Now is the part where I throw my head back and laugh. (Photo: flickr.com/oreilly)

We're so, so close to a world where Amazon removes all reason for you to leave your apartment. You can order lightbulbs for same-day delivery and, while you wait, watch Dora the Explorer in the dark. And soon, Reuters reports, you'll be able to order fresh groceries (as opposed to the Soap.com staples available now) from the company.

Amazon is expanding its AmazonFresh pilot in Seattle, soon to Los Angeles and then San Francisco later this year. Depending on the results, Amazon might expand to 20 other cities in 2014.

We'll see whether they can pry FreshDirect's fingers from the New York market. But a "supermarket analyst" says grocery stores might want to worry: "The fear is that grocery is a loss leader and Amazon will make a profit on sales of other products ordered online at the same time....That's an awesomely scary prospect for the grocery business."

Cradle-to-grave Bezos, that's America's future.

(Photo: Amazon)

Luna Loupe is a prolific writer. According to Amazon, the self-described "erotica author, geek and generally classy lady" has written 25 anthologies of completely bizarre, out-there paranormal sex novels.

Though she hasn't updated her blog or tweeted since 2012, Laughing Squid picked up one of her stranger works out of the blue today. Called Someone to Cuttle, the erotic story revolves around a gay man who discovers and eventually has a sexual relationship with a trio of shapeshifting cuttlefish. "18+ only!" reads the warning. "Contains partial shifting, hot gay sex, and a cuttlefish shifter gangbang!"

Ms. Loupe's other works are no less thrilling. There's Milked by the Aliens, a lactaction fetish novel where a woman is abducted and, yes, milked by aliens; Out on a Limb, in which a cat shapeshifter who gets stuck up a tree has to be rescued by a firefighter with a cat fetish; and Taking Her Herd, a story about a woman who has sex with a pack of shapeshifting wild horses.

Little information about Ms. Loupe is available on the web, and she almost certainly operates under a pseudonym. According to Amazon she lives with her three cats and a dog, and began writing erotica when her friend dared her to write out her deepest fantasy and she found she enjoyed the experience. She has a blog, where she publishes excerpts of her work, and a Twitter account that hasn't been touched since April 2012.

Though Ms. Loupe has been disappointingly mum on the web since December 2012, she assured readers in an October 2012 Google Plus post that she's "not dead - just busy!" What could possibly come after The Minotaur's Virgin Bride?

Ambitious!

Amazon is planning a big biodome at the foot of its new HQ, because Jeff Bezos. [Gizmodo]

More people are using their tablets on planes. Someone actually paid to conduct this study. [USA Today]

Square has expanded to Japan. [The Next Web]

Kim Dotcom says he invented two-factor authentication and Google, Twitter and others are engaging in "massive IP infringement." [The Verge]

Foursquare now offers more specific search and filter capabilities. [TechCrunch]

Now is the part where I throw my head back and laugh. (Photo: flickr.com/oreilly)

Dig out your folder of Gossip Girl short stories, because Amazon has figured out a way to make some cold, hard cash on derivative works. You know, other than just replacing all the names and selling it to a publisher.

Fan fiction is dead! Long live fan fiction!

Today the company announced Kindle Worlds, described as "the first commercial publishing platform that will enable any writer to create fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters and earn royalties for doing so." But you can't cash in on any old blockbuster fiction series, lest you want J.K. Rowling showing up at your house with her goons to knock some sense into you.

Rather, Amazon has gotten licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and Vampire Diaries. More licenses are reportedly coming soon; can't wait to see which authors let people cash in on their lovingly crafted worlds. Both fanfic writers and rights holders will get royalties from Amazon (35 percent of net for the former).

There are a couple of big problems with this, though. For one, there are no crossovers allowed, so you can't dump Sam and Dean from Supernatural into the Vampire Diaries. The Daily Dot's Aja Romano doesn't think this is really fan fiction, so much as just "offering to pay fans to write franchise tie-ins."

Even more seriously, there's no dirty business allowed. You can't include "pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts" if you want to sell through Kindle Worlds.

Does Amazon even understand the point of fan fiction? Why bother if you can't lovingly depict sadomasochistic encounters between Megatron and Optimus Prime?

Pre-announcement jitters.

Fab famously got traction once the cofounders pivoted from gay Yelp to design-focused flash-sales site. But now that flash sales are no longer the darling of the tech industry, Fab is moving on. Hence the company's announcement at its kindergarten-like West Village HQ last night: "We're going to do a little pivot again," CEO Jason Goldberg announced.

"We're redesigning Fab as the world's number-one design store," he said. "We're going from flash sales to design store, and we're going there in a really big way."

That means a revamped website, products sold exclusively on Fab, brick-and-mortar stores, and the acquisition of a German company offering customizable furniture. 

"The vision that we had back in early 2011 was, we said we can be the global brand synonymous with design for years and years to come," Mr. Goldberg explained. "We said right then and there we want to build something really massive."

"We said we can create the Ikea/Amazon of design," he added. Don't be shy, fellas.

To that end, Mr. Goldberg had several announcements:

First off, the company has wholly redesigned its website and mobile apps. Search is better, and thanks to the addition of departments and other ways to sort products, it's now much easier to go looking for a particular item. (No more paging through the entire furniture category on a fruitless quest for a green rug.) They've added designer pages (opening up the possibility of marketplace-style selling) and an outlet, as well.

Not that this is an entirely new development. Two thirds of the company's daily revenue already comes from search and browsing.

Second: The launch of "Exclusively Fab," a line of products unique to the site. That might be products designed in-house, capsule collections from particular designers or lines of products where Fab has taken on the upfront costs of manufacturing.

Third: Fab has purchased the German company MassivKonzept, which makes customizable furniture. Fab will be launching the offering in the U.S. as Designed By You. So if you've got a weird corner in your house that needs an odd length of table, hold tight.

Fourth: Fab is opening actual brick-and-mortar stores, starting by converting a MassivKonzept showroom in Hamburg. (So Monocle!) "We're going to test a number of different physical retail environments," Mr. Goldberg said.

"There will be more than one Fab store this year, and there will be multiple formats," he said. "We're going to learn how to do this by trying it a number of different ways."

Also, Fab is launching in France.

What Mr. Goldberg didn't announce was a new round of funding. All he'd offer is a tease: "When the time does come for us to raise money--and we will raise money in the next few months, to build out our global footprint--we'll be looking for investors to help us take Fab and spread this brand everywhere we want to take it."

We assume that means: Get ready to write a really, really big check if you want in.

Photo: Cornell University

Cornell's NYC Tech Campus Scores Big Along with his wife, Dr. Irwin Mark Jacobs, founding chairman and CEO emeritus of Qualcomm, announced a $133-million gift to Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Monday to build and establish the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute (JTCII). The JTCII will be a part of Cornell Tech, the new technology campus of the Ivy League school located on Roosevelt Island that was heavily supported by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City of New York. The funds will go primarily to two-year graduate programs. Now if only they can find a more efficient way to get to the island that doesn’t involve a 40-year-old gondola.

Women's Lifestyle Site Earns Funding Women's lifestyle and finance website DailyWorth announced Tuesday that it added $1 million in additional Series A financing on top of the previous $2 million earned last year. DJF Gotham led the funding, which the company will use mainly to hire bring in new key new hires. Additional investors included Gabriel Investments, 500 Startups, Robinhood Ventures, Investors' Circle, Bullet Time Ventures, Patient Capital Collaborative, Joanne Wilson, Rebecca Saeger, Carol Chow, Diego Canoso, and Mark Censits.

Amazon Originals Actually Being Watched As we covered last Friday, Amazon is entering the original television business with the company's production arm Amazon Studios releasing 14 original TV pilots. AAnd it appears the shows are doing pretty well, even if some of them weren’t particularly entertaining:  8 out of 10 of the most streamed episodes across the Amazon Instant Video platform were original Amazon programs. The new TV shows are also averaging a 4 out of 5 rating on Amazon--though if life has taught us anything, it's that Amazon reviews aren’t always the most trustworthy.

Quantifying The Best Of The Web The Webby Awards announced a partnership today with Quantcast to bring Quantcast's web tracking technologies to the Webby award process. Quantcast will also specifically help the Mobile & Apps categories with deeper insights into mobile app usage by employing Quantcast’s new Measure for Apps program. Some of this year’s Webby Award nominees for Mobile & Apps are HBO Go, Google Maps, Mailbox, Netflix App, Waze, Lady Gaga’s Workshop and NIKEiD Mobile. If only Betabeat had a mobile app, we'd be in there for sure.

Investors Earn DoD Award Three New York employers, including investment firms Drexel Hamilton and Goldman Sachs, along with the New York City Fire Department, are semifinalists for the 2013 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award, given to companies that provide extraordinary support to their Guard and Reserve employees. Benefits that these companies have excelled at include setting veteran hiring goals, establishing military employee liaisons, providing childcare for deployed employees, arranging care package drives, and granting additional leave for military employees and family members before and after deployments. Now let's see if the tech startups start opening their doors like their investors are doing.

After watching any of the free pilots (available to anyone with an Amazon Prime account), viewers are asked to fill out a survey gauging their interest in more episodes.

The headliner is unquestionably Zombieland, the TV show based on the 2009 ZomCom (that's a genre, right) starring Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson (you can check out the trailer here.) But it definitely doesn't look like the best. From what we can tell, the show treads through a lot of the same tropes and gags that were great in the movie but not so much the second time around -- especially when they are copied line for line.

We’re much more excited about Onion News Empire, which gives viewers a look into the pressures and difficulties faced by journalists at the fake outlet. Hopefully some journalism-satire can hold us over until the Newsroom returns.

The move towards original programming on Amazon's video distribution networks comes just months after the release of Netflix’s original programming hit House of Cards. Maybe they can get Mr. Spacey to play a zombie-killing survivalist?

Yep. (Photo: Fab.com)

Fab.com has made more costume changes than a drag queen. Launched in 2011 as a social network for gay men (name: Fabulis), the company then transformed itself into a flash-sale site selling arty farty tchotchkes. Now, Business Insider suggests, Fab might be gearing up to design its own products.  According to a blog post written by Fab cofounder Jason Goldberg, details of the pivot have not yet been publicly released but it will be "gradual."

According to Business Insider:

"It will be 100% towards delivering the best customer experience in the world for discovering everyday design. We’ll offer even more unique products supported by an even better experience," wrote Mr. Golberg in December.

Business Insider speculates that it's moving toward an in-house model of designing, making and selling its own products. Bradford Sellhammer, the company's other cofounder, told Fast Company that it wants to become "the world's alternative to Amazon and Walmart."

"The only way to compete in the world of Amazon is to sell things that Amazon doesn’t sell,” Shellhammer said. “We’re building a brand, and part of that is bringing the brand to our own line of products.”

Fab said all will be revealed at a press event on April 29, but signs of its gradual change are seeping out. but signs of its gradual change are seeping out as the company held a design competition earlier this month. The company held a design competition earlier this month, and contestants--who consisted of designers and students--were asked to create product ideas for immediate judging. Winners will have their concepts sold on Fab.

Maybe one concept can be designing a sustainable business model.

(Screenshot: Amazon)

Internet usage among older adults is on the rise, so it makes sense that retail behemoth Amazon is making moves to tap into that demographic. Today the company unveiled a new specialty store targeting those ages 50 and older.

The online shop has all the things older adults might need, including "hundreds of thousands of nutrition, wellness, exercise and fitness, medical, personal care, beauty, entertainment items and more."

In the end we'll all probably need adult diapers--especially if the Singularity comes.

(Photo: AlanLevenson.com)

In a stunning gesture of support for EXCLUSIVE airplane journalism, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is leading a $5 million round in Business Insider, the web property helmed by Henry Blodget. The news comes following a detailed New Yorker profile of Mr. Blodget, who launched Business Insider after being banned from the securities industry for civil securities fraud.

An internal memo published on Business Insider (natch) written by Mr. Blodget says that the company is raising $5 million, with Mr. Bezos chipping in "a significant investment." The fresh capital brings Business Insider's total amount raised to $18.3 million.

"This capital will allow us to continue to invest aggressively in many areas of the business, including editorial, tech/product, sales and marketing, subscriptions, and events," Mr. Blodget wrote. "As we mentioned last night, it will also allow us to expand our office."

The raise comes at a time when the company is reportedly losing money, though Mr. Blodget has pegged its $3 million loss in 2012 as an "investment." According to Paid Content:

TBI chairman Kevin Ryan says the company will do $11 million this year (last summer someone told the WSJ the company would do $12 million in 2012); he says the site has only spent $7 million of the $13 million it has raised.

Though Comscore pegs the site’s traffic at 9 million, Blodget tells Auletta that his Google Analytics numbers are at 24 million unique monthly users, many of whom come from outside the U.S.

AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka notes that since the New Yorker profile was published on Monday, BI’s revenue projections jumped--sorry, JUMPED--from $11 million to $15 million.

Mr. Blodget has a history with Amazon. He originally rose to fame in 1998 by accurately predicting a price target of $400 in Amazon stock, which eventually led to his hiring at Merrill Lynch.

The investment will likely increase the number of stated disclosures for BI writers covering Amazon products or services, as well as Mr. Bezos' other investments. But the editorial side must be accustomed to negotiating that ethical line, as it already counts powerhouses like Marc Andreessen and Allen & Company as investors. And the writers there don't seem to mind adding another one to the list. "Do you really think I'm going to care what some billionaire thinks about my Kindle whatever review?" tweeted Silicon Alley Insider editor Steve Kovach.