With legislation still looming I was completely unsurprised to read this story about Fusion Garage and the JooJoo tablet over at Gizmodo. Apparently this customer tried to pre-order a JooJoo and, after hearing about all the setbacks, decided to cancel his order and receive a refund. That refund was the hard part.

Fusion Garage support claims to have had some problems with refunding the buyer’s credit card through PayPal. After several emails, here’s the final request from Fusion Garage to the buyer to process the refund.

We have checked this at our end and there seems to be a problem with refunding via paypal.

To avoid any further wait time, could you send us your bank name, bank account name, bank account number, sort or swift code and your bank address.

We will have a direct transfer done to your bank account. If you could provide us the details today, we will ensure that the refund hits your bank account by friday of this week.

Please advise . Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Best,

joojoo

Oh yeah? Fusion Garage claims everything is legit, but so does that prince of nigeria that keeps emailing me about transferring money out of the country.

Source: Gizmodo

Check out the language from a support doc Apple just posted. “If your iPad requires service due to the battery’s diminished ability to hold an electrical charge, Apple will replace your iPad for a service fee.” That’s right, if you need a new battery for that iPad, you’re getting an entire new unit.

The service will cost $99 with a $6.95 shipping charge. Unfortunately Apple won’t be reloading your data onto the new device. As the support document states, “Before you submit your iPad for service, it is important to sync your iPad with iTunes to back up your contacts, calendars, email account settings, bookmarks, apps, etc. Apple is not responsible for the loss of information when servicing your iPad.”

You might also notice that you aren’t eligible for a replacement if your iPad has been damaged in any way. It’s probably safe to assume that the tablet you’re getting back is a refurb. For a hundred bucks, though, it’s kinda hard to complain.

Source: AppleInsider

Yesterday’s early estimates suggested the iPad had moved 50,000 units in the first two hours of pre-sale. Now CNN is claiming Apple sold 120,000 units on the first day of release. Those numbers are certainly impressive, especially since no one can really say what the iPad does.

The real thing people are spending money on with the iPad is a concept. Apple did a great job of pitching the iPad as a reading device, your living room browsing experience at an extremely affordable price. It sounds great, but I have yet to see an application that makes me really burn for the device. Will iBooks be cool? Probably, but I still hate ebooks for a lot of reasons, none of which seem to be addressed by the iPad. They can be, but they certainly aren’t yet.

Lastly, you can’t ignore Apple’s hardware test period. Remember the first iPod Touch? Probably not – not many people bought one. There were serious hardware problems, though. Quiet alert sounds, no hardware volume control, and on and on. Granted, software updates fixed those problems as much as they could, but these are still pretty big issues for anyone owning the first generation of the device. The iPad won’t be as good as it was pitched to be on the first go round. If we’re lucky, it’ll be 90% of the way there by 2.0, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

As pretty as the iPad may be, it’s not the magical, revolutionary device the company would have you think. It could be – it likely will be – it’s just not there yet. That hasn’t stopped people from buying it up like crazy. According to a report from Fortune, Apple may have moved as many as 50,000 units in its first two hours of pre-sale.

That’s not exactly gotta-have-it type sales, but it’s damn good for a device in the same category as the Kindle, which has supposedly only sold a couple million over the course of a few years. It’s also possible that the numbers are a good bit higher. The data used to estimate sales were order numbers, a decent chunk of which presumably included multiple iPads.

Whatever the number, the iPad will have no shortage of guinea pigs come April 3rd.

Source: Macrumors

The Apple Store went down this morning for the iPad pre-order update. It’s back up, giving the world access to the highest profile tablet we’ve yet seen. Apple has imposed a pre-order limit of two per customer, which has me wondering whether the company expects the kind of quantity problems that lead to mad eBay selloffs.

The store update also revealed pricing on iPad accessories. That nifty little keyboard dock will run $69 while a regular dock is just $29. You can also get the official iPad case for $39. The update also revealed a nice new feature on the iPad – screen orientation lock. It’s a great idea for anyone hoping to use the iPad as an ereader. It allows you to hold the device in any position and maintain the screen. The auto-flip has frustrated me on the iPhone on occasion so its nice to see the problem addressed for a device designed for reading.

Prices start at $499.00. Will you be getting one?

Source: Apple Store

There’s been a lot of talk about the iPad and its potential to revolutionize the publishing industry. I’ve never really bought it, though I couldn’t always say why. I didn’t think the new form would really encourage publishers to change all that much. Penguin proved me wrong in its discussion of new iPad content, but even Penguin didn’t completely sway me. This article by a book designer named Craig Mod did.

Craig’s whole point is that the iPad not only offers something new, it offers something very old – the experience of reading an actual book. His position is that the iPad preserves the book by more realistically allowing publishers to port their published form, books, onto a new device. The Kindle could only approximate things with its black and white display. By contrast (wink, wink), the iPad’s full color gives publishers the tools they’ve always had for creating rich content experiences. The arrival of links and what we now consider “content-rich” experiences are just icing on the cake.

His article offers a long and winding history of designing books and the kind of thought that goes into a reading experience. It’s worth reading for anyone interested in the future of the written word and/or a passion for creating consumable content.

Source: @craigmod

Nearly good on his word, Steve Jobs will be delivering the iPad to US customers on April 3rd. I say almost because the April 3rd release is 66 days past the announcement, when Steve-O promised us 60. You can pre-order next week – next week – starting March 12th. The 3G version won’t be released until later in the month.

Some of the questions people are starting to ask include questions about shortages, lines, and the number of iPad-centric apps we’ll see on launch day. The only question I want an answer for is when does iPad 2.0 launch? There isn’t much I care to see on the iPad at this point. Nine months from now, though, that’s a different story. By then most publishers should be comfortable with platform, certainly more comfortable than the haphazard rush we’re currently seeing to try to get things ready. That’s when you get to the good stuff.

The rest of the world will be able to get Apple’s latest creation toward the end of April.

Apple’s had a rough go with its suppliers of late. If arson, among other things, wasn’t bad enough, the company now reports that several of its suppliers have confirmed child laborers in their employ. The news came in the form of Apple’s own supplier responsibility report, which is really an attempt to clean up the company image.

The report also found that 50 factories have kept employees past than the maximum 60 hour work week and 24 factories paying below than minimum wage. Some 61% of suppliers follow their safety regulations and only 57% have the required environmental permits. It’s not great news, though obviously the child labor thing is the real kick in the pants.

Though Apple wouldn’t reveal where the infracting factories were located, it did say that the children were no longer employed. Apple is still using the suppliers involved.

Source: Bloomberg

The day Apple announced the iPad, Amazon was calling newspapers and publishers before Steve Jobs had even left the stage. As the New York Times’ Bits blog has it, Amazon wanted to hear what Apple had offered. Amazon had been trying for more than a month to sign deals with publishers that would give Amazon customers the best prices anywhere, either by matching or beating the prices given to other dealers.

Amazon tried to sweeten the deal by offering publishers bigger revenues than in the past. Unfortunately, Apple was willing to budge on a much larger issue: price. With Apple, publishers had a bit more flexibility than Amazon would give, which in turn gave publishers bargaining power over Amazon. See, Amazon will do just about anything to stay competitive with Apple.

In fairness to Amazon, it’s not like publishers want to upset that distribution channel. Amazon pretty much pioneered the ebook scene – it certainly made ebooks as popular as they were likely to become before some sort of wonder device came along – which leaves publishers keen to cater to the existing subscribers in Amazon’s marketplace until either the iPad gains enough ground or Amazon releases a new reader.

That last point is very important. If Amazon doesn’t release a new reader within the next year or so, it will pigeonhole itself into becoming solely a content provider, a position I wouldn’t think Bezos wants to be in considering he started the Kindle. Rarely would a company of Amazon’s scale introduce a middling product only to do away with it in a couple years.

Source: Bits

It’s been a while since we heard anything meaningful about the tablet formerly known as the CrunchPad. The device, now named JooJoo, has been overshadowed in a serious way by the Apple iPad. As much as I would like to dissuade everyone from buying one of these things, I know someone will. If you’re willing to dive into one of the more ridiculous tech situations of our time, though, you’ll be waiting to get your hands on your newest gadget. The JooJoo has been officially delayed until March 25th.

Earlier this month, Fusion Garage’s JooJoo Internet tablet went into full production with an anticipated on-time delivery to consumers at the end of February. Last week, the company became aware of a manufacturing issue involving JooJoo’s industry-first 12.1 inch capacitive touch screen which Fusion Garage was quickly able to diagnose and rectify. The company now forecasts the JooJoo will be sent to consumers on March 25.

The manufacturing issue centers on fine tuning the touch sensitivity of the capacitive screen. Fusion Garage will be providing all pre-order customers with a free JooJoo accessory to compensate for the delay in the delivery of their JooJoo.

That’s the official word from Fusion Garage. As nice as the JooJoo seems, the delays and impending litigation are enough to keep me away from the device. To be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the first of many delays.

I learned how to beat mix in 1987. Back then, everyone was using Technics 1200s (the first CD players with pitch bend came the following year), and any effects you wanted to add – which basically came down to two things, phasing and back-beating – had to be done manually with the records themselves. No Pro Tools, no effects processing, no digital anything. Mix tapes were done in one take; I’d plot out each side in advance, press record, and hope for the best. I averaged roughly 3.5 train wrecks per mix tape.

In 2000, I finally upgraded from vinyl to CD. Denon made, and still makes, fantastic DJ equipment for use with CDs, so I bought that, a Numark mixing board, and a cabinet. But making mix tapes was still a pain, the old one-take scenario, and transferring them to digital form was worse. Roxio – which back then was called Adaptec – had a program that could transfer analog sources to digital format if you had the right equipment, but the signal loss was incredible. Once you amplified it to a reasonable level, the tape hiss was unbearable. Eventually, I stopped making mixes, though that had as much to do with a more demanding job and family life as it did with the archaic process of making the tape itself.

All that gear, of course, is woefully outdated now. I haven’t made a beat mix since 2002. Sigh.

Needless to say, when the email promoting MixMeister Express landed in my inbox, they had my attention. The program’s layout is similar to the loop-based remix software Acid, another toy I played with a lot back when I had more time on my hands. And the way MixMeister analyzes songs and plots transitions from one song to the next is, well, ridiculously smart. In a matter of hours, I had assembled an 80-minute mix, and not a single train wreck in sight.

When the holidays come, mothers are desperate in devising ways to keep their kids occupied through the vacation. But whatever you plan you almost always have some hours or even days in hand when you don’t know what to do with them. It is at these times that you should turn to Internet as your savior.

The Internet is an extensive, never ending resource for everything these days. From buying to earning to learning, everything can be done just sitting in front of the computer. So why not use the computer to make the children occupied for at least a few hours a day engaging in learning and fun activities? From coloring to puzzles or learning phonics or doing math there is a wide range of activities waiting for children to explore.

Online games like tic-tac-toe, dino run, free bingo, Tetris and maze games can keep them occupied for hours. Jigsaw puzzles and spot the differences will not only boost their brain but also keep them out of your way. Many online activities provide a safe and fun platform for children helping them to build logic, memory and language.

Another way to engage a child’s mind is to get them enrolled in online libraries. Children as young as three and two can also use the books in digitized form to develop a love of reading. Online libraries cultivate the wonderful habit of reading and borrowing right in the comfort of your home.

Slightly older kids can engage in online language classes and hone their linguistic skills. Whatever the interest a kid shows, activities are in abundance for them to explore and keep themselves busy. But as parents it is your duty to point them in the right direction.

During News Corp’s quarterly earnings conference call, Rupert Murdoch finally revealed his true feelings about the deal between HarperCollins, which News Corp owns, and Amazon for ebooks in the Kindle Store. “We don’t like the Amazon model of $9.99….we think it really devalues books and hurts all the retailers of hardcover books.”

That pretty much says it all. Now that the company has an option coming with the iPad, it no longer needs to succumb to Amazon’s demands. Things are just the opposite, in fact, thanks to flexible pricing options from Apple. The competition is forcing Amazon to renegotiate prices with publishers for fear of losing market share or publisher support altogether.

It’s tough to say that increased ebook prices actually preserves the value of the book, particularly after prices have been so low. Fortunately for publishers, the ebook reading population was small enough that the rest of the world might not know to care about the difference.

One of the big setbacks of 3D tech today is the glasses. They’re necessary in order for most audiences to get a good view, whatever their viewing angle. While there are autostereoscopic displays (no glasses required) in the wild, they typically only work from 8 or 9 viewing angles, which severely limits their functionality.

Sunny Ocean Studios in Singapore is hoping to change all of that. The company plans to debut an autostereoscopic set at CeBIT this year that supports 64 viewing angles on its 27-inch screen. That’s a huge upgrade from the current status quo. I have to wonder what the thing will look like, though. It has to take a significant amount of resources to produce the frames for 64 different viewpoints.

And how much is this thing going to cost? Armin Grasnick, founder of Sunny Ocean Studios, says he can do displays up to 100-inches both quickly and inexpensively. Something tells me that won’t keep the price tag from climbing.

Source: Engadget

When Apple announced the iPad you could almost hear world inhale, waiting for the onslaught of competitor products with such clever names as the youPad and the Padlet. Can you imagine a world without iPod knock-offs? I can’t. Acer can, though, and the company won’t be feeding the tablet flames, according to Engadget.

The news came from Scott Lin, president of Acer Taiwan, who said the tablet just doesn’t fit Acer’s business model. Instead, the manufacturer will be focusing on ultra-thin laptops, some as svelte as .7 inches when closed. It’s a smart move, one that could grab the interest of anyone scared off by that weird touchscreen keyboard. The company expects the thinner line of products to account for 20-30 percent of sales in the coming year.

Source: Engadget

It was a big surprise to see the iPad launch without a camera, front-facing or otherwise. The device seems perfect for video calls and could easily be used as a point and shoot in a pinch. But, as Engadget reports, iPhone OS 3.2 includes support for video calling, among other new features.

Some of those other features include file downloading with local browser storage and SMS support. Basically, the iPad launch was just the tip of the iceberg. As with the iPhone, this first release is likely just going to get the ball rolling, driving interest and presales among the truly fanatic. From there, it’s a matter of referral. In the first six months the iPhone was out every owner I spoke with was in love with the device, or at least were willing to say that were.

This is how Jobs works – he breeds a sort of elite fanclub around his latest device and builds on that kind of elitism to drive insane sales. Whatever the iPad is now, it’s going to be a whole lot different in the next couple years.

At some point yesterday Amazon pulled any ebooks from publisher Macmillan due to a pricing dispute, according to the New York Times. Apparently Macmillan wanted to raise prices from $9.99 to $15 and Amazon didn’t approve.

You might remember the same thing happening as iTunes was starting to get its legs. Apple used its massive marketshare to strong arm media companies to the $.99 price point, which most everyone felt was too low. Obviously that model has worked out in Apple’s favor, if not in the favor of most record labels, a few of which were able to strike more flexible deals.

There is one major difference – Macmillan has somewhere to go. Apple is just about to open the iBook Store for its new iPad, which, in all likelihood, is going to outsell the Kindle by quite a bit. Most estimates put the Kindle’s installed base around 3 million. The iPad could easily have that by the end of this year.

I would be pretty surprised, though, if Jobs was willing to give Amazon the price advantage in the ebook war.

Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/amazon-pulls-macmillan-books-over-e-book-price-disagreement/

Among the iPad’s shortcomings, the lack of Flash support is king. It’s such a pervasive web tech it seems foolish not to include support in what is meant to be the world’s “best browsing experience.” If you were paying close enough attention, though, you might have noticed Flash running on the iPad in several promo videos. For websites shown in the original demo video, the Flash portions looked just as they would on any other device.

Apple made changes to the promos after speculation lead to all kinds of rumors about upcoming Flash support for the tablet. Now the video shows that nasty blue lego you get when you’re browsing those totally normal, harmless, and tasteful video sites you frequent on your iPhone.

It’s a frustrating change, mostly because it seems Apple is holding fast on the “no flash” policy. Looks like we’ll be waiting for HTML5 to get more widespread support. That or there’s always hell freezing over.

Source: Mac Rumors