'Tis the season: Amazon now offering customizable video gift cards from JibJab

Amazon announced a partnership with digital media company JibJab on Friday that will introduce free, personalized video gift cards to its customers. This new feature gives you the option to attach pictures to over 50 pre-themed videos, which includes holidays, birthdays and other special occasions. Customers can load up to $2,000 on a video gift card, which can be sent instantly or at a scheduled date and time via email or a Facebook wall post. The cards never expire and recipients can share their videos through Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or email, while keeping the gift's cash value private. So, if gift cards from the people with the smile on the box rank high on your holiday wish list, get ready to have your inbox hit with a barrage of disco grannies and snowball-throwing elf cat videos.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon adds Adobe's Photoshop Touch to Kindle Fire Appstore

Kindle Fire owners with a penchant for on-the-go image editing will want to take note: Adobe's Photoshop Touch is now live on the Appstore. The app, already a mainstay on iOS and Android's respective markets, has been optimized for Amazon's recent tablet lineup, scaling up for both the 7- and 8.9-inch form factors and retailing for the same $9.99 price. Unfortunately, it won't work for owners of the original Bezos-backed tab since it still runs on the Gingerbread kernel. Sorry early adopters, but that's the price you pay for progress.

[Source: Engadget]

Google, Amazon and Starbucks to face inquiry from UK legislators over alleged tax avoidance

Executives from Google, Amazon, and Starbucks will field questions from UK legislators today, amid allegations that the companies aren't paying their fair share of domestic taxes. As Reuters reports, Google UK CEO Matt Brittin, Amazon Public Policy Director Andrew Cecil, and Starbucks Global CFO Troy Alstead will present evidence Monday afternoon to Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is responsible for overseeing government finances.

At issue is an apparent discrepancy between the companies' global profits and their UK income taxes. Google, for instance, reported $4 billion in UK sales in 2011, but paid just $2.1 million (£1.3 million) in UK taxes, due to the fact that it funnels all non-US income through its Irish subsidiary. Amazon uses a similar strategy to keep its UK tax rate low, channeling European sales through a subsidiary based in Luxembourg. Last year, the retailer reported UK sales worth between $5.3 billion and $7.2 billion, on which it paid less than $1.6 million (£1 million) in taxes.

[Source: The Verge]

Order your office supplies from Amazon, pick them up at Staples with upcoming lockers

Amazon lockers have been popping up at 7-eleven stores and UK retailers, but now they're arriving at what seems like a conflicted destination: bricks and mortar (and online) arch-competitor, Staples. The service allows shoppers who missed a delivery to head over to a locker and nab their packages using a 72-hour code, with the host retailer keeping a small fee in return. But there aren't too many items at Staples that you can't also find at Amazon, so we hope the office supply giant got a sweetheart deal.

[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]
[Source: Engadget]

Amazon brings Cloud Drive Photos app to Android, keeps your shots safe

Looks like releasing its first in-house-built mobile game for Android (and other platforms) wasn't quite enough for the online retail giant. Amazon announced earlier that its Cloud Drive Photos application is now available on Android for both handset and tablets, giving users of Google's OS a cloud-based hub to use for uploading, saving, sharing and viewing pictures -- of course this also includes the retailer's kind handout of 5G of free storage, though folks could easily upgrade to 20GB for a $10 per-year fee. The Cloud Drive Photos app is up for download now, so hit that Google Play link below if you're looking foryet another place to keep all those awesome shots you snap with your device.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon Game Studios releases its first mobile game, Air Patriots, for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire

Amazon made its first push into in-house game development this summer with the launch of Amazon Game Studios and its first title, the Facebook-bound Living Classics, and its now made its second big move. The company announced today that its first mobile game, Air Patriots, is now available for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire devices (and free on each, albeit with in-app purchases). Not surprisingly, Amazon has paid particular attention to the Kindle Fire version, taking advantage of GameCircle to track achievements and high scores, as well as Whispersync to let you save your progress on one device and pick up where you left off on another. As for the game itself, Amazon says it's a "new kind of tower defense game," with players drawing a path for the planes to fend off the oncoming tanks. Head on past the break for a quick video.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon debuts Kindle Windows 8 app

With all the hubbub surrounding today's Microsoft event, who can blame Amazon for wanting to get in on the action? The mega-retailer used the opportunity to announce the Windows 8 version of its popular reading app. Interested parties can download the thing for free from the Windows Store, giving them access to the company's selection of 1.5 million titles. The app is available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese and offers up good old Amazon features like Whispersync. Amazon also used the opportunity to announce that Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung will be pre-loading the app on their devices. More information can be found in the source link below.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite coming to the UK on October 25th, starting at £109

Amazon has found a relatively clear day in the calendar on which to launch its excellent Kindle Paperwhite e-reader in the British Isles. The ad-supported basic model will knock you back £109, while an extra £60 will get you the 3G version. Amazon's Lending Library service will roll-out at the same time, offering Prime members free loans from a collection of 200,000 books as part of the £49 per year subscription (which also has other perks). If you're shopping around, don't forget that Barnes & Noble's equally glowing alternative is also available in the UK these days, wearing a pretty much identical price tag.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon Cloud Drive update adds easy iPhoto album uploads for Mac users

Amazon issued a press release today to announce that its Cloud Drive service is rolling out in Italy and Spain after hitting the United Kingdom, France, and Germany earlier this month. An easier way of uploading iPhoto albums for Mac users is also included in the updated Cloud Drive app release. Clicking the Cloud Drive menu bar item will allow you to select “Import from iPhoto,” and now you can select from multiple iPhoto albums sorted by events before uploading to Cloud Drive.

[Source: 9to5Mac - Read more there]

Amazon brings Cloud Player music service to the UK: choice of free or premium tiers from £6 per year

Brits who've been straining for a reason to care about Amazon's budding Cloud Player service can probably relax. It's live in the UK as of now, offering 5GB of online storage and the ability to stream 250 of your tracks (or 256Kbps matched versions) to a range of devices free of charge. Adding extra storage will cost from £6 per year for 20GB, rising to £320 p/a for a full terabyte. If you're a heavy user, though, you may also need to fork out £22 p/a for the right to stream up to 250,000 of your tracks. Paying to play to music you already purchased? Indeed, further exertion may be necessary to figure out if it's all worth it, along with a glance at the detailed press release after the break.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon Kindle Mac app update adds gesture features and visually richer Kindle book support

Amazon has refreshed its Kindle app to include support for swiping and other gesture navigation features for Macs running Lion OS X or higher. It will now display Kindle's new Format 8 books, allowing for more complicated formatting, HTML5 support, pop-up text, embedded fonts and other visual accoutrements to spice up your Mac-based reading. The update also adds Japanese language support alongside the typical pile of bug fixes and tweaks. You can download the new reader from the Mac App Store now, right at the source link below.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon's Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD arriving in the UK October 25th, starting at £129

In case you haven't heard, Amazon happily took the wraps off of its new Kindle Fire lineup duringtoday's earlier event in Santa Monica, California. And, for those living in the UK, you, too, can have the online retail giant take your money for one of these slates pretty soon -- well, at least for a couple of the fresh models. As far as pricing goes, the entry-level Kindle Fire will cost a mere £129 (around $205), while the 7-inch Fire HD takes on the slightly heftier price of £159 and £199 for the 16 and 32GB, respectively. Obviously, this leaves out that 8.9-incher Fire HD, though it looks like Amazon's only bringing the smaller Fires to the United Kingdom, as there's no mention of the company's larger tablet anywhere on the site. Still, folks looking to pre-order can do so now at the source link below, but better hurry, since Amazon does note they're all being fulfilled on a "first come, first served" basis.

[Source: Engadget]