Section: Video, Content, DVD/DVR/Blu-ray Have you ever purchased a DVD or Blu-Ray on Amazon.com and felt anxious as you waited several days for the item to ship to your house? Well, Amazon has a solution: Disc+ On Demand. Amazon is offering shoppers a chance to double dip their movie-watching needs through a "Gift with purchase" on certain items. When customers purchase select DVD and Blu-ray titles, they can receive a free digital download of the film. The On Demand download is only standard definition, but it can play on a PC, Mac, or stream to compatible television units. Disc+ On Demand is a happy medium for people who want the immediacy of digital downloads and those who want to purchase a high-definition physical copy of the film to watch at a later date. The library of Disc+ On Demand titles is just a small portion of Amazon’s store, but customers can browse through a list of available titles. Most of the selections are from Mystery & Suspense or Sci-Fi & Fantasy categories, but other categories are also represented in the more than 300 available films. Disc+ On Demand is available only to U.S.-based Amazon customers. Read [Amazon] Full Story » | Written by Andrew Kameka for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Gadgets / Other, ebooks  It looks like Foxit is trying to make some headway in the ebook market, or more specifically it looks like they are at least trying to keep up with the current giants of Amazon, Sony and Barnes & Noble by having an ebook store carrying their name.
Yes, similar to those three big players, Foxit has recently announced an ebook store for eSlick users. The strange part here is that the eSlick already offers support for the current Barnes & Noble ebook store. Given that, I cannot help but wonder why the new store. That said, my curiosity aside, the new Foxit ebook store is going to boat 60,000 available titles. As far as the name, it has been dubbed the eSlick Store and was launched in partnership with Fictionwise LLC. And yes, for anyone keeping track and playing along at home—Fictionwise LLC is also owned by Barnes & Noble. Bottom line, more choice is generally better, but this move just seems a little redundant and possibly confusing for any customers. Read [Business Wire] Via [Engadget] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Gadgets / Other Its not often that we offer up a post about a movie here on Gadgetell, but I think that in the case of Tron Legacy we can make an exception. After all, this is a geeks movie and the release date, while still some time away is getting closer. OK, so in all fairness, the movie is not slated for release until December 17—of 2010, but that should not be any reason for us to not get excited now. And with that, we have the official synopsis as well as the movie poster and a screen shot. TRON: LEGACY is a 3D high-tech adventure set in a digital world that’s unlike anything ever captured on the big screen. Sam Flynn (GARRETT HEDLUND), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (JEFF BRIDGES), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the digital world of Tron where his father has been living for 25 years. Along with Kevin’s loyal confidant Quorra (OLIVIA WILDE), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey of escape across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous.
Read [Hey U Guys!] Via [Gizmodo] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Gadgets / Other, ebooks  Have a Kindle, Sony Reader or still waiting to get your Nook? Well listen up because it seems that publishers are beginning to impose a delay in the availability of ebooks.
The decision so far has been formally announced by Simon & Schuster as well as the Hachette Book Group. According to Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster; “The right place for the e-book is after the hardcover but before the paperback,”
Personally, I am not sure I can agree with her “right place” but what that really means is that those looking for an ebook that is published by Simon & Schuster can expect to wait about 3-4 months after it is released as a hard cover. So far, this move looks like it will affect about 35 titles expected to be released during 2010. Additionally, the second publisher Hachette Book Group has announced that they will be doing something similar, and those looking for one of their titles can expect a 3-4 month delay. According to David Young, who is the chief executive of the Hachette Book Group, they are doing this in an effort to “preserve our industry.” Going on to further state that he “can’t sit back and watch years of building authors sold off at bargain-basement prices. It’s about the future of the business.” If you ask me, this seems like an old model at work, and as much as many will hate to admit things are changing. I can only say that as a Kindle user, I would rather just wait for the release. Honestly, this move, except for maybe a very rare case would not be any cause for me to put my Kindle down and pick up a hard cover book. Which means that at least for me, they are just delaying the inevitable ebook sale. Read [WSJ] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Web, Web 2.0 / Social Networking  Facebook unveiled its new set of "Privacy Tools" and the sites' users are in an uproar. On Facebook's official blog and fan page, there are nearly 1,000 comments from angry users furious about the changes. What is behind the outrage? The new "privacy" tools actually take some of your privacy away from you. You can still keep your Wall, status updates, and most personal and contact info private, but the site now insists on making certain information, including your name, gender, city, friends list, profile photo, pages you are a fan of and groups you are a member of totally public. There is absolutely no way to change that. Previously, it was up to the user to decide exactly what information they wanted shown when they were searched for in the Facebook directory. Now they no longer have much of a choice. It seems Facebook is actually trying to make the site more public in order to compete with Twitter and many users are down right enraged. I can't blame them. It may not seem like a big deal to have your profile photo or friends list shown to the world, but think about parents who use photos of their kids as their profile pics. Fine for friends to see but most absolutely do not want those photos made public. Public friends lists can be a problem for those dealing with cyberbullies, stalkers or abusive spouses/partners, who may then use that information to contact those friends in an attempt to get to or harass their victims. Having the pages and groups they are a part of made public is problematic also. For example user may not mind if their friends know they are involved in the Alcoholic's Anonymous group on Facebook but probably doesn't want the whole world to know. I am an avid Facebook user and love the site but I am among those who are very unhappy with the changes. Before these new "tools" were pushed on us I had my settings exactly how I liked them. Only friends and friends of friends could see my personal information and none of my personal info showed up when I was searched for. Now Facebook has decided the whole world needs to see my personal info and I highly resent that. When the new tools are presented to you you are given two options. Keep your "old settings" or "everyone". Facebook is pushing hard for its users to allow their info to be displayed to everyone else on the site. Previously when you clicked on Privacy Settings and then on Search, you were given a list of things you could make available to anyone who searches for you on the site: Profile Photo, Friends List, Add as a Friend, Send Message, Groups I Belong To, Pages I'm a Fan Of, etc. Now that is all gone. Now we only have the ability to decide who can see us in a search (Friends, Friends of Friends, Everybody) and asked whether we want to allow our public information to appear on search engines. That's it.
Most users find this completely unacceptable. What can be done? First go to Facebook's official page and blog and complain loudly. Then click on Settings, Privacy Settings and go through each option carefully making sure nothing is set to "Everyone" unless you're okay with the entire site seeing it. (Make sure to set each of your photo albums to “Friends” or “Friends of Friends” unless you want them made public too.)The only way to keep the personal information Facebook has now made it mandatory to keep public from being seen by the entire site is to set the Facebook Search results to "Friends" or "Friends of Friends" when you get to the Search option. Keep in mind that anyone that knows your Facebook URL (like people you removed from your friends list) will still be able to see the personal info that Facebook is now forcing us to make public. The only way to prevent that is to place those people on your block list. There is now no way to stay in the search directory without having your friends list, profile pic, groups, pages and gender/location revealed. Finally, unless you want to see your Facebook information show up on Google, Bing, and other search engines, absolutely do not check the "Allow Indexing" box! While the new tools do have some interesting features like being able to make certain status updates public and others viewable by your friends list only, overall Facebook has seen to it that they have actually taken away some of their users privacy and that is not acceptable at all. C’mon Facebook, wake up. These new “tools” are a horrible idea! What do you think of the new tools? Post your opinions! Read [San Francisco Chronicle] Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Computers, Laptops, Features, Contests Its time for another giveaway here on Gadgetell, and as you will see, this one is just a little different than our last. That said, we do have to thank HP. But with that out of the way, the contest is for a brand new HP Envy 15 notebook and will run from today (November 30) through December 13. In terms of the notebook, again, it is an HP Envy 15 and here are some bullet points that should get you excited. - This is HP's fastest consumer notebook and the world's thinnest, lightest quad-core notebook PC.
- It offers maximum speed and mobility with the upcoming Intel Core i7 Processor and up to 16GB of DDR3 1066 MHz system memory with four SODIMM memory slots.
- Versatile storage options include the ability to add two solid-state drives in a RAID-0 configuration to improve the overall speed of the ENVY 15 while providing ultimate disk performance.
- A choice of two 15.6" HP Brightview high-resolution LED backlit displays, including the Full High Definition LED HP Ultra BrightView Widescreen Display with up to 300 nit, provides the best display experience for a notebook in this class.
- But this beauty is also a beast. Envy features the new Intel Core i7 processor which delivers ultimate mobile performance for the most demanding tasks from video editing to intense games. A 15.6” diagonal Brightview widescreen display and ATI Mobility Radeon™ 4830 discrete graphics processor produce the clearest, brightest visuals for viewing Blu-Ray5 and 1080p content.
This contest is also a little more involved, and will require more than just a simple comment or tweet but at the same time it should also be lots more fun. In short, its time to create a video! Here is a list of the guidelines that you will need to keep in mind. - Videos may be SD or HD, live-action, or animation, and must be under 100 MBs in size.
- Videos must clearly answer the question "What do you want the new HP Envy to do for you?"
- Videos must be posted to YouTube, and announced on Twitter with the hashtag #HPEnvy and @gadgetell
- Due to this video contest being run on multiple blogs, entries are limited to a single submission on one blog only.
- All content must be owned by entrant.
- Anything depicting violence, bodily harm (including cigarette smoking), profanity, nudity or explicit sexual content, or unlawful activity, including underage drinking, binge drinking, or gambling is not permitted in any video submission.
Finally, this one is only open to US residents. Product [HP Envy 15] Images [HP Envy 15 on Flickr] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Computers, Software / Applications, Web, Web Browsers, Google  Just yesterday, Google officially released the new extensions feature for Chrome, allowing web services of all kinds to finally extend their product to Chrome. There have already been over 500 extensions built for the new feature, and the number keeps growing.
One gripe that has plagued the extensions for the past two days is the lack of support for OSX. That will change very soon as Google does expect that extension support for Mac should be available by the end of the week. Now that Chrome has branched out to OSX and added the extensions feature, it is on par with all of the other web browsers as far as content available to consumers. But it does have the definite advantage of speed over the rest of them. You can check out all of the extensions here. My favorite so far: Adthwart, One Number, Brizzly, and Google Apps Shortcuts. Read [TechCrunch] Full Story » | Written by Hunter Clarke for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
Section: Communications, Cellular Providers  AT&T does not exactly have the most available network. Customers have constantly complained about the service, or lack there of, all over the country. Poor infrastructure coupled with one of the most popular and data hungry devices, the iPhone, and you have a recipe for disaster in heavily populated areas.
AT&T executive Ralph de la Vega has blamed the bad service on bandwidth mongols who make up 3% of smartphones. However, these heavy music and video consumers claim over 40% of its network, therefore causing the limited connectivity in populated areas. Now that the iPhone now will be able to stream live video over 3G, we can only expect this to get worse. The two particular areas AT&T referred to were the New York and San Francisco areas where the network sees tremendous use. AT&T’s solution to the problem: “incentives” to reduce network stress. Whether these are actual incentives such as a deduction on your wireless bill, or threatening incentives like tighter caps, AT&T is basically blaming their network on the users of the iPhone. I find this particularly strange considering AT&T should be praising Apple for allowing them to carry the phone that has no doubt increased their business by ridiculous numbers. AT&T should do everything in their power to mold their network around the features of the iPhone maintain all available the features on the phone. Here’s one simple solution for AT&T: stop selling the iPhone and give it to a network worthy of carrying the stress on the network. Otherwise, I see no reason why service issues should be blamed on the user because, get this, they used their phone! Read [Wired] Full Story » | Written by Hunter Clarke for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 
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