Amazon Announces Set-Top Box ‘Fire TV’

By Jordan Chariton 

Fire TVAmazon continues its quest to become more than an e-commerce powerhouse, announcing today a set-top box that allows HDTV viewers to connect to Amazon’s video offerings.

“Fire TV” is a $99 streaming media TV device that will offer users a range of different providers, including the most popular web-only shows.

“Tiny box, huge specs, tons of content, incredible price—people are going to love Fire TV,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Our open approach gives you not just Amazon Instant Video and Prime Instant Video, but also Netflix, Hulu Plus, and more. On Fire TV you can watch Alpha House and House of Cards.”

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The Android and HTML-based platform will compete with other streaming TV devices like Roku, Google Chromecast, and Apple TV. The companies press release touted Fire TV as superior to the other platforms.

“Fire TV features a world-class quad-core processor with 3x the processing power of Apple TV, Chromecast, or Roku 3,” also claiming to have four times the memory of the other devices.

Users can also get creative, linking up their personal photos and videos through seamless integration with Amazon’s Cloud Drive.

This might not be the free streaming-video service rumored for quite some time, but is certainly a key move by Amazon to become more of a player in the second screen market.

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