Hasta La Gadget!

Hope you’re ready to see the make believe world in a new dimension ’cause Samsung’s first Full HD 3D set is now shipping Stateside. Amazon shows a pair of 55-inch UN55C7000 TVs with 3D 240Hz motion technology in stock with a $3,299.99 price tag and free delivery. Yeah, that’s a day earlier than expected but we doubt anyone’s complaining. Remember, you’ll still have to drop another $150 or so on the shutter glasses if you ever plan to flip the switch from 2D to 3D mode; something you might want to do when actual 3D content starts to arrive.

Update: Looks like Sears is shipping now as well, including the 46-inch UN46C7000 little brother for $2,600.

Samsung’s first Full HD 3D TV now available in the US, all 55 inches of it originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mention “Microsoft” and “open-source” in the same breath and you’re guaranteed to create a suspicion interrupt within the Linux community. Toss in “patent agreement” and out come the irate spokesmen. So imagine the response to the announcement that Microsoft and Amazon have reached a cross-patent agreement that gives Amazon the right to use open-source software in its Kindle in exchange for an undisclosed tithe to Redmond. Microsoft also gains rights to Amazon’s patent portfolio.

The move prompted Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, to claim that Microsoft appears to be trying to, “create uncertainty around Linux.” Mind you, this isn’t just tin-foil worry from the wire colander collective, Microsoft claims that free and open-source software violates some 235 Microsoft patents. A big enough stick to coax a number of companies — like Novell, Linspire, Xandros, Apple, and HP — into striking agreements with Microsoft or risk litigation as was the case with TomTom. Agreements that Canonical’s Mark Shuttelworth called, “Trinkets in exchange for air kisses,” or “patent terrorism” if you prefer Sun Microsystems’ take.

Microsoft and Amazon announce open-source patent agreement, trinkets in exchange for air kisses originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, has a pair of sources saying that HP will be meeting with its US and Taiwanese partners to “tweak prices and features” on its upcoming Slate. The move is meant to capitalize on a recent uptick in tablet interest with hopes of undercutting the $629 price of the similarly spec’d 3G-enabled iPad. Although it was introduced before the iPad, HP deliberatly held back on announcing a ship date or pricing so that it could tweak the Slate accordingly.

Also noteworthy is renewed attention given to Microsoft’s Courier. The WSJ says that Microsoft continues work on its two-screen Courier tablet at its Alchemy Ventures incubation laboratory in Seattle. However, it’s still unclear whether Microsoft will launch the device.

HP to undercut iPad price, iPad to undercut Amazon e-books prices, Courier to rule them all? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Publishers joining Apple’s iBooks store are turning their back on Amazon and its vision of the flat $9.99 ebook. Apple forced the music industry to charge 99 cents per song, so why are they helping publishers set their own prices?

To screw Amazon.

The difference between Amazon and Apple is this: Amazon is very much in the ebook business to sell ebooks. They want you attached to their platform. That’s why the Kindle Reader is on both PC and iPhone, as well as the eponymous e-ink device. Ebooks are huge for them. They sell six ebooks for every 10 physical books. That’s why they want to own the market. Apple, on the other hand, sells content in order to sell hardware. The iTunes Store, the App Store and the brand-new iBooks Store exist so you’ll buy iPods, iPhones and iPads, which is where Apple really makes money. iTunes revenue is just a bonus, though an ever fatter one with the explosion of the App Store.

You can see that the two companies place far different values on the content they sell. A more illustrative example: Amazon has been selling books at a loss—paying $15 for a hardcover bestseller, only to turn around and sell it for $10 on the Kindle. Apple would never, ever sell content at a loss. They make a decent bit of change, but apps and music are really just a way to fill up your iPhone.

Do you remember three years ago, when Apple was battling with the record labels for control over (legal) digital music? Apple still owns 69 percent of the market and sell 1 out of every 4 songs, period—in other words, they owned the market, which deeply frightened the labels, who were afraid of losing control. Universal, the biggest label, flipped out, and even tried to build the anti-iTunes. That failed, so the music business bit the bullet (or the poison pill) and went DRM-free, not with Apple at first, but with Amazon. It became a (sorta) credible competitor to the iTunes monster, long enough to give the labels just enough extra negotiating power. When iTunes music downloads went DRM free, many of them—particularly hit singles—suddenly cost $1.29.

The situation is remarkably similar, except this time, Amazon’s wearing the market-maker pants. Some estimate Amazon’s share of the ebook market to be 90 percent, but I’ve heard from people in the publishing industry say it’s closer to 80 percent. But that’s nitpicking. At this moment, Amazon owns ebooks. The book publishers’ fears are the same as the record labels with iTunes: They’re paranoid about losing control over pricing, and their own digital destiny. They’re worried that books are being undervalued, and that once people have the mindset that the price of an ebook is $9.99, and not a penny more, they’re doomed. They needed an insurgent player: Apple.

Apple has advantages that Amazon didn’t have with music: Scale and technology. iTunes has just moved 3 billion iPhone apps. Apple’s sold over 250 million iPods. By contrast, Amazon’s sold an estimate 2.5-3 million Kindles since it debuted 2 years ago. Analysts predict Apple will sell twice as many iPads this year alone.

In terms of technology, e-Ink looks old and busted and slow next to the iPad’s bright, color display. (Even the fact that the written word is much easier to stare at for long periods of time when presented on e-ink won’t save the current Kindle.) An iPad can do more than books: Beautiful digital magazines, interactive textbooks, a dynamic newspaper. Oh, and it’s a computer that does video, apps, music. Amazon’s scrambling now to make a multitouch full color Kindle after betting on E-Ink, but that kind of development takes at least a year. Even if they churn out a full color reader that is somehow better than the iPad, it likely won’t matter: It would just be a very nice reader to iPad’s everything else, and it would be 9 months too late.

The print industry is swirling down the toilet, and apocalypse-era publishers minds’ dance with hallucinations of digital salvation via iTunes for print. It’s the iPod for books. What Amazon was supposed to deliver, but now maybe never will.

With that contrast in mind, all the publishers needed was a little push. All Apple had to whisper was, “Hey, we’ll let you set your own prices for books. You should control your own destiny. We’d love to have you. You know, $12.99 is a really good price for a beautiful color version of your amazing books. BTW, why are you letting Amazon undersell you?” It doesn’t matter that publishers make less absolute money through the agency model used by Apple—Amazon might’ve given them $15 for a book it sold for $10, but under the agency model, the seller takes 30 percent off the top. They wanted to feel in control, and that their books are worth something more. Steve gave them that, even as he’s probably got his fingers crossed behind his back.

Amazon knew what it was doing by insisting on $9.99 as the price for ebooks. A flat, easy-to-understand rate—one that’s notably cheaper than its analog counterparters—is a paradigm that works, especially when you’re trying to essentially build a whole new market. It plays into the part of our brains that like easy things. That likes the number 9. (No really, 9 is a psychologically satisfying number.) Amazon believed in it so strongly, as I said before, they sold books at a loss to keep it up. (I’m not suggesting, BTW, that Amazon would be any more benevolent to the industry than Apple. They wouldn’t.)

Price would’ve been Amazon’s major advantage over Apple too—being able to undercut Apple by setting whatever price they needed to compete would’ve been its ace in the hole against the iPad’s flashy color screen, and everything else it can do. And now that’s poofed. Apple will be able to sell you ebooks for the exact same price as Amazon. By turning the publishers against Amazon, they’ve effectively dicked the Kindle over. Why? To fill out another bullet point as to why you should buy an iPad. The real question is how long it’ll take publishers to realize that’s all they are to Apple: one little bullet point.

Love your Kindle? How about your Sony Reader? Good then lean in close because your electrophoretic display (EPD) maker wants to have a word. Prime View International (PVI) chairman Scott Liu says that his company (the owners of E Ink) will be introducing a wide variety of new e-reader displays this year including color, flexible, and touchscreen EPDs. PVI also says that response times have been improved enough to allow for animation support on products in 2010. Of course, flip books provide animation as well but we wouldn’t want to use one for any considerable amount of time — but let’s wait and see what they have before coming to a conclusion.

Interestingly enough, PVI says that it’s developing pressure touch sensors that sit behind the display rather than using conventional touch-panels that can obscure the display’s brightness. Funny, that sounds a lot like the Touchco technology just purchased by Amazon two days ago. Kindle 3, we’re waiting… unfortunately for Amazon, the rest of the industry isn’t.

Kindle display maker PVI promises touchscreens, color and flexibility in 2010 models originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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