Hasta La Gadget!

ASUS sells tons of laptops through Amazon.com. Amazon happens to offer a Kindle for PC application. Heck, why not team up and pre-install the app on the ASUS netbooks and laptops that are sold through the online e-tailer? Sure makes a lot of sense to us, and apparently it did to both Amazon and ASUS. Starting today, select laptops — including the Eee PC 1005PE and UL30 — will be sold with the e-book app loaded up. Frankly, we’re not the biggest fans of pre-installed software cluttering up fresh screens, but this sort of partnership surely makes sense with certain devices — in particular, convertible tablets that you’d use to read. You know what would also make sense? ASUS preloading some sort of Amazon application on its Eee Pad. That’s just us playing make believe, but it seems like the two companies are certainly talking. We’re set on getting our fill of ASUS tablet news at Computex next week, but in the meantime hit the break for the full Amazon / ASUS PR.

Continue reading ASUS and Amazon team up to pre-install Kindle for PC on netbooks and laptops

ASUS and Amazon team up to pre-install Kindle for PC on netbooks and laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It took so long for electronic ink screens to finally hit the market we feel a bit silly getting impatient for the next-generation, but the Kindle has been on the market for a year and a half now, Sony Reader models for twice that long, and still we’re dealing with the same crummy 7:1 contrast ratio, 16 shade grayscale, and .74 second refresh rate. E Ink’s Sriram Peruvemba, however, is finally showing off next-generation models of the sort parent company PVI told us were coming, the first an improvement on existing screens that offers a 12:1 contrast ratio and a refresh rate fast enough for simple animations. Also shown is a larger, (slightly) flexible model rugged enough to take a meaty fist square in the face without blinking a single pixel. This version Peruvemba sees playing a major role in digital textbooks in the future. Unfortunately we still have a bit of time to wait for either, with the boosted contrast ratio model entering production later this year and the flexible one sometime in early 2011. Add another six months or so for devices using the things to make it to retail and hopes for a brighter, next-gen Kindle shipping by the holidays start to look a bit dim.

Continue reading E Ink shows off next-gen displays: high contrast, fast refresh, and rugged (video)

E Ink shows off next-gen displays: high contrast, fast refresh, and rugged (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 09:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are now over 1,348 approved apps for the iPad. That’s on top of the 150,000 iPad-compatible iPhone programs already available in the App Store. When Apple’s tablet PC launches, just hours from now, it will have a software library greater than that of any handheld in history — not counting the occasional UMPC. That said, the vast majority of even those 1,348 iPad apps are not original. They were designed for the iPhone, a device with a comparatively pokey processor and a tiny screen, and most have just been tweaked slightly, upped in price and given an “HD” suffix — as if that somehow justified the increased cost.

Besides, we’ve seen the amazing potential programs have on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and webOS when given access to a touchscreen, always-on data connection, GPS, cloud storage and WiFi — but where are the apps that truly define iPad? What will take advantage of its extra headroom, new UI paradigms and multitouch real estate? Caught between netbook and smartphone, what does the iPad do that the iPhone cannot? After spending hours digging through the web and new iPad section of the App Store, we believe we have a number of reasonably compelling answers.

Update: Now includes Wormhole Remote, TweetDeck, SkyGrid, Touchgrind HD, GoToMeeting, SplitBrowser, iDisplay, Geometry Wars and Drawing Pad.

Continue reading iPad apps: defining experiences from the first wave

iPad apps: defining experiences from the first wave originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With not so much as a hint of fanfare (and a very loose definition of “coming soon“), Amazon has quietly unleashed its Kindle app for Mac. The 22MB file is for Intel-based machines only, OS X 10.5 and above. Nothing too fancy, it does exactly what you’d expect in terms of functionality… and not much else. What else is there to say? Time’s a-wastin’, hit up the source link to download.

Kindle for Mac now finally available originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon is today adding BlackBerrys to its stable of Kindle-compatible devices and also taking the opportunity to remind us that it’s working hard on Mac and iPad versions of its software. The app is a freebie download for Americans (sadly it’s not international just yet) and should offer the same functionality as its PC and iPhone brethren — namely automatic syncing via Whispersync and what Amazon hopes will be a seamless reading experience from one device to the next. There’s also an in-app book store, as well as the ability to create bookmarks and view annotations from other portable Kindle readers. Go download it at the Amazon link if you care, or move right along if you don’t.

Kindle for BlackBerry e-reader app now available originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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