Mar 22
This week, the Gadget Lab team is taking a look at new products from HTC, Google and Amazon. Phones, apps and the (potential) destiny of your long-reading future. What more can you ask for?
Mar 21
Technological advancements are not only being made in consumer electronics. Modern technology has greatly improved and advanced the usage of renewable energy. Major companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Apple are already using renewable means of energy to power their massive facilities in various parts of the world. Apple’s chief financial officer, Peter Oppenheimer, revealed earlier today that the company is generating 167 million kilowatts for its Maiden, North Carolina data center through a 100 acre solar farm and fuel cell installations. That’s enough to power 17,600 homes for an entire year, though it only counts for 60% of the data center’s power needs. The rest of the green power is purchased by Apple. The Maiden data center is for internet storage and iCloud hosting.
Oppenheimer added that the company has switched many of its corporate facilities to green power, including those based in Cork, Ireland, Austin, Texas and Sacramento, California. Throughout the company use of renewable energy is at 75%. It is Apple’s aim to only use renewable energy at all of its facilities. Companies of such scale are often criticized for operating power hungry data centers, but it is good to see that they’re taking responsibility and investing in renewable energy.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: PopCap Games’ Solitaire Blitz Jumps From Facebook To iOS, Apple Not Using Samsung For iPad 5 And iPad Mini 2 [Rumor], 
Mar 20
Amazon is reportedly thinking about starting its own subscription music service. Perhaps it wants to jump on the bandwagon all of the other big companies, like Google and Apple, are on. Sources have told The Verge that Amazon is aiming towards creating a service that’s similar to Spotify’s, where users can choose which song or artist they want to listen to, instead of creating a radio streaming service like Pandora’s.
Amazon already has its own MP3 store and Cloud Player, so it has the means to start the service, but considering how saturated the music streaming market currently is, it might not be the wisest choice. Amazon has yet to enter any formal discussions with record labels, so it’s basically feeling its options out. Considering how large the online retailer is, it may be able to set itself apart from the competition, especially if it includes the music subscription service with its Amazon Prime features. Free music streaming could be a major draw for consumers to purchase an Amazon Prime subscription.
YouTube and Google are also reportedly planning their own music-subscription services. Both of the services would have a free version subsidized by ads, and they would both offer an ad-free version at a cost of course. Apple has been in talks of starting its own music streaming service for a while, however due to its low royalty rate propositions, it has been seeing a lot of rejection from record labels.
The outbreak of all of these “upcoming” music subscription services is a bit overwhelming. All of these companies will be tempting to subscribe to, and Spotify will definitely be facing some tough competition. These companies will all have to come up with exclusive features that will interest customers and drive them away from the rest of the competition. Having mobile access to their service would be a huge plus.
[via The Verge]
Amazon reportedly in talks about a subscription music service is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Mar 20
Last year, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that he would be hiring a team of explorers to locate the remains of the Apollo 11 rocket and recover them from the ocean floor. Almost an exact year later, Bezos has announced that the Apollo 11 rockets have indeed been recovered and are in the process of making their way back to land where they’ll be put on display.
The F-1 engines, as they’re called, came off of the famous Saturn V rocket that took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon. It was the mission that allowed humans to step foot on the moon for the first time on July 20, 1969. The rockets have been lying on the bottom of the ocean for more than 40 years, and Bezos and his team have recovered two out of the five engines.
However, Bezos is not 100% sure that the engines are, in fact, from Apollo 11, since the corrosion of the serial numbers will make it difficult to verify, but there’s certainly confidence that the recovered engines are from Apollo 11. Bezos wants to display the engines at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, although NASA may be involved in the decision on where they will ultimately be displayed.
The Saturn V is still the largest and most powerful rocket that was ever built in the US, and each engine is almost 20 feet tall and 13 feet wide. Each engine also weighs over 17,500 pounds. The massive size of the engines produced quite the thrust — around 7.7 million pounds of thrust to be exact, and it had a top speed of over 6,000 mph.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recovers Apollo 11 rockets from the ocean is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Mar 20
You’d think running a company like Amazon would keep a guy busy. But like many of his fellow billionaires, Jeff Bezos still has big dreams. Space dreams. As of late, the exec’s been spending time onboard the Seabed Worker (much of which has apparently involved working on his computer from the cabin), alongside a crew tasked with recovering F-1 engines from the Apollo program, which are now a part of an “incredible sculpture garden…that tells the story of a fiery and violent end.” Seems Bezos has been exercising his poesy muscles in the cabin, as well. The team has apparently recovered enough F1-parts to construct two engines, which will go on display to help “inspire something amazing.” More striking images from the expedition can be seen in the source link below.
Source: Bezos Expeditions
Mar 20
Though there was a lovely little rumor very recently surrounding the Kindle Fire HD and a bottomed-out $99 USD price point, today an Amazon representative has spoken up to dispel such madness. Speaking with SlashGear about the possibility of a $99 Kindle Fire HD tablet, Amazon said that their current price point was as low as it was going to go. They did add that “that hardware” was what was tied to the price point, however, perhaps suggesting that a newer model may be in the pipeline.
If you’re going to pick through a comment from a representative of a company creating gadgets, you may as well go all the way. What we’re seeing today is a very, very short comment from Amazon that’s committed to keeping a higher price point regardless of suggestions to the contrary – but what can we read into here?
“It’s not happening–we are already at the lowest price points possible for that hardware.” – Amazon Spokesperson
What if the company, on the other hand, continued to push the software edge along with the advertising element already present in several of their tablets? If Amazon was able to put enough bloatware into the Kindle – a future edition of the hardware, that is – could they make it free? Mobile carriers around the world make phones “free” all the time with connections to yearly contracts with monthly data costs.
When will it be time for the Amazon Kindle Fire – or whatever they call it by the time this happens – to be free to consumers? We’re not entirely convinced that time will ever come, especially considering the outcry that happens every time a Kindle is announced with non-removable ads. That’s a no-no!
Have a peek at the timeline below to see other recent moves Amazon has been making to make the Kindle universe a friendly place to work and play in, and let us know if you’re waiting for a cheaper model in the future!
Amazon: $99 Kindle Fire HD “not happening” is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Mar 20
Amazon powers a variety of websites on the internet, including several popular services like Netflix and Instagram. However, it looks like Amazon is digging deeper into partnerships, as it’s rumored that the e-tailer giant and the Central Intelligence Agency have made a deal for Amazon to provide cloud services to the government organization.
According to FCW, Amazon won a cloud-computing contract with the CIA that’s worth up to $600 million over a 10-year period. According to the report, the new cloud service will help the CIA “keep up with emerging technologies like big data in a cost-effective manner not possible under the CIA’s previous cloud efforts.”
However, it’s not exactly clear what the CIA has planned for the new cloud system, but it seems that the CIA is mostly focused on becoming more efficient with newer technologies, and it seems like the new service will work just like most other cloud service, except it’ll be on heavy lockdown by the CIA, allowing only authorized users to access confidential files from any device.
While there’s no concrete confirmations on the deal between the two organizations, it wouldn’t be too surprising if the CIA ended up moving into the 21st century with a better cloud storage implementation, especially with Amazon behind the wheel. Neither Amazon or the CIA were willing to comment on the situation.
[via Gizmodo]
Amazon rumored to be building private cloud service for CIA is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Mar 20
According to a new report Amazon has made a deal with the CIA to develop a cloud computing infrastructure just for the clandestine agency. The deal is expected to bring in $600 million over 10 years for Amazon. Amazon Web Services will be working with CIA to build this private cloud infrastructure. It will greatly cut costs for the agency as it will effectively handle enormous amounts of data that the CIA works with. Amazon declined to comment on this deal whereas it is the policy of CIA not to divulge information about its contracts, contractors as well as the nature of the work. This new cloud service will obviously be heavily fortified behind CIA’s own firewalls.
The information about this deal comes from a single source and is yet to be verified. The director of IT management issues at Government Accountability Office, Dave Powner, said that he too did not know about this deal between Amazon and the CIA. Though he did add that he expects CIA to work along these lines. Amazon has a strong footing in the cloud computing niche and it can very well provide a rigid infrastructure for the CIA. We’ll have to wait and see if either one of them actually acknowledges its existence.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: US Department Of Defense Reportedly Planning On Buying 650,000 iOS Devices, Latest Leak Previews What May Be Google Play Version 4.0, 
Mar 20
Amazon Releases ‘Send to Kindle’ Allowing You To Save Stories For Reading Later
Posted in: Today's Chili
If you’ve used services similar to Evernote and Pocket to read stories on another device later and own a Kindle, you’ll be happy to hear Amazon has built its own service which allows you to queue up stories to be read on your Kindle.
Amazon’s new “Send to Kindle” button has just been rolled out for online publications to embed into their websites, meaning you could read this exact news story from the comfort of a beach somewhere on your Kindle. In the past, the only way to gain this kind of functionality was to install a browser plug-in that would send articles or links to your Kindle device. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: NVIDIA’s Powerful Logan and Parker Tegra Chips Presented At GTC, iOS 6.1.3 Released To Fix Passcode Security Vulnerability, 
Mar 20
This week the folks at Amazon’s Kindle department have revealed a button that may just change your Kindle-loving life. It’s the “Send to Kindle” button and it’ll be able to send content from the web to your Kindle tablet in just a tap. With this button, website creators and you will be able to implement a quick web-to-device setup in a snap!
This update allows, first and foremost, users like you to work with a Send to Kindle button on your desktop or in your web browser. When you’ve got this button in your web browser, it’ll appear above the fold with the rest of your bookmark links. If you’ve ever worked with a site like StumbleUpon or Pinterest, this is a very similar situation – one tap and you’re in.
If you’re using the Send to Kindle button from the desktop, you’ve got a bit more wide open array of options – so to speak. You can send all sorts of desktop-sitting materials at will – it’s so easy, your grandmother could do it!
Website creators will be able to implement a button that’s not unlike the Facebook “Like” button you see so often – the Google+ button and regular all-encompassing “share” buttons you’ll be familiar with already as well. If you’re a webpage creator, you’ll just have to head to the developer page and choose your size and color – grab it!
There’s also an Android version of the button which you can access in app form, then send from your phone to your tablet, or your computer to your tablet, or your web browser from whatever machine you’ve got to your tablet. Go wild!
Have a peek at the timeline we’ve got below for more information on the Kindle series and don’t forget to check our reviews of the last several devices to hit the market – it’s a sweet reading and media-loving festival of love!
Amazon grabs all media with “Send to Kindle” button is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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