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

Kindle sales are notoriously hard to track because the company won’t talk specifics. Amazon is also becoming famous for talking about the success of the Kindle in relative terms, making it basically impossible to nail down just how well the ebook reader and the Kindle store are performing.

The most recent statement from Bezos regarding sales came shortly after the iPad announcement. He says, “millions of people now own Kindles.” That means basically nothing. The device has been around for more than two years, and as the mother-of-all ereaders for most of that time, you’d hope it has a couple million in circulation.

Here’s Bezos on the performance of the Kindle store: “When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books…This is year-to-date and includes only paid books—free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It’s been an exciting 27 months.” Again, essentially meaningless. Of course the number of ebooks to real books will be higher in the case that ebooks exist for a given text, but is that really a good thing for the industry? Ebooks are much cheaper than hardbacks and even most paperbacks at release. It seems to follow that there could be people without a Kindle that still download the goods to something like an iPhone. It’s good for Amazon but pretty terrible for publishers, who are seeing profits slide in the wake of digital content.

Add to all of this the fact that the Kindle is a purpose-built device, a dying breed gadgets that seem to have decreasing lifespans as the years wear on. The iPad with its epub format and color screen is going to make the Kindle look like yesterday’s brown bag lunch that forces you to load it down with liverwurst sandwiches (may have taken that one a bit far). No thank you.

Dell first showed us the Mini 5 at CES this year, but it was a quiet affair. The five-inch tablet has all the trappings of a smartphone in a much bigger package and at a much higher price tag. With the iPad announcement, the Dell’s tablet looks out of place, and it has to get a whole lot cheaper before anyone will take it seriously.

In case you didn’t hear about it (a lot of people didn’t), the Mini 5 is a thousand dollar slate running Android 1.6. As far as I can tell it’s about an iPhone and a half in terms of size. The device has a 5 megapixel camera, Bluetooth and 3G support, all running on a 1GHz Snapdragon. In terms of specs, it’s pretty comparable to the iPad, but look at that price tag. $1,000? For that? Really the only improvement it makes over the iPad is that camera, which is definitely not worth $500. You could argue that Android is the key here, but 1.6? What is this, 2009?

One of the biggest complaints about the iPad, and even the iPhone, is the lack of Flash support. It’s something Apple’s been reluctant to add because of the potential for a security breach on either device. In order to be considered truly excellent browsing devices, though, I think Apple needs to find a way to make Flash work for both devices.

For now, though, Adobe is willing to take up the cause. It announced a product for developers at the end of last year that would easily convert Flash apps into something the iPhone can use. The company now says it will offer the same support for the iPad.

Here’s an excerpt from the official platform blog:

“We announced the Packager for iPhone at MAX 2009 which will allow Flash developers to create native iPhone applications and will be available in the upcoming version of Flash Pro CS5. This technology enables developers to create applications for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad (though applications will not initially take direct advantage of iPad’s new screen resolution). It is our intent to make it possible for Flash developers to build applications that can take advantage of the increased screen size and resolution of the iPad.”

It’s a decent workaround, but definitely not a fix. By this method you’ll have access to the cool Flash apps available on platforms like Android, but it’s not like you’ll be watching Hulu on your iPad (unless they release a special app). Stay tuned on this one – it’s going to be a hot topic over the course of the year.

If you believe what Apple tells you, the iPad is going to change the way you do just about everything. It’s the best web browser, the best movie viewer, the best way to read a book, and so on and so on. Realistically, though, it will probably change very little, at least for now.

The iPad is really just a big iPhone, albeit a very pretty, big iPhone, but not much more. It’s still lacking multitasking, which is a big deal if you’re going to use it as a productive device. Want to listen to Pandora while you’re typing out some emails? Sorry. Switch back and forth between email and a document? You’ll have to exit one to get to the other. The iPad also doesn’t have Flash support, which makes that “best browsing experience” feel like something from the dark ages. Sure you can watch your videos via apps, but that means more switching between applications.

It’s a problem of maturity for Apple’s new platform. The closed system has worked well enough for the iPhone, but we’re all sick of the restrictions on the device and the limitations of the App Store. We want Google Voice. Real Google Voice, not that web app trash. I want to use my iPad for Flash videos and watching DivX. For Ninjavideo. All of those things are limited by a platform that was designed for a mobile phone, not a web device.

For all the things the iPad can’t do, though, it can do one thing very well: evolve. The hardware is compelling enough and cheap enough to get into a lot of hands. As more people are ready to use the device, I’m willing to bet Apple will consider opening things up. If not, we’ve always got George Hotz.

The long wait is finally over. Today is officially tablet day, as Apple announced just moments ago. It’s an exciting day for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is the way this device could shape the future of the digital word. Obviously that’s going to be a long process, but if we know anything about Apple, it won’t seem so long, and we’ll soon be wondering how we did without (don’t act like you don’t love your iPod).

Jobs kicked things off today like this: “We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical product today.” Tease of the century. He launched into a quick (thankfully) overview of the company, but it wasn’t long before we got to the meat. The iPad. That’s the official name for the long-rumored tablet device that Jobs calls “the best browsing experience you’ve ever had.”

Basically, it’s a big iPhone, with a really nice interface. The keyboard looks big enough to be typed on laptop style (Jobs demoed it this way) and it has that same great glass look that Apple is known for. For now, it runs iPhone apps, as in the apps can be downloaded as is and run either at iPhone resolution or doubled up for the iPad. There’s an SDK available for developers to get started.

As for hardware, there are a whole slew of options available. You can get everything from 16GB to 64GB flash storage, Wi-Fi and unlocked 3G support (yes, unlocked – thank you god), in whatever combination your heart desires. It runs on a 1GHz Apple A4 chip, so they aren’t dishing out any cash to Qualcomm for that dual-core Snapdragon. It is definitely fast enough to do some light photo/video editing on the fly, just like we would see from the iPhone. Really, though, I think I’d get the most use for watching HD video.

Of course the number we all care about is price. When Jobs said the base model would be $499 I was shocked. More shocked than by anything else about the presentation. That’s like buying an iPod. That’s…insane. You can get as high as $829 if you’ve got the highest storage level and 3G support, but for what you get that’s an amazing price in my mind.

This thing will be the topic of conversation on every blog today, including this one. More posts on iBooks and what this means for the Kindle. Check back soon.

We’re just a day away from getting a look at Apple’s tablet and the brass is as excited as anyone. More quotes from Jobs and his cronies have surfaced, which serve only to build the hype around still rumored device.

The quotes come from the press release regarding Apple’s Q1 earnings, a whopping $3.38b in profits. In the press release, Jobs was quoted for the following: “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.” It’s an odd thing to say about a quarter’s earnings in which the rumored device played no role. Obviously this thing is going to be big.

Apple COO Tim Cook was asked directly about the product unveiling during the earnings conference call, to which he said, “I wouldn’t want to take away your joy of surprise on Wednesday when you see our latest creation.”

The thing to take away from all of this is that Apple is excited, seriously excited from the top down, so much so that they can’t even keep from talking about it when it hasn’t been released.

With all the fervor surrounding this week’s Apple announcement, I thought it would be appropriate to begin the week with a quote rumored to come from one Steve Jobs himself. It goes something like this:

“This will be the most important thing I’ve ever done”

Now, that’s not confirmed, but it’s being reported on several sites today that claim Jobs is as excited about the tablet as he has ever been about an Apple product. And let’s consider what he’s saying. For Jobs this is more important than changing the face of the smartphone market. More important than pioneering the App Store model for the cellular world. He’s essentially relegated the iPhone to amuse-bouche status, a preparatory device for what we’ll get to see this Wednesday.

I’m excited.

It’s not a revolutionary concept. You want some visibility so you offer what would normally be a paid service or product for free. As word of mouth grows, you bump the price back to normal levels, occasionally higher, and profit. Easy enough.

That’s what many book publishers are starting to do with titles on the Kindle, the New York Times reported this weekend. The article focuses on Maureen Johnson, an author whose young adult fiction has climbed as high as number three on the Kindle best-selling charts. It’s being run for free on the device to drive interest in her upcoming sequel, which will release this February.

While some publishers – Random House and Scholastic for two – embrace the free model, others, like Hachette, find it “illogical.” They believe the price of ebooks is already too low, so why go any lower? In fact, a lot of publishers delay ebook publication for a few months after a book’s release to capitalize on hardcover sales.

Obviously, as time goes on, we’re going to see publishers get more and more creative to keep profits up in the face of lower prices for retail media.

It’s rarely news that most people use terrible passwords. There are just so many to remember, and really, no one is all that good at remembering completely random strings of letters and numbers. Recently, though, we got a little more data behind this widely accepted fact.

RockYou, a widget service for social networking sites, was recently hacked. The hacker retrieved passwords for 32 million accounts, which were stored in a database as plain text, and posted them online. Security firm iMPERVA took a look at the passwords and found some ridiculous stats. The most common password? 123456. That was followed by 12345, 123456789, and Password. That capital P is definitely important.

iMPERVA esimated that a slow DSL connection could access one account every second using a simple dictionary hack. It’s hard to say whether people would use better passwords on sites that hold more sensitive data, but my inclination would be no. Why add more passwords to remember, even if they’re as simple as Password.

Source: Ars Technica

I got an email today asking if I knew where to find a 4:3 laptop. I thought it would be easy enough to find, but I quickly remembered seeing that Lenovo cancelled its last 4:3 about a year and a half ago. The only other option after 2007 was a Dell Latitude, and now that’s gone too.

For a lot of professionals, a widescreen just doesn’t make sense. When you spend most of your time working with spreadsheets, text documents, and web browsers, you want a higher resolution with a longer page. Widescreen laptops are actually lower resolution and cheaper to manufacture, so it kind of makes sense for someone like Lenovo or Dell to go this route.

Unfortunately, a lot of business people would still prefer a 4:3 screen. In a few quick searches I found hundreds of pages of results dedicated to finding 4:3 laptops, rebuilding exisiting 4:3 laptops, and discussing the lack of 4:3 laptops. From digging through a few of the posts, it seems a big part of the disappearance is consumer ignorance. Manufacturers have actually convinced the world that widescreen is better. I’ll leave you with a quote from one of the malinformed: “widescreen is better for reading text because your eyes are side by side not up and down so its easier to read left to right.” Yes, someone actually wrote that.

Apple’s tablet is definitely the topic of conversation as we head toward Apple’s January event, but there could be more than just a hardware unveiling. There’s been a lot of speculation, in fact, about whether or not we’ll see iPhone OS 4.0 along with a tablet release.

The tablet isn’t likely to be powerful enough to run a full-fledged version of OS X, which points to another, stripped-down version, much like the iPhone OS. Actually, it probably is the iPhone OS, just with some more robust features like multi-tasking. There have also been reports that OS 4.0 has been kept out of developers hands because it leaks features about the impending tablet.

Whether it’s an updated iPhone OS or something else entirely, you can bet the tablet unveiling, if it even is that, will be about a whole lot more than just the hardware. For my money, I’d bet on an updated OS launching with the new machine.

It looks like the rumor mill was right this time. Apple is holding an event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco on January 27th to unveil, as the invitation put things, to unveil it’s “latest creation.” The event begins at 10AM Pacific.

Obviously, I’m thinking tablet. A new iPhone wouldn’t be announced until June and what else could it be? A new Apple TV? Engadget also points out that the bright colors could point toward an art/media focused device, especially when paired with the word “creation.” That’s almost definitely a focus of any tablet, so it’s really just up to the power of the device to determine what all can be done on it.

Whatever it is, we’ll find out the morning of the 27th.

Source: Engadget

According to several sources, Apple has been buying up every 10″ screen it can, in both LCD and OLED varieties. The company is buying so many, in fact, that there really aren’t any left.

“We were designing a product for a customer and we needed 10 inch screens, but we’ve been trying for months and can’t get one from any of the Asian suppliers,” an anonymous designer told TG Daily at CES. It’s not the first time Apple has done this, either. If you remember when the iPod was first getting started, there were zero 3.5″ drives available for the rest of the world.

The source said, surprise, it’s for the Apple tablet! I’m not really sure what else it would be for so that’s likely a safe bet. As for timing, though, it could point to a late Q1/early Q2 release instead of later in the year.

One of the most expected tech releases at CES this year was USB 3.0. It wasn’t really a release in the typical sense of the word, but it was the first time the public had a chance to see the transfer tech in action. And it’s fast. Really fast. Fast enough to make using an external hard drive to run anything from your operating system to your games completely viable.

Consider the numbers. As Engadget tested, USB 3.0 supported passthrough of 135 MB/second on a platter drive. That’s incredible. Hook up an SSD and things only getting better, reaching transfer speeds of 200 MB/second or greater. Basically you’re looking at a transfer tech that, for the time being, is limited only by the media on either end of the cable.

For now, USB 3.0 support is extremely limited. As you can see from the connectors, things get a little bulky on either end, so you won’t be using 3.0 cables on 2.0 devices. You can, however, plug that thumbdrive you’ve got into a 3.0 port, just don’t expect 3.0 speeds.