WebProNews

Tag: Gadgets

  • Free Case Not Enough? Samsung Gives Some Disgruntled iPhone Users Free Android Phones

    You may have heard that a few people have been dissatisfied with their recent iPhone 4 purchases. Apple has gone out of its way to make it up to them (whether or not they’ve done enough is debatable), but that hasn’t stopped people from complaining.

    Samsung Galaxy SSome of those people got lucky when they complained publicly on Twitter, because someone was listening. It wasn’t Apple, but Samsung, who decided to try and convert some of its competitor’s users to Samsung users. Samsung has been giving away its Galaxy S phones to some of the complainers, as first reported by Wired UK.

    "Recently there has been a real increase in online activity from consumers dissatisfied with some of our competitors’ products," Samsung told Wired. "We decided to contact a cross section of individuals to offer them a free Samsung Galaxy S as a replacement, as we’re confident that once people have the phone in their hands, they’ll see how impressive it is for themselves."

    While Samsung’s efforts may convert a few iPhone users to Galaxy S users, it might also effectively convert them to Android users, as the phone runs Android 2.1. That could be more long-term.

    You have to admit a free phone is a little more enticing than a free case.

    The move follows a newspaper ad taken by Samsung, which also mocked Apple’s reception issues.

    Publicity stunts? Sure. It’s working though isn’t it?

  • Apple Begins Case Program, Delays White iPhone

    As you are probably aware, Apple announced last week that iPhone 4 buyers would be entitled to a free case (or bumper) to correct the highly-publicized receptions issues with the device. Those who already purchased a case/bumper would be entitled to a refund.

    iPhone Case Program app launchedThe company has now begun the process of making good on that promise. MacRumors points to an Apple Store message saying, "As of today, we have automatically processed your refund. You have also been refunded for any Shipping or VAT charges which may have been applied to your order. If you paid via credit card, please allow 3-5 business days for the refund to reach your account."

    In addition, Apple has released a downloadable iPhone app that lets users sign up for a free bumper or case. More info on this can be found here.

    Meanwhile, some consumers are still waiting for a white version of the iPhone 4. Apple released the following statement today about it: "White models of Apple’s new iPhone 4 have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected."

    On a somewhat related note, TheNextWeb points to a newspaper ad taken out by Samsung, which appears to include a subtle jab at the iPhone’s antenna issues.

  • Baidu to Compete with Google in the Mobile OS Space Too?

    InformationWeek is reporting that Baidu may be looking at developing a mobile operating system, citing Chinese media reports. The project would be led by former Google employees. Meanwhile, TechCrunch says Android is poised to dominate in China.

    Nokia Siemens and Motorola jointly announced that Nokia Siemens will acquire the majority of Motorola’s wireless network infrastructure assets for  $1.2 billion. This is pending regulatory approval, but the deal is expected to close before year’s end. 

    iPad Comes to Nine More Countries This WeekApple announced today that the iPad will be available in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore starting Friday. Currently, the iPad is available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US. The company says it will be available in many more countries later this year.

    According to Fortune, Apple is closing in on Microsoft in revenue. "Though Apple still has a ways to go to compete with Microsoft in terms of net income due to Microsoft’s untouchable operating margin, many will be surprised to discover that Apple’s revenues are close to surpassing Microsoft’s," writes Andy M. Zaky. "If it doesn’t happen this week, it will almost certainly come in the next quarterly announcement." Apple’s earnings announcement is tomorrow, and Microsoft’s is Thursday.

    Speaking of Apple’s announcement, it’s possible that the company could announce its "Magic Trackpad" (which may or may not go by that name). This is a bluetooth device for the desktop, that has just gained FCC approval, as Engadget points out. Engadget also has a very in-depth preview of Windows Phone 7 worth checking out.

  • Apple Releasing iPad to 9 More Countries on Friday

    Apple announced today that the iPad will be available in nine new countries this Friday. These include: Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore.

    All models of the iPad will be available through Apple retail stores and through authorized resellers. Currently, the iPad is available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US.

    iPad Comes to Nine More Countries This WeekApple says the iPad will roll out to many more countries later this year, and the company will announce availability and local pricing for these additional countries at a later date.

    About a month ago, Apple announced that it had sold 3 million iPads in 80 days (since launch). "People are loving iPad as it becomes a part of their daily lives," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

    The iPad has certainly been more well received than Apple’s other big product launch of the year – the iPhone 4, which got a less than favorable write-up from Consumer Reports, and has been the subject of the infamous "Antennagate" PR disaster. Last week, the company announced it would be giving away free cases for iPhone 4 owners, to fix the device’s reception problems.

  • Apple’s iAds Now Appearing for Users

    Apple’s iAds Now Appearing for Users

    Apple’s iAds are making their way into the wild after weeks of hype. MacRumors.com says, "their presence appears to be very spotty on iAd-compatible applications at the moment with banners appearing only occasionally while at other times the apps simply show blank space in the banner location."

    Engadget has an interesting piece on "What Killed the Kin", Microsoft’s ill-fated feature phone that has not been around for very long. The article seems to suggest that the product line may have been doomed from the get go.

    iPhone 4 from AppleGizmodo reports that Finland’s policy to make broadband a legal right went into effect today. This was originally announced back in October. "It’s only a 1Mbps connection for now, but by 2015 they’re promised 100Mbps," writes Kat Hannaford.

    Complaints about the iPhone 4’s antenna troubles have amounted to multiple class action suits against Apple, according to reports. Boy Genius Report has an alleged "conversation" with Steve Jobs, who appears to be playing down the antenna issues. Update: Fortune reports this conversation was a Facek, citing Apple PR.

    HP completed its acquisition of Palm, after just a couple months. HP got it for a pirce of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash.

  • Amazon Releases New KindleDX with Lower Price, Better Contrast

    Amazon has introduced a new version of the Kindle DX with a lower price of $379 (down from $489) and 50% better display contrast.

    "There’s no turning back once you read on our beautiful new Kindle DX screen," said Steve Kessel, senior vice president, Amazon Kindle. "With 50 percent better contrast and darker fonts, you’ll find it easier than ever to read KindleDXwherever you happen to be, whether it’s outside in bright sunlight or under the low light of your living room. We’re excited to offer the new Kindle DX with free 3G wireless at the lower price of $379."

    The device has a 9.7-inch screen and a new graphite enclosure. It’s available for pre-order starting today. It will ship on July 7th.

    The release comes less than two weeks since Amazon announced that it was lowering the price of its previous version from $259 to $189, in response to Barnes & Noble’s release of a low-priced e-reader. In that time, Amazon has also added the ability for users to see embedded video and hear audio clips within Kindle books in its Kindle apps for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The company has also started a new royalty program for Kindle authors.

  • Google’s AdMob Reflects on 2 Years of Mobile Evolution

    AdMob released its Mobile Metrics report for May, which focuses on changes in the mobile market over the course of two years. Unsurprisingly, a lot has changed. While AdMob’s network traffic itself has grown a lot in that time, the company says there continues to be strong regional differences with devices used to access the mobile web.

    "Smartphones have also grown rapidly, in May 2008 they generated 22 percent of ad requests and in May 2010 smartphones accounted for 46 percent of ad requests," the company reports. "In May 2008, the iPhone and iPod touch generated 1.3 percent of worldwide requests and the first Android handset was still six months from launching.  Two years later, the two platforms accounted for 42 percent of all ad requests worldwide, driven by strong application usage." 

    Monthly Growth since May 2008 - AdMob

    Other highlights picked out by the company include:

    – 92 countries generated more than 10 million monthly requests, up from 27 in May 2008.

    – Traffic from North America, Asia, Western Europe, Latin America and Oceania all increased by a factor of at least 6x from May 2008 to May 2010.

    – Smartphones accounted for 46 percent of traffic, feature phones for 42 percent of traffic and Mobile Internet Devices for 12 percent of traffic in May 2010.

    – Motorola feature phones were the top three devices in AdMob’s network in May 2008, but in May 2010 the only Motorola device in the top ten was the Droid. 
     
    – The Nokia N70 was the number one smartphone in AdMob’s network in May 2008. It dropped to number two in May 2009 and down to number four in May 2010, but continues to be the top smartphone from Nokia in AdMob’s network.

    – The Top 5 iPad countries in AdMob’s network, based on the number of unique devices, were the United States (58 percent), Japan (5 percent), United Kingdom (4 percent), China (4 percent), and Canada (3 percent).

    – A year ago, the HTC Dream (G1) was the only Android device broadly available.  In May 2010, the leading handset, the Motorola Droid, had only 21 percent of the Android users in the AdMob network demonstrating the broad range of Android devices available. 

    Remember that all of the findings mentioned are based solely on data from AdMob’s own network, which is quite large, but not all encompassing. Much of the data, however, pre-dates AdMob’s acquisition by Google.

    The entire report can be found here.

  • eBay Lists its iPhone 4 Sales Guidelines

    The iPhone 4 is scheduled for release on June 24th. eBay has prepared for this and has set some rules for how the site will handle sales.

    On eBay, Apple authorized resellers will be allowed to list an unlimited number of items per week. eBay iPhone 4 from AppleTop-rated sellers will be allowed to list up to 8 items per week. Sellers with a history of selling in the Cell Phones & PDAs category will be allowed to list up to 8 items per week. Everyone else will be allowed to list up to 4 items per week. All sellers are required to accept PayPal as their only method of payment.

    Some that have ordered the new iPhones are getting them early, according to reports. According to Electronista, they will not activate yet though.

    Some iPhone owners found that as they downloaded the newly released iOS 4, they didn’t get all of the features. Gizmodo has an explanation of why 3G users haven’t been able to get backgrounds or multitasking.

    According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Barclays says Verizon will probably begin selling iPhones early next year.

  • Apple Announces 3 Million iPad Sales in 80 Days

    Apple announced that it has sold three million iPads in the 80 days since its introduction.

    "People are loving iPad as it becomes a part of their daily lives," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. "We’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more people around the world, including those in nine more countries next month."

    Apple Sells a million iPadsAt the end of May, Jobs announced that Apple had sold 2 million, just on the heels of its release to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

    On May third, exactly a month after the iPad’s introduction, Apple had announced that it sold a million. In other words, iPad sales seem to be pretty steady at about a million a month (a little better than that).

    It will be interesting to see how long this trend keeps up. A survey shared today by Retrevo found that people who read a lot are more likely to buy e-readers than iPads, and another recent survey found that people would be more willing to purchase Android-based tablets if they are cheaper than iPads.

  • The More People Read, the More Likely They’ll be to Choose an E-Reader Over an iPad

    As you may know, eBook readers are getting cheaper. Yesterday Barnes & Noble lowered the price on its 3G Nook, forcing Amazon to also lower the price of its Kindle. Combine that with the popularity of the iPad, and the market for eBooks is growing.

    Retrevo Looks at Purchase intent - e-readers vs. iPadsRetrevo has shared with us some results from a survey on the topic. The firm asked participants if they were planning on buying an e-reader this year. 20% said yes, 8% already own one, 8% are buying an iPad instead, and 64% are not buying an e-Reader or an iPad.

    According to Retrevo’s findings, avid readers are more interested in e-readers than iPads. Of people that read over 5 books a month, 42% are planning on buying an e-Reader this year, 9% already own one, 7% are planning on buying an iPad instead, and 42% are not planning on buying an e-Reader this year.

    Of those who read 1 – 5 books a month, 24% are planning on buying an e-Reader this year, 9% already own one, 8% are planning on buying an iPad, and 58% are not planning on buying an e-Reader at all.

    Of casual readers, classified as those who read a book every couple of months, 13% are planning on buying an e-Reader this year, 7% already own one, 11% are planning on buying an iPad, and 69% are not planning on buying an e-Reader.

    It appears that it is important to consumers to be able to try out an e-reader before making a purchase. 82% of avid readers say it is, as well as 78% of "active readers" (the middle category), and 69% of casual readers.

  • Barnes & Noble Forces Amazon to Lower Kindle Price

    Earlier today, Barnes & Noble revealed a new Wi-Fi version of its Nook eBook reader, and along with that, dropped the price of its 3G version to $199. Not to be outdone, Amazon has now announced that it has dropped the price of its Kindle from $259 to $189.

    Kindle now costs lessBarnes and Noble noted in its announcement that the new Nook 3G price made the device the first undre $200 dedicated full-feature eBook reader to offer both free 3G wireless and Wi-Fi connectivity.

    Amazon says of the Kindle, "Even though it’s a 3G wireless device, Kindle has no monthly fees or annual contracts," noting that 3G eliminates the need to hunt for Wi-Fi hotspots.

    Amazon makes a point of saying that its device is in stock and available for immediate shipping.

    It looks like the real winner of this price war will be the consumer.

  • Here Comes Apple’s iOS 4

    Here Comes Apple’s iOS 4

    iOS4, the recently announced new version of Apple’s mobile operating system is due out today. Users of devices that utilize this OS are no doubt anxious to get it, but they shouldn’t have to wait much longer. Although as Brad McCarty at The Next Web points out, "Bear in mind, iPhone OS 3 (released last year) took the better part of the day to hit the public."

    Speaking of Apple, you may recall Steve Jobs unveiling FaceTime at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference a couple weeks ago. This is its video chat application for iOS. Today Silicon Alley Insider reports confirmation from Apple that FaceTime will not use up carrier minutes. This could make the feature a more attractive way of communicating.

    Robert Scoble points to a "first look" at a new Toshiba touch netbook prototype:

    Dell is reportedly in talks with Google that will likely see the utilization of Google operating systems on Dell products. Doug Caverly has more on this here.

    Dell has also launched its new Inspiron R series of laptops. Laptop Mag has a detailed write-up of it here(via TechMeme).

    Barnes and Noble introduced a new, lower priced version of its Nook eBook reader. This one is a Wi-Fi-only version, priced at $149. In addition, they lowered the price on the 3G version to under $200.

    Android Central has uncovered some specs for the Samsung Galaxy S Pro. The publication says it "may well end up being the hottest phone of the year."

    Digitimes Research claims that Nokia will launch an ARM-based tablet PC, most likely in the fourth quarter of this year. Nokia  is expected to go with MeeGo as the operating system.

    Microsoft recently unveiled Kinect (previously known as Project Natal). Kotaku is reporting that the company has now confirmed Kinect will be bundled with Xbox consoles, and "a $199 configuration of its new Xbox 360 will be available this fall."

  • Barnes & Noble Introduces Nook Wi-Fi (A Cheaper Version)

    Barnes and Noble today introduced its Nook Wi-Fi device priced at $149. In addition, the 3G version of the Nook has been lowered to $199.

    The company notes that the new Nook 3G price marks the first under $200 dedicated full-feature eBook reader that offers both free 3G wireless and Wi-Fi connectivity. It also now has a new software update that is supposed to make it easier to connect in more places via Wi-Fi.

    "People who love to read will find tremendous value with the new NOOK Wi-Fi, the most full-featured, low-cost eReading device on the market, and our bestselling NOOK 3G now at an even lower price," says Tony Astarita, VP, Digital Products, Barnes & Noble.com. "This expanded choice offers best-in-class, best-priced dedicated eBook Readers featuring eBook sharing, access to our vast eBookstore, great free and exclusive content and much more. And with expansion of fast and free Wi-Fi access beyond Barnes & Noble stores to thousands of AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spots, we’re bringing additional freedom and flexibility to all NOOK 3G and NOOK Wi-Fi customers."

    Features of the NOOK Wi-Fi include (as listed by B&N):

    Barnes & Noble Introduces new Wi-Fi version of Nook– Enriched eReading: Enjoy an immersive reading experience with color book covers to browse in your library or while shopping, fast page turns, multiple font choices and sizes and more.

    – Dual displays: A fun, easy-to-use reading experience on the familiar paper-like 6” E-Ink display which offers great contrast with no backlight or glare even in bright sunlight, and 3.5” LCD lower color touchscreen for navigation.

    – Vast catalog of content: Shop the Barnes & Noble eBookstore for everything from classics to current bestsellers and download your content wirelessly in seconds. There are more than one million eBooks, magazines and newspapers available and free eBook samples.

    – Lend to friends: Share a wide range of eBooks with friends for 14 days using exclusive LendMe technology.

    – In-store experience: Access fast and free Wi-Fi connectivity in Barnes & Noble stores and enjoy the beta Read In Store feature to browse many complete eBooks for free, and the More In Store program, which offers free, exclusive content and special promotions.

    – Games, music and Web: Play Chess or Sudoku, listen to your favorite songs or browse the Web to check news and email.

    – Light and portable library: About the size and weight of a paperback, the 2GB device carries approximately 1,500 eBooks and offers virtually endless shelf space with expandable memory.

    – Your B&N personal library: With Barnes & Noble’s Lifetime Library, Barnes & Noble digital purchases will be accessible on BN.com and can be enjoyed on the widest variety of devices. Your eBook library goes wherever you go, giving instant access to your existing Barnes & Noble digital library on your NOOK device, partners’ third-party eBook readers and hundreds of computing and mobile devices enabled with free BN eReader software including iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, HTC HD2, PC and Mac.

    – Read for days: Long battery life means you won’t need to worry about recharging. With Wi-Fi turned off, enjoy reading for up to 10 days on a single battery charge.

    – Personalize with style: Customize NOOK Wi-Fi with one of the many stylish designer accessories available for all NOOK devices. Customers can choose from a range of classic and colorful accessories designed exclusively for NOOK devices by renowned designers kate spade new york, Jack Spade, Jonathan Adler, Tahari and others.

    Nook users can use a USB cable to connect their device to a PC or Mac to transfer their personal files in ePub, PDF and PDB formats to their Nook.

  • Acer Chrome OS Devices Said to Appear in About 2 Weeks

    While reports of an upcoming tablet from Verizon to run software from Google, which would presumably compete with Apple’s iPad have captured much of the industry’s attention, it has not been revealed whether the device will run Android or Chrome OS, but Android seems the more likely fit. However, Chrome OS systems are on the way, and we may see some as early as within the next couple weeks.

    According to VentureBeat who has "learned from multiple sources," Acer will launch Chrome OS devices at the Computex Taipei show in June. Unfortunately, that appears to be the extent of what has been learned about these devices. We don’t know if they’re tablets or netbooks or what, but most likely netbooks, as that has been what Google generally associated Chrome OS with from the beginning. Though there has certainly been speculation about touch technology in Chrome OS.

    Here’s how Chrome OS is designed to work:

    According to MG Siegler, who dug through some Chrome OS developer notes, any devices shown at the Computex Taipei show are unlikely to include a complete version of Chrome OS, and that while Google claims development is on schedule, devices aren’t supposed to be ready until the second half of the year.

    We’ll be covering Google I/O next week, and we expect to see some news on both the Android and Chrome OS fronts.

  • Apple Readies iPad Release for at Least 18 More Countries

    Apple announced today that the iPad will be available in 9 more countries starting May 28. The company had delayed international release to keep up with domestic demand.

      These countries include:

    – Australia
    – Canada
    – France
    – Germany
    – Italy
    – Japan
    – Spain
    – Switzerland
    – UK

    Customers from these countries will be able to begin pre-ordering their iPads as early as Monday, May 10.

    iPad coming to more countries

    In July, Apple plans to release the iPad in nine more countries:

    – Austria
    – Belgium
    – Hong Kong
    – Ireland
    – Luxembourg
    – Mexico
    – Netherlands
    – New Zealand
    – Singapore

    The company says local pricing will be revealed at a later date.

    As recently reported, Apple sold over a million iPads in its first month, and customers downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store, and 1.5 million ebooks from the new iBookstore. Developers have created over 5,000 apps specifically designed for the iPad.

  • New Boxee Beta Resolves Over 500 Issues

    Update: Boxee has just announced it has released an updated version of the Boxee Beta, after making over 500 adjustments to it. On the Boxee Blog, Avner Ronen writes:

    Since releasing the Beta we have seen significant uptake in usage. Some stats:

    • 150,000 new users joined Boxee
    • 3 million Boxee apps launched
    • 1.5 million TV episodes and Movies were watched

    The new version of the Beta includes almost no new features, but rather is focused on bug fixes. We focused on stability issues. Many hangs and crashes were identified and resolved. We spent a bunch of time trying to improve the never-ending saga of handling SMB shares.

    Original Article: During the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Boxee made the beta version of its free software publicly available for download. Boxee’s software brings together video content (and photos, music, etc.) from various web sources as well as your hard drive and circle of friends from social networks all into one interface that you can use to navigate through it on your television, assuming you have a computer hooked up to the TV.

    There will soon be another way to access Boxee though, and that is through the Boxee Box from D-Link, which was also unveiled at CES. Boxee’s Chief Product Officer took over the WebProNews mic to tell us just how this box works and demonstrate the things it can do. Watch the following clip:

    It was made pretty clear through a number of products shown off at CES that the way people watch television is going to change significantly. As Boxee’s Zach Klein mentions in the above video, "the future of television content is about watching anything you want, any time you want, on demand."

    You may watch your television like this already to some extent, whether you use DVR, have a computer hooked up to your TV, or already have an Internet-ready TV. Maybe you access content from your XBox or Playstation. The on-demand way of watching content on your TV is growing and will only get more sophisticated.

    Boxee and the box are about the interface and ease-of use for watching the content you want to watch. As more people create apps for it, the amount of available content should only grow as well. Things are going to get really interesting for television viewers.

    The Boxee Box should come out in May, and will be available for around $200.
     

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  • Intel Shows Off Interesting Way to Access Content

    At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this month, Intel had a lot of things going on. For one, they introduced a whole new family of Intel Core Processors. They also had a cool proof-of-concept device on display. This was something they call the Intel Infoscape.

    Infoscape is a giant display featuring cubes of information, and users can walk up to it and access all kinds of different content – Google News, Tweets, blogs, Flickr images, etc. While on display at CES, the content dealt with CES-related info.

    Being a proof-of-concept device, Infoscape is designed to look at different ways of presenting content down the road. The giant cube is powered by Intel’s Core I7 processor, and pulls from about 20,000 different content sources.

    The Infoscape displays its content on a double HD screen at 1920×1920 resolution, running at over 100 frames per second. For the event, it was organized into content areas like healthcare, habitat, the environment, communications, transportation, etc.

    According to Intel, the device is aimed at exploring how people might access and organize their content in the future. What do you think?

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  • Watch This: Flexible Notebooks, TVs, and Smartphones

    One of the coolest things the WebProNews crew saw at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas was the proof of concept display set up by tech company ASUS. On display was what is being referred to as Waveface technology.

    In a pamphlet handed out at the show, ASUS says it believes that the future of information technology will be rooted strongly in mobility and the cloud lies at the heart. "But granting access to vast amounts of data wherever you happen to be runs the risk of information overload, which is why ASUS is working on devices that deliver just the information you need, when you need it," it says. That’s where Wavface comes in. On display were three designs: the Waveface Casa, the Waveface Light, and the Waveface Ultra. Each can be viewed in the following video from the show:

    The Waveface Casa is intended for home use. It’s basically a big widescreen TV, but it acts as both an entertainment center and an Internet portal. "Unlike current big-screen TVs, the Casa isn’t designed to dominate a room and much of the screen is hidden behind a flexible cover when it’s not in use, leaving just small exposed areas that show useful information."

    It’s really the kind of thing that has to be seen (see video) to appreciate. That is the case with the other designs as well.

    The Waveface light is like a notebook, but it’s flexible, and the keyboard keys actually come out of the screen. The Ultra is a flexible smartphone that you can wear on your wrist and operate by simply moving your hand while you wear it. Again, just watch the video.

    Unfortunately, these are only proof of concept designs, which means that you won’t be able to just go out and buy one of these products, but the technology behind them shows you some potential coolness that we may be seeing from actual products down the road.
     

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  • Amazon Kindle Publishers and Authors to Get More Royalties

    Amazon announced details of a new program in which it will provide a new 70% royalty option for the Kindle, meaning authors and publishers can earn more royalties from every Kindle book that is sold. Under this new option, authors would get 70% of the list price, net of delivery costs. The option will not replace the current option of the DTP standard.

    "Today, authors often receive royalties in the range of 7 to 15 percent of the list price that publishers set for their physical books, or 25 percent of the net that publishers receive from retailers for their digital books," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "We’re excited that the new 70 percent royalty option for the Kindle Digital Text Platform will help us pay authors higher royalties when readers choose their books."

    Could higher royalties help push e-reader devices further into mainstream usage? Many think they are going to get much more popular anyway. When authors and publishers can get more money out of Kindle books, it’s going to help push more publication of e-books, if not Kindle-specific titles.

    Rory Cellan-Jones at BBC News has an interesting piece, which asks, "Is publishing about to have an iPod moment?" It looks at the very real possibility that e-readers will become much more mainstream.

    "…2010 is supposed to be the year that publishing’s digital revolution really gathers pace," he notes. "There is now a wide range of e-readers on the market – in the UK devices like the Sony Reader, the Cool-er, and Amazon’s Kindle are all making it relatively easy to download and read e-books."

    We recently got an up-close look at the latest Cool-er devices at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas. You can check that out below.

    As for the Kindle itself, DTP authors and publishers will be able to select the royalty option that best meets their needs. For that new 70% option, books must meet the following requirements:

    – The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99

    – This list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest physical list price for the physical book

    – The title is made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights

    – The title will be included in a broad set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech. This list of features will grow over time as Amazon continues to add more functionality to Kindle and the Kindle Store.

    – Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices. Amazon will provide tools to automate that process, and the 70 percent royalty will be calculated off the sales price.

    The option is only for in-copyright works and is not available for books published previous to 1923, which are public domain. The option will only be available for books sold in the United States.

    Related Articles:

    > Amazon Sells More Kindle Books Than Real Books On Christmas

    > Amazon Kindle Breaks Monthly Sales Record

    > Amazon In eBook Deal With Best Selling Author

  • A Close Up with Sony’s New Personal Internet Viewer

    At the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Sony introduced a new "personal Internet Viewer", called the Dash. This is a device that you can put on your nightstand or your kitchen counter, and access web content via Flash-based applications.

    While attending the show, WebProNews stopped by Sony’s exhibit to get a closer look at the device. Abby Johnson provides that look in the following clip:

    The device currently has over 1,000 free apps available, and it is open source, so anyone can create apps and submit them. Users can access things like weather, traffic, social networks, movies, music, etc. It has built in stereo speakers and a headphone jack.

    The Dash will ship in April, and will retail for about $200. The question is, will consumers be interested in a device like this?


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  • The World’s Smallest USB Drive and Portable Hard Drive

    The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas wrapped up this past weekend, but the experience will be felt throughout the year as the companies that demonstrated upcoming products release those products to the world. One of the companies presenting at the event was Verbatim, and they have some new portable data devices on the way.

    WebProNews got a look at some of the company’s upcoming offerings, which can be viewed in the following clip:

    Among the Verbatim’s upcoming offerings are the "smalest USB drive in the world and the "smallest portable hard drive in the world). These are the "Tuff-‘N’-Tiny" USB drive and the Titan SX portable hard drive. The former, which is waterproof, dust proof, and shock resistant comes with password protectection software, and in 2, 4, 8, and 16GB capacities. The price points are affordable too, with the 2GB drive priced at $12.95 and the soon to be released 16GB drive retailing for $86.99. The Titan SX portable hard drive will come in 320, 500, and 640 GB capacities at the end of February, and up to a TB by Q3.

    Also on display was the upcoming InSight USB portable hard drive with always-on LCD display.  Check out the video to catch a glimpse of the products.

    Keep an eye out on WebProNews and the WebProNews Video Blog for more interviews and product demos from CES.
     

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