Amazon.com has sent out invitations to a media event planned in New York at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, and we're pretty sure it will be used to introduce the new Kindle Android tablet. In fact, we're sure of it, and we even know the name: Kindle Fire.
The name is designed to differentiate the new Android tablet from the Kindle e-book reader, but we're not sure if the name Fire has any significance or not. The bad news is that, despite the fact that Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos will demo the Fire on Wednesday, it won't ship until the second week in November.
It's also been learned that the Kindle Fire will look a lot like a BlackBerry Playbook. It's not because Amazon.com's Kindle design and development team, Lab 126, wanted it that way, but because Amazon.com wanted to get the Fire out in time for the holidays, and in order to do so, they took a shortcut and outsourced development of the tablet to Quanta. Quanta was the same ODM (original design manufacturer) that designed the Playbook for RIM.
Although the BlackBerry Playbook appears to be a failure (arguably, of course), the Kindle Fire has a lot of hype going for it. Amazon.com has built their own custom version of Android, based on Android 2.1. It looks nothing like Android, and of course integrates the Amazon Appstore.
That said, it will be interesting to see how Amazon.com will maintain compatibility as Google deprecates and obsoletes features and functions from that now aging version of Android.
Meanwhile, it's expected that Barnes & Noble will soon (October?) reveal two new Android tablets. These are expected to be based on Gingerbread (Android 2.3), which would tend to give the new NOOK colors a leg up on the Kindle Fire. That said, neither of them looks a lot like Android, so the key will be retaining compatibility while using out-of-date Android versions (Ice Cream Sandwich will launch soon).
Amazon.com has sent out invitations to a media event planned in New York at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, and we're pretty sure it will be used to introduce the new Kindle Android tablet. In fact, we're sure of it, and we even know the name: Kindle Fire.
The name is designed to differentiate the new Android tablet from the Kindle e-book reader, but we're not sure if the name Fire has any significance or not. The bad news is that, despite the fact that Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos will demo the Fire on Wednesday, it won't ship until the second week in November.
It's also been learned that the Kindle Fire will look a lot like a BlackBerry Playbook. It's not because Amazon.com's Kindle design and development team, Lab 126, wanted it that way, but because Amazon.com wanted to get the Fire out in time for the holidays, and in order to do so, they took a shortcut and outsourced development of the tablet to Quanta. Quanta was the same ODM (original design manufacturer) that designed the Playbook for RIM.
Although the BlackBerry Playbook appears to be a failure (arguably, of course), the Kindle Fire has a lot of hype going for it. Amazon.com has built their own custom version of Android, based on Android 2.1. It looks nothing like Android, and of course integrates the Amazon Appstore.
That said, it will be interesting to see how Amazon.com will maintain compatibility as Google deprecates and obsoletes features and functions from that now aging version of Android.
Meanwhile, it's expected that Barnes & Noble will soon (October?) reveal two new Android tablets. These are expected to be based on Gingerbread (Android 2.3), which would tend to give the new NOOK colors a leg up on the Kindle Fire. That said, neither of them looks a lot like Android, so the key will be retaining compatibility while using out-of-date Android versions (Ice Cream Sandwich will launch soon).
Microsoft gave the media a first look at Windows 8 on Wednesday. Some might question how excited end users should be about a desktop OS, when mobile seems the wave of the future. Microsoft answers that question by making, for good or bad, Windows 8 resemble Windows Phone 7 in many ways.
For example, the new start screen resembles the tile-based user interface that Microsoft has used for Windows Phone 7. Assuming the interface includes a touch screen, access is as easy as the touch of a finger on a tile.
The entire OS, in fact, has been designed from the ground up for touchscreen use. That said, Windows 8 will support two types of applications. Type one will be a traditional desktop app; type 2 will be apps based on HTML5 and Javascript that are more similar in appearance - filling the whole screen - to mobile apps on a tablet or smartphone.
It's been known for some time that Windows 8 will run on ARM processors, which means that it could be used on tablets and perhaps even smartphones. That could mean cross-compatibility between Windows 8 on desktops and mobile devices, as has been speculated before.
In fact, at Computex in Taiwan (call it dueling announcements), a number of OEMS showed off ARM-based tablets running Windows 8. These are, of course, early prototypes, but show what might come to pass (see below for video).
Just when will Windows 8 be ready? Microsoft declined to say. However, in mid-September, Microsoft will host a developer conference in in Anaheim, CA, and will probably have far more to say.
In addition to the tablet video, see below for Microsoft's own video of "Building Windows 8" - Video #1, which obviously means we shall see more to come.
The back-and-forth between which platform, iOS or Android, is activating more devices daily has swung in Google's direction, at least until Apple fires back with new numbers. Google's vice president of engineering Andy Rubin Tweeted for the second time ever, saying "There are over 300,000 Android phones activated each day."
Dan Morrill, Android Open Source & Compatibility Tech Lead, retweeted the message, saying "It's true, I look at the data daily. It's inspirational."
That surpasses the last public Apple statement from September, when the company said that it was seeing 230,000 activations daily. That number was posted in response to Android's then announcement of 200,000 activations daily, so we will most likely see an updated number from Apple, soon.
Still, the two companies are measuring different things, it would seem. Rubin's tweet specifies phones, which would seem to exclude tablets, but at the same timw could include users upgrading, while back in September, Apple noted there were 230,000 new iOS activations daily, which would mean that Apple’s numbers iPads and iPod touchess, but not upgrades.
The differences make a true comparison difficult. Either way, however, it seems that Android continues its huge success, and both platforms are successful, and deserve their success.
Following right on the heels of the Wednesday Apple TV announcement, in which the new Apple TV service will allow 99 cent TV show rentals from Fox and ABC (for now, just those two), Amazon.com has gone Apple one better. It's offering 99 cent TV shows from those same networks, but not for rent, but rather for purchase, from its Video on Demand (VoD) service.
In effect, a typical 22-episode TV season will cost slightly less than $22 to own. Compare that with the DVD price. For example, Glee: The Complete First Season has an MSRP of $59.99, with Amazon.com offering it for $35.49. Ah, but lower on that same sales page, Amazon is highlighting its download sales price: $21.78 for the season or 99 cents per episode.
Additionally, Apple TV's price is restricted to just that: Apple TV. Meanwhile Amazon VoD is on the venerable Roku set-top box, TiVos, and a large number of Internet-enabled HDTVs like Samsung, Panasonic, and Sony. Of course, Amazon.com's compatibility page highlights how you can buy these at Amazon.com, as well.
Many folks have these devices already in their house, and while Apple TV isn't available yet, Amazon VoD is. Of course, Apple TV has other features, like streaming from your PC, which may attract buyers, but it still seems that the battle for your living room just escalated.
The query is ought to I spend the additional several bills to buy a flat panel monitor, or ought to I stick the fad out with my functional regular box monitor? The answer is that there is no answer. There’s fundamentally two things that I see that are beautiful about the new monitors that are sweeping across the world, in to consumers homes, at an brilliant rate. First they are beautiful, low profile, elegant & refined. Second they take up less room & weigh less than the typical box-type monitor that has been with us for plenty of years.
What I don’t see a difference in is everything else. When I say everything else I am speaking about quality of graphic both as far as color & clarity, efficiency of power usage, compatibility with other types of media (TV, DVD, etc.), & cost. last one that is wrong. There definitely is a difference in cost & that is the largest reason why I think that I will wait until the fad of the flat panel monitor is out the window & the prices for these admittedly beautiful looking machines is down to earth & worth their weight (which is considerably less as mentioned above. Now I have been strictly speaking about computer monitors in this discussion about flat panel monitor pros & cons. What I ought to mention next is the TV which I take a different tone. I think that there’s cold things about the flat screen TV that I would be willing to pay a nice bit more for one of them than for the box TV. However I still think that the cost tag on these stunning creatures is a bit exorbitant & I will must wait until they come back down to earth.
So why do I think the TV flat panel monitors are so cold. Well for one the thought of having the ability to hang your TV on the wall is one of the coolest things that I have heard of. That is about the best savings of room that I can imagine for a TV. The other thing is that the picture quality on these TVs is head & shoulders above the remainder of the TVs that are equal in sized but not flatness. The plasma screen allows higher resolution & better picture quality without the distortion that you get from a rounded screen.
Microsoft's Windows XP mode for Windows 7 was seen as a way to "convince" businesses to adopt Windows 7. It virtually guaranteed that if you couldn't run it in 7, you could run it in XP mode. Problem was, it came ill-designed for such a task.
After all, it was intended to allow businesses to upgrade their systems to Windows 7 while not worrying about compatibility with older apps. At the same time, however, it required that the systems it was run on have hardware virtualization capability. That requirement confused many.
In addition, why would you require a technology that older systems at many businesses running Windows XP simply did not have? Microsoft "got it," and on Thursday announced that it has removed that requirement.
Of course, Windows XP Mode will leverage virtualization technology such as Intel VT or AMD-V if available. At the same time, Microsoft continues to require that users of Windows XP Mode have the most expensive versions of Windows 7: Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions. Of course, millions of consumers have switched from XP to Windows 7 Home Premium. For those, there is no option.
Microsoft probably views Windows XP Mode as most valuable to businesses, and those customers would probably opt for Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise. John Q. Public, and perhaps small businesses as well, however, are left out in the cold.
RIM is joining the open-source Webkit bandwagon, or will be. Android, iPhone and Palm webOS are already using that technology at the heart of their browser offerings.
The Webkit-based browsers offered by RIM's competitors have radically improved the browsing experience for consumers, not just in terms of speed and compatibility, but also by solving the small-screen / large webpage conundrum by supporting touchscreens and multi-touch to easily zoom the screen. However, RIM's only touchscreen devices to date have been the Storm and Storm2.
In an interview, Mike Lazaridis, co-chief executive officer and inventor of the BlackBerry said:
“You’ll see how fast it downloads, how quickly it renders and how smooth it scrolls and zooms in.”
Don't underestimate the power of messages on your mobiles.
A recent report on Mobile Advertising showed that it is one of the biggest source of reaching your customers through a simple message into their mobiles.
The report was based for the US,UK and India .The form of mobile advertising is not only in Text message format but also banner adds in mobile compatibility websites and banner adds on sites that are mostly viewed on mobiles byusers and also interactive games, games downloading type adds.
85 percent in India, 51 percent in the UK,and 37 percent in the US people recalling the adds which they received through their mobiles.
Text messages:- The most common advertising format.74% mobile phone users in India use text messaging ,this is 48 percent in the UK and 22 percent in the US. In the UK 16 percent, 8 percent in the US and 4 percent of those in India are responding advertising through mobiles compared with Radio adds which are having a good range in the add sources.
The Mobile Advertising Report(MAR) was released by Limbo, one of the largest mobile social communities in the US, and GfK Technology, a leading market search agency.
So what you may think !!! give an add of your product or service through mobile as textmessage.
Options that require Jailbreak:) • SSH/File Transfer: All you have to do is drop an iPhone's iPod-compatible ringtone into the /Library/Ringtones directory, meaning you can use MP3s, AACs (protected and unprotected), or M4As. Anything that your iPhone's iPod supports will work. • iBrickr (Windows): iBrickr actually transcodes your sound files for you, so if you're looking up old WAV sound pages from 1999, iBrickr can convert them into something that the iPhone understands before syncing. [iBrickr] • iFuntastic (Mac): Same as the SSH/File Transfer option. Just drag them into the correct /Library/Ringtones folder. [iFuntastic] • Sendsong: Allows you to pick any song from your iPod and move it into the Ringtones section. Install this with AppTapp. Options that don't require Jailbreak:)) • iTunes Music Store: You can manually place AAC files into the correct iTunes Ringtones folder as long as it has the right file extension. Works with purchased iTunes songs or songs you've converted to AAC format. [JoeMaller] • Rogue Ameoba's MakeiPhoneRingtone (Mac): This takes advantage of the iTunes 7.4 and iTunes 7.4.1 ringtone file compatibility workaround to get the Ringtones show up in iTunes. All you have to do is drop in an AAC file, which can be one of your songs purchased from iTunes. [MakeiPhoneRingtone] • iToner (Mac): Copies ringtones to your iPhone, bypassing iTunes, should be guaranteed to work with future iPhone updates. Costs $15. [iToner] • iPhoneRingToneMaker (Windows): Transfers ringtones to your iPhone, but lets you edit them beforehand in its editor so you can chop down long songs to a manageable clip. [efksoft]
has an MSRP of $59.99, with Amazon.com offering it for $35.49. Ah, but lower on that same sales page, Amazon is highlighting its download sales price: $21.78 for the season or 99 cents per episode.
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