Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon's Cloud Fails Yet Again, Taking Down Netflix

Forget Netflix CEO Reed Hastings' clumsy public utterances, which turned so many of his customers against the company. And forget the modest price increase that sent even more of them in the direction of competitors or even pirate sites. Hastings' biggest mistake might turn out to be signing on 100 ... More >>

Found in Translation: Great Sci-Fi From AmazonCrossings

Amazon Welcomes Back California Bloggers, Keeps Some Money They Earned

In June 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill requiring that out-of-state retailers with an in-state "nexus" collect state sales tax from California residents. At that point, Amazon.com extinguished its in-state nexus -- thousands of California bloggers and website owners who earn referral fees when ... More >>

In Defense of the CD: Why We Should Keep Them Around

In Print: Defending the Lowly CD From Oblivion

From the latest edition of SF Weekly: In Defense of the CD: No one loves CDs. The cool kids today want to either dig through crates of dusty old vinyl or pay four times too much for the new stuff. The even cooler kids spend actual money on godawful cassette tapes. And everyone else under age 40 has ... More >>

Library Asks Teens to Help Grandma Close the Tech Gap

This screen is making me nauseous!​My mother, now in her 60's, has just never grasped onto any part of the computer age. She still drives to Barnes & Noble to buy books at full-price instead of getting the latest deal on Amazon. She's unsettled by the fact that a computer mouse is named after ... More >>

Barnes & Noble Takes on Amazon in Tablet Wars

​A quick scan of this New York Times blog post is all one needs to conclude that Barnes & Noble faces a major challenge against Amazon in the tablet wars. Start with the picture, depicting B&N CEO William Lynch standing in front of a giant graphic showing that the Kindle Fire looks bet ... More >>

What Exactly Is a Tech Company?

​Fast Company has published what might be the best, clearest look at the how the contours of the tech landscape are shaping themselves, and how that landscape has come to be dominated by four companies. I was alerted to the article via a tweet by Chronicle tech reporter Casey Newton who characte ... More >>

Very Weird ExaminerAd Has Us Baffled

There's so many things about the San Francisco Examiner that stir wonder, but when we stumbled upon this gem in Sunday's paper, we felt as though the newspaper had reached a new level of confounding its readers.Look. The ExaminerDon't forget the Best Buy gift card​

Netflix Saga: Fight for Your Right to Cheap Video Rentals

​Americans have collectively developed a keen sense of entitlement. That's why so many of us think we have a "right" to undeserved pay raises, undeserved good grades in school, free software, free music, low-priced gasoline; that we have a "right" to act like jackasses in traffic or in Internet co ... More >>

Amazon.com Goes to War with State of California over Online Sales Tax

​Nobody expected that Amazon.com would take kindly to California legislators' decision to force the mammoth web retailer to collect state sales tax. As part of the recently approved, arduously deliberated state budget, California is now requiring out-of-state companies such as Amazon to slap the t ... More >>

Apple Can't Stop Amazon from Using "App Store"

Weren't apples famous before Apple?​In another case of the Silicon Valley giants butting heads, a federal judge denied Apple's motion for a preliminary injunction against Amazon and its use of the term "App Store."Lawyers for Apple argued that the "Amazon Appstore for Android" name infringes on it ... More >>

Online Publishers Not Happy About Being Cut Off Over Amazon.com Sales Tax Scrap

For many online publishers, Amazon has closed up shop.​Thousands of Californians learned yesterday that Amazon would no longer be paying them to participate in Amazon's affiliate marketing program. The reason? The proposed state budget includes a measure that would force Amazon to pay sales tax on ... More >>

Amazon to Cut Out California Associates over Sales Tax Dispute

Nice little business you've got going there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it​Internet retail giant Amazon.com informed California-based Web sites, which make money via referring buyers, that they'll soon be cut out if the state forces the Amazon to pay sales tax, as proposed in the ... More >>

Apple's iCloud Gonna Make it a Cloudy Kind of Day in S.F.

SFMusicBlogSun not expected today, figuratively speaking.​ The real reason for all the June gloom: Perhaps our weather system is anticipating today's events at Moscone Center? There, Apple is expected to unveil, among other things, its long-awaited cloud music service, which (all early reports ... More >>

Apple Introduces iCloud at WWDC

What do you see in the iCloud?​As expected, Steve Jobs took the stage at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco today, announcing the company's new iCloud product, which will allow users to upload and sync data across nearly every Apple device, for free. Jobs, who has been on me ... More >>

Amazon Tax Bill Is Gaining Favor Among S.F. Businesses

Read the full story on your Kindle​Business leaders in San Francisco are supporting the same legislation that's made economic behemoths such as Amazon.com threaten to leave California. AB155, also known as the Amazon tax bill, passed the Assembly this week and now awaits the state Senate's vote. ... More >>

Google to Launch Cloud-Based Music Service Today, Major Labels Not Included

​ The Google I/O Conference is in S.F. The confab's keynote speech is scheduled for this morning. And Google execs say today's the day that the Internet search giant is planning to unveil its long-awaited cloud-based music service -- without any licensing deals from the major labels. Music Be ... More >>

Are There Any Food-Related Cyber Monday Deals Worth Getting?

Online retailers are apparently stampeding after customers today.​SFoodie had never heard about Cyber Monday until this year, even though it was created in 2005. Yesterday, our Twitter feed began spilling forth a torrent of blips about Cyber Monday deals. Today the tweetstream has risen higher. So ... More >>

UPDATED: Purloined Unique Bicycle Recovered

Oddly enough, this bike is tame compared to the stolen one​UPDATE 10:55 a.m. As we typed this, SFPD was in the process of issuing a press release trumpeted the stolen unique bicycle's recovery. A press conference has been scheduled for 3 p.m. at Central Station in North Beach, at which time the bi ... More >>

Pot Paraphernalia Still 'For Tobacco Use Only,' Says State Assembly

​For the serious cannabis consumer, only the Volcano Vaporizer will do: The popular $500-plus combustion machine burns only the THC in cannabis -- while leaving the gummy plant matter behind -- resulting in a cleaner, dare we say healthier smoke.No one in their right mind would breathe vaporizer b ... More >>

Eating 'Tillie': Book Offers Tips on Raising Chickens for City Folk

joyofkeepingchickens.comBackyard fowl is a modern essential.​As she cheerfully reports, Tablehopper is in Jerez this week -- swilling sherry, noshing on jamon, perhaps celebrating the completion of the manuscript for her upcoming book. While Tuesday's bulletin was understandably dosa-thin, sh ... More >>

The business of selling used MP3s

San Francisco Author Stephen Elliott Offers Hearty Middle Finger to Amazon for 'De-listing' His Book

Eighty years old and too hot for Amazon.com?In perhaps the most misbegotten foray of censorship since Thomas Bowdler decided to snip the racy bits out of Shakespeare (immortalizing himself as an adjective meaning "prudishly edited": bowdlerized), Amazon recently jiggered the sales rankings of its bo ... More >>

RU Sirius Releases New Book on Drugs and Music

  Rudy Rucker Yes, He Is: RU SiriusEccentric oddball and author RU Sirius --best known as onetime Editor of cyberpunk bible Mondo 2000-- has just released a new book, "Everybody Must Get Stoned: Rock Stars on Drugs." Sirius calls the book, which details the drug-induced exploits o ... More >>

The Chron Exposes Man Caves; Not Half as Exciting as It Sounds

I'm thinking I need to track down Tommy Naylor from the second grade, because he once wrote that "Girls Have Cooties!" on my homeroom desk and the Chron is totally plagiarizing. Sunday's edition carried an article whose title alone ("Anatomy of a man room, where men can be men") was enough to send m ... More >>

Cell phones: the future of music broadcasting

TiVo Alert: Top Chef

Dog Is My Co-Pilot

Smashing Pumpkins File Lawsuit Against Virgin Records

Lyrics Born Releases Digital Single in Feb.

Forbidden LEGO: Using a Children's Toy like the Unabomber

Buy Local

Mars Volta Chases SF New Year's Date With 'The Bedlam In Goliath'

SF Fringe Fest: Buzz Is Good

Giving the Indies a Spin

Small outposts rule online MP3 sales

Don't Go Changin'

Entertaining, yes, but Menopause doesn't go far enough in erasing taboos

Baby Love

Is it cool to breast-feed in public? Only if you have a kid.

Kids' Gift Box

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Not Kidding Around

Taking children's books back where they came from

Muggles Mania

Baywatch

Shop Till You Drop

Forget Kurt Cobain's Journals, and try Eminem's To-Do Lists instead

Guide Me

Bay Area publishers tell us where to go

A Romance Glossary

A Reader's Guide to Romance Novels

Best Socially Conscious Selection of Books

Modern Times Bookstore

South to the Future

Pressing Patent Suit May Backfire on Amazon.com

Telling Fortunes

A San Francisco firm rolls the dice in the multibillion-dollar game of global finance

REAL ASTROLOGY For an Unreal World