Comes Amazon's Fire TV

The Amazon giant launches a 99 dollar device that displays content from the Internet on TV - and may allow the company to conquer an entertainment industry that has so far resisted every attempt of invasion by major Internet players. Fire TV, a black Apple-like device, allows the user to watch movies and videos from the Amazon's rich library, the first step in the company's effort to merge entertainment and shopping. Fire TV will also offer content from other video services such as Netflix, Hulu and ESPN. With the Voila remote sold separately, the device also offers video games such as the popular Minecraft and other titles to follow from Disney, Sega and EA.

In addition, Fire TV offers a voice search feature that allows users to say, for example, the name of an actor or a category of movies and see the results appear on the screen.

"War" in the living room

As commented by New York Times, Amazon's new attempt to conquer the living room pits it against established players such as Netflix, which offers a popular video streaming service, Microsoft and Sony, which make game consoles, or even cable TV company Comcast, which would not its customers to unplug the cable.

Στο μεταξύ, η Apple αναφέρει ότι πούλησε πέρυσι περίπου 10 εκατομμύρια συσκευές Apple ΤV, ενώ η Google παρουσίασε πρόσφατα ένα περιφερειακό που συνδέεται στη θύρα HDMI της τηλεόρασης και προβάλλει περιεχόμενο από υπολογιστές, ταμπλέτες και cell phones.

«Because we already sell millions of decoders [other manufacturers] we learn what works and what does not"Said the vice president of Amazon Peter Larsen during the Fire TV show in Manhattan. The founder and CEO Jeff Bezos was absent.

Amazon, on the other hand, is not new to video. From 2011, it offers a video service for Prime subscribers and continues to build a large TV series and movies catalog.

The video box is offered to Prime subscribers for same-day product deliveries, whose price has recently risen from 79 to 99 dollars. Subscribers have surpassed 10 millions, most of them in the US.

Fire TV will be "immediately" available in the US stores. It was not specified if and when the device will arrive in Europe.

Source: tovima.gr