Amazon buys Smart Doorbell maker Ring

Amazon.com Inc. has agreed to buy video doorbell maker Ring, a deal which will allow the company to expand its home security and in-house delivery services.

Amazon is expected to keep Ring as an independent business; much like it has with its other acquisitions, like Zappos and Twitch. Amazon has been making moves to get into the home security space lately. It partnered with lock manufacturers Kwikset and Yale for its new in-home delivery service. Amazon Key, and recently acquired smart camera Blink.

Ring has raised $443.9 Million so far, and was last valued at $760 Million. This isn't the first time Amazon has partnered with Ring. The e-commerce company previously invested in Ring through its Alexa Fund, which exclusively invests in companies that help scale its Alexa voice technology.

The world’s largest online retailer believes that selling internet-connected gadgets from Kindle e-readers to its new Cloud Cam will spark more shopping on Amazon.com. Ring offers the company a popular consumer electronics brand that it might not have replicated internally. More importantly, Ring’s security devices could work well with Amazon Key, a smart lock and camera system that lets delivery personnel put packages inside a home to avoid theft or, in the case of fresh food, spoiling.

Twitch acquired ClipMine

In an announcement about a set of new discovery tools, Amazon-owned video game streaming site Twitch also unveiled that it recently acquired Palo Alto-based video indexing platform ClipMine. The startup’s technology is now being put to use to translate visual information in videos – like objects, text, logos and scenes – into metadata that can help people more easily find the streams they want to watch.

Launched back in 2015, ClipMine had originally introduced a platform designed for crowdsourced tagging and annotations. The idea then was to offer a technology that could sit over top videos on the web – like those on YouTube, Vimeo or DailyMotion – that allowed users to add their own annotations. This, in turn, would help other viewers find the part of the video they wanted to watch, while also helping video publishers learn more about which sections were getting clicked on the most.

The company later pivoted to focus on the e-sports industry, with tools that could extract information from game videos like player names, game type, number of gaming sessions per stream, and more. It also shifted away from the idea of crowdsourcing to take advantage of other technologies, like computer vision and machine learning.

Twitch’s interest in the company’s deep learning-based video indexing platform was due to its ability to analyze video content – like gamer’s streams – to identify what’s taking place in those streams, who’s playing and other variables. It has now put this technology to use with the launch of new stream discovery tools for Blizzard Entertainment’s “Overwatch” and “Hearthstone.” In the directories for those game streams, viewers are able to filter channels by a number of factors, including by hero on “Overwatch” streams, by game mode, player rank, number of wins, and by hero class on “Hearthstone” streams.

Microsoft acquires Beam

Microsoft has acquired Beam; a Seattle based interactive game streaming service that lets viewers play along with streamers as they watch. Beam’s model takes the mostly passive interaction that streaming fans may be used to form services like Twitch and YouTube adds the ability for viewers to interact with the streamer via crowdsourced controls.

Players interacting through Beam can direct the play of the person streaming, doing things like setting which weapon load out they take into battle for multiplayer shooters. Visual controls provide viewers the ability to help players pick quests, and you can even assign challenges that alter the gameplay considerably from what you’d get via a typical play through.

Microsoft Beam acquisition is an attempt to strengthen company Xbox gaming service. Microsoft says it is bringing Beam interactive technology into the Xbox family to make Xbox Live more Social and fun. Beam interactive streaming platform can be enabled with any game. With Minecraft for instance, Beam users can not only see their favorite streamer but can also play along with them.

Microsoft has been steadily acquiring startups and big name tech organization in order to strengthen some of its core services. Earlier this year, Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for a record $26 Billon in order to better connect with professionals and expand its productivity services. With Beam, Microsoft would try to strengthen its core Xbox Live service while Beam will gain resources to build its product into a bigger game streaming platform.

Amazon acquires Twitch

Twitch is a startup best known for Twitch.tv, a live streaming platform that lets people stream their favorite video games. It was introduced in June 2011 as a spinoff of fellow streaming platform Justin.tv. The site primarily focuses on video gaming, including playthroughs of video games by users, along with broadcasts of e-sports competitions. Content on the site can be viewed either live or on demand basis.

In the recent news, Amazon acquired Twitch in $970 Million. This acquisition shows Amazon opportunity for the company to show its belief in the future of gaming. Amazon created an in-house gaming studio in 2012 and created a few Facebook and mobile games since then. Amazon is also the top video game vendor in the world. Amazon’s rising prominence as a video game vendor provides a powerful incentive for the company to better integrate itself into gaming culture and promote itself in services commonly used by gamers.

The Twitch acquisition is the latest in a series of commitments that Amazon has made to the gaming world. Amazon powers plenty of game makers through its Amazon Web Service Cloud Computing services, and promises mobile developers easy ways to make more money. Amazon decide to make its own original games and launched Amazon game Studios to create mobile games. In 2011, Twitch gained popularity when it really took off when it struck deals with Microsoft and Sony to power live streaming on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles.

Twitch makes money by letting users place ads before a stream plays or through subscription. While it is popular video sharing site YouTube but it has more popularity then Google service facility. Google was also said to be vying for Twitch, but the deal fall apart because the tech giant wanted more control over Twitch. But eventually, Amazon may use the channel to bolster its advertising dollars by controlling what ads appear before Twitch videos, or add premium content.