Review Horizon

This is the mandatory Top Kindle 3 shortcuts list that everybody needs to know. What makes this list unique is that it is also available as a .mobi file and fully compatible with your Kindle. It also has the proper title set to appear in top of your Kindle eBook list so you’ll never have to search the Internet for Kindle shortcuts again. Download it now, unzip it and store it on your Kindle, in the Documents folder. I haven’t tested it will every available typeface / font size combination and I would be thankful if you would let me know how well it works for you.You can also read our Kindle 3 Review comparing it against Barnes and Noble’s Nook.

Staples just released a press release stating that it will start selling Amazon’s Kindle eReader line starting this fall, ending the monopoly that Target had as the only brick and mortar store to have Amazon’s flagship product available.

It is not clear yet how many shoppers will actually prefer to buy the reader in one of Staple’s 1550+ stores across the US, even if only due to the additional taxes. Let’s not forget that  Amazon doesn’t charge taxes in most of the states although this might change in the future. What is pretty clear though is that Staples doesn’t necessarily intend to make money from the Kindle itself but from a lot of overpriced accessories that will also available.

Currently, Kindle is sold out at Amazon and it will be interesting to know if by fall Amazon will fix their distribution chain and increase Kindle availability. If you are looking for an in-depth Kindle 3 review, look no further than here.

Hit after the break for the full press release

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The rumor that was floating on the web during the last several days regarding a new and improved XBOX 360 controller proved to be true. Microsoft will start selling the new controller on December 9, and beside an improved D-pad it will also feature black and white action buttons and a Play and Charge kit bundled in the box. The whole package will sell for no less than $64.99. There is no reports to detail if Microsoft will start selling the new Kinect XBOX 360 systems with the new controller, or it will just be sold as a luxury item. Check the YouTube video after the break. Read More…

Stating a goal to sell three Roku devices in every house, today Roku announced a price cut across its entire Netflix players / media streamer line. The new prices are as follow:

Roku Model SD (standard definition) : $59 (was $79)
Roku Model HD (high definition) : $69 (was $99) (720p)
Roku Model XR: $99 (was $129) (1080p, WiFi N 2×2 dual band, USB)

Roku also announced the future availability of a software update to support 1080p up from the current 720p.

The new prices are only available on Roku’s website for now, other retailers did not adjust their prices yet. If you ask me however, in order to sell three Roku players to each house, they’ll probably have to be priced at $33 each. Still, the current price is not bad at all considering Pandora, Amazon VOD and Netflix support, but if you are interested in more functionality you should probably look at full featured media streamers as WD TV Live Plus, Viewsonic VMP75 or Seagate GoFlex TV HD (all reviewed on this website), all of them under $129, all of them streaming Netflix and supporting most of the video codecs / containers under the sun including MKV and DIVX.

Kindle 3 is the latest Amazon take in the eBook readers market and it does not disappoint:  It is smaller and lighter, comes in two colors and ads WiFi to the specifications list. I received mine on Friday from Amazon and had the whole weekend to play with it, so here is my experience. Before starting, I want to add that I also own Kindle 2 and Barnes and Noble’s Nook for quite a while, so my review will not only go through all the Kindle 3 functionality but it will also compare its features and usability against the other two devices. In the end, I will add a series of functionality tips and tricks destined to improve your experience.

1. Kindle 3 Unpacking

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Conform with an announcement made by Major Nelson, XBOX Live gold subscription fees will increase starting November 1. The increase will take place in US, UK, Canada, Mexico and we wonder if they’ll come with some additional functionality to make the pill easier to swallow or if Microsoft just felt they can squeeze a little extra from our hard earned cash. As you can see in the following table, a month will be now $9.99 instead of $7.99 and a year worth of XBOX Live Gold jumps $10 to $59.99. And it happens now when everybody expects to have native Netflix on PS3 without using a disk. Or maybe Microsoft has a mole in Sony’s organization and they found out that Sony also wants to charge for the functionality???

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen just filled a patent violation suit against no less than 11 companies, Wall Street Journal reports. The big 11 are Apple and Google, AOL Inc., eBay Inc., Facebook Inc., Netflix Inc., Office Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Staples Inc., Yahoo Inc. and YouTube. Paul Allen owns patents related to optimizing Internet user experience that he claims the companies named in the lawsuit are infringing. We cannot stop noticing that Paul did not sue Microsoft (presumably because he still owns a big chunk of the company) and Amazon (because it is located in his childhood town ? oh, memories ) No damages amount is requested at this point, but I’m sure we will enjoy the figure when it becomes public.

If the lawsuit has indeed merits (and if it won’t get settled out of the court) it might impact negatively the way we experience the Internet since a big part of current functionality is covered by the above mentioned patents.

In a move that will put them in direct competition with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo (although in China only at the beginning), Lenovo announces their entrance on the game console market with a new console called eBox (xBox knockout anybody?) we find in an article in The Wall Street Journal. Not only that, but it look like the new game console will feature a technology similar with XBOX 360 Kinect to provide a controller free experience.

The development will be performed by a Lenovo spin off company called Beijing eedoo Technology Ltd.

No other details are available though we would like to know how many horse power (or Gigahertz) the beast will have under its cover. Also interesting to know if what kind of developer support will Lenovo able to secure and what type of DRM protection will the box contain. Chinese made devices (and the Chinese market as a whole where piracy is rampant) aren’t famous for their security and this particular aspect would make the big gaming houses reticent to release their games for the new platform.

In a not totally unexpected news, LA Times announces that Blockbuster is getting ready to fill for bankruptcy by the mid of next month. With a debt that tops one billion dollars and hard to pay leases for more than 500 stores (from a total of 3,425) Blockbuster needs to restructure while being protected by the bankruptcy process if they want to e-surface later as a healthy company. Although if you accumulated debt in excess of a billion dollars, there must be something wrong with your business model and you need to start anew. At this point though, what they need the most is the support from the Hollywood studios to provide them with the DVD/Blu-ray disks that are the main part of their business. Time will tell if Blockbuster has any chance against their more hi-tech competitor Netflix. After all, how many media streamers did you see lately advertising streaming from Blockbuster ???

Continuing to improve the image quality of the digital cameras and taking it to a level that way surpasses even the professional devices that are using wide film, Canon recently announced a proof of concept  CMOS 120-Megapixel Camera Sensor (or 13,280 by 9,184 pixels) sure to satisfy even the most demanding professional photographers. While the quality of a picture depends only partially of the sensor and at this level has more to deal with the lens quality, we can envision a zoom mode that is using cropping instead of optical zoom and of course, professional applications where, paired with high quality optics could be used in aerial surveillance or defect detection. The image capture speed at full resolution is said to be around 9.5 frames/second.