You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
After nearly six months on the market, the MOGA Bluetooth-powered gaming controller is finally ready to open up its Android-restricted doors. We were told at the Game Developers Conference that starting today, developers can add MOGA support to Kindle Fire and Windows Phone 8 games, thus marking the device’s first foray outside of the Google Play ecosystem. Consumers shouldn’t get too excited by this announcement just yet, however, as this is just a call for developers — it’ll still be awhile until we see MOGA-compatible Kindle Fire and Windows Phone 8 games pop up on that MOGA Pivot app. In the meantime, we also learned that the MOGA Pro controller we saw at CES will be available in stores starting April 15th for $50 a pop, so hopefully those newly-ported apps will be ready by then.
Filed under: Gaming
Canalys is still staking its market share estimates on the view that mobile tablets are as relevant to PC market share as desktops and laptops. If we accept that interpretation, Apple was easily on top of the heap during the fourth quarter. Combining iPads and Macs would give it 27 million computer shipments in the fall, or 20.1 percent of the 134 million computers that left factories — the first time it would have had more than a fifth of the market. Not that Apple was the only one having a good time, however. HP reportedly took back second place from Lenovo by shipping 15 million PCs and claiming 11 percent of the market, while Samsung stepped into the top five for the first time at 11.7 million PCs and 9 percent share.
The upswings may have masked deeper problems. Apple and Samsung benefited from the iPad mini and Galaxy Tab lines, but they, Amazon and other tablet makers were reportedly propping up the market. Canalys doesn’t believe Windows 8 or RT moved the needle for demand, noting that laptop shipments were flat year-over-year where tablets surged 75 percent. It was a tough market for most conventional PC builders — just ask Dell — and there’s no immediate signs that it will be any easier for them in 2013.
Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, Apple, Samsung, Amazon, HP, Lenovo
Source: Canalys
As we begin 2013, we’re stuck in a kind of tablet limbo. Most companies rushed to get devices out for the fall, while the models we saw at CES 2013 aren’t yet shipping. As such, it’s a mostly familiar deck, with Apple, Google and Microsoft once again striving for the top spot. That said, there are new entries from Amazon and ASUS, and many of us who didn’t score some sweet loot this holiday season have a slate-sized pile of cash to spend. If you’re in that situation, continue on for our first tablet guide of 2013.
Note: If you’re looking for tablets with an Atom or Core i5 CPU, you’ll find those in our forthcoming laptop buyer’s guide, since they have the same guts as notebooks (or netbooks, in some cases). For the purposes of this tablet guide, we define tablets as slate-type devices with low-power ARM processors.
Filed under: Tablets, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, ASUS, Google, Amazon
If you go buying a text-to-speech software maker, you’re not exactly going to stay quiet about it, right? Amazon this morning announced its acquisition of Ivona, the company behind the Kindle Fire’s Text-to-Speech, Voice Guide and Explore by Touch features. Ivona, currently carrying the tagline “an Amazon company” on its site, offers its technology in 44 voices in 17 languages. It also works closely with organizations for the blind and visually impaired. More information on the acquisition can be found after the break.
Amazon.com Announces Acquisition of IVONA Software
Amazon.com, Inc. today announced that it has acquired leading text-to-speech technology company IVONA Software. IVONA delivers world-class technologies that power the “Text-to-Speech,” “Voice Guide” and “Explore by Touch” features on Kindle Fire tablets. Additionally, IVONA delivers text-to-speech products and services for thousands of developers, businesses and customers around the world.
“IVONA’s exceptional text-to-speech technology leads the industry in natural voice quality, accuracy and ease of use. IVONA is already instrumental in helping us deliver excellent accessibility features on Kindle Fire, including Text-to-Speech, Voice Guide and Explore by Touch,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “The IVONA team shares our passion for innovation and customer obsession, and we look forward to building great products to deliver world-class voice solutions to customers around the world.”
“For more than ten years, the IVONA team has been focused on creating innovative text-to-speech technologies,” said Lukasz Osowski, CEO and co-founder of IVONA. “We are all thrilled that Amazon is supporting our growth so that we can continue to innovate and deliver exceptional voice and language support for our customers.”
IVONA offers voice and language portfolios with 44 voices in 17 languages and more in development.
Although WatchESPN viewing has been an option for Android viewers since 2011, those with Amazon tablets haven’t had the same luxury — they’ve sometimes had to watch on an old-fashioned TV. Thankfully, ESPN is giving them a better start to the new year by bringing its app to the Amazon Appstore. Anyone with a regular Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD or Kindle Fire HD 8.9 now has access to live games and news as long as they have a supporting TV subscription. The app is free outside of the cost of ESPN itself; if you’ve got the right mix of hardware and software, it’s easy to get your fill at the source link.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD, Amazon
Via: ESPN
Source: Amazon
The Kindle Fire line of tablets is the latest set of electronics to grace GameStop store shelves in the US, the Texas company announced recently. From the baby 7-inch all the way to the larger 8.9-inch, the entire Fire line will be carried in all of GameStop’s 4,400 US-based locations after a successful test run earlier this year with various Android-based tablets — presumably it won’t be too long before discounted, used versions of the tablets become widely available, as GameStop’s offering a $100 in-store credit trade incentive toward the original Kindle Fire. Sadly, you’ll only snag the free $25 Amazon.com gift card (offered through the end of January) if you purchase a brand new Fire, but then there’s always that $50 off sale going on today, right?
Amazon’s been attuned to the needs of its vision-impaired customers for years, first rolling out text-to-speech technology on its original Kindle e-reader years ago. Today the company revealed plans to add to that feature set in its Kindle Fire and Fire HD (7-inch) tablets with Voice Guide and Explore by Touch technology.
Voice Guide’s an improvement upon regular text-to-speech tech that reads aloud any action performed by users — things like announcing app names and book titles when they’re selected. Explore by Touch lets folks swipe their fingers across their Fire’s display and identifies each onscreen item as their phalanges pass over them. Once aware of what app or piece of content’s being touched, a simple tap opens the item. Ready for the new assisted navigation experience right now? Well, all you anxious Fire owners will have to wait, the update doesn’t land until early next year.
Update: The good folks at Amazon reached out to let us know that the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 already has both Explore by Touch and Voice Guide.
Filed under: Tablets, Software, Amazon
Source: Amazon
We got a peek at Amazon’s Kindle FreeTime during its press conference back in September, but now it’s making the family-friendly feature part of a subscription package available across the family of Kindle Fire devices. More than just a submenu of video like the ones offered by Netflix and Hulu Plus, it resembles the Kid’s Corner launcher in Windows Phone 8 by password locking children out of the rest of the device, but with a preselected package of content to fill it.
Available to Prime subscribers for $2.99 per month, per child or for $6.99 for a family-wide license of up to six kids (don’t have Prime? you can pick it up for $4.99/$9.99 a month), kids can browse through the selection of educational apps, games, books, movies and TV shows. It also throws in other features parents will dig, with a personalized login and bookmarks for the kids, plus the ability to set time limits on use that can be specifically tailored by category.
All of this happens with them seeing any ads or racking up a bill for video on-demand or in-app purchases, since those hooks have been removed, creating an environment endorsed by Common Sense Media. Big names like Disney, Nickelodeon, DC Comics and PBS are all on the list, with the promise of a store of content to keep the little ones distracted/learning as long as necessary. To set it up on your device, you’ll only need to create a FreeTime account if you haven’t already, and hit the free trial button.
Want to see it for yourself? The feature is available in an OTA software update rolling out over “the coming weeks” to the new Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9, with a free month of trial access available to owners. There are more details in the press release after the break, or beyond the source link.
Source: Amazon Kindle FreeTime Unlimited
Pick up a holiday Kindle over the weekend? According to today’s Amazon announcement, the chances are pretty good that you did. The mega-retailer sent out a note today calling Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2012 “the best ever for the Kindle family.” In fact, Monday was reportedly the biggest day ever for worldwide Kindle sales, thanks in part to a sale on the Fire. Amazon says it has “more than double[d]” last year’s numbers. The line, which currently includes the entry-level Kindle, the Paperwhite and the Fire, among others, has also been eating up a good chunk of the site’s worldwide best seller spots. More sales info can be found in the source link below.
Filed under: Amazon
Source: Amazon
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