Amazon continues its quest to enter your home while you're not there
It sees you when you're sleeping, it knows when you're awake, but it isn't Santa Claus or even Elf on the Shelf — it's Amazon. The colossal online retailer scooped up the wireless security camera company Blink on Friday, expanding its oeuvre of mildly terrifying in-home devices, SlashGear reports.
"If you own one of our systems, nothing changes for now," Blink assured customers in a statement. "We'll continue to operate under the Amazon umbrella selling and supporting the same great products you know and love."
Blink had announced earlier this month that it was developing a video doorbell device, making it "not hard to see … why Amazon might have been interested," SlashGear writes. Amazon announced in October a new service for Prime users called Amazon Key, which allows delivery people to actually drop off packages inside customers' homes. When a courier arrives with a delivery, he or she just scans a barcode on the package and if it is at the correct home, the door will unlock and an Amazon Cloud Cam inside the house will start recording. The Prime customer will then receive a message confirming that the package was delivered, plus a video of the delivery taking place.
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Amazon is likely interested in looping Blink into its Amazon Key service in some way. "Blink could keep selling products under its own name, or we could see its tech migrated into Amazon-branded hardware," AndroidCentral writes.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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