Watch Out, Amazon — Barnes and Noble Unveils Their New Nook eBook October 21, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : eBooks , 2comments
The Barnes and Noble Nook eBook
We’ve all probably been to Barnes and Noble a couple of times over the past years– either by choice or for something for school reading. What if told you that soon those trips won’t be needed and you can have every book from there physical stores in your pocket? Interesting, yeah? Its true. Today, book giant Barnes and Noble have announced their entrance into the future for books with their new eBook called the Nook. This is ready to take on Amazon’s hit Kindle, and boy did Barnes and Noble do a great job with this device (case in point, look up at the pic– wow is right). And that top pic is only part of the story– read on to learn all about Barnes and Nobles new eBook and how they plan to continue to change books as we now know them.
Pre-Order Windows 7– NOW June 26, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Computers , add a comment
As you can see from some over our previous posts (such as this first look of the new OS), we are really loving using Windows 7, and we mean REALLY lovin it. It is 1000x better than Vista (possibly more, I wanna be a little nice to Vista’s failed efforts) and is an actually usable and fast OS. It’s so good that we’re pretty certain that all or a lot of you readers out there with Windows computer (for sure ones with Vista), will probably upgrade to 7 when it comes out later this year (October 22nd as we previously wrote, is the launch date), and as we saw with Vista’s upgrade from XP, buying the new software from Microsoft is not the cheapest thing.
So that’s why we got this post for you today. Microsoft is actually charging you A LOT less if you pre-order the OS now, instead of waiting till October to upgrade. How big of a savings we talkin here? Well, the list price for Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade (the one most of you we assume will upgrade to, and just a sorta for your information, the upgrade means that it is used to install over a previous version of Windows like Vista or XP. If you want to install a full fresh copy there is also a non-upgrade version if you wanna install on a PC without a prior version of Windows, but that costs a lot more) is priced for regular retail at $119.99. Amazon, who is one of the retailers taking pre-orders now, is only charging you $49.99 (yes, $49.99 or a $70 or 58% discount off the cover price), if you pre-order it between now and July 11th. There are similar deals in place as well for the Windows 7 Professional Upgrade (a higher end version of the Home Premium with added features for business users such as being able to run XP as a free download inside 7– using similar tech that is used for running Windows and Mac side by side– something called Virtual PC. Professional is listed at retail for $199.99, but you can snag now for $99.99, or an $100 or 50% discount), and we hope this will go out to other versions like 7 Ultimate (with a couple more features than Professional such as more language support– 35 more– and better Hard Drive encryption using something call BitLocker– things you prob won’t need basically, and which currently is priced at a very expensive $219.99 for both pre-order and retail). The deal runs from now till July 11th or while supplies last, so you better hurry as a lot of people EVERYWHERE are gonna want in on this.
In my opinion, this is looking to be a steal of a deal (albeit not quite the steal Apple is charging for Snow Leopard, the next version of their very good Leopard OS. The price on that by the way is $29 when it drops in September, you can learn more on Snow Leopard in our WWDC wrap up), and we’re really hoping Microsoft just dumps the higher prices and keeps them at these discounted prices for good (as a sorta “sorry for Vista” thing).
Amazon is also not only doing this, but offering FREE release date delivery for Amazon Prime users, and free “Super Saver” shipping for those who don’t have Amazon Prime (info on Amazon Prime here). If for some reason you needed to buy Vista right now in either the Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate flavors, you could upgrade to the 7 version for only $10 when it comes out. There is though a 3 per customer limit we feel we should mention, but how many of you actually plan on buying more than 1-2 copies max?
This is an awesome deal, and you can check it all out at Amazon’s site here (where they even have some solid info on what the difference is between the versions of 7 and help for upgrading). REMEMBER: THIS DEAL ONLY RUNS TILL JULY 11TH.
Oh, and if your looking for a new computer now or sometime before 7 drops in October: like with Vista, computer makers like HP, are already beginning to roll out free upgrades to 7 with purchases, so when buying a new PC make sure to get that.
Kindle DX Announced May 8, 2009
Posted by Chaim Gartenberg in : Misc. , 2comments
The Kindle DX. AKA, a REALLY Big Kindle 2.
Amazon, (ya know, that big online store thing?), announced today the latest version of the popular Kindle eReader. The Kindle DX. In English: A really big Kindle 2.
Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Kindle 2 is a really nice eReader, definitely beating out say, an iPod Touch, in terms of readability. And the DX has an even bigger screen than its predecessor, almost standard paper size– which is awesome. While I haven’t seen one in person, this definitely looks like an incredible way to read books. Also intriguing about the DX is some of the new partnerships Amazon’s made to get content to the DX.
First up, and most important to me as a teenager and student, is their new partnerships with schools and textbook makers. Yes, textbooks – those enormous, heavy bricks that are the bane of every student, forcibly lugged to school every day, back and forth- have now been digitized on the Kindle DX. So theoretically, you can just carry one of these around, loaded with all your textbooks and other books (I’m a huge reader), which makes it a very enticing deal for those like me whose bag on average, between books and laptop, and other random stuff, weighs more then a small child. However, while it seems like a promising option for students, much has yet to be found out about this arrangement: the project cost for digital textbooks as well as the list companies/textbooks to be available for purchase has yet to be announced.
Another new feature allows Kindle owners to subscribe to a variety of newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and others, directly to their device. This is pretty cool, something that’s been seen a thousand times in sci-fi movies, and combined with the DXs large screen looks like it could be interesting. Cost is about $10-$15 a month per paper- about $50 more a year than print subscriptions.
Which brings up the next thing. Price. And I gotta say, this one’s gonna hurt. $489 worth of hurt. Seriously. Not including content– although Kindle books are cheaper then paper ones. Compare to the Kindle 2, which is already expensive at $359, and the restrictively high price (surely according to a student’s wallet) makes the choice between Amazon’s 2 models even harder; especially considering that while the Kindle 2 is smaller screen-wise, it’s $100 cheaper, has most of these features, and is semi-portable (the screen is 6 inches compared to 9.7 on the DX). But for both devices, in my opinion, if Amazon wants to get teens and students to be interested in ‘em, they’re going to need to reconsider prices.
This isn’t to say that the Kindles aren’t excellent products; they are. But quality comes at price, which here is fairly high. The Kindle DX launches in the summer, and you can preorder it online from Amazon now, as well as view Amazon’s comparison between the Kindle 2 and the DX on that page. More info to come as we get it, particularly regarding textbooks.
New Pricing System Begins for iTunes April 8, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Apple, Mp3 players and iPods , add a comment
The new iTunes pricing method
At MacWorld ‘09 in early January, Apple announced that they would introduce a new pricing system for iTunes, with songs costing either $.69, $.99 or $1.29, depending on how much the record label and artist wanted to charge– which really means based on the song’s popularity.
Apple, true to it’s word, released this new pricing system yesterday, and I’m not gonna lie: this ain’t cool. The economy is still in the toilet, and their gonna raise prices? Doesn’t really make much sense to me, and already 33 out of the iTunes Top 100 songs are going for this new price, and this new pricing has only been out 3 days! The other 77 songs are staying at the previous $.99 for now, though I don’t think it will stay that way for long. See now how this whole popularity thing changes the price?
I also don’t get why they’re giving Amazon and other services a chance to gain some ground in the online music store; you can also get DRM Free songs (DRM= Digital Rights Management, which is the copy protection previously found on iTunes songs, limiting song sharing on computers and iPods. iTunes Plus now removes DRM from the iTunes songs, though movies and TV shows still have them) at Amazon’s Mp3 store for as low as $.79 (they too have the $.99 and $1.29 price listings as well), including a majority of the songs on their Top 100 being either $.79 or $.99 (though Amazon also has a few $1.29 songs– which we hope they keep to a few and try to make up ground vs Apple and iTunes with the cheaper pricing). I mean, the number 2 song currently on both lists– Poker Face by Lady Gaga– sells for $.79 on Amazon, and $1.29 on iTunes, and their the exact same song! (And yes you could say it’s only a $.50 difference, but when you buy a lot of songs, it’ll add up to be much more pretty quickly).
I know that most of this really ends up hurting the consumer, but there is one good thing out of all this though in my opinion– the fact that now all iTunes songs are DRM free. This is something that is actually good for us consumers as we can all now listen to our higher priced songs on any device we want 
(though just so you know, to make this happen tech wise, they didn’t need to raise the price, as evidenced by the $.69 songs which are the exact same DRM free quality as their $1.29 counterparts).
So while its great that now all iTunes songs are DRM free, I’m still not gonna pay over a dollar for a song when I can get it for less than a dollar at another, reputable site like Amazon.
What are your thoughts– you agree or disagree with the new iTunes pricing? And are you still gonna get songs from iTunes even though they raised the prices? You gonna switch to Amazon, or another site like Rhapsody? Or have you stopped buying your songs entirely and instead go the more illegal, torrent (or otherwise known as file sharing) route to get your stuff ? Let us know in the comments.
The Amazon Kindle 2 February 15, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Misc. , 2comments
The Amazon Kindle 2
Some of you may have heard of Amazon’s digital book (called an e-book, and yes people do read books 
). Believe it or not- and we know a lot of you probably won’t believe it , the first Kindle was really popular, and they were constantly sold out on Amazon’s site.
The original Kindle let you read countless books on one small, thin device and let you download new books, magazines and newspapers straight to the Kindle using Sprint’s 3G network– all without charging you a monthly data price.
Now the Kindle, as we said, was really, really popular, and this past week Amazon announced the next generation version of the device, cleverly named the Amazon Kindle 2. So what’s new in the Kindle 2 and why should you care? Well, read on to find out!
Lala: A Music-Downloading Revolution November 15, 2008
Posted by Nik G. in : First Look/Reviews, Mp3 players and iPods , add a comment
I don’t know about you, but I listen to a lot of music and of every genre- rock, rap, and pretty much everything else. Naturally, I therefore have a tremendous library from both iTunes and CD albums stored on my ipod but recently, an increasing amount of that music I don’t actually own by download through YouTube.
But what if I said there was an all-new, revolutionary website that allowed you to listen to any song for free?
T-Mobile G1 Out! September 24, 2008
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Cell Phones, Google , 4comments
The T-Mobile G1!!!
Forget all that iPhone 3G update stuff- that’s old news now Yesterday Google and T-Mobile, along with HTC, officially announced the T-Mobile G1 (previously called the HTC Dream) onto the world. This bad boy is loaded! So whats it all about and how does it compare to the iPhone 3G? Read on to find out!
A Better Way to Download Music than iTunes July 8, 2008
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Mp3 players and iPods , add a comment
Summer is now coming into full swing, and we all are using our iPod’s or other Mp3 players wherever we go to listen to some good tunes. While many of us rely on iTunes for this service, we would like to introduce Amazon’s online music store, Amazon Mp3, and to see why we think its better than iTunes read on!