At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry, a PhD student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab demoed SixthSense, a device that allows interactions between the physical world & the world of data. Take a moment and watch Mistry’s talk — great stuff.

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e-Book Echo: Sony Reader Available; Kindles Get Better; Nooks Expensive to Produce jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Weekend Vid Picks: Lego Matrix Trinity Help, an Epic Feat of Nerdity NewTeeVee – by Liz Shannon Miller "; My Current Tablet Desktop jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Web Tablet Must-Have: Good Input Method jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick ";

Posted by Om Malik on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  0 Comments
Tags: Pranav Mistry, Sixth Sense, TED

The Amazon Kindles got a firmware upgrade that offers native PDF support and longer battery life. The extended battery life is only obtained by global editions of the reader with HSPA radios. Those with the U. S. EVDO Kindles won’t see any battery life gains. The native PDF support is a significant new feature, especially for business folks who like to take work documents along. To better handle PDF viewing, Kindles will now support screen rotation for landscape viewing.

We have seen a rash of e-book reader announcements over the past few months, with a lot of different companies rushing to make readers. These companies might want to listen to Barnes & Noble, as its inability to meet heavy Nook orders is resulting in a ramping up of production capability. This is a very expensive process, and the company has indicated this might hurt future earnings. Electronic readers may be a hot ticket, but they are not cheap to produce.

In the computer operating system game, you don’t have to dominate to succeed — just ask Apple. With that in mind, emerging open source-based netbook software platforms could have surprisingly bright futures as secondary OSes, including Google’s. Here are several reasons why they’ll bring changes.

The idea that you don’t have to use just one operating system on a single computer is, of course, hardly new. Many people use virtualization software to run multiple OSes concurrently. Manufacturers such as Dell have long offered pre-configured dual-boot systems, and specialize in virtualized systems for data centers. Many people also use lightweight Linux-based instant-on environments such as Splashtop as secondary platforms. For that matter, 20 years ago people ran DOS and Windows on single systems — working in both.

However, the vast majority of users are still of the mindset to use one OS on a single machine, and most machines ship that way. Partly because of long-standing pressure, and spending, from proprietary players as powerful as Microsoft, the computer industry vigorously steers the majority of users toward a single-OS model.

That’s going to change, though, and the destruction of Microsoft’s OS hegemony is not required. With emerging netbook-focused open source operating systems, industry players big and small are exploring strategic ways to advance widespread acceptance of complementary platforms on single machines. European startup Jolicloud is developing a netbook-focused operating system (built on Debian and Ubuntu Linux) that is specifically positioned as a value-added adjunct to another OS. This week, as the Linux-based Chrome OS grabbed so many headlines, Jolicloud quietly announced that it’s entering pre-beta testing with its Jolicloud OS.

“Our dream of turning any Windows netbook into an open Jolicloud machine becomes a reality,” wrote CEO Tariq Krim in the announcement blog post. “At Jolicloud, we believe people should be able to switch operating systems on their netbooks,” he added. “Like the adoption of Firefox made Web 2.0 possible, enabling users to switch OS will accelerate the growth and benefits of open cloud computing.”

Does Krim have a point? CNet and others have already been impressed with Jolicloud’s complementary, secondary OS in preview versions. In the screenshot below, you can see how Jolicloud organizes types of applications by genre:

Indeed, it will be interesting to watch as Jolicloud proceeds through beta testing with its version of a complementary OS. The company has a very heavy-hitting management team. Krim was the founder of Netvibes, one of Europe’s successful web startups. Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Atomico Ventures, Skype, Joost, Kazaa and JoltID, also holds a seat on the company’s board.

Hardware makers, as well, are thinking of strategic opportunities involving multiple mobile operating systems, and a notable trend is taking shape as PC makers rapidly warm up to Android. While PC makers such as Dell and Acer favor Android for their smartphones, Acer also sells an Aspire One netbook that runs both Android and Microsoft Windows. The company is pursuing that idea in spite of the fact that Google is positioning its upcoming Chrome OS as a platform for netbooks, while maintaining that Android is targeted at mobile phones.

“The unique dual-boot OS on the new Aspire One ensures users fast connections, the familiarity of Windows, and the added convenience of open source mobile platforms and applications,” said Sumit Agnihotry, vice president of product management for Acer America, when announcing the dual-boot system in October.

With these themes in mind, could Google’s upcoming Chrome OS (like Jolicloud, based on Ubuntu) also have a future as a secondary, mobile, Linux-based operating system? From what we’ve heard of its architecture so far, that doesn’t seem to be its goal, but I’m betting the idea is a strong backup plan for Google. I’m already questioning whether the extremely autocratic “all data in the cloud” model that Google is pursuing will alienate users. I question whether people trust the cloud to that extent, and I know I love many of my local software applications and utilities.

I also completely disagree with those who see Chrome OS as “a nuclear bomb” aimed at Microsoft. It’s exclusively focused on the netbook market, not desktops and servers. It’s more of an experiment than a nuclear bomb.

Let’s assume that the Chrome OS cloud-only model does alienate users. In that case, could Google reposition Chrome OS as a secondary, instant-on operating system that might ship alongside other operating systems, or simply be downloadable to use that way? Could it be the OS that you hop into for a crash-proof, cloud-based experience, just as many people hop in and out of the Chrome browser for its stability and other reasons?

As evidence of how achievable this would be, people are already easily running Chrome OS on Dell netbooks, and noticing how much faster than Windows it is at booting. People are also calling Chrome OS “lightning from a USB key” as they use it via USB alongside other operating systems without even having it locally installed. That’s been a popular way to use Linux-based operating systems alongside other ones for years, absent any virtualization, as the folks at PenDriveLinux will attest.

The Chrome OS experimenters are working with first-generation open source code, and individuals may well choose to deploy the OS alongside other operating systems in imaginative ways, regardless of Google’s marketing moves. It’s released into the wild for that kind of usage, where Google won’t control everything — part of the power of open source, which Google itself understands well.

Is being a secondary OS such a bad thing? Hey, you can do quite well playing for accompaniment — just ask The Pips. Accompaniment is an entirely possible future for Google’s project, one of several emerging open source-based mobile operating systems that don’t have to crush larger competition to succeed.

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e-Book Echo: Sony Reader Available; Kindles Get Better; Nooks Expensive to Produce jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Weekend Vid Picks: Lego Matrix Trinity Help, an Epic Feat of Nerdity NewTeeVee – by Liz Shannon Miller "; My Current Tablet Desktop jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Web Tablet Must-Have: Good Input Method jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick ";

Posted by Sebastian Rupley on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  4 Comments
Tags: Android, chrome os, Jolicloud, Linux, netbooks, operating systems

When The Matrix was released in 1999, its revolutionary use of “bullet-time” photography made the franchise the target of a long list of imitators and satirists — a phenomenon that continues even now, 10 years later. But for Trevor Boyd and Steve Ilett, recreating a scene from the film was less an act of imitation and more a sort of Last Full Measure of Devotion, if only by virtue of their medium of choice: Lego.

It took 440 hours for Boyd and Ilett to create Lego Matrix Trinity Help, which is a perfect shot-by-shot remake of a short but memorable scene from the Wachowski Brothers’ masterpiece, executed via stop-motion animation and a nearly infinite amount of Legos. And, fascinatingly, the duo documented extensively on their YouTube channel:

And for those who doubt the scene’s veracity, they’ve even provided a side-by-side comparison.

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever see a full remake of the film by this team, as they calculate on their official site that it’d take 25 years working full time to do so. But it’s still an impressive achievement, despite the occasional continuity problem — though, in their words, there are actually no continuity problems in The Matrix at all: “All actions take place inside The Matrix. What you see is just the rendering level of detail being turned down during the faster sequences due to inadequate Matrix CPU processing power. It is just more evident during bullet time sequences.” I’ll take their word for it.

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Where the CrunchPad and eventual Apple Tablet miss the boat:

We don’t just consume web content anymore — we interact with it.

E. g. Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, blogging.

We need good input ability.

I previously mentioned the super, pre-holiday deal on the Panasonic high-definition camcorder, but a deal is only good if the product works well. So this afternoon, I got some playtime with the HDC-SD10 and recorded a short video of my office area. My workspace is quite the mess and I wasn’t even planning to share the video, but I was so impressed with the 1920 x 1080 output, that I decided to upload it. I still have to get a handle on the various buttons and features, but overall, this is a solid camcorder for the $299 I paid.

I originally thought I’d have to upgrade my iMovie 08 to the current edition, but it turns out that the older application imports the AVCHD file format. Perhaps iMovie 09 offers support for direct recording from camera to Mac, but that’s not a feature I really need, so I’ll stick with the software I have.

Obviously, the video that you’re able to view is compressed and resized down from 1920 x 1080, so you’re not getting a true view of what I can see. But the quality from where I sit is quite good, especially for the price. And with the small size and weight of the HDC-SD10, I suspect this little device just made the cut for January’s Consumer Electronics Show.

Here are some interesting posts from around the ‘Net to catch up with over the weekend:

• TechCrunch: “Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway”
• Mashable: “5 Important Tips for Successful Web Meetings”
• Lifehacker: “Top 10 Ergonomic Upgrades for Your Workspace”
• Freelance Folder: “Why Your Worst Clients Should Still Get Your Best Service”
• GigaOM: “8 Timely Tips for the Netbook Buyer”
• Steve Rubel: “Nearly All Inc. 500 Companies Are Engaged in Social Media”

What are you reading this weekend?

Tesla IPO: A Test for VC Model in the Auto Biz: If and when Tesla goes through with its long-discussed goal of going public, will also offer a glimpse at the role IPOs will play in the nascent green car market.

Report: Cost of Solar to Drop By Half By End of 2009: By the end of this year, “capital markets will loosen up” and solar equipment costs will continue to decline, delivering a 50 percent drop in overall solar costs compared to the end of 2008, according to a new forecast from New Energy Finance.

First Solar Keeps on Selling Off Solar Projects: In the latest indication of its strategy to develop and sell off projects, First Solar announced this week that it has sold its high-profile, 21MW solar energy project in Blythe, Calif., to NRG Energy, a merchant power producer.

10 Things to be Thankful For in Greentech: Start easing your mind back into the world of renewable energy, climate change and green technologies with these ten things in greentech to be thankful for this year.

Reviews of the HTC HD2 are painting the HTC HD2 to be the Windows Mobile phone of choice. The phone is available in the EU now, and is expected in the U.S. early next year. The Snapdragon processor and giant 4.3-inch screen have reviewers gushing over the HD2. It is the first WinMo phone with a capacitive touch screen.

HTC is planning to release some accessories for the HD2, notably a special stylus that works with capacitive screens. These screens do not work with traditional styli as found on other Windows phones, and require a special model that can duplicate a precise touch on the screen. The stylus for the HD2 will not be cheap at $25. HTC is also planning to release an extended battery for those who need extra time away from the outlet. This battery will be a whopping $75, so it almost makes sense to just get a second regular battery.

The crazy retail deals are still going strong today here in the U.S. During my daily check of Amazon for the MP3 special of the day, I noticed the e-tailer is offering any AT&T phone for a penny today. There’s also no activation fee, which saves $36 — personally, I think the fee should go away from the entire industry, but that’s another matter. As expected, you’ll need a new two-year service account for the deal, which expires at the end of the day. That means existing AT&T customers have to pass, because upgrades aren’t eligible.

A quick scan shows 61 eligible handsets and while some are basic phones, there’s a few relatively recent mobiles in the list, like the BlackBerry Bold 9700, Garmin’s nüvifone G60, the HTC Tilt 2 and HTC PURE. To sweeten the deal, Amazon is also including free two-day shipping. And before you ask: nope, no iPhones for a penny.

It’s becoming clear what eBay wants to find inside its corporate stocking this holiday season: affluent shoppers.

That’s why it’s opened up a brick-and-mortar retail shop on the corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, next to luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman. The 5,000 square-foot pop-up store, which opened its doors a week ago and will close after Sunday, sells Michael Kors handbags, Jimmy Choo shoes as well as Apple iPhones and Palm Pres, and features computer kiosks with access to eBay’s site.

As Advertising Age has pointed out, these transient pop-up stores don’t often generate a profit. So why is eBay, under pressure to fatten its profit margins, bothering? Think of the outpost as a prong on the company’s latest marketing campaign –- a way to catch the attention of holiday shoppers, especially ones who can afford to spend money in the luxury stores along Fifth Avenue.

With less fanfare, eBay has also opened a luxury store of sorts on its own site. Dubbed Fashion Vault, the initiative pushes eBay into the growing retail niche of private online fashion sales. If you’re a fashion slob like me, you might not know that these are one-time, invitation-only online sales, lasting just 24-36 hours and offering top-drawer brands at deep discounts.

But the niche is growing fast. Saks recently opened up its FashionFix site, and other private-sale sites such as Gilt.com and RueLaLa.com have been thriving. (Last month, RueLaLa’s parent, Retail Convergence, was acquired by e-commerce company GSI Commerce for $350 million.)

Luxury goods are one of the bright spots in e-commerce. Demand for them remains strong even as budgets remain tight. As MarketingVox noted:

Though luxury retailers have traditionally been slow to adapt to web-based sales and maketing tactics, a recent Bain & Co. report projects 20% growth in overall online sales of luxury goods in 2009. This compares with an 11% drop of overall global sales of high-end clothing.

eBay built Fashion Vault around sellers who have established relationships with brands like Hugo Boss and Cole Haan. It has the potential to strengthen some of eBay’s weaknesses that emerged during its long and painful restructuring of the marketplace site. eBay’s recent focus on refurbished and second-hand goods gave it a low-rent feel, and its move away from online auctions drained away a lot of the thrill that belonged to the site’s early days.

Analyst are encouraged by the move. Kaufman Brothers analyst Aaron Kessler said Fashion Vault improves eBay’s marketplace outlook by strengthening its fixed-sales model (while bringing back some of the suspense of the old auction frenzies), strengthening ties with high-quality sellers, boosting average selling prices and repeat traffic, and above all bringing in affluent customers – the ones who are still spending in this economy.

Will it work? It’s been a little more than a week since Fashion Vault launched. But if the number of people following eBay’s Fashion Vault account on Twitter is any indication (123 followers at this count), eBay needs to do a better job getting the word out.

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e-Book Echo: Sony Reader Available; Kindles Get Better; Nooks Expensive to Produce jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Weekend Vid Picks: Lego Matrix Trinity Help, an Epic Feat of Nerdity NewTeeVee – by Liz Shannon Miller "; My Current Tablet Desktop jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Web Tablet Must-Have: Good Input Method jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick ";

Posted by Kevin Kelleher on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  0 Comments
Tags: e-Commerce, eBay, holiday

David is the author of the great Nic Costa series of novels, and he does a great job chronicling his work experience on his blog. He recently shared a new tool that he has incorporated in his mobile work style, and it is no surprise to me it is a netbook.

David explains how he has been using the Mac for his writing work for a long time, but that he has no allegiance to Apple even so. He needed a mobile computer that met a few simple needs, and he found those met with the ASUS 1005HA. Why the ASUS? The 8-hour battery life was a good start, and it runs the software tools he needs: web browser and Evernote.

Have a look at David’s post as he gives a good view of the thought process behind his choice. He is technically savvy, even though he claims he is not a geek; he even installed Jollicloud on the ASUS. He also explains why it didn’t meet his needs, so he’s sticking with Windows 7.

E-book readers are shaping up to be a hot ticket when it comes to Android devices. Barnes and Noble has the Nook ready to ship, and readers from other vendors are expected early next year. Hopping on the bandwagon this week was network equipment maker Netronix, which is reportedly planning on making a reader based on Android. The company expects to ship a million of the devices in 2010, and will incorporate into them 3G and 3.5G capabilities.

While Android phone owners have been able to stream video to Ustream for a while now, they (strangely enough) weren’t able to view what they streamed on the phones themselves. The Ustream drought is now over, however, with this week’s appearance of the Ustream Viewer app in the Android Market. The new viewer works with all releases of Android currently in the wild: 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0.

Also revealed this week was a handheld Mobile Internet Device (MID) based on the ARM platform, one with a sliding QWERTY keyboard like many smartphones. The Inbrics MID has a AMOLED touch display, and adds Wi-Fi and GPS for added functionality. Inbrics has indicated the new MID will be demonstrated at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January.

In the meantime, a version of Google Maps Navigation, which adds turn-by-turn direction to Google Maps and was initially restricted to Android 2.0, was made available for Android 1.6. Some voice activation features are missing on this version, but it is fully functional otherwise.

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e-Book Echo: Sony Reader Available; Kindles Get Better; Nooks Expensive to Produce jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Weekend Vid Picks: Lego Matrix Trinity Help, an Epic Feat of Nerdity NewTeeVee – by Liz Shannon Miller "; My Current Tablet Desktop jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Web Tablet Must-Have: Good Input Method jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick ";

Posted by James Kendrick on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  0 Comments
Tags: -readers, Android, ARM, e-bookse, google, google maps navigation, mid, Netronix, streaming video, UStream

Inspiration, if you believe in it, is quite fickle. You can have a great idea one day, and then not come up with anything noteworthy for weeks at a time. Even if you think inspiration is really just about hard work, there are always times when your desire to work hard just isn’t there. So how can you stack the deck in your favor and make it more likely that you will continue to be inspired consistently and frequently?

If you want to direct lightning to strike a certain target, you erect a lightning rod. The lightning rod is frequently struck because of its particular construction, material and positioning. To become a lightning rod for inspiration, you have to pay attention to very similar things.

Record the Context

Writing down your ideas is a great way not to lose them, whether you’re doing so digitally or using more old-fashioned methods. But while many people write down what it is they thought of, few think to record what it was they were doing when they had such a great idea. The ground in which the fruitful plant grows, after all, is just as important as the plant itself.

While you’re writing down your genius idea, also jot down when, where, and, if possible, how the idea came to you. The idea is that over time, a pattern might emerge, one that could help you replicate the circumstances which produced inspiration in the first place. There are a couple of particularly good ways to go about this.

The Double-entry Notebook

A really good way to track not only what you’re thinking about, but how and when you’re thinking about it is using a double-entry notebook. It’s simple enough to create, just take an ordinary notebook and draw a line down the center of the page each time you start a new one. You could also pick up a stenographer’s notebook, which is pre-divided for you.

The idea is that you record your thoughts in the left-hand column, and then, right after that, record any contextual details about the conditions that generated the idea in the column on the right (or vice versa, the side doesn’t really make a difference). Include details like where you are, what you were thinking about before you came up with your idea, what was going on around you, etc.

Database/Spreadsheet

If you’re not so interested in the low-tech method, you could do pretty much the same thing using a database or spreadsheet program on your computer. Plain old Excel or Google Docs could do just fine, or a more advanced (and better organized) personal database app like Bento for the Mac might be more to your liking.

With something like Bento, you can create custom fields and enter all kinds of information, while keeping your format consistent. You could do the same thing with a custom form in Word, Acrobat or whatever other program you prefer to use. The important thing is that you have a way to capture data that you’re comfortable using, which should make you more likely to actually use it.

Processing the Data

Truth be told, a lot of what you learn using the process probably won’t be useful in the strictest sense. It’ll all be interesting, and you’ll probably learn a thing or two about yourself that will surprise you. But what you will gain from the experience is a number of shining points of overlap, things that you see recurring over and over again whenever you have your best ideas.

At least some of those things should be replicable, which means that you’ll be better able to provide a working situation in which motivation and inspiration will come easily and without much prodding. Basically, you’ll have reverse-engineered your inspiration process, and you’ll have an informed and complete view of how and why you work.

How do you get inspirational lighting to strike twice?

Image credit: flickr user KM Photography

The popular torrent-indexing site Mininova.org late yesterday took the drastic step of removing all but a few torrents in response to a copyright infringement lawsuit. Dutch rights group BREIN went to court against Mininova in June, and later that summer, the site was ordered to remove any links to infringing content and prevent any further uploads of such content. Mininova is still considering appealing the ruling, according to a blog post published yesterday, but it decided to take down millions of links in the meantime.

The end of Mininova as we know it comes just a few days after The Pirate Bay announced the closure of its tracker. It also marks yet another wasted opportunity to monetize BitTorrrent.

Mininova was by any measure one of the most popular — if not the most popular — torrent sites on the web, clocking 633 million page views in August and serving more than 10 billion torrents since being launched in early 2005. Mininova functioned as a search engine, meaning that it didn’t actually run its own tracker, but instead indexed torrent files tracked by The Pirate Bay and other tracker servers. In fact, The Pirate Bay and Mininova were in many ways a sort of duopoly ruling the BitTorrent world. The Pirate Bay’s tracker servers made it possible to swap files, and Mininova’s search engine made them discoverable.

Yet the two couldn’t have been more different. The folks behind the Pirate Bay cast themselves as rebellious outlaws and made fun of copyright owners’ requests to take down content. Mininova, on the other hand, responded to all takedown request and a few months ago even started to experiment with a proactive filtering solution to police its uploads. And while The Pirate Bay belongs to an obscure offshore company, with the people associated with it long claiming that they don’t own a piece of it, Mininova is incorporated in the Netherlands, complete with an office address and a CEO.

Mininova has also been increasingly cooperating with rights holders to distribute licensed content via BitTorrent. At last check, its Content Distribution service offered access to some 9,000 torrents ranging from obscure e-books to impressive TV documentaries. And the only torrents Mininova left up are part of the Content Distribution service. That should give its content partners a temporary boost as users start to download licensed content for the lack of any better alternative, but it remains to be seen if those few thousand torrents are enough to keep Mininova going as a business.

I’ve said it before: The chances of turning torrent sites into businesses that are not only legal but actually make rights holders money are incredibly low. BitTorrent users don’t like paid content or intrusive advertising, and they’ll always have a plethora of alternatives at their disposal that won’t bother about rights and royalties. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. YouTube has demonstrated that it’s possible to monetize content that’s been uploaded, and sometimes even mashed up, by end users, and it took rights holders a while to get used to the fact that giving up control helps them to make more money (in fact, Viacom still hasn’t seen the light.)

I’d argue that the same could be done with a torrent site. Don’t expect a perfect system, but one that’s good enough, and still much better than the status quo. Unfortunately it looks like it’s too late for Mininova to even try.

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This holiday season, 80 percent of individuals want some sort of consumer electronics device as a gift, according to a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association and CNET, but unless your recipients are already app-loving, ebook-downloading, subscription-paying gadgeteers, buying hot consumer electronics can pose several problems. I’ve tried to outline a few ways around the most common missteps when it comes to giving gifts with bytes, so before you buy Mom that e-reader or Grandpa the latest iPhone, check them out so that you don’t give gifts that, well, bite.

Nobody Wants a Brick: I’d love to offer someone a MiFi this year, mostly because I think the device is the greatest thing since Wi-Fi, and I know plenty of folks who could use it, but no one is going to thank me for giving them a device that requires a $60-a-month subscription plan. Same goes for many of the 3G-enabled photo frames on the market.

If you give someone a network-connected device, you need to give them a connection, too. That means signing them up and paying for an annual service plan when you purchase the item, or choosing a device like the Kindle, for which the cost of the wireless subscription is already built in.

Your Time Is The Most Valuable Gift of All: What’s so cool about many of today’s gadgets is that they allow us to personalize them. Think of the iPhone or the Droid. Over at T-Mobile, nearly half of myTouch users say they have “completely customized” their myTouch phones. That’s great for the tech-savvy, but for many people the app economy is still new territory, so if you’re going to give a gadget as a gift, you should also plan to stick around for an hour or to help the recipient set up their information in the online store, show them how to find the best stuff and warn them about the dangers of digital rights management (how if you download a book on the Kindle, it’s not gonna work on their spouse’s non-Kindle e-reader, for example).

The Perils of Pre-loading: If you don’t have time to spare, you can try to personalize the device for a love one, for example, taking photos of family members on a camera phone and adding in your phone number. When it comes to the Apple ecosystem, you can pre-load a new iPod touch or iPhone on someone’s behalf with your iTunes login information, but once the recipient gets the device they’ll need to link the device to their own account (you’ll want to supervise so they don’t keep downloading content on your credit card). A downside to pre-loading is that any content downloaded from the iTunes store will be stuck on the device, unable to be transferred to the recipient’s computer without a separate program like iRip.

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e-Book Echo: Sony Reader Available; Kindles Get Better; Nooks Expensive to Produce jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Weekend Vid Picks: Lego Matrix Trinity Help, an Epic Feat of Nerdity NewTeeVee – by Liz Shannon Miller "; My Current Tablet Desktop jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Web Tablet Must-Have: Good Input Method jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick ";

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If you’re a Google Voice and Windows user, you might like to check out GVoiceNotifier.NET, an unobtrusive little app that adds Google Voice notifications, one-click calling and SMS functionality to your taskbar, popping up only when you need it. Using the app is simple: Just click on the icon to bring up a list of recent contacts, whom you can then call or SMS.

GVoiceNotifier.NET is a free download, and requires Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 with the .NET Framework 3.5.

Found a useful Google Voice app? Let us know about it!

(via Lifehacker)

Thanksgiving isn’t just a feasting holiday, it’s also about spending time with your family, so this week I’ve been spending time with my second cousin Kristina, who is eight years old. Her favorite TV shows are Hannah Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place, which she watches on DisneyChannel.com when she can’t see them on TV, but she also watches animated series like the Cartoon Network series Teen Titans, unauthorized uploads of which are available on YouTube.

So today Kristina and I checked out the site Jaroo.com, which brings together dozens of animated and live-action shows for kids. The full-length half-hour videos, hosted by Brightcove, are free to watch following a 30 second pre-roll ad, which in today’s case was for an upcoming direct-to-DVD feature (because that appeared to be the site’s only sponsor, we had to watch it over and over again which, in Kristina’s words, was “pretty annoying”). But we did get to watch a bunch of different shows together, too, including:

Mona The Vampire

A Canadian series about a little girl who may or may not be a vampire (we still can’t say for sure) who fights supernatural foes. Originally running from 1999-2003 on YTV Radio-Canada, Kristina and I couldn’t get into it — mainly because the first episode available, episode 4, started off without any context. “I’m not really sure what was going on,” Kristina said. “First she was a vampire and then they added the Pod People. It was OK but not the best show.”

The Super Mario Brothers Super Show!

This was a bigger hit with us because it was a show we were both familiar with — me thanks to the series’ original airing on Saturday mornings in 1989, Kristina because her stepfather owns the whole series on DVD. Presented in full, the Jaboo-hosted video included both the live-action and animated sections of the Nintendo-sponosored series, which would bounce between sketches featuring actors playing Mario and Luigi and the much more familiar-looking animated characters. In Kristina’s words, “The human parts were OK, but it’s easier to see how [the characters] were feeling in the cartoons.”

Horseland

An animated series about a stable of talking horses and the kids who ride them, narrated by a kind collie dog and his sardonic cat companion. Kristina remembered watching this one on TV in 2006 — the series ran on CBS Saturday mornings back then. In my opinion, there was too much stuff with the humans and not enough with the animals. But Kristina was content with the balance, even though she preferred the cat and dog: “They were actually pretty funny.”

Inspector Gadget

This was my pick, as I grew up watching Gadget and remember it fondly (specifically, I wanted to be Penny and have a computer so small it could fit in my backpack — hey, dreams do come true!). However, Kristina was bored stiff by the 1983 episode The Haunted Castle. “You can’t really tell what they’re really wanting to do and stuff,” she said after five minutes of Gadget, Brain, and Penny driving through the Transylvanian wilderness without a clear objective. “They’re just going on a trip, so it’s just a trip. I’m not really sure what’s so great about that kind of trip.”

Cake

One of the few live-action offerings, Cake was part of the same 2006 CBS lineup as Horseland. Kristina liked it a lot, probably because it was reminiscent of the current Disney and Nickelodeon kid-friendly sitcom format that she absorbs daily, about a girl who hosts her own DIY crafting show.

Ripley’s Believe It or Not

A theme started to emerge when I’d let Kristina pick the episodes, as she tended to lean towards vampire-related content. Her review of the 1999 animated series featuring the adventures of a Ripley nephew travelling around the world, based on the episode The Vampire’s Kit: “It’s really good because it’s about vampires. Except for the part where people get bitten. That’s just not cool.” But the show, despite being a very transparent effort to engage young kids with a very old brand, was one Kristina wanted to watch because she was already familiar with said brand, thanks to the book series. (Kids are still reading books, at least.)

Still in beta mode, the Jaroo.com browsing experience was nonetheless a pretty clean one, and Kristina had no trouble navigating around on her own. The videos are unembeddable, however, and on the individual show pages there’s no context provided as to what the show’s about or when it was originally made. Despite Jaroo’s barebones approach, though, exploring the site in full could have kept us entertained for hours, discovering the difference between the shows she and I grew up watching. A fine way to spend a lazy day after Thanksgiving, if you ask me.

• Fuze Meeting: Share everything you see with everyone in high definition, anywhere on any device.

Just in case you missed any of them, here are the five most popular posts on WebWorkerDaily this week:

• Must-have iPhone and iPod Touch Apps For Newbies

Many folks will be getting their hands on brand-new iPhone or iPod touch over the holiday season. Here, Charlie runs through the must-have apps that web workers will want to install on their new device.

• Knowing When to Fold ‘Em

Our impulse is usually to try to do everything. Opportunities present themselves, and we think, “If I turn this away, I may not get another shot. What if there’s nothing else coming down the pike?” But, how do you know when is a good time to hold and when is a good time to fold? Amber provides some clues.

• 10 Ways to Get Paid What You Deserve

Karen shares some useful phrases that can tip a project from free to paid.

• Get Inspiring National Geographic Images to Use as Desktop Wallpaper

Looking for something to brighten up your desktop? Check out these great National Graphic images.

• 6 Tips For Using Google Wave On Your First Project

While many of us are still scratching our heads trying to figure out how to fit Wave into our workflow, Will has tried using it on a real client project — here he shares some tips.

Thanksgiving isn’t just a feasting holiday, it’s also about spending time with your family, so this week I’ve been spending time with my second cousin Kristina, who is eight years old. Her favorite TV shows are Hannah Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place, which she watches on DisneyChannel.com when she can’t see them on TV, but she also watches animated series like the Cartoon Network series Teen Titans, unauthorized uploads of which are available on YouTube.

So today Kristina and I checked out the site Jaroo.com, which brings together dozens of animated and live-action shows for kids. The full-length half-hour videos, hosted by Brightcove, are free to watch following a 30 second pre-roll ad, which in today’s case was for an upcoming direct-to-DVD feature (because that appeared to be the site’s only sponsor, we had to watch it over and over again which, in Kristina’s words, was “pretty annoying”). But we did get to watch a bunch of different shows together, too, including:

Mona The Vampire

A Canadian series about a little girl who may or may not be a vampire (we still can’t say for sure) who fights supernatural foes. Originally running from 1999-2003 on YTV Radio-Canada, Kristina and I couldn’t get into it — mainly because the first episode available, episode 4, started off without any context. “I’m not really sure what was going on,” Kristina said. “First she was a vampire and then they added the Pod People. It was OK but not the best show.”

The Super Mario Brothers Super Show!

This was a bigger hit with us because it was a show we were both familiar with — me thanks to the series’ original airing on Saturday mornings in 1989, Kristina because her stepfather owns the whole series on DVD. Presented in full, the Jaboo-hosted video included both the live-action and animated sections of the Nintendo-sponosored series, which would bounce between sketches featuring actors playing Mario and Luigi and the much more familiar-looking animated characters. In Kristina’s words, “The human parts were OK, but it’s easier to see how [the characters] were feeling in the cartoons.”

Horseland

An animated series about a stable of talking horses and the kids who ride them, narrated by a kind collie dog and his sardonic cat companion. Kristina remembered watching this one on TV in 2006 — the series ran on CBS Saturday mornings back then. In my opinion, there was too much stuff with the humans and not enough with the animals. But Kristina was content with the balance, even though she preferred the cat and dog: “They were actually pretty funny.”

Inspector Gadget

This was my pick, as I grew up watching Gadget and remember it fondly (specifically, I wanted to be Penny and have a computer so small it could fit in my backpack — hey, dreams do come true!). However, Kristina was bored stiff by the 1983 episode The Haunted Castle. “You can’t really tell what they’re really wanting to do and stuff,” she said after five minutes of Gadget, Brain, and Penny driving through the Transylvanian wilderness without a clear objective. “They’re just going on a trip, so it’s just a trip. I’m not really sure what’s so great about that kind of trip.”

Cake

One of the few live-action offerings, Cake was part of the same 2006 CBS lineup as Horseland. Kristina liked it a lot, probably because it was reminiscent of the current Disney and Nickelodeon kid-friendly sitcom format that she absorbs daily, about a girl who hosts her own DIY crafting show.

Ripley’s Believe It or Not

A theme started to emerge when I’d let Kristina pick the episodes, as she tended to lean towards vampire-related content. Her review of the 1999 animated series featuring the adventures of a Ripley nephew travelling around the world, based on the episode The Vampire’s Kit: “It’s really good because it’s about vampires. Except for the part where people get bitten. That’s just not cool.” But the show, despite being a very transparent effort to engage young kids with a very old brand, was one Kristina wanted to watch because she was already familiar with said brand, thanks to the book series. (Kids are still reading books, at least.)

Still in beta mode, the Jaroo.com browsing experience was nonetheless a pretty clean one, and Kristina had no trouble navigating around on her own. The videos are unembeddable, however, and on the individual show pages there’s no context provided as to what the show’s about or when it was originally made. Despite Jaroo’s barebones approach, though, exploring the site in full could have kept us entertained for hours, discovering the difference between the shows she and I grew up watching. A fine way to spend a lazy day after Thanksgiving, if you ask me.

We’d like to say thanks to this month’s WebWorkerDaily sponsors:

• FreshBooks: Look Professional with FreshBooks.

It’s nice to see Dell jump on Chrome OS so quickly. It bodes well that Dell might be officially supporting Chrome in the future.

You have to hand it to the guys behind Penny Arcade. What started out as a web comic a decade ago has since exploded to become a full-blown phenomenon that encompasses merchandising, video games and a convention (that tens of thousands of people attend) dedicated to all things “nerd.” You can potentially add reality TV stars to that list as Penny Arcade launched its own web series earlier this week to give fans a sneak peek behind their curtain.

The Penny Arcade guys (co-founders Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins) are like the R.E.M. of the nerd world. They appear to have managed their growth without ever blatantly “selling out,” and projects they pursue seem to be of genuine interest to them. Either that or they are insidious masters of disguise. But it’s because of this organic, intentional growth that I was surprised to hear about their new reality show. With people faking child endangerment and supposedly crashing White House parties to get on a reality TV show, why would these two, supposed bastions of integrity want anything to do with the genre?

I wanted to find out a bit more so I emailed Krahulik with some questions. “We thought our readers would enjoy a behind the scenes look at what goes on here at Penny Arcade,” said Krahulik, “How the comic is made, how we pull off PAX, Child’s Play and just day to day life here in the office.”

The episodes are being produced by Two Player Productions and episodes are monetized with a pre-roll ad. Given the popularity of Penny Arcade, I figured that they could at least finagle a deal with G4 or SyFy or some other TV network, but Krahulik said they like the web, “Like most things we do, we like to have complete control over the project,” he said, “There is no reason to deal with a Network if we don’t have to.”

Penny Arcade has dabbled in online video programming before, live streaming Krahulik as he drew a comic strip. But this endeavor is certainly more polished and professional. “PA TV” premiered earlier this week with the pilot episode broken down into two segments. The bulk of the first show takes place at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), the duo’s annual convention held in Washington. There’s also a nice peek into how Krahuli and Holkins got started and just a dollop of daddy issues to add some emotional weight.

WebWorkerDaily readers are a diverse bunch. Every week, I profile a different reader and ask them to share what they do, how they do it, and some of their favorite hints and tips.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name’s Tamara Gruber, and I’m a freelance marketing consultant for technology startups. I provide strategic marketing and communications services including outsourced marketing management, marketing plan development, social media programs/inbound marketing programs, content development and event management.

What’s a typical day like for you?

There is no truly typical day, which is why it’s critical for me to stay organized so that I can manage multiple clients, business development and family demands. Generally, I might split my work time into 50 percent one client, 30 percent a second client and 20 percent business development/personal branding. Throughout the day I’m writing, creating marketing materials, developing web content, monitoring and engaging with social networks, performing online research, and communicating with peers and vendors.

What gear and software do you use, and why?

I use a Sony Vaio laptop running, unfortunately, Microsoft Vista (I plan to upgrade it shortly) equipped with Wi-Fi, and an AT&T wireless data card for web access when Wi-Fi isn’t available. Paired with my iPhone, this enables me to work from anywhere — home, coffee shop/book store or my daughter’s gymnastics class. When I’m on the go, I use my iPhone to manage email; catch up on my Google Reader feeds; schedule meetings with Tungle; monitor my social networks with Facebook, TweetDeck and Echofon; and catch up on podcasts.

Software and services that I use every day include:

• Microsoft Office — content production, manipulation
• Firefox — browsing
• TweetDeck — monitoring Twitter friends, followers, keywords, competitors, clients
• Google — Docs, Reader, Calendar, Gmail, search, Maps. I’m just starting to use Google Voice.
• Digsby — combined IM client to aggregate various systems and suply alerts for new email messages and FaceBook updates
• Tungle — calendar sharing and meeting scheduling
• Skype — VoIP
• Yammer — sharing and conversing with colleagues
• Photoshop – photo manipulation/layout
• Hubspot — inbound marketing monitoring and analytics
• Constant Contact – email marketing
• Salesforce — CRM (for my clients)
• Wiki (private) — sharing and collaboration
• iTunes/Pandora – music, podcast listening and discovery
• Delicious – social bookmarking and sharing

There are many other Twitter apps and services I utilize from time to time, and I like to try new betas and iPhone apps.

What’s your favorite web working tip?

I have various email accounts and calendars for different clients, so I like to have everything centralized so that I don’t need to keep closing and opening Outlook to see if a new email came in or if I’m available at a certain time. It takes too much time and it interrupts my work flow, so I use my iPhone to monitor if email has come into any of my accounts, and Tungle to centralize my calendar for meeting scheduling.

If you would like to be profiled on WWD, get in touch with me at simon (at) gigaom (dot) com.

Netbooks, low-cost portable computers optimized for web usage, are continuing to sell at a torrid pace, with Acer expecting 50 percent growth in the global netbook market in 2010, to 42 million units. In the meantime, standard technologies, operating systems and other options in these diminutive systems are undergoing rapid shifts. Here are eight up-to-date tips to keep in mind if you’re in the market for a new netbook.

Don’t Settle for a Tiny Display. As Om has pointed out, netbook specifications continue to encroach on standard laptop specs, to the point that the real differences between them are blurring. And as The Register and market researchers at Canalys report, in 2010, many netbook manufacturers will be emphasizing systems with 12-inch displays, to possibly broadly replace those with screens of just 10 inches. You can already find systems with larger displays, and indeed, you’ll likely have a better experience with them.

Don’t Go for a Tiny Keyboard. Many netbooks come with chiclet-style keyboards that can make typing difficult, but this is rapidly changing. As PCMag.com notes, many new netbooks, such as the Toshiba mini NB205, come with full-size keyboards. I’m also a fan of the keyboards on the Acer Aspire One and Dell Mini 10v systems. Get a keyboard that won’t cramp your style — that’s where the market is headed.

Consider the OS Up Front. Linux-based netbooks continue to offer low price points and often come with good open source applications. Next year, Google will attempt to redefine the netbook with its Linux-based Chrome OS, focused on cloud applications. In the meantime, Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system is squarely aimed at the netbook market, and netbook manufacturers are reporting that it’s ushering in strong sales. As always, consider what types of applications you’ll use as you weigh various operating systems.

Free Apps Can Improve Your Experience. When evaluating a netbook’s platform and what you’ll do with it, don’t forget that there are many free and open source utilities and applications that make navigating, handling hardware resources and other tasks easier. You can find 10 good ideas here.

Complement Low Local Storage With a USB Drive. Netbooks typically make many compromises in terms of local resources when compared to larger laptops, with storage among the most common. You can complement low local storage with an inexpensive, external USB Flash drive, however. There are also useful web sites, especially PortableApps, that you can use to stock up your Flash drive with useful, free applications.

Check the Battery Life. Many netbooks offer outstanding battery life — in some cases, all-day power — but not all of them. Make sure to check reviews of the netbook you’re considering for battery life tests. And once you’ve become a netbook owner, remember to follow best practices — especially turning the brightness down — in order to maximize its battery life.

Take a Hands-On Test Drive. While there are many good deals online for netbooks, if possible, I recommend going to a retail outlet to do a hands-on test drive. Because netbooks are practically defined by the compromises they make, this can help you identify any problems that you might find intolerable over time.

Pointing Devices Matter. Speaking of personal preferences, people always vary widely in terms of the pointing devices they favor. For example, I’ve tried many netbooks that I would never buy simply because the highly sensitive trackpads on them bother me. This is another reason why a hands-on test drive makes a lot of sense.

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e-Book Echo: Sony Reader Available; Kindles Get Better; Nooks Expensive to Produce jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Weekend Vid Picks: Lego Matrix Trinity Help, an Epic Feat of Nerdity NewTeeVee – by Liz Shannon Miller "; My Current Tablet Desktop jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Web Tablet Must-Have: Good Input Method jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick ";

Posted by Sebastian Rupley on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  4 Comments
Tags: Acer, Aspire One, netbooks, PortableApps, Toshiba

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As PC makers such as Lenovo — which said today that it will spend $200 million to buy back its mobile unit — move into the mobile phone market, they are most likely to rely on Google’s Android (both Dell and Acer are using it) to deliver their iPhone-inspired smartphones. So while fellow-computer maker Apple may be the inspiration (and a key enabler by getting the carriers to open up their networks and their application stores), it’s Android that will democratize the hardware for mobile phones by offering a widely adopted, open operating system that divorces the phone from its software.

The OS is certainly becoming popular. Requests for web-based ads from Android-based smartphones are on the rise, according to the most recent stats from AdMob, a mobile ad network in the process of being acquired by Google. When it comes to data requests from smartphones, which make up 44.4 percent of worldwide mobile web requests, Apple holds the crown, but Android has only been available on handsets since September October 2008.

Widespread adoption of Android could lead it to become what Windows was for the PC world, an operating system that can be licensed on any underlying hardware and ensure that a variety of applications run on the machines. There will be room for other players in this multibillion-dollar device market, of course, but for the most part, the computer makers have already settled on Android. (Acer has Windows Mobile phones, too). Ironically, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile was aiming to be the OS for the computer guys.

If Android phones proliferate while delivering a consistent user experience and numerous compelling applications (the consistent user experience bit needs work), consumers who want to use the web on their phones can choose their devices based not on what kinds of apps are available on the handsets, but the quality of the network, pricing for access and other carrier-specific factors that consumers deem important.

Eventually, if handset exclusivity becomes a non-issue and networks open up, then the handsets and the network will be divorced as well, leading to a world where consumers will benefit from competition amongst device makers, software firms and even the carriers. In this future, pricing innovation (and maybe even actual competition) by carriers will matter, given that those factors are the primary concerns for wireless customers when choosing a network. Prepaid carriers will have an advantage, although I imagine the larger carriers will have to fight to keep consumers happy — leading to lower prices or more services.

Developers for the hottest apps will also win, as OS makers try to attract and sign exclusivity agreements with them much like Sony and Microsoft fight for the hottest console games. On the hardware side, expect few traditional handset makers to survive, especially after the computer makers learn from their mistakes and get their later-generation phones out. Maybe some handset OEMs will be bought, but without a proprietary OS and the exclusive access to carriers that are in the process of being swept away, they have less value.

To survive, handset OEMs will need to either build out compelling services such as Motorola’s Blur or Nokia’s Comes With Music efforts, or pander to a large, specific community of users with features that really matter to its members, as Research in Motion is trying to do with the business market. Even the efforts to build differentiating services or focus on a community may not help handset makers, but doing nothing isn’t an option.

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e-Book Echo: Sony Reader Available; Kindles Get Better; Nooks Expensive to Produce jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Weekend Vid Picks: Lego Matrix Trinity Help, an Epic Feat of Nerdity NewTeeVee – by Liz Shannon Miller "; My Current Tablet Desktop jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Web Tablet Must-Have: Good Input Method jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick ";

Posted by Stacey Higginbotham on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  35 Comments
Tags: AAPL, Acer, AdMob, Android, Apple, Dell, GOOG, google, Lenovo, MOT, Motorola, Nielsen, Nokia, Research in Motion, rimm

It’s that time of year again. The holiday shopping season has shifted into full gear, and so have the economists, analysts and retailers who wring their hands over things like Black Friday sales figures. Or those of its fake, and widely mocked, online counterpart, Cyber Monday (which is far from the busiest shopping day on the web — online sales at Amazon, for example, typically peak in mid-December).

Overall, a modest improvement over last year’s dismal performance is expected. Forrester Research projects an 8 percent rise in holiday sales online, up from the 5 percent growth rate last year. comScore sees growth at 3 percent, all but erasing the 3 percent drop last year. But while online retailers are sure to see stronger sales than their offline rivals, the desperate discounts happening across the board threaten to erode any profits they may have once hoped for this season.

For my money, the best indicator is the average consumer shopping budget. Despite all the hot items for sale, we’re still feeling the pinch of the economic downturn, and as such, budgets are back in vogue. A Gallup poll showed consumers plan to spend an average $638 per household this season, up $22 from last year. But a survey by the National Retail Foundation said they will spend $683 dollars, or a decline of 3.2 percent, following on the heels of an 8 percent drop in spending last year.

Think about that. The NRF — the trade group pushing the annual Cyber Monday charade — expects consumers to spend even less than last year. And with respected analysts publicly predicting a double-dip recession, such caution on the part of consumers is more likely to grow in December than abate.

To that end, retailers are responding the way they did last holiday season — with ultra-steep discounts early on. The price war that Wal-Mart is waging against Amazon may stretch consumers’ dollars, but it’s hell on other retailers, who must either match discounts or risk losing customers. Already, 2009 is shaping up to be a repeat of 2008, when retailers desperately slashed prices to entice wary consumers.

That is undoubtedly worse news for brick-and-mortar stores than it is for online stores, where operating costs are lower. Many big retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy are responding by pushing deep discounts on their web sites, but in doing do, they risk cannibalizing sales from their offline stores, while the costs of running those stores remains the same. Which means that even if overall holiday sales figures do increase by a few percentage points, profits at many retailers may decline or be eliminated entirely.

The Black Friday deals tracked on Twitter aren’t just a stream of bargains, they also measure the desperation retailers are already feeling. Gap’s site was offering sweaters at 50 percent off. Betsey Johnson took 40 percent off everything in its online store. Even Apple is getting into the deep-discount spirit.

Discovery-oriented sites like Twitter are helping to spread news about bargains, further boosting the appeal of online shopping among consumers, as Colin noted earlier this week. In Apple’s iTunes store, the second best-selling paid app last week was RedLaser, which scans barcodes and offers instant price comparisons with online sites.

As with last year, there is likely to be one outstanding success story in this bleak retail environment: Amazon. In an environment where penny-pinching consumers are driving down retail profits, Amazon – the master at thriving on razor-thin profit margins – is thriving. Goldman Sachs and Piper Jaffray recently raised their revenue estimates for Amazon, citing a rise in unique users and overall traffic.

As long as the economy remains weak, the progression of the retail industry remains clear: All retailers must become more like Amazon – low prices, tiny margins – or suffer a slow death.

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e-Book Echo: Sony Reader Available; Kindles Get Better; Nooks Expensive to Produce jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Weekend Vid Picks: Lego Matrix Trinity Help, an Epic Feat of Nerdity NewTeeVee – by Liz Shannon Miller "; My Current Tablet Desktop jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; Web Tablet Must-Have: Good Input Method jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick ";

Posted by Kevin Kelleher on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  0 Comments
Tags: Amazon.com, black friday, comScore, cyber monday, online shopping

Mac OS X is a wonder. When it comes to personal information management, entertainment and the Internet, it’s got all the basics covered. Beyond that, there are a handful of “essential” apps most Mac owners install on a new machine within minutes of booting it up for the first time. Handbrake is undoubtedly one of those essentials. And it just got a serious new upgrade.

Handbrake is a very handy (pun intended) DVD-ripping utility that converts DVDs to self-contained video files that can be played back on a computer or mobile device. (Contrary to the outright lies of major motion picture studios, there’s nothing wrong with having digital backups of movies you already own). In addition, DVDs can be converted into a number of formats, resolutions and aspect ratios. For many years, it has served as the single easiest way to get my movies off-of DVD discs and onto my iPods, iPhones and even my PSP.

The latest release, Handbrake 0.9.4, includes support for Snow Leopard, and is also available in 64-bit editions for both Leopard and Snow Leopard. It also adds the ability to include multiple subtitle tracks to exported video and a new “live preview” for viewing the likely outcome of an export before committing to a lengthy rip.

According to the release notes on the Handbrake website, the latest version includes new features like “macroblock tree rate control” and “weighted P-Frame prediction.” I’ve absolutely no idea what any of that means, and although they do provide links to explanatory articles, it made my head swim. I’ll just assume it’s all very swish and futuristic and good for my rips.

The introduction of a 64-bit version is good news for those of us using true 64-bit multi-core processors, though the performance increase is a fairly modest 10 percent. The software also supports non-DVD encoding, which is great news for those of us who do a lot of video editing. (I prefer to use Final Cut but often have to import raw data into iMovie only to export it out to a format Final Cut will accept. Handbrake won’t cut out this extra conversion step, but it performs far faster than the monolith that is iMovie and provides more flexibility in export formats.)

It’s not all about video, either. Handbrake offers great audio encoding options, including the newly-added ability to encode AAC using OS X’s Core Audio (which means far higher quality than was possible previously).

Of course, there are a lot of other software titles that offer similar functionality (Aimersoft’s popular DVD Ripper, for instance) but Handbrake is free. Although this means it has no official support, it does enjoy an active and enthusiastic user community so if you get stuck you won’t have far to go to find answers and help.

If you are using a 64 bit machine and want to get the full 64-bit goodness from Handbrake, you’ll need the 64-bit version of VLC Player, the latest nightly builds of which can be found here. (Please note that VLC Player 64-bit is beta software and as such offers no end-user support.) Handbrake 0.9.4 is available from the Handbrake website now.

My hunt for a cheap, 32″ LCD TV via one of Black Friday’s so-called “door-busting” sales is over. And it ended in frustration, anger and tears. OK, just anger and frustration.

Like many others this holiday season, I found myself in want of a new HDTV, and (foolishly) decided to try my hand at purchasing the heavily discounted Emerson 32″ LCD TV that was being used by Target and Wal-mart to get consumers into their stores. Both priced the TV below $250 (Target at $246, Wal-mart at $248), and both had “limited supplies.”

I should note that this was my first time pursuing “unbeatable prices” at a big-box store while so many other people were still sound asleep. Even though I knew the chances of acquiring one of these underpriced TVs was actually pretty low, I still woke up in the middle of the night and ventured out shopping.

I went to Wal-mart first, arriving around 4:00 a.m. EST, only to be find that there was no actual “door busting” going on. In order to make things more orderly by keeping Thanksgiving hours in most of its stores, queuing customers up and selling off heavily discounted items one by one. All of which meant that I arrived to find the store’s doors wide open, the aisles of the electronics section packed, and the cache of TVs sold off a full hour before the sale officially began.

Next I headed to the local Target, where the doors had not yet opened. So I got in line with what felt like 1,000 other shoppers and slowly made my way inside, only to find the aisles gridlocked with the store’s signature red carts. No one seemed to know where the discounted TVs were, and by the time I found them — in some random aisle in the middle of the store — the stash had been picked clean, with only a piece of signage lying around to signal that there had once been an “unbelievable deal” in that spot.

So what have I learned? First, that my time is better spent shopping online, where one can actually make a sound, reasoned purchase decision while still finding discounts. Within an hour of arriving home, I found decent deals on other TVs from brand-name CE manufacturers, including a 32″ Vizio LCD TV at Sam’s Club for $338 with free shipping (club membership required) and a 32″ Toshiba LCD TV at Amazon.com for $319.99 ($344.68 with shipping and handling). While neither approaches the $250 price point offered in-store at the big-box retailers, both are a significant value over other comparable products on sale.

I also learned that door-buster deals are for suckers. Considering the slim chance of obtaining one of a limited supply of a certain product, the amount of time, frustration and energy spent jostling with other shoppers is just not worth it — which is why next year I’ll be sleeping in.