The web is all abuzz about Amazon's Tablet, the Kindle Fire. Naturally it's being compared to the iPad. Well, I have to admit I already placed my order. I figure I have some time to cancel, although my gadget curiosity will probably have me getting it. Some of my thoughts... Read the rest »
Amazon Kindle Take 2
Amazon announced the Kindle 2 and plans to begin shipping it on Feb. 24th. While there’s no doubt Amazon has run out of Kindles at various times and there’s been estimates of a half million sold, I’m not convinced the Kindle qualifies as “hugely popular”. When using it in public I’ve only been asked about it by one person. And she asked me if it was the one Oprah talked about. I’ve never seen another Kindle in the wild. Of course, I own the first Kindle and have already pre-ordered [...] Read the rest »
Amazon MP3 Store
There was a lot of hype when Amazon began selling MP3 song downloads. Some even used the dreaded “iTunes Store Killer” phrase. There’s certainly a lot to like about the Amazon MP3 store from a features point of view: Un-DRM’d MP3 music downloads. 256kbps encoding. (Actually it’s Variable Bit Rate encoding) Lower cost – $8.99 for top 100 albums compared to iTunes typical $9.99. $0.89 per top 100 song compared to iTunes $1.29 for the un-DRM’d songs. Since Amazon only sells un-DRM’d songs they have a smaller selection than iTunes. [...] Read the rest »
Amazon Unbox on Tivo
Amazon Unbox became available via Tivo about a month ago. When Amazon Unbox was originally unveiled I barely noticed. It was another DRM encumbered video download service. There was a bunch of DRM related rules and I’d have to deal with yet another single-purpose video player and it’s DRM implementation. But now it’s available on Tivo of which I’m a big fan so I decided to check it out. Signing up by April 30th produced a $15 credit so I could try it without any risk. The Tivo angle was [...] Read the rest »
