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Amazon’s Fire TV Gets Bluetooth, Security Update, Fire TV Stick Launches in Europe Next Month

Fire_TV_Stick[1]Amazon’s bid to dominate the lower end of the living room streaming video market has just turned 6 months old, and Amazon is finally taking it international.

The retailer has quietly launched a new product page on Amazon.co.uk and on Amazon.de for the Fire TV stick.

It’s going to ship in 3 weeks, with a retail price of £35 (or 39 euros). Amazon Prime members can get it for £19 (or 19 euros), and anyone in the UK who signs up for Prime for the first time can get it for a mere £7 (or 7 euros).

The retail price is a little higher than what Google is asking for the Chromecast (£30) in the Play store, but the Fire TV stick does come with a remote and it is a standalone device – not a smartphone or tablet accessory like the Chromecast.

The Fire TV stick is already considerably more capable than Google’s offering, and that is doubly true after today’s update.

Amazon rolled out a new update for the Fire TV set top box and the Fire TV stick today which adds a slew of new features. A couple of the features won’t be coming to the stick, but it’s still going to be a more useful gadget than it was yesterday.

Both Fire TV models now support Bluetooth headphones, and they can now work with protected wifi networks (the ones which require you to log in via a web browser). Both devices also gained a new security feature as well; the characters from your pin will no longer be shown on the screen when you type it in to confirm a purchase.

The Fire TV set top box also gained support for USB mass storage,  giving users a new option for adding more local storage. I’m sure Amazon would like to have added this feature to the Fire TV stick, but it doesn’t have a USB port – just the one mini USB port which doubles as power input.

Engadget

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Comments


Javi March 25, 2015 um 5:03 am

I suppose Spain is not Europe… :/


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