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Amazon.com isn't the first company to sell an electronic book reader with an easy-on-the-eyes E-Ink display, but its method for delivering those books may have opened up a whole new use for mobile data networks. Users of the Kindle, introduced Monday for a list price of $399, can select and buy books with the device and download them in less than one minute, according to the company. They can also buy the day's newspaper on the spot or subscribe to daily newspapers, magazines, and blogs for a monthly fee. Newspapers are delivered overnight and blogs several times a day. To deliver all this data, Amazon is using Sprint Nextel's 3G cellular network. But Kindle owners will never see a bill for that service because the cost will be included in the price of the content. It's a rare move that might be repeated as content providers and mobile operators look for successful formulas for making money off high-speed data networks. The Kindle is always connected to Sprint's EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) network unless it's outside the coverage area, in which case it switches to Sprint's slower 1x system. Users can also turn the radio off with a switch on the back of the device, said Charlie Tritschler, director of Kindle at Amazon. That extends the battery life from about two days to one week. Books download quickly because they aren't very big: 500 to 800KB on average, depending on length and the number of pictures. A newspaper is about the same size, he said. Users can also buy books online and "sideload" them to the Kindle. In any case, every book is backed up on Amazon along with any bookmarks or notes the user added, Tritschler said. Books cost $9.99 unless otherwise marked and newspaper subscriptions will start at $5.99 per month. There is a small music player on the device for background music while reading, but Amazon isn't selling music over EV-DO, he said. Users will have to sideload their own songs. When it started developing the Kindle, Amazon planned to use Wi-Fi instead of 3G, Tritschler said. But that would have required users to find a hotspot and in many cases manually log in to it. EV-DO, which is available across most of Sprint's nationwide network, is more widely available and easier to use, he said. Amazon's wireless business model for the Kindle seems to be unprecedented, according to Yankee Group analyst Phil Marshall. It's somewhat like Research in Motion, which popularized mobile e-mail using its own servers and device, the BlackBerry, except that even BlackBerry users needed a contract with a mobile operator, he said. Other companies might follow Amazon's lead, but to succeed, they would have to be established ones like Amazon with other sales channels such as online, Marshall said. There are book-reader applications available for most smartphone platforms, though not for Apple's iPhone. However, the Kindle, like the Sony Reader, has an electrophoretic display from E-Ink that is designed to look like paper. A phone's LCD is not only smaller but causes more eyestrain, Tritschler said. Sprint, struggling in third place among U.S. mobile operators, already sells wholesale access to its network to several mobile virtual network operators who resell voice and data services on conventional phones and mobile devices. Like other mobile operators, it makes heavy investments in network infrastructure. Sprint has recently upgraded its EV-DO network to a faster version of the technology, in addition to planning a separate, faster network using WiMax at a cost of about $5 billion. About 19 percent of U.S. mobile users download content such as ringtones, games and applications to their mobile phones, according to the analyst firm M:Metrics.  Action toy commercial -- sorry that the sound quality sucks. Rated 4.0685 / 5 | 489 views | 9 comments Click here to watch the video                         
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life! Filed under: Home Entertainment  Welcome back for another episode of Stupid Gadget Criminals. For today's edition, we take you to France, where in the village of Mussidan in the southwestern part of the country, a malefactor stole a television along with a set of hunting rifles, according to local police. So where does the stupidity come in? Well, messieurs et mesdames, it appears that this ruffian didn't make it back to his evil lair with the remote control -- and upon so realizing, returned to the scene of the crime to retrieve the last of the loot. The neighbors caught him doing the dastardly deed, and he was turned over to the proper authorities. So remember kids, you can always pick up a replacement remote at your local Best Buy, or in his case, Fnac.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life! 
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Get a sneak peak at The Simpsons Movie Teaser Trailer in theaters July 27 2007. Runtime: 29 sec
One more mission for Call of Duty 4!
Filed under: Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360, Adventure, Fighting, Puzzle, RPGs
All the leaves are brown. (And the sky is grey.) Imagine being a freshwater fish after a heavy rain. All around you: brown. Zelda's like this. The game's muddy color palette doesn't sparkle in the way that previous iterations of the venerable Zelda series sparkled. As our protagonist wanders through villages, we find ourselves wishing that those villages could be razed and in their places built more beautiful towns, filled with magic, character, and more than just the colors to the left and right of "rust" on the color wheel. The engine that couldn't. Whenever someone dares voice his misgivings about the Wii's disappointing graphics rendering capability, defenders instantly parry, "It's the game play, stupid!" These folks are right that the controls of games are of primary importance, but do gaming a disservice to when they artificially partition game play and graphics. Graphics can (and should) enhance game play. In the latest Zelda, the game's designers have been forced to sabotage game play to atone for the console's graphical shortcomings. Example: roadside signs are illegible. In Zelda, merely reading signs becomes laborious and annoying. You must first walk up to the sign. You must then press the controller's "a" button. When you do this, the game zooms in on the sign (taking a moment to do this). The game then shows you the text of the sign. Finally, having read the sign, you must hit another button to zoom away from the sign and regain control of your character. If your character we blind and had to read via Braille, this sort of clunky interface would be appropriate. But such game play merely rankles here, because most modern games have legible signposts. This simple example demonstrates the importance of graphics to game play. There are plenty of other game play elements affected by the Wii's weaker graphical engine. One more example: at one point the player must catch fish in order to solve a puzzle. Thanks to the indistinct graphics, it's actually impossible to tell how much of your bobber is underwater, making it more difficult to know when to set the hook in order to reel in a fish. In sum: it's clear that we're playing a GameCube game that's had motion-sensitive controls bolted on in order to move Wii boxes off of retailer shelves. Zelda will do that job admirably -- it will still sell in the millions. It will earn praise. But to compare this title to PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 games isn't fair to the game. To give any Wii titles a fair shake, we're going to have to compare them to Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube games. This isn't our official review of the title -- there's plenty positive to be said about Zelda, despite its unappealing visuals. Stay tuned for that post in the very near future. In fact, another Joystiq blogger is working on a rebuttal to this post right now. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
As reported by x360a:
"An eagle-eyed forum-dweller here noticed a new, secret 100 point achievement showed up on the German version of BioShock a few days ago. Well, I've been keeping tabs since, and it has now shown up on the U.S. version as well. There has been no announcement as to what the achievement is, nor if it is currently available to be achieved. There has been talks of DLC coming with new plasmids and tonics ever since the game's launch, so it might be tied into that. Could it be for Harvesting every Little Sister? The Anti-"Little Sister Savior" perhaps? Or collecting all the new tonics/plasmids from the DLC? There's even a rumor it could be for completing the game on Hard without dying, though that seems a stretch. Only time will tell."
x360a have 8 new screenshots from Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. The shots are from level 12 of the game, called El Capital, which takes place in Havana. Up until yesterday, this level had been kept under wraps by Eidos - so these screens are hot off the press!
As part of its Power6 processor push, IBM also announced its first Power6-based blade server, which sports 4Ghz dual-core processors.
Jordan Geiger's principle band is Minus Story, but maybe it should be his bedroom project, Hospital Ships. And no offense to Minus Story, but Geiger's debut, Oh, Ramona, showcases his talent for songwriting in a very understated way, recalling everything from the whiney, high-pitched talents of Neil Young to the mellow, warbled psychedelia in the vein of Mercury Rev.
The fourteen songs here rarely reach the three-minute range, with a handful under two minutes. You'd think that would limit Geiger, but it doesn't. All the songs seamlessly bleed into each other. Geiger's emotive abilities guide a sweeping, floating feeling as on opener "Bitter Radio Single," and the lo-fi, uplifting piano tune "Baby For J." Minus Story has been consistently cited as "followers" of The Flaming Lips and The Zombies. Hospital Ships, to a degree, still continues evoking those influences. But like a lot of home-recorded work, what you want to look for is a degree of effortless that comes with it. The
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, cycling legend Lance Armstrong and several technology industry CEOs will discuss this week how Internet technologies can help solve global problems.
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Woman down! Columbia's hunger strike is one less strong, after 
Itching to get in on the Zune 2.0 action? Woot's got both black and white 30GB Zunes for just $84.99. Yez, these Zunes are refurbished, but if you're not too picky about using something some stranger's handled, you can save a few bucks. And if you're a fan of the brown Zune, like we are, Amazon has those for $89. [
At great risk to personal health, this author dares criticize The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Nintendo Wii.