The comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said a bookstore is the only piece of evidence we have that people are thinking. Whether he factored in the migration of bookstores to the digital world is not known, but the entertainer could be among those chuffed at the news that Amazon, the online giant that decimated brick-andmortar outlets, itself opened a book store on Tuesday.

"Dear Amazon customer, Tuesday morning at 9:30, Amazon Books will open its doors. These aren't metaphorical doors: these real, wooden doors are the entrance to our new store in Seattle's University Village. Amazon Books is a physical extension of Amazon. com," the $ 88 billion retail behemoth said. Earlier this year, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the US by market capitalization.

Explaining its volte-face, Amazon said it is "applying 20 years of online bookselling experience to build a store that integrates the benefits of offline and online book shopping." The books in the store will be selected based on Amazon.com customer ratings, pre-orders, sales, and assessment by curators. Store prices will match online prices and Amazon devices such as Kindle, Echo, Fire TV, and Fire Tablet will also be available.

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Amazon will open a Diwali Store on its US and UK websites this year. The objective is to cater to the anticipated huge demand from the millions of Indians who live in these countries. The move has been made possible by the 5,000 Indian sellers on its platform who are eligible to export from here.

For the e-tailing giant, India is no longer just a big market. "We are looking at the country as a big export hub," Diego Piacentini, the company's global head of international consumer business, 



The export platform was thrown open to sellers in India in February this year on an experimental basis. Now it has been formalized. Indian sellers will be able to sell their products to Amazon's 285 million registered buyers globally.



"I believe what we are building now is the road for India to export to the rest of the world. Indian sellers can sell anything from clothes to home furnishings, jewellery, and handicrafts. The 5,000 sellers exporting now is just the tip of the iceberg. Those numbers will grow dramatically," Piacentini said, adding that this was in line with the 'Make in India' objective of the Indian government.



Given India's huge base of small and medium businesses, Piacentini said the country would be a big base for Amazon to procure products for its global customers. "I don't know how big, but definitely huge. It is difficult to project any numbers now. We could have never predicted Amazon India operations would grow by four times in a year," he said.

US and UK consumers will be able to get products - like Indian books in vernacular languages, history, music and other cultural products - that have traditionally been difficult to obtain. In the next few months, Amazon will also open the Indian store in other European countries and then in the rest of Asia.

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1.Over the years, Microsoft has been the first-choice operating system for most PC users, although the company hasn’t tasted similar success when it comes to the smartphone industry. Having said that, the company continues to strive for bigger things in the mobile world as it looks set to launch a new budget Lumia phone next month.

Lumia 550 is reportedly being lined-up to debut at the Microsoft event, scheduled for October 6 in New York. The company has been heavily involved with the launch of a new flagship duo, Lumia 950, and 950 XL, as of late, although it is now being tipped to make an addition to the budgeted series of Lumia smartphones. This should be greeted fairly well by tight-pocketed segments looking to get a smartphone.

2.Apple Music service, the latest addition by Apple Inc. to its long list of products and services, might have got your attention if you are obsessed with music. The service lets you access millions of songs for a nominal price per month. With competitors already prevailing in the markets, let’s have a look whether Apple will be able to outdo them or not.

3.Think your direct messages on Twitter are private? You might want to think again as the company is now facing a lawsuit after allegedly having eavesdropped on users’ personal conversations. Twitter could find itself in deep water after a lawsuit was filed earlier this week against the company for having invaded privacy of thousands of users across the United States.

The suit was brought to the federal court by Wilford Raney in San Francisco this week. Raney, a resident from Texas, has accused the company of having “surreptitiously eavesdropped” on direct messages without seeking permission from users. Twitter, supposedly, used its algorithm to identify hyperlinks, and replaced them with links of its own to bypass privacy barriers. The company is said to have violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California’s privacy law.

4.Equity research firm, RBC Capital, in an updated research note sent out to clients and investors raised the price target on Amazon stock to $705 from $650 while reiterating an Outperform rating. The firm attributed the change to the results of its recent proprietary survey on Amazon, the results of which showed that the company is still the dominant player in U.S Online retail sector.

5.Samsung is widely considered as the initiator of the smart watch industry. They were the first to introduce the one of a kind smart watch in September 2013. Following the success of the first smart watch, the Galaxy Gear, they launched a whole line of smartwatches which included the Gear 2, Gear Neo, and lastly the Gear S.

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