While Best Buy often functions as an uncompensated showroom for online sales, given massive Alexa and Fire TV displays, the big box store is clearly a valued Amazon retailer. As such, the two companies have announced a significant partnership expansion that sees Best Buy replacing Roku on Insignia house-brand sets with the Fire TV experience. Also, interestingly, Best Buy will not only sell these televisions in-store but optionally through Amazon.com for the first time.
So Google's feud with Amazon just reached my living room. Got this screen when I launched YouTube on my Amazon Fire TV. pic.twitter.com/vtmcuBTtE9 — ηgαяє кαяιυкι (@cngare_) December 5, 2017
As Apple continues to rest on its laurels, despite trailing the pack, Amazon is prepping an all-new Fire TV that mates their well-regarded video streamer to full-featured Alexa voice control. Like the Amazon Echo Dot, the incoming flagship Fire TV will incorporate a far-field microphone array, for always-listening capabilities, along with speaker output and the possibly iconic lightbar. … Read more
As Rovi indicates TiVo could move away from retail hardware, it appears Amazon is preparing to offer over-the-air capabilities on Fire TV … which dovetails nicely with uncovered support to display live channels within the AFTV interface. The Fire TV would obviously need some sort of network tuner, a la HDHomeRun, or a USB accessory, like the Xbox One, to pull in the signal via antenna. … Read more
By way of the FCC, and my pals at Liliputing and AFTVNews, I’m pretty sure we’ve uncovered the next Fire TV … and if the filing clues are any indication, it will indeed arrive with 4k capabilities.
At the moment, there isn’t a whole lot of 4k content, plus both Amazon and Netflix preloaded onto many UHD sets. However, we anticipate much more over-the-top video and new players (including Vudu) in the coming months with a set-top box providing additional apps and audio output options than a so-called smart television might.
As we borrow Mom’s ESPN account to catch the Wimbledon final on Fire TV…
Amazon looks beyond existing Miracast capabilities for something other than Google Cast.
“Fling” will let you send video, audio and still images from an Android or iOS device to the set-top box for viewing. Devs can also employ “two-way communication” between the Fire TV and a phone or tablet to “engaging second screen experiences.”
In conjunction with the A&E, History, and Lifetime Channel apps launching on Fire TV, A+E Networks hit us with an interesting infographic. And, while it’s far too large to run in its entirely, we’ve chopped up a portion above. Beyond the numbers, and without knowing how exactly they measure an Apple TV “download,” A+E elaborates: On average, XBOX … Read more
Via an FCC filing, we learn more of TiVo’s intentions to further leverage hardware beyond their own set-top boxes: Consumers today can purchase retail TiVo DVRs and ancillary devices that support iOS and Android products, as well as TVs (using the TiVo Mini), and that soon will support additional ancillary devices that are popular with consumers. Back … Read more
