Monday, October 31, 2011

Today's Headlines

E-Books a Boon to Some Authors
The Wall Street Journal
Vanity presses have been available for decades. But thanks to digital technology and particularly the emergence of e-books, the number of self-published titles exploded 160% to 133,036 in 2010 from 51,237 in 2006, estimates R. R. Bowker, which tracks the publishing business.

Yahoo! and Google Prepare News and Social Readers
AllThingsD
Watch out Flipboard.  Wednesday Yahoo! is rumored to unveil its digital newsstand Livestand.  And Google should follow on its heels.  According to ATD's Kara Swisher:  "All these apps are part of the drastically changing habits of media consumers, helping users better navigate numerous social and media feeds — such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as news sites and more — using handsome interfaces and touch technologies on tablet devices."

Biggest Advertiser on the Kindle?  Amazon
Advertising Age
Almost six months after the first Kindle with Special Offers arrived bearing on-screen ads for national brands such as Buick, Olay and Visa, the devices are more often than not serving up ads from Amazon itself, primarily in the form of Amazon Local daily deals.

Philadelphia Inquirer Tablet Initiative Finds Success Elusive
The Los Angeles Times
At the Sept. 12 tablet launch, the publisher predicted that the first batch of 5,000 units would sell out in a week. Six weeks later, only about half of the narrow black computers have moved, according to James Rainey of The Los Angeles Times.  

Friday, October 28, 2011

Today's Headlines

New Details About iPad 3 Revealed
CNET
The follow-on to Apple's popular iPad 2 is expected to arrive as early as the first quarter of next year. And Apple is aiming high, as usual. The goal is to have a Retina Display-like resolution on the iPad 3.

Xoom Gloom:  Motorola Sells Just 100,000 Tablets in Last Quarter
Forbes
Motorola said it sold just 100,000 Xoom tablets during the third quarter.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Today's Headlines

Steve Jobs Wanted Intel Chips for the iPad:  New Bio
The Wall Street Journal
Intel’s stock price, and image, have suffered from the fact that its chips are not widely used in smartphones and tablet PCs. But it turns out that the Silicon Valley giant had an inside track when it came to Apple’s iconic iPad, lost after Steve Jobs faced an impassioned plea from a top lieutenant.

New RIM Tablet OS Delayed Until 2012
The Los Angeles Times
Click here to find out more!
Research in Motion Ltd. has experience troubles this year and they continued Wednesday when the company announced that its PlayBook OS 2.0 software update for its BlackBerry tablet isn't coming out this year as originally planned.

Bloomberg Creates "Live TV" Placement on iPad
PaidContent
Bloomberg launched its latest free, ad-supported app in the iTunes Store after midnight with the goal of developing stronger ties with its audience, especially when they’re not in front of the TV set.

Condé Nast Magazines Post Large Sales Spike with Apple's Newsstand
Padgadget
Condé Nast has experienced a huge increase in both total sales and single issues sales, which increased 142 percent over the previous eight weeks. Because of its success with Newsstand, the company plans to release three more titles in 2012: Condé Nast Traveler, Bon Appétit, and Vogue.

Look Out Amazon:  $179 Tablet Available from Leader
Rethink Wireless
The Impression 7 tablet, or I7, by Leader is being sold for $179. It follows the announcement of ViewSonic's similarly spec'd and affordable 7e. The specs of the I7 are not quite as promising though and for the sake of $20 it might be worth going with the more expensive tablets.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Today's Headlines

Retailers Unlikely to Cash in on Tablet Craze This Holiday Season
The New  York Times
Chain stores will likely miss out on their usual share of "hot gadget" sales this holiday season as most consumers opt to buy top-selling tablets directly from Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. instead of from big retailers.

Why Amazon Accepts Losing Money (for now) on the Kindle Fire
AllThingsD
The company will make money selling services via its tablets, according to this analysis. 

PaidCotent
The company expects a “record quarter in terms of device sales,” Amazon CFO Tom Szkutak said, in an earnings call yesterday and both the e-ink readers and Fire “will be great for share owners over time.”
 
Padgadget
PBS has announced that it will air the first episode of Brian Greene’s “The fabric of the Cosmos" on its free iOS app, one week before its scheduled broadcast.
 
CNN
Smaller tablet computers that are significantly more affordable and portable than the iPad are finally starting to hit the United States -- and they could hit a crucial sweet spot in the consumer market.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Today's Headlines

iPads Turning Hotel Wi-Fi Networks into Rivers of Molasses
The New York Times
Largely because of the broad use of iPads and other mobile tablets, which are heavy users of video streaming, the guest room Wi-Fi networks that most hotels thought they had brought up to standard just a few years ago are now often groaning under user demands.

Amazon Likely to Remain Mum on Kindle Sales on Tomorrow's Earnings Call
AllThingsD
Don’t expect Amazon to crack open the books to provide anything more concrete than that about sales of the Kindle Fire, even during the company’s third-quarter earnings report, being released tomorrow.


Subtext Brings Social and Gaming to E-Book Reading
Macworld
The iPad app Subtext  invites users to engage socially, spiced with a dash of reward-based gameplay. Released Tuesday, the app aims to enhance users’ reading experiences with notes—embedded directly into the pages of an ebook—from authors, experts, and Subtext community members; and rewards points to users who contribute to the discussion.

Bad News for Newspapers:  Tablet Users Don't Want to Pay for News
MSNBC
About 11 percent of U.S. adults now own a tablet, and more than half of them are reading news on them every day from traditional sources, like The New York Times or CNN.  Despite their interest, however, most say they're not willing to pay for news on their tablets, according to a new study, "The Tablet Revolution and What it Means for the Future of News," by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism in collaboration with The Economist Group.

Viewsonic Coming Out with Sub-$200 Tablet
The Good E-Reader
The ViewSonic ViewPad 7e is being held in the same breath as the Amazon Kindle Fire owing to the same $199.99 price tag for both.  It's coming out later this month. 

Monday, October 24, 2011

Today's Headlines

Soon-to-Be-Released Dell Tablet Geared for Business
Tablets Planet
Like many other enterprise market players for PCs Dell is eager to launch a Windows 7 tablet PC for business users, who unlike consumers like to use Windows 7 slates. For their effort the folks at Dell have engineered a new slate named Dell Latitude ST.

One Third of iPad Users Share Their Device
PaidContent
Zite surveyed its users and found that one third of them share their iPads with other members of the family or household, in some cases between three or more people. That’s not a huge number right now, but as tablet adoption grows to include those beyond the early-adopter profile, the number could change.

Tablet Owners Spent a Lot of Time Online
Ad Age
Adult tablet owners age 18-64, the study found, spend almost four and a half hours on the internet each day compared with three hours for non-tablet owners. Interestingly, not all of that difference is made up for with the 55 minutes they spend on the internet with the tablets themselves.

Android Tablet Share Rises to 27%
eWeek
During the third quarter, more than 4.5 million Android tablets shipped, according to Strategy Analytics.  This represents 27% of the market.  

Friday, October 21, 2011

Today's Headlines

Asustek Tablet to Hit Market by End of Year
Marketwatch
Asustek Computer Inc. expects to launch a new tablet adopting Google Inc.'s atest Ice-Cream Sandwich platform by the end of this year, Chairman Jonney Shih said Thursday.  The Ice-Cream Sandwich platform adds more app widgets, makes it easier to make folders and switch between applications.

No Surprise Here:  Tablets Outselling Netbooks
Blorge
ABI Research has just released a report showing that tablet sales for the second quarter of 2011 have far exceeded expectations by selling more units than netbook sales by nearly twice as much. According to a ABi Research, the iPad held 68 percent of the tablet market share for 2Q11, which is just under nine million units. Netbook sales for the same quarter reached 7.3 million. Tablet sales for 2Q11 totaled 13.6 million units.

Zinio and Pixelmags Express Love of Apple's Newsstand
eMediavitals
What impact will Apple’s offering have on Zinio, PixelMags and Next Issue Media, all of whom currently offer or are developing digital newsstand apps of their own?  Writer Rob O'Regan's conclusion:  We love Apple Newsstand!  Next Issue Media was more measured. 


Review of Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet
PCMag
Velocity Micro Cruz T408 ($199.99 direct) suffers from the same problems that plague most discount tablets: an awful screen, an OS designed for phones, and a lack of the Google apps that most people expect from Android devices. While the Cruz T408 performs well, it's too user-unfriendly for the masses.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Today's Headlines

Kindle Fire May Be Holiday Season's Hottest Gadget
Reuters
The Kindle Fire tablet may be the hottest selling gadget this holiday, pressuring Amazon.com Inc's profit margins but giving the world's largest Internet retailer potentially millions of new high-spending customers. 
Technology blog AllThingsD reported on October 6 that Amazon is selling over 25,000 Fires a day, citing unidentified sources close to the company.

Asus Transformer 2 Tablet First to Use Nvidia's Tegra 3 Chip
PCMag
 Asus took the stage at All Thing D's AsiaD conference Wednesday to offer sneak peaks at its upcoming Eee Pad Transformer 2, the first tablet powered by Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 processor. 

Kobo Enters the Tablet Market
Globe and Mail
The Toronto-based manufacturer is entering the increasingly-crowded market for cheap tablet computers, releasing a touch-screen, color device that runs on theAndroid operating system. The device allows for e-reading of books, magazines and newspapers, and also allows users to watch movies, listen to music and play video games like they do on other tablets.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Today's Headlines

11 Million iPads Sold in the Last Quarter
Apple Insider
Apple's chief executive Tim Cook admitted in an earnings call yesterday that iPad sales have likely eroded some sales of Macs and emphasized that a "materially larger number are buying iPads over (generic) PCs." While noting that some portion of the 11 million iPads sold in the quarter (a 166 percent increase in sales over the year ago quarter) have clearly replaced sales of some significantly more expensive Macs, Cook added that the iPad's growth is coming primarily at the expense of PCs.

iPad Is a Bigger Hit Than the iPhone
Business Insider
The iPhone may have kicked off the smartphone revolution, but so far the iPad is selling much faster.

China Now Drives 16% of All Apple Revenue
AllThingsD
China, which is the company’s second-largest market, accounted for 16 percent of Apple’s sales during the past quarter, with $4.5 billion in revenue, a year-over-year increase of 270 percent.  There were no specifics about how much of this revenue comes from the sale of iPads. 

18.7 Million Tablets Shipped Globally in Q3 According to DigiTimes
DigiTimes
Global tablet PC shipments, affected by the weakening worldwide economy after August and high inventory levels from some tablet PC brand vendors, reached 18.7 million units in the third quarter, an increase of only 27.5% sequentially, far less than the strong sequential growth of 60.9% they achieved in the second quarter, according to Digitimes Research senior analyst James Wong.

Today's Headlines

The Top Ten Problems with Tablets That Need to Be Fixed
ZDNet
Problem #1:  better integration with PC's.  Problem #2:  better keyboards.  

Sears Salespeople Now Armed with iPads
AllThingsD
Sears will roll out iPads and iPods to its salespeople in 450 stores nationwide. This closely follows moves by other major retail chains, such as Lowe’s, Home Depot, Nordstrom and Urban Outfitters, in embracing what could be called iCommerce.

Motorola Xoom Tablets Discounted to $379
PaidContent
Motorola has been selling progressively less expensive versions of the device, with this week seeing the latest installment in that strategy: a version of the tablet selling for $379. The new Xoom, which is initially being sold by Best Buy, is being marketed as a “family tablet” now. It is effectively the WiFi-only version of the Xoom that first went on sale in March, but now with only 16GB of memory.

USA Today Debuts on Flipboard 
PCMag
USA Today is joining up with Flipboard as the first national newspaper to be offered through the app, and all signs indicate that the content – delivered 24/7 right to users' iPads and, ultimately, iPhones – will be complete free to access.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Today's Headlines

Kindle Fire  Raises Privacy Concerns for Rep. Markey
The New York Times
The Kindle Fire is equipped with a Web browser that is partly housed on Amazon’s servers. That will give the retailer opportunities to track customer behavior all over the Web, gathering data and marketing intelligence as it goes. Representative Edward Markey (D-MA)  has concerns about the Fire’s potential implications.

Goldman Sachs:  iPad Hurting PC Market
AllThings D
Goldman revised its PC unit sales forecast downward. Following the latest PC market data from the research firm IDC, Goldman says the demand environment for PCs is “even more difficult than we had previously envisioned.”

First Look at the $700 HTC Jetstream Tablet
Business Insider
Writer Steve Kovach:  "While our snap reaction of the tablet is pretty good after using it for a day or so -- we love the modifications HTC made to Honeycomb -- we can't get over the price tag."

Review of TIME's iPad App
The Blorge
Writer Ron Carlson:  Whereas Time’s editors have clearly spent time and love including, parsing, cutting, building, limiting and presenting to beautiful effect, $5 per issue price presents an untenable value proposition in a world where you can get Netflix for $8 a month."

3.4 Million Android Honeycomb Tablets Have Been Sold
SlashGear
Google and its manufacturer partners are yet to announce official sales figures for tablets running Android, leaving us dependent on supply chain rumors and guesstimates. Android developer Al Sutton reminded us, though, that with a little math we could get an estimate of quite how many Honeycomb slates are in the wild. The number? Roughly 3.4 million.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Today's Headlines

iPad 3 Reportedly Heading into Production
AllThingsD
According to Susquehanna Financial analyst Jeff Fidacaro the device is headed into production.  There's a possibility of a March launch. 

Rave Review for the $79 Kindle
PCMag
Critic Jamie Lendino:  "The new Amazon Kindle rings in at a bargain $79 price, establishes the new class standard for affordable ebook readers, and still features the best ebook store on the market."

Size Matters for Samsung's Expanding Group of Tablets
Wired
You’re probably already familiar with the Galaxy Tab 10.1.  Then there’s the newly released 8.9-inch Galaxy Tab.  And now we have the yet-to-be-released 4- and 5-inch Galaxy Player multimedia devices. Samsung's strategy:  smaller form factors will attract hesitant, would-be tablet adopters who haven’t sprung for an iPad.

Sony's Tablet Gets a Video-Download Service
Twice
Sony has added its Video Unlimited Service to the Sony Tablet S.  Video Unlimited is a download service enabling users to rent or purchases movies and TV show episodes in standard definition. For PCs and Sony home products, Video Unlimited is a streaming service offering standard- and high-definition video and some 3D movies.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Today's Headlines

ViewSonic Preps 9.7-Inch Tablet
TheRegister
ViewSonic is taking aim right at the iPad - and would-be HP TouchPad owners - with a tablet sporting a 9.7 inch 4:3 ratio IPS LCD screen.  It will be available in November. 

Las Vegas Schools Gamble on iPads for Students
The Las Vegas Review and Journal
About 1,150 students at the four Las Vegas-area schools were given iPads instead of traditional textbooks, preloaded with Fuse Algebra textbooks and software. Each iPad costs $687, including software, for a total of about $790,000.  Students can watch more than 400 video tutorials, take notes, get instant feedback on problems they miss and other functions.

Motorola Solutions Unveils Tablet for Retailers
The Chicago Sun-Times
Motorola Solutions, known for its bar-code scanners and police and firefighters’ walkie-talkies, showed off Monday a tablet computer that will let retail salespeople help shoppers buy goods, check inventory and compare products from anywhere in the store in real time.

Tablet Showdown Between iPad and Kindle Fire May Not Occur
Fortune
But the rivalry isn't likely to be a bitter  one. Instead, it might prove mutually beneficial, at least for the next few years. Amazon's store and iTunes have competed for years with little detriment to either. After Steve Jobs began chiding music publishers, iTunes began offering DRM-free songs in April 2007. Amazon, following suit in May, made it that much harder for the labels to keep pushing for DRM.

iPad 3 Could Dominate the Christmas Season
PCMag
arious tablet computers will top nearly every Christmas wish list. Therefore, it is very likely that Apple will roll out the iPad 3 by the holiday.  But the iPad 3 would still decimate the landscape if the buzz about the display is true.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Today's Headlines

Facebook's iPad App Has Arrived
AllThingsD
After months of anticipation and leaks, Facebook today launched a mobile app platform and an iPad app.
Where before, Facebook users had to use their computers for most of their Facebook gaming and app needs, now they should be able to play and participate from almost any device with a Web browser. And they may get a better experience if it happens to be an Apple iOS device.

iPad Users Account for 92% of All Tablet Internet Traffic
TUAW
comScore has determined that the iPad now accounts for more U.S. Internet traffic than the iPhone for the first time. Almost half of iOS device traffic now comes from iPads, while 42.6 percent comes from iPhones.

Harry Potter Digital Venture Lands Chief Digital Officer
PaidContent
Will Harry Potter become more tablet friendly?  Possibly. Charlie Redmayne, EVP and chief digital officer of HarperCollins, is leaving to become the CEO of interactive Harry Potter site Pottermore.com, starting November 7.  His mission:  to take one of the great brands in literature into the digital future. 

$35 Tablet Launched in India
Blorge
Last week India launched the Aakash, a $35 tablet which the government hopes to get into the hands of 10 million students over the next few years. The Aakash, which has been in development since last year, features a 7-inch touchscreen, boasts 256Mb of RAM, 2Gb of flash memory expandable to 32Gb, 2 USB slots, and runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo).

Monday, October 10, 2011

Today's Headlines

5 Reasons the Kindle Fire Beats the iPad
Fox News
It's cheaper and easier to hold.  Plus there's more content, free storage and it features democratized apps.


Tablet Vendors Scurry to Undercut $500 iPad
CNET
What's the sweet spot for tablet pricing? We're finding out as Hewlett-Packard, RIM, HTC, and others learn that trying to sell a tablet at the iPad starting price of $500 may be a fool's errand. 

\\Today's Headlines

The Man Responsible for Developing Innovative Apple Products
The Wall Street Journal
Meet Jonathan Ive, Apple's design chief.  The demands on Mr. Ive likely will grow with the death of Mr. Jobs. Apple depends on just four product lines—computers, music players, smartphones and tablet computers—to drive the lion's share of the more than $100 billion in annual revenue the company is expected to take in this fiscal year.

AllThingsD
After racking up an estimated 95,000 pre-orders within the first 24 hours of availability, Amazon’s forthcoming Kindle Fire tablet continues to sell well. Demand for the device shows no signs of slowing. In fact, sources close to Amazon claim the company has been selling upward of 25,000 Fires per day.
eWeek
This report says Amazon may be selling 50,000 Kindle Fires a day.  That puts the table on track to sell 2.5 million by its November 15 launch. 
Information Week
Analysts at market watcher iSuppli tore down the Kindle Fire and estimated that the total cost of its components is $209.63. Amazon is selling the tablet for $199