Amazon has announced that Digital Text Platform self publishing tool is now available to authors around the world and that support for French and German languages has been added. Previously only English was supported.
The Digital Text Platform (DTP) allows writers to publish their own books for the Kindle by uploading a PDF, TXT, Word or HTML version of their work. They can also set their own price. In return Amazon takes 65% of their sales.
Amazon has been opening up their Kindles for the world lately as well. Now both the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX are available in international versions. Like all Kindles they offer wireless connectivity, but through AT&T instead of Sprint.
There is one catch to all the global love. Overseas users have a $2.00 charge added to their books, presumably to cover the data service. That means the free books offered in the Kindle store aren't free for them. Still, the increased availability is welcomed by international users, many of which complained bitterly about Amazon's prior refusal to sell Kindles to anyone without a U.S. address and credit card.
The ugly mess known as NBC late night has taken an interesting turn of events. Conan O'Brien, who has so far refused to agree to NBC's request that he move to the 12:05 timeslot in order to accommodate Jay Leno, announced on Wednesday's show that he has put the Tonight Show up for sale on Craiglist. The ad has been confirmed-it was found in Craigslist's Los Angeles section. Check out this video for the details:
The mess began on Sunday when NBC announced it was canceling the Jay Leno Show in response to angry affiliates who say it was a poor lead in to the late news and cost them millions in ad revenue. The network asked O'Brien to move to 12:05am so that Leno could move to the 11:35 spot. He refused. Some sources say Leno's deal with the network is set and O'Brien will soon be fired, others claim he's headed for Fox.
The net has taken up O'Brien's cause in a big way. A Facebook group supporting him has sprung up and currently has almost 160,000 members. Twitter is buzzing with debate over who should go, O'Brien or Leno, and thousands of Facebook users have changed their profile photos to Conan O'Brien icons to show their support.
One thing is for sure, no matter how this turns out, late night TV is never going to be the same again.
T-Mobile announced it will allow its customers to place calls to Haiti for free and it would also waive charges on calls coming from the earthquake stricken country. The free calls will be retroactive to January 12th and continue through January 31st. Additionally, T-Mobile customers in Haiti will be given free roaming.
President and CEO of T-Mobile USA, Robert Dottson explains that "Our company and our employees care deeply for our customers, and we know that many customers have been directly impacted by the disaster in Haiti. While our thoughts go out to those in Haiti who are suffering so greatly at this time, our promise is to help people connect with those who matter most. I can think of no better time to demonstrate this commitment."
T-Mobile said it also plans to help rebuild the wireless infrastructure in the devastated country and donate generators and cell cites.
All cell phone users are urged to donate to disaster relief efforts by texting HAITI to 90999. A $10 donation will be made to the Red Cross and the charge will appear on your phone bill. Or you can text YELE to 501501 to make a $5 donation. All four major providers say the texts can be sent free of charge.
Sporting the exact (almost!) same specifications as the Kindle DX, the Boeye’s OEM E900 reader is a cheaper ebook reader, priced at only around $311. Although it lacks branding, you’ve got to agree that this 9.7” ebook reader (3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, an expandable microSD slot, and a whole slew of other features such as text-to-speech) is almost an exact replica of the Kindle DX, down to the button positions! For a much cheaper price, I might actually consider going for the Boeye E900. The only downside is that the minimum order quantity is 100 pieces. Any wholesalers reading this?
Cox Communications has announced that it will launch its 3G wireless network in March. Initially it will use Sprint's infrastructure but will eventually run on Cox's own. It will be available in three markets to begin with and eventually expand. Users in Orange County, California, Omaha, Nebraska and Hampton Roads, Virginia will be able to purchase the service on its own or bundled with a cable, phone and internet service. No word yet on rates.
Cox's competitors Time Warner, Comcast and Brighthouse Networks are planning to launch their own networks using the ClearWire WiMax network. The launch of these networks is one of the reasons the FCC briefly consider taking spectrum away from broadcasters and giving it to broadband providers, who insist more spectrum and bandwidth are needed to support the publics growing hunger for wireless services. The plan was shelved after protests from over the air broadcasters and instead a system is being planned that would let a broadcaster voluntarily offer their spectrum to the highest bidder.
Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week? Here's your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!
Seen at CES 2010: World’s largest Droid ” The Nexus One may be currently be the biggest Android release ever but this Droid is the biggest. Period. I passed Motorola on my way to Microsoft’s booth and I’m glad I did. Motorola had a couple rather large Droid’s on…” MORE »
CES 2010: Three big winners ” CES 2010 is an enigma. For the Gadgetell crew, there wasn’t a clear winning product. One thing we can agree was three companies owned this show, all without actually having a booth. Those three companies are Netflix,…” MORE »
CES Hands On: Asus Eee PC T101MT ” For once the Eee PC naming scheme makes a bit of sense. The Eee PC T101MT is a 10-inch netbook that doubles as a multitouch tablet. Asus has it on display here at CES, and I was able to…” MORE »
CES 2010 Hands on: Verizon branded Palm Plus ” As much as it pains me to say, one of the bigger stories coming from CES this year was the Palm Pre Plus (and Pixi Plus) that will be soon heading to Verizon Wireless. And…” MORE »
Monster releases yet another pair of headphones at CES ” Monster is going crazy with all the announcements this week. However, most of the announcements in terms of headphones have been earbuds, with not much said about standard headphones. That has changed, however, as Monster had added even more…” MORE »
Asus NX90Jq: the most ridiculous laptop you’ll see at CES this year ” For most people, when they think about laptops, portability is a big factor. You want to be able to move your laptop without having to carry it in some huge bag, or worry about breaking yourself or the laptop. For some…” MORE »
CES 2010: Hands on with the MSI Wind U135 netbook ” Roaming the show floor, and also being in the market for a new netbook, I have been paying a little extra special attention to some of the newer models to hit the show…” MORE »
Album: the portable photo frame, soon to play video ” Albumteam has finally done something that has taken far too long to a company to realize: make a decent digital photo album that can leave the coffee table. Album accomplishes just that, it’s a 7-inch portable digital photo frame. It also is…” MORE »
Intel’s giant board of Internet cubes ” What you see here is a large board from Intel’s booth at CES. All those cubes are actually representative of news stories from across the Internet. The cubes could represent anything from news stories pulled from aggregators, Flickr photos,…” MORE »
For only $80, you can get a Kingston SSDNow V 30GB Flash Drive that will boost your system performance. Boasting speeds of up to 180MB/sec. read speed and 50MB/sec. write speed, it is a surefire way of decreasing your boot time or even your software startup time. SSDs are known to be better in terms of performance (and also a little pricier!), compared to their optical hard drives counterpart. The price is $80 after rebates, and it’s coming in February for $110 without the promotional rebates
FROM APPLETELL - Consider SkinIt skins tattoos for your electronic devices, albeit without the pain and ultimate embarrassment and regret. Well, depending upon your selected design, I guess. MORE »
You’ve got the big show and an awful lot of folks feeling like it is all on the line. That is going to lead to some of them looking for a shortcut, something that will keep the intensity up while glossing over the magnitude of it all. 10% unemployment rate will drive many of the rats that have a job to do some pretty stupendous things. And get on crack. Here is what I learned in Vegas.
Gaga for gadgets?
Monster for Monster
From CES 2011: 3M gets one-upped
Gadgetell goes Zune
Gaga over gadgets
Lady Gaga seemed to be everywhere at CES. From chillaxin with Monster Cables to claiming the corner office with Kodak, she left her mark on the show. Is she really that hot right now?
The Monster deal makes sense to me; they do celeb versions all the time, Gaga’s is no difference (minus the RED tie-in, props there). But Kodak? They appointed her Creative Director of Special Products. Will she’ll occupy the office between Marketing Especial Hombre Eric Estrada and EVP of Stuff You Kinda Forgot Was There Tito Jackson? To my knowledge Kodak hasn’t appointed Estrada or Jackson to these posts but it seem arbitrary to stop with Gaga.
I am not sure I want products designed by Gaga. I mean, I don’t want Justin Timberlake adjusting the brakes on my car any more than I want Flavor Flavor designing my next set of skiis. I am sure Kodak has a better excuse than just marketing. Right?
Monster is so hot right now
One cool thing about CES is the social aspect. This year, CES brought Gadgetell, Appletell and Gamertell writers together to cover the multifaceted show. Bring blogging geeks together and we’ll typically talk about a range of stuff and find lots of common ground. Not so with Jake Gaecke.
Jake’s an Appletell writer, so off the bat you know he’s got fanboi in his blood. But seriously, we couldn’t have a conversation that didn’t involve him brining Monster up. It didn’t matter whether we were talking about tablets, atomic testing, or the food served: he swung the conversation back to Monster. Monster, Monster, Monster.
We tried to shock it out of his system with things like, “Jake, I just read Steve Jobs is retiring this year,” or “Apple is never ever releasing a tablet.” He wouldn’t bite, he just kept going by telling us how much better our lives would be with Monster headphones. If Monster is reading, and I am sure you’re not, please contact Jake to get him a sample set of headphones.
CES 2011 prediction: 3M gets one-upped
Our Shawn Ingram told us about 3Ms touchscreen: “What sets the 3M monitor apart from most other multitouch displays is the fact that it supports up to 10 points of interaction at the same time. That was you can have every finger on both hands moving independently and have to PC recognize each one of them.”
Our prediction is next year a host of companys from China will try to one-up 3Ms toy. They’ll crank it to 11.
Gadgetell <3's Zune
You’ll notice we didn’t do many booth tours on the site, opting for personal in depth coverage. There were a few notable exceptions and Microsoft’s Zune is one of them. One of the most polarizing gadgets going, you probably won’t see too many Zune booth tours on the web. Why is that? Cause Robert Nelson, our editor, is a Zuney toon.
The man loves Zune. Loves the touchscreen version, loves the subscription and loves being the only one in a a 100 mile radius with one. So he fought the crowds of the always packed Microsoft booth complex and brought you these images. Lovely stuff, right?
Is Robert on the list because he loves the Zune? Nah. Is it the booth tour in a year of no real booth tours? Nah. Is it just for the fact that he’ll admit to loving the Zune? I am not saying.
CES seemed to be done as far as I was concerned. That’s how I felt until I looked at my Kodak Zi8 and remembered the first product to truly impress me at the massive tech exhibit - the Sony Bloggie line of digital camcorders. I purchased my Zi8 specifically for capturing video at CES and had a case of buyer’s remorse as soon as Sony took the leash off Bloggie. The camera is half the size of my current camcorder, records in 1080p H.264 or MP4 for faster upload and conversion times for YouTube, support for SDHC/SD/Memory Stick, and best of all, a panoramic add-on that supplies a super-widescreen.
The Sony Bloggie comes in two forms: the fixed-lense MHS-CHM5, which doesn't support the add-on, and the positionable-lens MHS-PM5 that support the 360-degree camera add-on. Both products are on-sale at Sony Style or Amazon and other retailers. Below is a hands-on video of the $169 Bloggie MHS-PM5.
USB 3.0 so far is till in the beginning stages of being rolled out. There are some companies such as LaCie, Seagate and Western Digital already producing USB 3.0 external drives. For the most part, however, it has been difficult to find a computer with hardware for the updated spec, with companies just now announcing computers with USB 3.0. Now, HP is claiming the role of the first PC manufacturer to actually ship computers with native USB 3.0 support.
HP has announced that it’s Envy 15 laptops will be the first computers to ship with USB 3.0. It won’t be a selling point for many people, though there are some early adopters out there who would want the 5Gbps transfers USB 3.0 can provide. HP also plans to equip it’s EliteBook line with USB 3.0 within the next two weeks. As of now, it’s not clear what the upgrades will cost the end user, though it should be safe to assume the upgrade will not be cheap.
USB 3.0 does off a number of improvements over 2.0, including the faster speeds and it is able so supple more energy to connected devices. That means it will be able to power more power-hungry devices or charge others faster. The speed and power would be great for those who might want to use larger, external SSDs, or who want to power their phone (or other device) faster without having to use the AC adapter. Hopefully the hardware for USB 3.0 can come down in price fast enough for it to become the standard for USB sooner rather than later.
FROM APPLETELL - The Vue Personal Video Network gives you access to streaming video feeds from around your house via a computer or even an iPhone. MORE »
Just when you thought CF cards will become obsolete soon and be replaced with SD cards, Silicon Power took its liberty to announce a world’s first 128GB 400X CF card. SD cards which currently have a maximum capacity of 32GB or 64GB pale in comparison with this 128GB CF card. You need not worry about storage issues the next time you snap pictures on your DSLR. The 128GB 400X CF card by Silicon Power boasts a write speed of up to 90MB/sec, delivering astounding performance for your devices using CF cards. Silicon Power offers a lifetime warranty for this card, demonstrating their degree of confidence in the quality of their products. Although pricing information isn’t out yet, get ready to burn a hole in your wallet if you decide to buy it.
Amazon has announced that Digital Text Platform self publishing tool is now available to authors around the world and that support for French and German languages has been added. Previously only English was supported.
The ugly mess known as NBC late night has taken an interesting turn of events. Conan O'Brien, who has so far refused to agree to NBC's request that he move to the 12:05 timeslot in order to accommodate Jay Leno, announced on Wednesday's show that he has put the Tonight Show up for sale on Craiglist. The ad has been confirmed-it was found in Craigslist's Los Angeles section. Check out this video for the details:
T-Mobile announced it will allow its customers to place calls to Haiti for free and it would also waive charges on calls coming from the earthquake stricken country. The free calls will be retroactive to January 12th and continue through January 31st. Additionally, T-Mobile customers in Haiti will be given free roaming.
Sporting the exact (almost!) same specifications as the Kindle DX, the Boeye’s OEM E900 reader is a cheaper ebook reader, priced at only around $311. Although it lacks branding, you’ve got to agree that this 9.7” ebook reader (3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, an expandable microSD slot, and a whole slew of other features such as text-to-speech) is almost an exact replica of the Kindle DX, down to the button positions! For a much cheaper price, I might actually consider going for the Boeye E900. The only downside is that the minimum order quantity is 100 pieces. Any wholesalers reading this?
CES seemed to be done as far as I was concerned. That’s how I felt until I looked at my Kodak Zi8 and remembered the first product to truly impress me at the massive tech exhibit - the Sony Bloggie line of digital camcorders. I purchased my Zi8 specifically for capturing video at CES and had a case of buyer’s remorse as soon as Sony took the leash off Bloggie. The camera is half the size of my current camcorder, records in 1080p H.264 or MP4 for faster upload and conversion times for YouTube, support for SDHC/SD/Memory Stick, and best of all, a panoramic add-on that supplies a super-widescreen. 
Just when you thought CF cards will become obsolete soon and be replaced with SD cards, Silicon Power took its liberty to announce a world’s first 128GB 400X CF card. SD cards which currently have a maximum capacity of 32GB or 64GB pale in comparison with this 128GB CF card. You need not worry about storage issues the next time you snap pictures on your DSLR. The 128GB 400X CF card by Silicon Power boasts a write speed of up to 90MB/sec, delivering astounding performance for your devices using CF cards. Silicon Power offers a lifetime warranty for this card, demonstrating their degree of confidence in the quality of their products. Although pricing information isn’t out yet, get ready to burn a hole in your wallet if you decide to buy it.
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