Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung’s ultrathin X360 didn’t quite get the love of some of its competition out of the gate, and has already been preempted by the X460, but the X360 has always had a lovable price tag on its side. Not like this, though. The originally $1900-ish laptop is now going for $750 after rebate on Amazon.com, and that includes 3GB of RAM and Vista Biz to boot. Sure, the 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo SU9300 and Intel integrated graphics never did anyone any favors, but at least this should shut up your non-productive Atom-powered bowling buddies. Or you could wait a month for every other ultraportable on earth to best this pricetag and netbook specs to catch up.

Filed under: Laptops

Samsung X360 ultraportable dips below $800 mark originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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News that the second iteration of the Amazon Kindle would have text-to-speech functionality prompted talk about the death of the audio book, but those fears appear to have been premature.

Amazon will now have rights holders opt in to the Kindle 2’s “Read to Me” feature, the company announced on Friday, so it will likely take some time before Amazon gets approval from those rights holders on its entire collection.

The offering converts books into speech. Customers can switch back and forth between reading and listening, and can select a female or male voice. Read-to-Me also works for newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other personal documents.

“If you are in the kitchen and you want to put the feel like being read to, the Kindle will read to you,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said at the Kindle 2 launch, where he demoed the technology by having the Kindle 2 read Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address aloud through its stereo speakers.

Rights holders were apparently not too thrilled with the feature. Amazon maintains that it has not violated any law with “Read to Me” but wants to respect the rights of copyright holders.

“Kindle 2’s experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given,” the company said in a statement. “We strongly believe many rights holders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver’s seat.”

While affirming its stance on the legality of Kindle 2‘s text-to-speech feature — and in fact stating it’ll actually get more customers interested in buying audiobooks — Amazon‘s announced that it’ll now let the books’ rights holders decide on a title-by-title basis whether or not they’ll let TTS be enabled. No word on when the update’ll be fed to the devices, but we bet somewhere right now, Paul Aiken‘s cracking a tiny smile. Full release after the break.

Continue reading Amazon sorta capitulates, will let publishers decide text-to-speech availability

Filed under: Handhelds

Amazon sorta capitulates, will let publishers decide text-to-speech availability originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As you’re no doubt aware, this week’s launch of the Kindle 2 came complete with copyright controversy — the Authors Guild says that Amazon’s text-to-speech features will damage the lucrative audiobook market. To be perfectly frank, we’re of two minds on on this debate: on one hand, we’re obviously all for the relentless progression of technology, and on the other, we sussed out the fundamental reasons for the Guild’s objections almost immediately. It’s pretty easy to find the first set of arguments online, but we wanted to make sure we weren’t missing anything, so we sat down with Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken and asked him some burning questions. Read on!

Continue reading The Engadget Interview: Paul Aiken, Executive Director of the Authors Guild

Filed under: Handhelds

The Engadget Interview: Paul Aiken, Executive Director of the Authors Guild originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that the Kindle 2 is out, it’s time to get back onto the Kindle rumor mill. You might recall that in addition to the early leaks of the device that become the Kindle 2, a bigger screened Kindle mimicking an 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of paper for students was rumored. According to DigiTimes‘ sources apparently within Prime View International (PVI), the makers of the Kindle’s electrophoretic display (EPD), Amazon’s next Kindle will launch by the end of this year and will be “larger in size and equipped with touch functions.” Of course, that’s no big stretch to the imagination — Plastic Logic has been kicking around its 8.5 x 11-inch touchscreen eBook reader (‘Shopped with a Kindle logo above) for months now with a plan to launch in 2010. Let’s just see if Amazon can get this out in time for the back to school selling season.

[Via Mobile Read]

Filed under: Displays

Kindle 3 rumor with touchscreen 8.5 x 11-inch display returns originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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