nook

A rumor is floating around about an upcoming Amazon move into the physical brick-and-mortar space. Is this a move to focus on the Fire and stay competitive with Apple and Barnes & Noble's physical tablet support?
Amazon is reportedly pushing further into the physical realm with plans to build brick-and-mortar boutiques which will showcase the company’s e-readers, tablets and other products.
While talk of an Amazon retail store has been heard before (patent D593,208), the recent rumors have taken form from details in a report by the Good E-Reader tablet and e-reader news site. Citing unnamed sources, Good E-reader says that Amazon will be starting its brick-and-mortar foray with a retail store in Seattle, where the e-commerce giant has its headquarters. The company apparently contracted the design for the store through a shell company in order to avoid the prying eyes of competition. The Seattle store is supposed to materialize within a few months; before the 2012 holiday rush.

Amazon seems to understand the dissonance consumers may perceive in an e-commerce giant which forced brick-and-mortar companies to compete online, now competing in the physical realm. The Seattle store is intended to be a pilot project in order to test whether a retail chain would be profitable. Amazon plans on keeping the store boutique-sized, and will focus on “high margin and high-end items;” meaning the Kindle readers as well as the bestselling Kindle Fire tablet and complementary accessories. The company will also be selling a few select print books, and may possibly be creating a hub for customers to browse e-books on their readers in the boutique; perhaps going for the appeal of browsing within a book store chain, without the bulk that you get with a Barnes & Noble.

The report questions why Amazon would decide to lay down roots by building retail stores and face new taxes, when the e-commerce giant has been at the forefront of the online taxation debate. US states have been trying to work around federal law, which currently says that online sellers with no physical presence in a state don’t have to worry about sales tax. California recently went after Amazon’s lack of “physical presence” by putting the obligation of sales tax on Amazon’s affiliates in the state–Amazon subsequently threatened to completely pull out of the state, and the legal tiff was dropped.
However, the legal battles may be too much of a strain on the company, and Amazon’s ferocity may be dwindling. The company came to Washington in December of last year in order to discuss the creation of a standard Internet sales tax. Perhaps higher on the decision-making agenda isn’t the taxes, which they may not be able to run from, but instead, the competition from Apple as well as Barnes & Noble.
Barnes & Noble may have used the Nook to deflect the bullet that killed its Borders Books competitor, but that move put the book retailer in a whole new competitive field. Barnes & Noble understands the looming competition it faces with Amazon as we’ve seen with the digital comics controversy as well as the recent refusal to stock physical copies of books from Amazon’s publishing platform.
While Amazon has built its business on carrying “every kind of random product you could imagine,” as eBooknewser points out, the company is consolidating much of its focus on digital media and the Kindles. Though Amazon disappointed Wall Street with its 2011 fourth quarter results, the company reported record Kindle sales over the holidays, with an estimated six million Kindle Fire tablets sold; which could make the Fire a serious iPad competitor.
With the Kindles becoming increasingly important to Amazon, the company may be shifting to stay competitive with Barnes & Noble and Apple. The Nook takes center stage when walking into B&N stores, with a display area and support that Amazon probably can’t match right now. Apple, of course, is famous for the success of its stores with Genius Bar support. Though, it’s interesting that Amazon is going for its own boutique on the first try, rather than mini-display attached to a larger box store like B&N or Apple’s mini-store deal with Target. What do you think? Would you hang out at an Amazon brick-and-mortar shop? Or would this be a throwback waste of effort on Amazon’s part?
View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Amazon,brickandmortar,building,competitive,Rumor,store

Mini Apple Stores may be headed to Sam’s Club

Apple and Sam's Club are reportedly working out a deal to open mini Apple Stores in Sam's Club locations.

When you think of Apple, what likely comes to mind is well-designed high-end electronics that may or may not be worth the hefty price. When you think of Sam’s Club, you probably think something more along the lines of bulk packages of individually wrapped pickles, and free samples of teriyaki chicken on a toothpick. But those two worlds may soon combine. According to 9to5Mac, Sam’s Club (a subsidiary of Walmart) and Apple are in early negotiations to open mini Apple Stores inside Sam’s Club locations.

As members know, Sam’s Club already sells Apple’s lines of iPods, iPads, and iPhones. If the deal goes through, Apple will have a larger “store-in-store” setup, which would offer Mac desktops and laptops, in addition to Apple’s mobile devices. A backup plan is also reportedly in place, which includes Sam’s Club simply selling Macs, without the addition of a bigger Apple setup.

As with everything Apple, this report remains in the realm of speculation. But there are a few reasons this story carries a high likelihood of truth. First, Apple already has such store-in-store setups at Best Buy locations, so this would only be an expansion of something Apple is already doing. Second, Sam’s Club already sells Apple products; simply expanding its product offering isn’t much of a stretch.

In addition to all this, both Sam’s Club and Apple stand to make money from an expanded partnership — which is really all that matters here. Sam’s Club sells a wide range of electronics, so it’s not inconceivable that customers would go their to buy a Macbook Air, especially in areas that don’t have a dedicated Apple Store. At least, that’s the theory.

Would you go to Sam’s Club to buy a high-end Apple laptop or desktop PC?

[Image via BestBuy.com]

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Apple,headed,Stores

iPhone Data Debunks Recording Industry's Report On How French Three Strikes Law Increased Sales

The annual Digital Music Report (pdf) of the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is a curiously conflicted production. On the one hand, it must celebrate "a healthy 8 per cent increase in our digital revenues in 2011 -- the first time the annual growth rate has risen since records began in 2004 "; on the other, it must continue to push the party line about how the industry is being destroyed by piracy.

The IFPI has a stab a reconciling that contradiction, writing: "The truth is that record companies are building a successful digital music business in spite of the environment in which they operate, not because of it." However, it desperately needs some proof of that statement, because otherwise the simplest explanation is that piracy is not a serious problem, and that the recording industry is thriving, just like the rest of the creative industries.

The IFPI probably thinks it has found some proof in the French HADOPI experience, which, according its report, demonstrates that introducing three-strikes measures against unauthorized sharing boosts digital sales.

A new academic study -- The Effect of Graduated Response Anti-Piracy Laws on Music Sales: Evidence from an Event Study in France, by Danaher et al -- has also found evidence that Hadopi has had a positive impact on iTunes sales in France. The authors studied sales of digital singles and album downloads on iTunes from July 2008, before the law was adopted, until six months after the start of notices. They developed an estimate of what French iTunes sales would have looked like in the absence of Hadopi by studying a control group of similar markets.

The analysis found that French iTunes sales saw a significant uplift at exactly the period when awareness of Hadopi was at its highest, in Spring 2009, when the law was being debated in the National Assembly. This effect was maintained throughout the period studied. French iTunes sales were 22.5 per cent higher for singles and 25 per cent higher for digital albums than they would have been, on average, in the absence of Hadopi.

Taking a look at the study (pdf) provides some details of how the research was carried out:

For this study, we obtained a panel of total weekly iTunes sales units for a number of European countries including France. Our data extend from July 2008 to May 2011, and we observe separately both track unit sales and album unit sales. The data were obtained directly from the four major music labels -- EMI, Sony, Universal, and Warner -- and aggregated to reflect total iTunes sales for the majors.

In an attempt to observe the effect of HADOPI, these sales were compared with a control group of five other European countries that didn't introduce similar legislation: the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Belgium. By looking for differences between these two data sets, the researchers hoped to observe the effects of the three-strikes legislation on sales of digital music, using a Google Trends graph of searches for the word "HADOPI" as a proxy for awareness of that legislation, both before and after it was passed.

The graph of iTunes sales for France clearly diverges from that of the control group, lying consistently above it. The divergence begins around about the time that HADOPI was first presented to the French National Assembly, increases slightly, and then decreases a little after the first warning letters were sent out. From this, the researchers deduce that the discussion around HADOPI caused significantly increased sales of iTunes compared to the control countries:

these estimates indicate that French track sales units rose about 25.5% in the control group after March 1, 2009 but by 48% in France, indicating that French iTunes track sales were 22.5% higher on average than they would have been in the absence of HADOPI. Similarly, album sales units rose by 42% in the control group but 67% in France, indicating that HADOPI increased iTunes album sales an average 25% per week in France.

That's a plausible explanation if you believe that piracy is stopping people from buying digital music, but it's not the only one. The French newspaper Le Monde decided to use the same technique of comparing the rise in iTunes sales with Google Trends, but with a different search term. Since iTunes is intimately bound up with Apple's products, Le Monde thought to take a look at the trend for "iPhone" searches on Google.

What it found were five very pronounced peaks in the French searches that corresponded exactly with five (smaller) peaks in iTunes sales, and also to five well-defined external events: the launch of the Iphone 3GS and iPhone 4, and three Christmas seasons. The effect was so marked in France because it was starting from a lower base: according to the researchers, the average sales of iTunes in France were 450,000 per week, while in the UK they were 2,900,000 per week. So an alternative explanation for those impressive increases in sales is simply the uplift in iPhone ownership generated by new launches and the holidays in an immature market with plenty of room for growth.

The researchers do offer one other piece of evidence for the uplift in sales being due to the crackdown on piracy:

EMI surveys of French citizens show that that Rap and Hip Hop are the most heavily pirated genres, even relative to popularity in legal sales channels. While Rock and Pop experience average levels of piracy, the data also indicate that genres such as Classical, Christian, Folk, and Jazz experience significantly lower levels of piracy.

Therefore, they argued, if the increase in sales were due to reductions in piracy, they would expect "the increase in Rap sales to be larger than that for Rock and Pop and the increase for Classical, Christian, etc. to be quite low." And that is precisely what is observed. Conclusive proof? Maybe not.

As the Le Monde analysis points out, another explanation is that many recent iPhone purchasers are younger people, who are generally the most interested in acquiring the latest technology as soon as it comes out. And younger people, by and large, listen to more Rap than Classical or Christian music, which would explain the difference in the increase across genres.

Spending so much effort here on exploring one research report might seem excessive, but it matters. The IFPI is already branding this supposed increase in digital music sales -- quantified by the researchers at $18.6 million annually for France -- the "HADOPI Effect". In the months to come, you can bet that the recording industry's representatives and lobbyists will be visiting governments and showing them this "proof" that three-strikes really "works" -- and demanding they follow suit to "protect" the artists.

What's ironic is that the IFPI report spends many of its pages discussing a much more sensible way of reducing unauthorized sharing: offering high-quality music streaming services instead, as recent market research from Scandinavia indicates. Unfortunately, the recording industry is so obsessed with punishing pirates that it can't see that its future lies in promoting innovation, not legislation.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

23 Comments | Leave a Comment..

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Debunks,French,Increased,Industrys,iPhone,Recording,Report,Sales,strikes,Three

Windows Phone 8 details leak: Huge changes ahead

A leaked video has shed light on Microsoft's upcoming plans for Windows Phone 8 including deep Skype integration, the elimination of the Zune PC software, BitLocker encryption, NFC, multicore processor support, and a fundamental rewrite of the core of Windows Phone, better aligning its code base with Windows 8.

We’ve been speculating about the next versions of Windows Phone since 7.5 (Mango) came out in late 2011, and it looks like it might be worth the wait. PocketNow claims to have intercepted an official Microsoft video intended for Windows Phone partners like Nokia. In it, Windows Phone Manager Joe Belfiore goes over a lot of new features of the upcoming “Apollo” update, which appears to somewhat merge the Windows Phone OS with the core of Windows 8. Details below. 

Multicore processors: Dual-core and, presumably, quad-core processors will be supported.microSD: Finally, Windows Phone will add support for SD storage devices.Higher screen resolutions: 4 new resolutions will be offered outside of 480×800 (current standard). We don’t know what they are yet, unfortunately.NFC: Near-field communication will be supported, allowing users to make mobile payments or connect to other devices by simply tapping their phone. He made special mention of the mobile “Wallet experience,” which will replace credit cards with a phone app.Skype integration: Finally, Windows Phone will get deep Skype integration that lets it act more like an extension of the phone than an actual app. This makes sense since Microsoft now owns Skype. DataSmart: Like Android 4.0, WP8 will have a feature that lets you view how much data you are using in a given day or month.Local Scout Wi-Fi search: This isn’t entirely clear, but it looks like WP8 will more easily find and join available Wi-Fi hotspots offered by wireless carriers or other safe entities. Using the Local Scout app, you’ll easily be able to find nearby hotspots.Web page compression: Like Amazon’s Silk browser or Opera Mini, Microsoft will use its servers to help compress Web sites to help them load “30 percent” faster on mobile. Using the core of Windows 8: This has been hinted at for a while now, but it looks like Microsoft may swap out a good portion of the core Windows Phone OS for a modified version of Windows 8. We do not know how this will affect app development or if the 50,000 current apps will work on Windows Phone 8. It appears to be a huge shift. Windows 8 developers will be able to “reuse, by far, most of their code” when porting an application to Windows Phone 8.

.

No more Zune PC software: The Zune software is going away and will be replaced by a new application. What that is, we don’t know. Hopefully users don’t lose all of their song data or playlists they’ve made on Zune. Xbox Companion App for Windows 8: The Xbox Companion app for Windows Phone will get its own companion that will work for Windows 8 PCs. What exactly it will do, we don’t know, but Belfiore mentioned the ability to instantly have access to your music collection on your PC without the need for syncing.BitLocker encryption: That 128-bit full-disk encryption in Windows 8 will now be in the phone OS as well. 

These new features sound great, but they raise more questions than they answer. For example, if Microsoft is ridding itself of Zune and syncing, does it plan to completely revamp its music services? Will it still offer a subscription-based Zune Pass-like service or will it move to a cloud downloading service like Google Music or AmazonMP3? The way users consume movies, podcasts, and other media will be greatly impacted by how Microsoft handles its new software. Will the PC client still deliver updates to Windows Phone users? We just don’t know. The Skype integration is also a big question since wireless carriers do not like the idea of letting users make phone calls without using minutes on  a $40+ calling plan. Finally, Microsoft is essentially rewriting a good portion of the Windows Phone OS now. This will likely have many broad implications for developers and possibly users.

We’ll let you know when we find out more. The next version of Windows is rumored to arrive sometime later this year. 

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: ahead,changes,Details,Phone,Windows

Why Does The Recording Industry Complain When It's Often Its Own Worst Enemy?

We received an interesting email recently from Bilal in Dubai, explaining just how difficult it is to purchase legal music online from the Middle East, and wondering why it is that the recording industry keeps complaining that not enough people are buying, when it does nothing to allow them to buy in large parts of the world:

I am a frustrated music listener, who is tired of hearing the music industry weep of low sales.

I've been living in the Middle East for the past 5 years, specifically Dubai, and apparently we are not worthy of buying music online as all the legitimate online music stores (iTunes, Amazon MP3, etc...) are not available in this region.

I don't understand how the music industry claims that it's suffering, and yet they forbid paying customers such as myself from buying their content. This region is not lucky enough to be part of the online music community, and I would like to know why. I always hear the answer that "the rights are not available", but the record labels are the rights owners, they control the switch! I hate to pirate music, but I don't have any other choice.

I'm guessing the answer has to do with the fact that the major labels likely have "sold off" the regional rights to third parties in these parts of the world. But it seems like they really should be doing something to get those services available globally. It's pretty ridiculous that it's so limited already.

Update: Worth pointing out: apparently iTunes did recently open in UAE, though its unclear how complete it is or why it took so long to open there. Update 2.... And, no. Turns out, despite the confusing article, the "store" in question is only for physical Apple products (iPhones/iPads). iTunes software is available but no music downloads.

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Complain,Enemy,Industry,Often,Recording,Worst

Why Piracy Is Indispensable For The Survival Of Our Culture

Last Year Techdirt wrote about the case of the huge collection of historic jazz recordings that had been acquired by the US National Jazz Museum. The central problem is that even if the recordings can be digitized before they deteriorate, very few people will hear them because of their complicated copyright status.

But as this eye-opening article from Benj Edwards explains, bad as that situation is, it's even worse for the entire category of software creations. For example, consider the earlier generation of floppy-based programs:

Floppy disks, which were once used as the medium du jour for personal computers, have a decidedly finite lifespan: estimates for the data retention abilities of a floppy range anywhere from one year to 30 years under optimal conditions.

A floppy stores data in the form of magnetic charges on a specially treated plastic disc. Over time, the charges representing data weaken to the point that floppy drives can’t read them anymore. At that point, the contents of the disk are effectively lost.

This becomes particularly troubling when we consider that publishers began releasing software on floppy disk over 30 years ago. Most of those disks are now unreadable, and the software stored on them has become garbled beyond repair. If you’ve been meaning to back up those old floppies in your attic, I have bad news: it’s probably too late.

Actually, the situation is even worse than that, because software publishers in the 1980s spent a huge amount of effort trying to make it impossible to copy their programs, through the use of things like hardware dongles that had to be plugged into the computer, or intentionally-corrupt sectors on the discs. That makes the creation of backups a non-trivial matter.

Fortunately, getting around such schemes is just the kind of challenge that hackers enjoy, and this has led to efforts by enthusiasts to preserve these fast-disappearing cultural artefacts by transferring them from the old media to more modern storage. As Edwards explains:

For the past decade, collectors and archivists have been compiling vast collections of out-of-print software for vintage machines (think Apple II, Commodore 64, and the like) and trading them through file sharing services and on "abandonware" websites. Through this process, they’ve created an underground software library that, despite its relative newness, feels like the lost archives of an ancient digital civilization.

That's great, apart from one slight problem: under today's copyright laws, all these wonderful backups that will probably ensure the programs' survival while civilization itself is still around, are illegal. The choice is stark: follow copyright law, and watch decades of computer culture literally fade away on their unreadable floppies, or save them for posterity - and break the law.

Nor is this is a problem that only concerns antediluvian forms of computing. Our cool, smartphone- and tablet-based approach is no better:

take a look at the iTunes App Store, a 500,000 app repository of digital culture. It’s controlled by a single company, and when it closes some day (or it stops supporting older apps, like Apple already did with the classic iPod), legal access to those apps will vanish. Purchased apps locked on iDevices will meet their doom when those gadgets stop working, as they are prone to do. Even before then, older apps will fade away as developers decline to pay the $100 a year required to keep their wares listed in the store.

This is a deep and fundamental problem with not just computing culture, but all artistic expression that is locked down with DRM. The only way that its glories will be preserved for future generations is if considerate "pirates" make illegal back-up copies, stripped of copy protection. For DRM is a guarantee of oblivion: the term of copyright is so disproportionately long, few will care about breaking ancient DRM to make backups of long-forgotten digital creations when it eventually becomes legally permissible to do so.

Edwards concludes with a call to action:

If you see strict DRM and copy protection that threatens the preservation of history, fight it: copy the work, keep it safe, and eventually share it so it never disappears.

Some people may think ill of your archival efforts now, but they’re on the wrong side of history: no one living 500 years from now will judge your infringing deeds harshly when they can load up an ancient program and see it for themselves.

This is a crucial point: whatever qualms people might have about piracy now, posterity will have no doubts whatsoever. It's not simply that the supposed harms of piracy to culture are exaggerated, as more and more evidence suggests: it's that in the long term, piracy is actually indispensable for its preservation.

Follow me @Perfect_PC_24_7 on Twitter

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Culture,Indispensable,Piracy,Survival

The Nokia Belle update is here, but is the end of Symbian hardware nigh?

Nokia begins the rollout of its Nokia Belle software update, but the future of its devices running Symbian may draw to a close sooner than expected.

Nokia has announced that its latest update to the Symbian operating system, Nokia Belle, is now available for download. Announced in December last year, Nokia Belle caused controversy at the time due to its long gestation period, as well as for dropping the Symbian name.

Previous updates always used the Symbian name in the title — Symbian Anna for example — but not so with Nokia Belle, a move that at the time came without explanation. The company’s head of marketing later said it was a question of “flexibility,” and that the Symbian name would continue for developers rather than consumers.

It’s here now though, and Nokia promises phones will “feel like new” thanks to Belle’s performance improvements, plus the various new and updated features on show.

Here’s what users can expect to find with Nokia Belle. The number of homescreens has been upped to six, and as the real-estate has been boosted and the Live Widgets are now selectable in size, the OS will make better use of the space too. A new notification bar has been added, along with more information provided on the lock screen, plus tweaks to the application launcher, the camera interface and the web browser.

Provided your phone has an NFC chip — the C7 for example — Nokia Belle will add the software side to enable its use. Although wireless payments aren’t available, there are tap-to-share services, the ability to read NFC tags, accessory pairing and of course, Angry Birds Magic.

Nokia Belle is compatible with the Nokia N8, E7, C6, C6-01, X7, E6 or Nokia Oro, and the update begins rolling out today in various locations around the world. Due to its size, it’s not available as an over-the-air update, so you’ll have to use Nokia Suite on your PC to apply it to your phone. If you’re unsure of what to do, Nokia has some instructions on its support pages.

While new software updates are always good news, things may not be looking too rosy for new hardware featuring Symbian. The OS has been on life-support for a while now, following several years of bad press, changes to its licensing and eventual abandonment by Nokia in favor of Windows Phone.

Now though, Nokia has cancelled all but one new Symbian phone release, according to TheRegister.co.uk. CEO Stephen Elop said rapidly falling sales and increased competition from other low-end smartphones had caused the company to lower its sales expectations, lending more weight to talk of a Symbian hardware cull.

The final Symbian phone could be a good one though, as it’s suggested it will be a successor to the Nokia N8, which is still one of the very best camera phones on the market, despite it being more than a year old.

In addition to the leaked Nokia 803 from December last year, another possible candidate has recently appeared too. It’s being called the Nokia 801, and said to feature a body similar in style to the N9 and Lumia series, a 4-inch screen, a 1.4Ghz processor and a 12-megapixel camera.

Whether Nokia sticks to its initial plan of continuing to support Symbian software until 2016 remains to be seen, but even if they do, it’s looking like there may not be any new hardware on which to feature it.

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Belle,hardware,Nokia,Symbian,update