Amazon Kindle 2 Announcement Today

The sequel to Amazon’s Kindle e-Book reader is due to be announced today, if all of the rumors and speculation (and press invites) are true. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that in addition to the new version of the Kindle, Amazon will be announcing that they have an exclusive (at least for now) deal with a new work from Stephen King, which happens to feature a Kindle-like device.

Last month, AllThingsD had came out with the information that Amazon would be holding an “important” press conference at the Morgan Library in New York City today at 10 a.m. (EST). They mention that the last time Amazon held a press conference in New York City, it was to announce the first version of the popular e-Book reader.

A few days ago, several photos/publicity stills of the Kindle 2 leaked out in the MobileRead.com forums, along with a potential price ($359 USD) and release date (February 24, 2009). Back in October, Boy Genius Report had photos of what they claimed were the Kindle 2 (and which matched up to the publicity stills posted a few days ago at MobileRead.com) and mentioned that it was slightly larger, but thinner, to address some of the criticisms of the first.

Not exactly laptop-related, but quite a few fans of ultraportables are also fans of e-book readers.

Read:
- Wall Street Journal
- MobileRead.com
- AllThingsD
- Boy Genius Report

PC Magazine Goes Digital Only

PC Magazine has announced that they are going 100% digital and will no longer be selling print editions. It’s the flagship magazine of Ziff Davis Media and and has been printed for nearly 30 years. It’s not too surprising - apparently a large majority of their revenue was from their online website/digital editions, and print costs were rising, but it’s still kind of weird to see it happen.

As Michael J. Miller (who writes PC Magazine’s “Forward Thinking” blog) points out, they’ve been online for a few decades, starting with a BBS (Bulletin Board System) in the 1980s and then moving to CompuServe, and eventually PCMag.com, so it’s probably not too surprising.

The January 2009 issue (Vol 28, Issue 1) will be the last printed edition of PC Magazine. Print subscribers will then be offered PC Magazine Digital Edition (which has been online for six years). Subscribers will receive access via e-mail, either through downloading it or looking at it online. The downloadable edition will be portable and viewable offline. It’ll also have print options for those who want to print out a particular article.

I can’t blame them, since it does make sense. I used to be a subscriber, and I still find myself frequently checking PCMag.com, but it was always nice to pick up PC Magazine and a few others for reading material when going on a trip. They’ve been around for 27 years, and I’m sure they’ll be around for many more.

Read:
- An Open letter to PC Magazine (Print) Readers
- Requiem for PC Magazine (Print) (Michael J. Miller)

Google Chrome - A New Browser

Google has made available their own internet / web browser, dubbed Google Chrome (or Chrome for short). It’s free, open-source, lightweight, and (so far) easy to use. They’ve worked on unifying the interface quite a bit more than other browsers. It does have components from both Apple’s Safari browser, as well as Mozilla’s Firefox browser - they aren’t necessarily trying to re-invent the wheel, they just want to make a better wheel.

Kevin over at jkOnTheRun noticed the about:memory command that you can type in the bar (or Omnibar as it’s called) that shows you the memory usage of not only Chrome, but any other web browsers you have open.

I’m impressed so far, and will be loading it on my Aspire One to play around with. Even with 1GB of RAM, Firefox on the Aspire can be a little slower than I like. This could be the go-to browser for netbooks. It feels lightweight on a regular Windows laptop.

Unfortunately it’s only available for Windows Vista and Windows XP - Mac OS X and Linux versions are currently in development.

Read:
- Official Announcement - Google Blog
- Google Chrome - Official Site
- Technology behind Chrome (comic)
- Story behind Chrome (video)

Phoenix Mars Mission Touches Down

If you are a fan of space exploration like me, tonight (Sunday night - May 25, 2008), was a huge night. The Phoenix Mars Lander successfully touched down almost seven hours ago. We’ve just now received the first color photographs back (black & white ones were sent earlier to show the condition of the lander as well as its landing site) - you can view the photographs here (NASA.gov). Other than deploying its parachute a little later than expected, it looks like it was a successful landing.

This is the first spacecraft to set down near the North Pole of Mars, and will be looking for water, among other things. It even has a scoop and some small ovens to scoop up materials and look for certain things.

It’s an exciting mission - it was the first successful powered landing since the NASA Viking I & II spacecraft set down in the 1970s.

Relevant Sites:
- Phoenix Mars Mission - Official Site (Arizona.edu)
- Photo Gallery (Arizona.edu)
- Spaceflight Now - Mission Status
- Mars Exploration Overview (NASA.gov)
- Phoenix Mars Lander - (NASA.giv)

Netflix Player by Roku

Quite a few of us have Netflix accounts (Netflix is a online DVD rental company - they mail DVDs out to you, you watch them, send them back in the pre-paid mailer and then get a new one).

Netflix and Roku have announced theNetflix Player. It can be purchased for $100 (a one-time fee and separate from your Netflix account fees) and it streams up to 10,000 different movies and TV shows directly to your TV through a variety of connections (HDMI, Component, Composite, S-Video) and it accesses the internet / content through either a wired or wireless ethernet connection.

Before you say “what does this have to do with ultraportables”, bear with us. A lot of us travel. A lot of hotels are now offering high-speed internet, but the movie/channel selection on the TV is limited (unless you are willing to pay additional charges). If you happen to have a Netflix account, once you’ve set this up online (you plug in a number from the box into your Netflix account and from there it’s tied to your account), you could conceivably take it around with you as you travel (at least in the US) and it’s small enough to pack with your other gear.

Picture quality is limited by your network speeds. Netflix will be offering HD content in the future, and the player can be easily upgraded to handle HD content (no additional charges).

You can find out more here:
Roku.com/NetflixPlayer

Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablet and Solid State Drives

Not sure how long Lenovo has been offering this, but in addition to offering flash memory-based Solid State Drives (SSDs) on their 13.3-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X300s, they are also offering 64GB SSDs for their 12.1-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablets (non-widescreen), as well as some ThinkPad T61s.

These are not being offered on their non-Tablet ThinkPad X61.

The advantages they list:
- Faster boot times
- Faster application load times
- Lower power usage
- Less heat production
- Greater durability
- Quiet operation

Cost of those advantages: $1030 (USD) on top of the base price.

Read: Lenovo and Soild State Drives (US)

Broadband Problems - DLSReports.com

Should you find yourself having problems with your broadband connection in the US or Canada, like I did (which I initially attributed to the heavy storms we had yesterday morning into yesterday afternoon), if you are still able to get some kind of connection, you need to make a visit to DSLReports.

Now the name is misleading - it’s not just DSL, the DSLReports.com forums cover just about everything:

Canada: TekSavvy, Bell Sympatico, Rogers, just to name a few

US: Comcast, Road Runner, Charter, AT&T, Verizon Fiber Optics (I really wish I had fiber access in my area!)

Anyways, what I was hearing from my local broadband “tech support” (I’m using the term loosely here, as the support wasn’t much) was not matching the problems I was having. I guess my problems were not in their scripts (although it turned out I was definitely not alone in these problems). Through the DSLReports.com forums, I was able to track down the problems and fix them on my own.

So if you are on broadband and in the US or Canada, bookmark or remember DSLReports.com. If you are lucky enough to have an alternate connection, or your connection is just workable enough to get on there, you may very well save a lot of frustration talking on the phone to somebody.

February 10th Odds and Ends

A roundup of interesting articles from the past week.

Wired Magazine: Like Apple, Intel Wants to Put the Internet in Your Pocket - Discussion of Intel’s Silverthorne and Intel’s efforts at pushing beyond that, to where we can have a near-desktop like internet experience in a mobile device we can practically carry in our pockets.

CNET Blogs: “Which is sturdier, a MacBook Air or an HP business laptop?” A quick first-look at the MacBook air at how it stacks up against an HP notebook and how sturdy it feels and how it’s handling heat.

Akihabara News: Evergreen’s Mini Trackball for Your Laptop - a very small trackball made for travelers and those desiring a very small device - weighs in at 77 grams/2.7 ounces.

Engadget: Dell XPS M1330 update BIOS hints at upcoming Blu-Ray/DVD combo drive - a new BIOS update for the M1330 mentions “Blu-Ray / DVD +/- RW Combo Drive”.

AppleInsider: Rumor: possible Apple event brewing for late February - Might or might not be somewhere around the 26th. Could it be time for Penryn-based MacBook Pros, etc.?

LifeHacker: Remove Stains from a MacBook with Toothpaste - apparently toothpaste can clean up white MacBooks

jkOnTheRun: HP wants to sell you a Tablet PC - HP has produced a cool little video detailing the advantages of convertible/Tablet PC laptops.

GottaBeMobile: How Cool Is The HP TC1100 Tablet PC? mentions that the TC1100 makes an appearance in the above video showing off the 2710p convertible.

Engadget: Dell further clarifies how and where it’s dropping AMD The Engadget crew spoke with Dell about whether or not Dell was dropping AMD CPUs from their lineup. There was an image that went up on a Dell site indicating that AMD CPUs were not going to be sold anymore (or rather Dell products with said CPUs). Dell’s response: Not sure how/why the image appeared, AMD-based consumer computers will be in stores only except for certain desktops and the Inspiron 1501 notebook. Business-oriented lines (including the Latitude) that have AMD CPUs will still be sold online, and so on. Read the full article for all the details. Kind of an interesting/murky situation if you ask me.

Finally,

CNET Blogs: Windows Vista SP1 - Benchmarks - Robert Vamosi has put Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) through it’s paces, including Adobe Photoshop CS3, file copying, iTunes encoding, and DVD battery life tests.

As you know, Vista SP1 has been released to manufacturing and some users are already getting their hands on it.

That wraps it up for this week in review.

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