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Kindle 2 e-reader announced by Amazon

1 Comment / Books, Music and Movies, Gizmo of the Day, Portable / By /

Amazon announced version 2 of the Kindle today, which will ship on February 24, 2009. Kindle 2 has a slew of improvements over the first Kindle such as:

  • Just over 1/3″ thick
  • Light: 10.2 oz (less than a paperback)
  • 3G wireless (and Amazon pays for the wireless bill!)
  • Improved e-ink display: 16 shades of gray & easier to read in sunlight without glare
  • Greater storage: hold over 1500 books
  • Text-to-speech – books to audio
  • 25% longer battery life
  • Built-in Dictionary

You can pre-order your Kindle 2 right now. You may remember that the 1st Kindle was in such high demand that many people simply did not get theirs. Their orders will be automatically converted to Kindle 2s without any action or additional costs on their part.

Kindle me a Book: Amazon’s e-Reader

Books, Music and Movies, Gizmo of the Day, Portable / By /

Amazon’s new reading device allows users to download books and read them on their device without the use of network cables. Claimed to be the future of reading, it holds an electronic-paper display which provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.

The wireless connection allows customers to shop the Amazon Kindle store directly from practically anywhere to access a content database of over 145,000 books, including more than 98 of the New York Times Best Sellers. Customers can also receive free book samples which allow them to download and read the first chapters before deciding to buy the book. Other literature such as newspapers and international papers are also available for viewing through the Kindle, blogs too!

The device weighs about 10.3 ounces and can hold up to 200 titles. The battery life can last up to a day and takes about 2 hours to fully recharge. The phone is also equipped with EVDO (a high-speed data network) which does not require a monthly bill or service plan.

Gimme!

Price: $359.00
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

RIP: audio cassettes

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Although the music industry pretty much said goodbye to the audio cassette years ago, once CDs came along, the audio book folks stuck with audio cassettes because they proved a cost-effective alternative to CDs as well as having more than enough audio fidelity for the spoken word.

However, its time has come. Only 400k tapes were sold in 2007, and that number is expected to plummet this year. Audio books on cassettes may still live a few more years as libraries still demand them, but not too much more than that, even though most households still have at least 1 or more cassette players on hand; audio books are also going the way of digital downloads and streams. Many publishers have already completely abandoned cassettes, including some large ones like Random House and Macmillan.

RIP audio cassette – you had your place in history and in my audio collection.

Sci-Fi fans say Firefly is best TV show, Blade Runner best film

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A survey held by the Sci-Fi channel and booksfree.com asked fans what are the best books, tv shows, movies and things to save the world are, and tops of the list were 1984 by Orwell, Josh Whedon’s Firefly, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and reading as the top way to save the world.

I can’t say that I understand the #1 pick for saving the world, but the others are fair winners. I’m happy to see some of my fav tv shows make the list: Stargate: SG-1, The X-Files and Babylon 5. Interestingly, Star Wars did not make the movie list.

You can take a look at the entire list over at Wired.com.

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