Anyone who’s planning to catch up on Downton Abbey on their preferred service may want to plan a viewing marathon very soon: Amazon has struck a deal to become the exclusive home of the period drama on subscription-based streaming video platforms. St…

Amazon announced Friday that by the end of 2013, Prime Instant Video will be the only paid streaming service to offer episodes of Downton Abbey. Hulu Plus and Netflix will lose access.

Following the opening of data centers, communities in Oregon, Washington and Virginia have made new policies, built many new homes and prompted environmental activism.

Amazon’s officially pumped its original programming push up to 11. The mega-retailer’s studio has just green-lit five kids series, enlisting the help of some of the industry’s top creators. The list includes Teeny Tiny Dogs, produced by The Jim Henso…

Amazon Studios has chosen its first five pilots for children’s shows, including offerings from the creators of Blue’s Clues and Rugrats. User feedback will help determine whether the shows go into production.

Apple’s iPad led the charge as total worldwide tablet shipments hit a record of 52.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to IDC’s preliminary data from its Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, but its market share continued to slide due to competition from Samsung. Meanwhile, PC shipments declined during the quarter for the first time in more than five years. The tablet market grew 75.3% year-over-year, and increased 74.3% from the previous quarter’s total of 30.1 million units, helped along by holiday purchases, lower average selling prices and a wider range of products.

Editor’s note: Howard Lindzon is co-founder and CEO of StockTwits, a social network for traders and investors to share real-time ideas and information. You can read his full bio here and find him on Twitter @howardlindzon. If we had the answer to this question, life would be grand. Grander if we knew the reaction to the answer beforehand. The moves in different directions for Amazon and Apple have been about expectations and guidance. Wall Street has higher expectations for Apple and ‘different’ expectations for Amazon. Wall Street wants Apple’s ‘gross margins’ to grow. They don’t expect Amazon’s ‘profits’ to grow. It sounds silly, but if Apple has reported lower profits and a huge gross margin increase the stock might have shot up. If Amazon had reported record profits today on decreasing margins, Wall Street might have panicked. Learning the language of the market is not easy. Wall Street loves it that way. If Spanish or Chinese were easy to learn, every American would speak it. The stock market is all about supply/demand, earnings, expectations and mood. The financial media is about headlines. I have spent over 25 years investing and trading and the dirty secret is that survival is about risk management. The best of the best are wrong 50 percent of the time. Apple and Amazon have been fantastic investments if you have owned them for the last 10 years. Recently Apple has been the ugly duckling of Wall Street. The mood has soured on Apple. It is in uncharted territory as the largest and most profitable company in the world. There is no possible way that Wall Street can predict the earnings, margins, or growth of Apple, let alone the mood of the market one year forward. But… they will try. They have expectations and they get set to spreadsheets. Those that own Apple (I do) point to the cash balance and earnings and declare the market is rigged or broken (I don’t). Wall Street has stopped caring about Apple’s profits today. They were displeased with forward guidance. Growth rates have slowed measurably at Apple which is understandable for a company of its’ size. Wall Street is worried that growth is slowing and competition from Google and Samsung are taking a toll. Apple has given Wall Street so many wonderful surprises so magic has become the norm. Now that Apple is boring, they have run for the hills. Meanwhile, Amazon has