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Amazon's Cloud Drive is one of many online storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft's SkyDrive where you can save pictures and documents for access on another system with Internet access.

While the Cloud Drive service has been available for a while, one of its lacking features has been a well-integrated file sync option that makes use of the online storage seamless. Additionally, Amazon's older tools for accessing the drive were written in Java, which is no longer included in OS X and which many are avoiding because of security issues.

To bring its service up … Read more

Hipsters rejoice. Amazon is adding vinyl records to its AutoRip service, which lets people store music in the cloud.

The company introduced the AutoRip service in January. In its original form, the service allows people who buy or have ever bought CDs on Amazon to also store a digital copy of that album in the Amazon Cloud Player. The company said today in its press release that the service has been extended to vinyl records. Customers should look for the AutoRip logo to know which vinyl records offer digital copies.

The way it works is that when customers purchase an … Read more

One would have assumed that Amazon, the Web services cloud giant, would already have had file syncing available for its personal cloud storage service, Cloud Drive.

Turns out that the digital lockers didn't have that capability until recently.

The Verge reported today that the company has quietly rolled out the new feature to Cloud Drive users.

File syncing seems like it should be a fairly standard feature for any cloud-based storage and collaboration platform, and Amazon's version doesn't seem much different.

Basically, users can just drop a file into a specified folder. That file is automatically uploaded … Read more

Longtime Microsoft veteran Charlie Kindel, who left the software giant a year and a half ago to launch a startup, just joined Amazon to work on a "secret" project.

Kindel held several jobs in his 21 years at Microsoft, including general manager in charge of rallying independent software developers to its Windows Phone platform. His hire at Amazon could stoke more speculation that the online retail giant is readying a mobile phone of its own. Kindel isn't saying, noting on his recently updated LinkedIn page only that he's working on "something wonderful."

The news … Read more

AT&T today announced the upcoming availability of the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 LTE.

The connected tablet will sell for $399.99, and can be added onto Mobile Share plans, starting at $10 per month.

For those planning to hold onto the tablet for long-term, AT&T is knocking $150 off the price just so long as you commit to a two-year service agreement. Specifically, you get a $100 discount for signing the two-year contract, while an additional $50 comes back to you as a credit activation for tablets purchased in a retail store. The $249.… Read more

Amazon agreed today to buy book-recommendation site Goodreads for an undisclosed amount.

The San Francisco-based company should provide Amazon with another way to get readers to buy books from it, both digitally and from its warehouses. Amazon said it also plans to use Goodreads to help authors find readers who might not otherwise know about them.

"Goodreads has helped change how we discover and discuss books and, with Kindle, Amazon has helped expand reading around the world," Russ Grandinetti, Amazon vice president of Kindle Content, said in a statement. "In addition, both Amazon and Goodreads have helped … Read more

New York state's highest court today ruled that out-of-state online retailers must charge state tax on New York State customers. Now it gets interesting since the 4-1 judgment by the New York State Court of Appeals makes it all the more likely that the question will get an airing, sooner rather than later, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Along with New York, eight other states have similar laws on the books ending the hidden tax break people got when buying products from companies on the Internet. Those statutes require the states in question to collect sales tax … Read more