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Sorry, Netflix and Hulu. Starting in June, Amazon Prime will be the only place to stream the latest episodes of popular TV series "Downton Abbey."

The online retail giant announced today that it secured a licensing agreement to exclusively stream season 3 of the award-winning series that airs on PBS in the U.S., starting on June 18. The agreement also covers season 4 and, if it's produced, season 5.

"The series is consistently in our top most watched TV shows each week, making it the most popular TV series with Prime Instant Video customers, ever,&… Read more

As Android tablet shipments surge, probably the best thing that can be said about Microsoft is that it's not going away.

Android tablet shipments totaled about 30 million in the fourth quarter, IDC reported today. And that number (total market) jumps to 50 million if you throw in Apple's iPad.

"There is no question that Microsoft is in this tablet race to compete for the long haul," an IDC analyst said today in a statement, trying to put Microsoft's tablet debut into perspective.

In fact, that's probably about as positive a statement that can … Read more

Amazon Studios will produce pilots for five original children's shows that are expected to make their debuts on Amazon's Web-streaming services, the company announced today.

The new pilots, which include series from the creators of "Blue's Clues" and "Sid the Science Kid," add to the six Amazon Studios pilots -- original comedies announced in December -- that are already in production.

The children's series are "Creative Galaxy," an arts and music show from "Blue's Clues" creator Angela Santomero; "Oz Adventures," a problem-solving program featuring the … Read more

It looks like Amazon is having some spotty service on its homepage right now, but shoppers can still access the site through its other pages.

When visiting www.amazon.com through the Web or on mobile, some users are getting the error message "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable." Twitter users started complaining about the apparent outage around noon Pacific time. Accessing the site through the mobile app or one of the other internal links doesn't seem to be a problem. For example, www.amazon.com/kindle and www.amazon.com/music are working just find.

We've … Read more

Have you decided to ditch DVDs and Blu-rays to instead buy movies and TV shows only in a pure digital format?

There are certainly advantages to that. But one of the biggest downsides of going all digital is that how you can view your content is largely dependent on the service you purchased it from.

Digital video providers In this column, I look at how "trapped" video content purchased from iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Xbox and Google Play may be. The first four video marketplaces were listed yesterday by NPD as among the top ways people purchase digital video. … Read more

The iPad remains the king of the tablet world, but Android rivals continue to carve off some of its market share.

Apple shipped a total of 22.9 million iPads worldwide last quarter thanks to demand for the iPad Mini and the availability of the 4th-gen iPad, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker. That number was in line with IDC's forecast and showed a 48.1 percent jump in shipments over the same quarter in 2011.

But for the second consecutive quarter, Apple's share of the global tablet market fell. In the fourth quarter of 2012, … Read more

Amazon's golden touch continues.

Despite missing analysts' earnings estimates for the fourth quarter -- by a country mile, actually -- Amazon's stock traded up significantly in after-hours trading. Amazon's net income fell 45 percent to $97 million, or 21 cents per diluted share, compared with $177 million, or 38 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.

In the quarter, which ended December 31, Amazon continued its double-digit sales growth with sales up 22 percent to $21.27 billion.

That fell short of the average earnings estimate of 29 cents-per-share. How to explain the initial … Read more

Internet and social media ranked at the bottom on a list of the most trusted industries for privacy, according to the Ponemon Institute.

Released yesterday, Ponemon's "2012 Most Trusted Companies for Privacy" was compiled from a survey of U.S. adults asked to name the five companies they trust the most to protect the privacy of their personal information.

Based on more than 6,700 responses, the Top 20 list did not include several tech players that had been on it in past years.

Apple failed to make the list for the first time in four years. … Read more

Amazon has acquired text-to-speech technology provider Ivona Software for an undisclosed amount, broadening its in-house capabilities as the Internet retailer continues to push its tablet business.

The two companies have collaborated in the past, Amazon noted, with Ivona's technology powering the text-to-speech, voice guide, and explore-by-touch features on Kindle Fire tablets.

In addition, Poland-based Ivona delivers text-to-speech products and services to thousands of developers, businesses, and customers around the world. It offers voice and language portfolios with 44 voices in 17 languages, and it's developing even more.

Amazon has been expanding its tablet business to take on companies … Read more