Amazon News
If you're an Amazon Prime customer and love sports cars and British humor, then you're probably already a fan of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May's banter on The Grand Tour. But even if you're not terribly interested in automobiles, you may still enjoy The Grand Tour: Season 3, Episodes 2 & 3 (Colombia Special Part 1 & 2) where the hosts are supposedly sent on assignment by Amazon to capture wildlife images for display on the company's suite of products, including Alexa devices. My wife falls squarely in the uninterested-in-cars group, but loves the show.
Being a photographer, watching the hosts cluelessly tackle the challenges of wildlife photography made the show significantly more humorous than it normally was. If you're an Amazon Prime customer, I recommend you check it out. [Sean]
How fast do you need your memory card order? How about 30 minutes or less? No problem – Amazon's drone is headed your way.
It may be just that easy in the not-so-distant future for those customers within range of an Amazon Prime Air facility.
From the Amazon YouTube Channel:
Amazon Prime Air has begun private trials in England, and the first customer delivery by drone recently took place. Check it out!
From Amazon:
- Bringing valued memories together, Family Vault creates a private, easily-accessible home for photos and videos from multiple family members and devices
- U.S. Prime members can now invite up to five people to join their Family Vault and access the benefits of unlimited photo storage, at no additional cost
- Quickly find and rediscover your favorite moments across an entire photo collection with smart search technology
SEATTLE – Oct. 18, 2016 – Amazon today introduced new features to the Prime Photos service in the U.S., designed for Prime members and their family. Prime members can now invite up to five family members or friends to join their Family Vault, which includes access to Prime Photos benefits including unlimited storage of photos, plus an additional 5 GB for videos and other files. With the all-new Family Vault, bringing family photos together is as easy as one-click or swipe from a computer or mobile device.
Amazon Prime Photos - Family Vault (Graphic: Business Wire)
“Prime members love the benefit of unlimited photo storage but often struggle to collect and organize photos across multiple devices and accounts into a single, shareable archive,” said David Nenke, Director of Prime Photos, Amazon. “We launched the Family Vault to make it easy for family members to safely store and share all their favorite moments.”
New Prime Photos features include:
- Family and friend access to Prime Photos, at no additional cost: To ensure all the great moments and memories are preserved, regardless of who captured them, Prime members can now share their Prime Photos benefit of unlimited photo storage and 5 GB for videos and other files with up to five family members or friends.
- Simple, private sharing through the Family Vault: Family Vault members can add their favorite photos and videos individually with a click or swipe, or set their account to automatically add all their photos and videos to the Family Vault.
- Smart search technology: Prime Photos’ new search technology makes finding photos based on people, places, or things a snap. Gone are the days of customers wading through thousands of photos to find a specific image. Looking for pictures from a vacation or wedding? Search for “sunset” or “wedding” and relevant photos will show up. Customers can also browse photos of individual family members and friends in the People view as well as search and filter by location or date.
- Photo printing with free delivery for Prime Members: Customers can now order photo books, cards, and prints directly on the web from their Prime Photos account. Offering a variety a ways to preserve memories, Amazon Print products start at just nine cents a print, and ships with free delivery for Prime members. Customers can learn more and order prints today by visiting www.amazon.com/printing.
More to Prime
Tens of millions of Prime members around the world enjoy the many benefits of Prime. In the U.S., that includes unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 30 million items across all categories, unlimited Free Same-Day Delivery on more than a million items in 27 metro areas and one and two-hour delivery with Prime Now on tens of thousands of items available in more than 25 metro areas. In addition to fast, free shipping, members have access to unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Video, more than one million songs and thousands of curated playlists and stations with Prime Music, early access to select Lightning Deals all year long, free secure unlimited photo storage with Prime Photos and one free pre-released book a month with Kindle First.
For more information, visit www.amazon.com/prime.
Amazon Prime Day is scheduled for Tuesday, July 12, and is promised to be the "Biggest Global Amazon Event Ever." In addition to the deals occurring on July 12, Amazon will also be offering several prime-exclusive deals for the entire week leading up to Prime Day (July 5 - 11).
While the deals last year were a little lackluster (in my opinion), there are many other Prime benefits that make being a member worthwhile.
Prime Benefits Include
- FREE Two-Day Shipping
- FREE Same-Day Delivery (in eligible zip codes)
- Prime Video
- Prime Music
- Prime Photos
- Prime Pantry
- Amazon Elements
- Amazon Dash for Prime
- Prime Early Access to Lightning Deals
- Kindle Owners' Lending Library
- Kindle First
- Video Add-On Subscriptions
- Deals and Discounts, Compliments of Amazon Family
- Prime Exclusive Savings in Video Games
- Prime Now
- Restaurant Delivery
- Membership Sharing
You can read more details about the benefits here.
Of all the benefits, I enjoy free two-day shipping and Prime Video most. FYI: The last season of Downton Abbey is now free on Prime Video. Yay!
And who knows? Amazon might surprise us with some good photography equipment deals this year. We'll just have to wait and see...
I [Sean] have been an Amazon Prime member for a couple of years now. Why?
- Free two-day shipping on most of the items I buy
- Prime Instant Video offers a few entertaining selections that Netflix doesn't have (including original programming)
There are certainly other benefits, but those are the two I take advantage of most often. However, Amazon just added a new benefit that's perfect for us photographers:
- Prime Photos: Secure unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive.
Yes, you read that correctly – unlimited photo storage. *yay!*
From Amazon:
"Store your photos safely in Cloud Drive and you can access them anywhere, from almost any device by signing in with your Amazon account. Cloud Drive offers free mobile apps, secure access from any computer, and it's built in to all Fire devices.If you're not already a member of Amazon Prime, now would be a great time to sign up. If you are already a member, you can start uploading photos to your Amazon Cloud Drive Account.With Prime Photos, the photos you've previously uploaded to Cloud Drive and photos you upload in the future will not count against your Cloud Drive storage limit."
Mobile Access Apps
 |
|