Amazon Prime Instant Video, Plus Rentals And Downloads, Come To JetBlue

Amazon Prime members who are also frequent travelers will now have another new benefit coming to them as part of their annual membership. The company this morning announced it has inked a deal with JetBlue to bring Amazon Prime Instant Video to the airline, allowing customers to watch tens of thousands of movies and TV shows that will be made available over JetBlue’s high-speed “Fly-Fi” broadband Internet.

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The deal will also allow Prime members to access the 1 million tracks from Prime Music from the air, as well as the ability to purchase and download songs from the Amazon Music store, e-books from the Kindle store, as well as apps and games from the Amazon Appstore.

But the tie-in is advantageous to JetBlue, too – with the partnership, customers will be able to earn TrueBlue points when they shop from specific categories on Amazon while using the airline’s free Fly-Fi broadband Internet service while in-flight or via other JetBlue promotions. And while JetBlue’s Internet has been ranked one of the fastest in the sky today, the new partnership will also allow the airline to further differentiate its Internet service from others in the industry.

JetBlue’s Internet service uses satellite technology to offer customers broadband speeds. Access to Amazon’s video entertainment library will be built into the JetBlue Fly-Fi Hub, which lets customers watch titles without having to download an app or the content itself in advance of the flight.

The Internet service will be available on all of JetBlue’s Airbus A321 and A320 aircraft this year, and on JetBlue’s Embraer E190 aircraft in 2016. Amazon’s integrations will also go live later this year.

With this deal, JetBlue’s Fly-Fi broadband Internet for streaming, will be made free for all customers. Planes with Fly-Fi (beta) support streaming video, but today it costs $9 per hour.

FULL ARTICLE - http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/05/ama...me-to-jetblue/

Amazon Lands Exclusive Rights to ‘Wolf Hall,’ Other PBS ‘Masterpiece’ Series

Amazon has inked an expanded licensing pact with PBS to bring drama “Wolf Hall” and other series from the pubcaster’s “Masterpiece” franchise exclusively to Prime Instant Video members.

Under the new multiyear deal, Prime Instant Video will be the exclusive streaming outlet for select current and upcoming “Masterpiece” programming, including “Wolf Hall” — the adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s novels “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies” starring Damian Lewis as Henry VIII — as well as 1950s detective drama “Grantchester”; romantic saga “Poldark”; and “Indian Summers,” a drama about the decline of the British Empire and birth of modern India.

The series will become available on Amazon’s service shortly after they air on PBS. Currently, none of those four “Masterpiece” series is on Prime Instant Video. Miniseries “Wolf Hall” concluded its six-episode run on PBS May 10.

In addition, the deal will bring kids’ series “Odd Squad” to Amazon Prime and extend the availability of PBS Kids shows already on the service including “Wild Kratts,” “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” “Caillou” and “Dinosaur Train.”

Amazon Prime Instant video already has exclusive U.S. subscription-streaming rights to PBS hit series “Downton Abbey,” with all five seasons currently available. The service also offers “Masterpiece” series “Mr. Selfridge,” starring Jeremy Piven, and “The Escape Artist,” starring David Tennant (“Doctor Who”). Under the PBS agreement, Prime members also have access to hundreds of other shows including “Nova” and documentaries from Ken Burns.

FULL ARTICLE - http://variety.com/2015/digital/news...ce-1201531451/

Amazon Is Finally Pulling The Plug On Instant Video For Google's Long-Dead Google TV Platform

Android TV is a thing these days, but Google TV is dead as a door nail. Taking this into account, Amazon has decided to stop supporting Instant Video streaming to Google TV devices. The service will stop working on September 14th, at which point any remaining users of Google TV will have an excuse to stop using it.

Amazon sent out a notice to users of Instant Video on Google TV to direct them to alternative streaming platforms including Roku, Fire TV, iOS, Android phones/tablets, and game consoles. Notice something missing there? Yes, Amazon Instant Video still doesn't support the successor to Google TV, Android TV. The universe is a funny place sometimes.

Google TV devices were released by companies like LG, Vizio, Asus, Netgear, and Sony. There were even some TVs with the software built-in. Google never technically killed Google TV, it just stopped developing it and removed the public SDK in 2014 when Android TV was announced. Still, it died of natural causes a long time ago, and now Amazon has left a flower on its grave.

FULL ARTICLE - http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/08...e-tv-platform/