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All Entries Tagged With: "Amazon"
5 Last Minute Gift Ideas From the Comfort of Your Keyboard
I hope you are not frantically searching for last minute gift ideas for that special geek on your list. But in case you are, here are a quick five hints that you can take care of right from your keyboard.
Most of them are gift cards, but then everybody knows geeks love to do their own shopping anyway.
More Folks Picking Up Electronic Books
Good article from the New York Time on the popularity of electronic book readers. Between the Kindle and the iPhone, I can’t of another set of devices that have so captured the attention of my friends and family. Is an eBook reader on your Christmas list?
For a decade, consumers mostly ignored electronic book devices, which were often hard to use and offered few popular items to read. But this year, in part because of the popularity of Amazon.com’s wireless Kindle device, the e-book has started to take hold.
The $359 Kindle, which is slim, white and about the size of a trade paperback, was introduced a year ago. Although Amazon will not disclose sales figures, the Kindle has at least lived up to its name by creating broad interest in electronic books. Now it is out of stock and unavailable until February. Analysts credit Oprah Winfrey, who praised the Kindle on her talk show in October.
via More Readers Are Picking Up Electronic Books - NYTimes.com.
Should Enterprises Be Wary of Cloud Computing?
Ovum, a tech analyst consulting firm, is recommending that enterprises take a cautious approach to Cloud Computing, citing outages from Amazon and Google, as well as management challenges, as examples.
“Enterprises are right to be cautious about relying on such consumer/SME-oriented suppliers for anything resembling a mission critical application or service,” said research firm Ovum in a report.
“A spate of service outages on the Amazon and Google platforms has increased enterprise caution about the reliability of consumer-market-oriented cloud providers.”
Personally, I see Cloud Computing taking a few hits on the chin next year as firms take a wait-and-see on what Web 2.0 firms will make it. Trusting data to a company that might not see the end of 1st quarter 2009, is enough reason to hold on to that precious data and keeping it local.
Amazon Releases iPhone App
I figured this would happen someday and I’m glad to see it has occurred. Amazon has released a shopping app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I haven’t given this a try yet but according to Gear Diary the app allows you to shop the site, read reviews and use the iPhone camera to take pictures of items you’d like to remember for a possible purchase. The photo goes to your Amazon account where ‘Amazon Remembers’ will alert you when a match is found. The app is currently available on the App Store for free.
Congratulations GBM Contest Winners
Congratulations to the following GBM readers on winning these contests:
- MarkP - winner of a $50 Amazon Gift Certificate for helping out the high school student with his mobile research
- Mario Filipe - winner in our Checkpoint Flyer contest and soon-to-be proud owner of a Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer laptop bag
Amazon Black Friday / Cyber Monday Deals
Shopping at Amazon for some Holiday deals? Amazon’s Black Friday page has gone live - head over and check out deals like below.
Announcing The GottaBeMobile Amazon Store
Many of our readers purchase electronics, books, and other accessories through Amazon.com. The prices are normally very competitive, shipping is cheap, and the selection couldn’t be better.
We just launched our own GottaBeMobile.com Amazon store, with the same full selection of computers, electronics, accessories, books, toys, etc as the regular Amazon.com, as well as the same low prices. The great thing is that by choosing to shop through our store, you’ll be helping GBM in the process and it won’t cost you a penny extra.
As you begin your holiday shopping, please consider shopping through the GBM Amazon Store – we’d greatly appreciate it!
Amazon Wants To Save My Fingers, Promises Easier To Open Packaging
Double-take. Triple-take. This is good news for all of those who have maimed their fingers or chipped a tooth trying to open a new gadget having to work through the perils of blister packaging. Amazon is promising easier to open packaging on some products. Initially this includes 19 products from Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft, Transcend are available in new containers that won’t send you to the ER. Amazon is hoping to eventually offer its entire catalog this way. Amazon calls it Frustration-Free-Packaging.
This is a good start, but I still maintain the way to get rid of this scourge on mankind is to force CEOs to open their own products after they’ve been packaged.
Make sure you take a look at the Gallery of Wrap Rage.
Here’s a link to the press release.
Amazon’s WindowShop is Cool
This is just too cool not to share. Amazon’s new WindowShop is a fascinating UI that allows you to scroll through tiles of what’s hot in books, movies, and music. Each tile offers up a preview of the product. The UI looks very familar to CoolIris (previously known as PicLens) which I use to browse photos on Flickr. All you do is scroll through and enjoy the ride. This looks great on a large screen, but you really don’t get the full effect on lower res devices.
Via TechCrunch
Oprah’s Life-Changing Gadget Revealed
Kindle
Whether you’re a fan of Oprah or not, you might want to check out Friday’s episode. Tomorrow Oprah will reveal to the masses her favorite gadget. She describes this gadget in this promo video as “life changing,” “the most amazing thing,” and “the wave of the future.” Here are a few guesses what her favorite gadget is:
- An Intel Atom powered Netbook
- The Amazon Kindle eBook Reader
- A Tablet PC
Regardless of our guesses, the folks at thekindle.wordpress.com believe that the Amazon Kindle is definitely Oprah’s favorite gadget. They provide several bits of evidence and picture analysis to support their claim. The Kindle Blog promises to follow Google Trends to see how Oprah’s promotion of the device increases web traffic. Whatever this life-changing, mystery device is, viewers will have the opportunity to purchase it on Amazon after Friday’s show.
To learn more about the Kindle, check out Rob’s hands-on shortcut videos.
Photo credit: John Morton (flickr cc)