Ace on Tech

Microsoft’s OneApp, Nokia’s Windows 7 netbook w/ 12hrs of battery life, Opera 10 & more

Aug 26

AceTech Articles amazon, kindle, Microsoft, nokia, opera, sony, Windows 7 View Comments

Tech news roundup for August 25, 2009. I’d like to share some science/astronomy oriented articles with you before we jump to the tech news.

• Another Little Ice Age? Solar activity and climate change #
• Extrasolar Planets at Full Tilt #

Now for the tech news:

• Microsoft’s OneApp targets non-smartphones #
• Nokia to deliver Windows 7-powered netbook with 12 hours of battery life #
• Opera 10 Slated For September 1 Launch. Will Anyone Take Notice? #
• Sony’s new Reader lineup assaults Amazon Kindle #

Another Little Ice Age? Solar activity and climate change

The Sun’s is experiencing a slow return to normal activity after its natural 11-year cycle. The number of sun-spots have decreased, which could indicated a “Little Ice Age” may be impending. The last time this happened was the late 17th century. This time around its effects may not be as chilling due to the vast amount of greenhouse gases now circulating our atmosphere. Source at ArsTechnica.

Extrasolar Planets at Full Tilt

Exoplanets – scientists have recently discovered – don’t generally follow our Solar System’s common circular orbits. Instead, they’re usually tilted more than 30 degrees, causing some of them to actually orbit backwards relative to its parent star. The most tilted planet (7 degrees) in our solar system is Mercury. Interesting insights. Source at Discovery.

Microsoft’s OneApp targets non-smartphones

Microsoft recently launched a mobile application called “OneApp”, which is directed at the non-smartphone market. The application will act as a gateway to web applications and services like Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, and more. Because non-smartphones are so low on processing power, OneApp will relay processing and storage to the web. The app itself only takes up 150KB and will even work on the most basic GPRS/EDGE phones. Source at TechRadar.

Nokia to deliver Windows 7-powered netbook with 12 hours of battery life

Yes. Truly. Read the specs at Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite Blog post.

Opera 10 Slated For September 1 Launch. Will Anyone Take Notice?

The cursed underdog of browser-land, Opera, has published the Release Candidate for its upcoming browser Opera 10. Codenamed “Peregrine”, it will offer “an improved user interface, increased web standards support, bug fixes, performance improvements, and new tools for web developers”. As with every release from Opera, I will download it and give it a fair chance. I rarely like what I see, though. So, in those terms, this will be Opera’s tenth chance to convince me. Source at TechCrunch.

Sony’s new Reader lineup assaults Amazon Kindle

Sony has refreshed its lineup of eBook readers with a trio of readers, each specialized in a certain type of end user. The first – called “Pocket Edition” – is portable and cheap. The second one – “Touch Edition” – offers a bigger screen with touch capabilities. And the über-reader is called the “Daily Edition”, with a big screen, touch capabilities and 3G & WIFI connectivity. In each case, Sony’s equivalents to the Kindle and Kindle DX are significantly cheaper than Amazon’s offerings. Also, Sony scrambles behind eBook-standard EPUB enabling broader compatibility. It has also partnered with Google. Source at ZDNET.
(click the thumbnail on the right for a closer look)

Has everyone gone Kindled?

Nov 27

AceTech Articles e-book, e-ink, Gadgets, Google Reader, kindle, sony View Comments

The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader which is able to store sheer amounts of electronic books, but sadly enough still doesn’t deliver a high enough contrast to enable hassle-free, minimal eye-strain (black letters on white paper) reading.

As an observer sitting on the ledge looking out on the numerous Americans going berserk over a new gadget baptised The Kindle, I’m once more amazed at how frenzied some (many?) people let themselves become. Not only does it cost a hefty dime, I’m also dead sure it won’t be as portable as a good old paperback or even an iPod (for audiobooks). It might not be a fair comparison, but I just couldn’t imagine anyone accidentally sitting on their Kindle (forget about popping it in your back-pocket!), spilling coffee over it or forgetting it on some random airliner (like Leo Laporte did just recently with his Sony Reader — another piece of gadgetry).

That said, there are many appealing characteristics about this device. The Kindle might just inflict enough arousal exposure to force the other manufacturers (Sony?) to pitch in.

• EVDO Internet (not Wi-Fi): this is included with your subscription to Amazon and allows for immediate book purchases from the device itself. It can also automatically pull down the newspapers you’ve subscribed to.
• Long battery-life: Amazon claims the Kindle will keep on running for 1 full week on one charge — provided the user disables internet access completely (otherwise the battery-life would decrease to a mere few days).
• It resembles a paperback, at least size-wise.
• Free wireless access to Wikipedia.org
• “Holds over 200 titles” [Amazon Website]
  I wonder why they didn’t bother to translate this to a more understandable notation like Megabytes? What, do they deem their users to-be tech-un-savvy? I would assume the contrary.
• Dictionary, annotation-capabilities, semi-scalable fonts, …

That’s a lot of functionality for an e-book reader, that’s for sure. Certainly it’s interesting to have a lot disk space to play with (one could expand the capacity via SD-cards, as well) and it’s definitely a plus to use this thing when you’re not in the comforting vicinity of your computer — or — just far away from home. But also consider the following:

• (actually) Low-contrast display (in comparison with white paper due to the current state of E-Ink technology.
• Priceyness
• Lag between page-flipping
• Have a RSS feed you’d like to subscribe to? You can, if you pay for it.
• Amazon charges for viewing of own files

Good technology, rough around the edges | All in all, the Kindle looks like a good piece of technology, though still in 1.0. Obviously, Amazon wants this thing to catch on, so I’m sure they will have evolved the technology enough by version 2.0 or 3.0. For now, it seems it’s only for the tech-enthusiasts among us who also happen to be a bookworm.

If it were available to me, I don’t think I could be persuaded in being interested.

I, myself am more an audiobook-guy and I’ll tell you why you should be that too. Everyone already carries around at least two devices nowadays: a cellphone and an MP3-player (or better yet, the two combined into one), so why lug around another? Audiobooks are often very engagingly narrated and allow you to continue your activities without needing to hold a book. I “read” books while walking to the train station, on the train itself, on my walk to school, etc.

And no, it’s not just for lazy people.

For a more hands-on view on the Kindle: ArsTechnica has an extensive review of the Amazon Kindle, here.

P.S.: I wonder where they got the name.