Hasta La Gadget!

Amazon has trimmed the price of its Kindle Fire tablet for Cyber Monday, bringing the 7-inch ereader slate down to $129. Available on both the “Special Offers” subsidized model or – for $144 – the non-subsidized versoin without adverts, the discount means Amazon’s tablet temporarily undercuts Barnes & Noble’s NOOK HD and Google’s Nexus 7 by $70.

The particular Kindle Fire in the promotion is the updated entry-level model. That features a 1.2GHz processor and 1GB RAM, which Amazon claims makes it 40-percent faster than its predecessor, along with 8GB of storage and a battery good for up to 9hrs of reading, browsing, video playback, or other uses.

Under the hood there’s Android, though Amazon comprehensively reskins Google’s platform for its own purposes, and redirects all shopping through its own app and media stores. The Nexus 7 remains the better generic Android tablet choice, while the Kindle Fire HD has a better display.

Before you get visions of outfitting the whole family with a cheap Kindle Fire, however, Amazon has limited the promotion to a single unit per shopper. You’ll need to use the “FIREDEAL” coupon code when you check out in order to score the $129 slate.

Kindle Fire slashed to $129 in Cyber Monday promo is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A programmer named Darius Kazemi made Random Shopper, a software ‘bot that buys random items from Amazon. Why? Kazemi wanted to replicate the feeling of receiving an item that you already forgot you bought. It’s like a surprise gift from yourself to you! Welcome to Forever Alone: Holiday Edition.

Random Shopper starts by getting a random word from the Wordnik API then searching for that word on Amazon. It will then buy the first item it finds under its budget, which for now is $50 (USD). Then it will look for another item that’s within what’s left of its money and so on. But Kazemi cheated a bit because the Random Shopper isn’t that random: it will only buy the item if it’s a CD, DVD or a paperback book. I guess that’s a reasonable rule. That way the money isn’t completely wasted on some random crap that Kazemi won’t use.

The packages shown in the top picture are the first batch of Random Shopper’s “gifts” to Kazemi. You can check out what’s inside them on his Random Shopper blog. What I want now is a robot that secretly takes money from my wallet then randomly places it into my other stuff, so I can replicate the feeling of finding money I didn’t know I had.

[Random Shopper via Engadget]

Nintendo’s new console has received another jolt of streaming entertainment, with Amazon Instant Video landing on the Wii U today. The new service – which joins Netflix and Hulu Plus – puts 140,000 movies and TV shows for purchase or rental on the Wii U, while Amazon Prime subscribers can access around 30,000 titles without extra charge. If you’re having trouble deciding what to watch, Amazon’s recommendations system will put potential options on both your TV and the Wii U GamePad.

That second-screen interface can be browsed on the GamePad even while playback is continuing on your TV, allowing you to browse through the catalog simultaneously. Alternatively, if the TV is being selfishly used by somebody else, the GamePad itself can be used as a 6.2-inch portable display.

Amazon’s WhisperSync service is also present, which means that if you’ve started watching a movie on your Kindle Fire HD, for instance, you can pause it on the tablet and then resume it straight away – from the same spot – on your Wii U. There’s a Kid Zone for age-appropriate content, and parental controls for locking down the saucy stuff.

Amazon Instant Video for Wii U can be found in the Wii U eShop, and is a free install. You’ll need to be a subscriber to Amazon Prime to get the free streaming, whereas other titles are available on either a purchase or rental basis.

Amazon Instant Video for Wii U released is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In what may be the quickest route to landing on an episode of Hoarders, programmer Darius Kazemi has built a shopping bot to buy him around $50 worth of stuff every month from Amazon completely at random. He compared it to putting something on backorder and then receiving it months later, as if it’s a surprise gift you bought yourself. The only difference with this Amazon Random Shopper he built is that it buys him, well, random crap that he may or may not like. Kazemi recently received his first shipment, and it consisted of a book about Cartesian Linguistics by Noam Chomsky and an electro-acoustic album by Hungarian composer Ákos Rózmann. We’d say that’s pretty random. Maybe if he increased the limit to $300, he could get a Kindle Fire HD, or a maybe a few deer heads. This could turn out to be a pretty good idea or a really bad one, and we can’t wait to see what treasures the following months will bring him.

Filed under: Internet, Alt, Amazon

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Via: NYT Bits Blog Twitter

Source: Random Shopper

They’re playing Christmas music on all the radio stations and government buildings have begun decking the halls with non-denominational decorations. All of this can only mean one thing: it’s time for the mad holiday rush. Once you’ve polished off that turkey dinner and put on a pair of your least flattering sweatpants, be sure join us after the break for some of the merriest deals on consumer electronics that the internet — and your local big box shop — has to offer. Yes, ladies and gentleman, it’s Black Friday time.

Continue reading Engadget’s Black Friday 2012 roundup

Filed under: Apple, Samsung, Sony, Microsoft, HTC, ASUS, Amazon, Verizon, Sprint, HP, Dell, Nintendo

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