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Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader is an Apple-circumventing HTML5 browser app
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Internet, Software,
Amazon on Wednesday unveiled its Kindle Cloud Reader, an HTML5-based reading app accessible via the Web.
The feature is accessible at amazon.com/cloudreader and provides access to e-books through the browser, offline and online, with no downloading or installation required, Amazon said. Cloud Reader will automatically sync with other Kindle apps, allowing you to start reading on the Web and pick up on an iPhone or Kindle, for example. Books that you are reading will automatically be made available for offline use.
At this point, Kindle Cloud Reader works with Safari on the iPad and desktop and Google's Chrome.
Click to continue reading Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader is an Apple-circumventing HTML5 browser app
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Barnes & Noble Nook Back to School deal includes $100 worth of ebooks
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Hot Deals,
Interested in a back-to-school e-reader, but you're not sure which one to buy? Barnes & Noble made a case for the Nook on Monday, with $100 in free books for the returning student.
B&N said that customers who purchase a new Nook from today until Sept. 11 will receive $100 in free books and study tools, specifically a free collection of 12 free classic books and 12 SparkNotes study aids.
The books will help any aspiring literature major, and include A Tale of Two Cities, Beowulf, Ivanhoe, Crime and Punishment and The Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man. The SparkNotes guides include To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, B&N said.
Click to continue reading Barnes & Noble Nook Back to School deal includes $100 worth of ebooks
Bleeding Edge TV 386: Nook Simple Touch Reader
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Full Episodes, Gizmatic, Features, Handhelds, Podcasts, Product Reviews, Videocasts, Videos,
We talk to Michelle Warvel, the Barnes and Noble Nook User Experience and Design Lead at GDGT Seattle. Michelle talks to us about the new Nook Simple Touch Reader, the first real mainstream touchscreen e-ink ebook reader to hit the market, shows how it all works, and then tells us about how they settled on the unique shape and design of the Simple Touch Reader product. We will have more videos from the GDGT event.
Big thank you to Carbonite and JackThreads for sponsoring the show - be sure to check them out! Carbonite offers off-site backup of your computer, and you can get two free months (no credit card needed!) by visiting Carbonite and using promo code TPN. As for JackThreads, we've got exclusive invite codes that give you $5 to use towards anything you'd like.
How Amazon can disrupt the iPad and Android tablet market
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Rumors,
A few weeks back, I wrote a column discussing the tablet that Amazon is rumored to introduce this fall. Since then, I have heard a few more things about this tablet that are quite interesting. In my last column on this topic, I stated that the center of its design would be on reading books. That appears to be true, as multiple sources tell me that it will have the best reading experience of any tablet on the market. But, I am also hearing that Amazon is using pretty low-cost parts and not using any of the major manufacturers that are producing most of the tablets for mainstream competitors. Apparently, the company's key goal is to make the tablet very inexpensive and then use a new business model to own the Android tablet market.
I believe that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos knows that all of the other Android vendors are at a big disadvantage when it comes to competing with Apple. Apple has a two-year lead on them, a great app store and services program, and a soon-to-be-key technology, the iCloud, which will keep all iOS apps and devices in-sync. And it has 250 million users' credit cards and hundreds of retail stores to help people learn about the iPad and buy one on the spot. None of the other tablet vendors can even come close to matching what Apple has to offer, except maybe Amazon. Although Amazon does not have retail stores like Apple does, it does have an Appstore for Android, music and movies for downloading, the Amazon Cloud Drive for storage, and the credit cards of 200+ million users. It also has limited channel partners, like Best Buy, that it could expand as well. But, I hear that while its tablet could marginally compete against Apple, this is not the company Amazon is going after with its tablet offering. It is smarter than that. Rather, I believe Amazon's goal is to be the market leader in Android and be the top seller of tablets with this mobile OS.
Click to continue reading How Amazon can disrupt the iPad and Android tablet market
Amazon tablet should launch before October
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Rumors,
The existence of a tablet computer in the offing from Amazon isn't official yet, but The Wall Street Journal has officially thrown its weight behind the pervasive rumors that the Kindle-maker is planning to release a device to compete head-to-head with Apple's iPad before the year is out.
Amazon is planning a third-quarter release of its first tablet, a 9-inch device running Google's Android mobile operating system, the newspaper reported Wednesday, citing unnamed "people familiar with the matter" who said the Amazon tablet will arrive "before October."
That corroborates several reports from Taiwan-based tech journal DigiTimes, which has cited components supplier sources as saying that Amazon plans to release a tablet currently codenamed Hollywood in September.
Click to continue reading Amazon tablet should launch before October
E-readers are beating tablets in US adoption
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds,
The increase in U.S. adults who own e-readers is outpacing the growth of tablet owners, according to a new phone survey by the Pew Internet Project.
Adults who owned ereaders like Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook doubled from 6 percent of the U.S. adult population in November 2010 to 12 percent in May 2011, according to the survey of 2,277 respondents aged 18 and over. The survey was conducted in both English and Spanish.
Over the same period, the share of adults who said they owned a tablet such as Apple's iPad grew as well, but by just 3 percentage points. About 5 percent of respondents in an earlier Pew survey from November of last year said they owned a tablet, while 8 percent said they did in the most recent one, conducted between April 26 and May 22.
Click to continue reading E-readers are beating tablets in US adoption
Nook Simple Touch Reader unveiled, aims sights at Kindle
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds,
Today, Barnes & Noble unveiled their revamped Nook e-reader, which they are calling the Simple Touch Reader.
The $139 device is available for pre-order immediately and will be in stores on or around June 10 at Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Walmart, and Staples.
The Android-based, e-reader measures 5 x 6.5 inches and weighs less than 7.5 ounces, which is 35 percent lighter and 15 percent thinner than the first Nook. During a New York launch event, B&N CEO William Lynch promised the "longest battery life of any e-reader," or up to two months on a single charge, and 80 percent less flashing on the 6-inch touch screen; the white-out that occurs when flipping pages. There is 50 percent less contrast than the first-edition Nook.
The device has built-in Wi-Fi and will feature 2GB of onboard storage, expandable up to 32GB with microSDHC. It runs Android 2.1 and a 800MHz TI OMAP3 processor.
Click to continue reading Nook Simple Touch Reader unveiled, aims sights at Kindle
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Amazon working on two Android tablets, codenamed “Coyote” and “Hollywood”?
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Rumors,
Rumors that Amazon well be releasing a Kindle tablet are looking a bit more clear, with a report saying that the company is actually working on two different tablets, according to Boy Genius Report.
An entry-level tablet codenamed Coyote will be powered by Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 mobile platform, while a more powerful device codenamed Hollywood will sport Nvidia's upcoming quad-core "Kal-El" chip, the website reported Monday, citing a "tipster."
The source did not provide screen-size details, according to BGR.
The processor details put the theoretical release of the rumored Hollywood tablet at no earlier than the second half of 2011. Nvidia's Kal-El upgrade to its Tegra lineup isn't expected to be released until then.
Kal-El promises a significant boost to Tegra. The System-on-a-Chip (SoC) for mobile devices like tablets and smartphones boasts a 1.5GHz, quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 central processor and a 12-core Nvidia graphics processor that's purported to deliver five times the performance of the GeForce GPUs in the Tegra 2 SoC.
Click to continue reading Amazon working on two Android tablets, codenamed “Coyote” and “Hollywood”?
Fortune’s “Inside Apple” article is a must-read
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Corporate News,
Fortune magazine recently published an in-depth piece on the highly secretive culture and inner workings of Apple. It's in the latest Fortune 500 issue, and isn't yet available freely online, however, you can download it from the Kindle Store for 99 cents to read it on a Kindle, PC, Mac, or any of the smartphone platforms they support (iOS, Android, etc.) For a buck, we'd consider this one a must-read. You get a lot of juicy tidbits about the company, including just how disappointed Steve Jobs was about the horribly botched launch of MobileMe:
According to a participant in the meeting, Jobs walked in, clad in his trademark black mock turtleneck and blue jeans, clasped his hands together and asked a simple question: "Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" Having received a satisfactory answer, he continued, "So why the **** doesn't it do that?"
For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. "You've tarnished Apple's reputation," he told them. "You should hate each other for having let each other down."
Harsh, but those are the actions of a man who seemingly doesn't tolerate failure, and aims to exceed expectations. In fact, he doesn't want to ever hear excuses from any of the Apple VP-level employees:
The janitor gets to explain why something went wrong. Senior people do not. "When you're the janitor," Jobs has repeatedly told incoming VPs, "reasons matter." He continues: "Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering." That "Rubicon," he has said, "is crossed when you become a VP."
This is some good stuff, and Fortune has a lot more in the full-length article. If you're at all interested in Apple, either from a consumer standpoint, or just interest in the management style that makes them so unique, give this one a look.
Read More | Inside Apple
Is Amazon preparing to launch an Android-powered Kindle tablet?
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Handhelds, Rumors,
Is Amazon preparing to launch an Android tablet? Peter Rojas of gdgt thinks so, and the time does seem right for a refresh to the company's Kindle e-reader; the last time the product got a major upgrade was two years ago. And, as Rojas points out, there's a wealth of circumstantial evidence that points toward Amazon readying a tablet.
Apple has thoroughly dominated the tablet market since the iPad first went on sale about a year ago. The company sold more than 14 million iPads last year, and analysts project that Apple will move as many as 60 million iPad 2s in 2011 (though first-quarter sales were down). Although there was buzz that the Motorola Xoom, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, or the BlackBerry PlayBook might present some competition for Apple's wildly popular tablet, no company has yet been able to produce a tablet worthy of taking on the mighty iPad. Amazon might be the most likely candidate.
Click to continue reading Is Amazon preparing to launch an Android-powered Kindle tablet?
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