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After debuting last month, Amazon's "Transparent" has been mentioned by critics as an Emmy contender. Beth Dubber/Amazon

Amazon said Thursday it will renew its original series "Transparent" for a second season to premier next year, after the comedy quickly hit a degree of buzz that the e-commerce giant's first shows didn't drum up.

Amazon has been chasing Netflix's originals strategy for its Prime Instant Video service -- a component of its $99 Prime program best known for free second-day shipping -- to stay competitive. Where Netflix series like "House of Cards" and "Orange Is the New Black" snagged top nominations and quickly became standard watercooler fooder, Amazon's first originals "Alpha House" and "Betas" failed to get similar attention.

Amazon said "Transparent" is the top ranked series on Prime Instant Video, its streaming-video service that competes with Netflix. It also touted its scores on critic-review aggregators Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, with 98 percent and 91 percent positive ratings, respectively.

The company didn't discuss viewing metrics for the program, other than to say that it's the No. 1 ranked series on Prime Instant Video, referring to customer ratings, and that nearly 80 percent of all viewers "binge" on two or more episodes of the series in the same day.

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Pepsi hopes Amazon customers will become True fans. Video screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET

Perhaps it all started with Surge. The iconic '90s sugar-bomb soda from Coca-Cola is enjoying a revival by being offered on Amazon, where it keeps selling out. Now rival Pepsi is hopping onto the e-commerce soft-drink train by introducing a new product, Pepsi True, with an exclusive launch through the online retailer.

True is one of Pepsi's shots at appealing to calorie and corn-syrup-conscious consumers. It's partially sweetened with stevia, a leaf extract. While the green cans and proclamation of "no artificial sweeteners" are meant to attract soda fans on a health kick, the ingredients still show sugar right behind carbonated water near the top of the list.

Pepsi isn't hiding the sugar content, but it is emphasizing that True has 30 percent fewer calories than regular Pepsi. A 7.5-ounce can has 60 calories. It will be sold in packs of 24 of these mini-cans and will be available on Amazon in mid-October, though pricing hasn't been given yet. Like Surge, it will likely be available for free shipping through Amazon Prime.

The sugar and stevia combination is a bit of a mixed message, but Pepsi is taking very little risk by launching the product on Amazon only. It doesn't have to foot the bill for wide distribution to physical stores across the country or a traditional advertising campaign. A YouTube video introducing the soda shows stevia leaves and bouncy people wearing flannel and backpacks in the wilderness. If the soda catches on, Pepsi always has the option to move it into bricks-and-mortar retail stores.

The Amazon product page is already up, so that means reviewers are chiming in before the soda even becomes available. Some are already complaining about the presence of sugar in the mix instead of just Stevia, while others are taking negative reviewers to task for giving feedback on a product they haven't tasted.

It will be interesting to see if the eventual reviews of True reach the amusing heights of those for Surge. It will be hard for Pepsi to top a happy customer declaring "The Steve Perry of soda is back" in joy at Surge's resurrection.

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Amazon and Disney could be on the verge of patching things up, according to a new report.

Some of Disney's upcoming DVD releases, including "Guardians of the Galaxy," "Maleficent," and "The Hundred-Foot Journey," have found their way back to Amazon's e-marketplace last week. The change suggests that the companies' stand-off could be inching to a close, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people who have knowledge of the situation.

Amazon stopped offering preorders on some Disney DVDs in August in a contract dispute with the entertainment giant. Digital versions of the same films for Amazon Instant Video were, however, available on the service.

The dispute is still officially ongoing, the Journal's sources say, but the return of those Disney DVDs to Amazon indicates that tensions are starting to subside.

Neither Amazon nor Disney immediately responded to a request for comment.

The Disney kerfuffle is reminiscent of a spat Amazon had with Warner Home Video earlier this year. For a period of time, some of Warner's films, including "The Lego Movie," vanished from the site. While Amazon never spoke publicly on the matter, it was believed at the time that the company removed the films to boost its margins on each sale.

A similar situation continues to play out with book publisher Hatchette, which has seen its title sales restricted after the companies could not agree on terms. Amazon wants Hatchette to maintain its e-book pricing at $10, while the publisher argues it has the right to assign any price it wants on the books. Hatchette argues that Amazon's move is designed solely to steal profit and market share from competitors.

For its part, Amazon has made clear that it has no intention of backing down against its vendors, saying earlier this year that it won't quit in attempting to keep prices down.

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Wenn es darum geht, günstige HDMI-Kabel, zwei Unternehmen dominieren: Amazon und Monoprice. Beide bieten gut geprüfte Kabel verschiedene Längen, alles für viel weniger Geld als viele andere Marken.

Da alle HDMI-Kabel das gleiche durchführen, wenn es um Video und Audio geht, was ist das bessere Geschäft? Wer hat den besten Preis pro Fuß?

Die kurze Antwort ist: Monoprices Messen für $1,82.

Die lange Antwort? Lesen Sie weiter.

Wenn Sie neugierig auf HDMI-Kabel sind, und warum billig Kabel die gleiche Bild- und Tonqualität als teure HDMI-Kabel bieten, haben wir wirklich vorgesorgt. Schauen Sie sich: Warum alle HDMI-Kabel die gleichen sind; Warum alle HDMI-Kabel sind die gleichen, Teil 2; Noch mehr Gründe, warum alle HDMI-Kabel sind die gleichen, und die HDMI-Kabel-Käufer führen.

Und weil das waren nicht genug (erstaunlicherweise) auch überprüfen, warum 4K HDMI Kabel sind Unsinn und HDMI 2.0, was du wissen musst.

Für die Unternehmen zur hand haben wir sowohl vor als auch erwähnt. Sie bieten große Preise auf Kabel. So weit wie Qualität und Langlebigkeit geht, haben Amazon Kabel eine durchschnittliche Bewertung von 4,7/5 aus über 11.000 Bewertungen. 82 Prozent sind 5/5 und weitere 12 Prozent sind 4/5. Monoprice Kabel besitzen ähnlich hohe Bewertungen auf Amazon (und auf ihrer eigenen Website, für was es Wert ist). Schließlich verwenden Sie Monoprice-Kabel, in meinem Labor und CNET Lab verwendet Kabel von beiden Herstellern. Wir hatten keine Probleme.

Amazon on Saturday stepped up its rhetoric against book publisher Hachette, calling on authors and readers to pressure the publisher's CEO to accept Amazon's terms in a nearly four-month dispute over e-book pricing.

In a letter to readers posted online, Amazon again made its case for why e-book prices should be lower and asked people to email Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch telling him to accept the Seattle-based e-commerce giant's terms in the dispute. Amazon's letter listed Pietsch's email along with several suggested talking points, including:

Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.

Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon's offers to take them out of the middle.

The letter was also sent to all Amazon Kindle Direct authors Saturday morning, according to Forbes.

Amazon and Hachette, the fourth-largest publisher in the US, have been in a contract dispute over e-book pricing for several months. Terms of their negotiations have not been made public, but it's widely believed the issues stem from both Amazon's desire for a larger percentage of each e-book sale -- 50 percent, not 30 percent -- and Hachette's desire to price e-books above $9.99.

So far, the dispute has only affected US customers, but many in the publishing industry see the fight as emblematic of a larger struggle. Amazon controls, by some estimates, a third of the entire book market and more than half of the e-book market.

The dispute heated up in May when Amazon removed preorder buttons from upcoming Hachette titles and refused to restock its books. Hachette accused the company of purposely delaying shipment and using authors as bargaining chips. In July, a group of nearly 900 authors, including heavyweights like Stephen King, Jennifer Egan, and John Grisham, signed a letter opposing Amazon's negotiation tactics. That letter is set to run as a full-page ad in The New York Times.

In its letter today, Amazon said it has made "three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle." Last month, Amazon publicly offered to continue accepting 30 percent of e-book sales, its current take, if Hachette lowered e-book prices to $9.99 from $12.99 and $14.99. So far, Hachette has refused to budge on its position.

Amazon declined to comment. CNET News has reached out to Hachette and will update this story with any new information.

CNET's Nick Statt contributed to this report.

Amazon has restricted preorders of some movies from Disney in an apparent contract dispute with another media giant.

Preorder options are currently unavailable at the Internet retailer for physical copies of "Muppets Most Wanted," "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "Million Dollar Arm," and "Maleficent." However, preorders of digital versions on Amazon Instant Video are still available.

The situation is reminiscent of an apparent dispute between Amazon and Warner Home Video in which preorders of discs for "The Lego Movie," "Transcendence," and "300: Rise of an Empire" vanished from the site earlier this summer. Amazon hasn't publicly commented on that situation, but it's thought that the move is intended to apply pressure on Warner to gain greater margin on each sale.

Amazon has admitted to employing a similar strategy in a contract negotiations standoff with book publisher Hachette. Amazon said in May it was restricting sales of titles from the publisher after the two were unable to agree on mutually acceptable contract terms. Amazon did not elaborate on the terms proposed but defended the move as a legitimate negotiating tactic aimed at getting more value for consumers.

The apparent conflict was first reported HomeMediaMagazine. CNET has contacted Amazon and Disney for comment and will update this report when we learn more.