Amazon Unveils Fire TV Set-top Box

(RTTNews) - Online retailing giant Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Wednesday unveiled Fire TV, its own set-top device for streaming movies, television shows and music from the Web, as the company takes on the market dominated by Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG).

Amazon's Fire TV can access content from Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu Plus, ESPN and other video content providers. The small black box is priced at $99 and will start shipping today.

"Tiny box, huge specs, tons of content, incredible price—people are going to love Fire TV," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO.

Fire TV, which comes with a remote control, also supports voice search. The set-top box is powered by a quad core processor and also has a dedicated Adreno graphics processor and 2 GB of RAM. Fire TV runs on Fire OS "Mojito" platform, which is based on Android.

"Voice search that actually works means no more typing on an alphabet grid. Our exclusive new ASAP feature predicts the shows you'll want to watch and gets them ready to stream instantly," Bezos added.

Amazon claims its Fire TV has better speed and performance results compared to streaming services from Apple and Google.

Amazon enters the set-top box market a little late, as its already dominated by Apple's Apple TV, Google's Chromecast and Roku. Apple TV costs $99, while Chromecast, launched last year, ships at $35 and Roku retails at $50.

AMZN currently trading at $341.45, down $1.54 or 0.45%, on the Nasdaq.