The Tribune

Tech briefs

@buybutton

Twitter has begun testing a “Buy” button this week that lets some of its users make purchases or donate money to charities without leaving the short messaging service. Initial partners include music stars Eminem and Brad Paisley, retailers Home Depot and Burberry and non-profit organisations The Nature Conservancy and GLAAD.

After clicking the “Buy” button, users are asked to enter their address and credit card information. The order is then sent to the merchant for delivery. The company said in a blog post that users’ personal information will be encrypted and saved on Twitter so that they can buy things again without re-entering their information.

The shopping feature comes as the San Francisco-based company tries to increase its user base and revenue, most of which comes from advertising. It had 271 million average monthly users at the end of June, up 24 per cent from a year earlier.

Facebook, which has more than 1.3 billion users, started testing its own “Buy” button in July. Twitter’s button is available now for a “small percentage of US users,” but the company said that will increase.

Fire sale

Amazon slashed the price of its Fire smartphone on Monday in the face of increasing competition this fall.

The online retailer said the Fire with 32 gigabytes of memory will now cost 99 cents when customers sign a two-year contract with AT&T. That’s down from $199. The phone with 64 gigabytes of memory will now cost $99 with a two-year contract, down from $299.

Amazon said the phones will still come with unlimited cloud storage for photos and a free 12 months of Amazon Prime, the company’s free shipping and video-streaming plan, which normally costs $99 a year.

The Seattle-based company began selling the phone in June through a pre-order. Besides competition from the new iPhones, Samsung unveiled two new devices last week that are set to go on sale next month.

Smart rings

After smartphones, smartwatches and smart glasses ... smart rings?

Mota, a California startup, unveiled a prototype of its SmartRing at the IFA gadget show in Berlin last week. Co-founder Kevin Faro said the device will alert users when they receive a call or message.

To avoid message overload, the ring can be set to filter out everyone except those from contacts designated as important. Other companies will be able to build apps that interact with the ring, opening up the possibility of getting alerts on stock prices, eBay sales and Uber rides.