Amazon KindleFire Specifications and Price

 As promised today amazon announced its long waited Kindle fire.An android driven tablet to challenge ipad.

Its priced for $199.

Click on the below link for more details from amazon:

Kindle Fire, Full Color 7" Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi


Specifications :

Technical Details

Display	7" multi-touch display with IPS (in-plane switching) technology and anti-reflective treatment, 1024 x 600 pixel resolution at 169 ppi, 16 million colors.
Size (in inches)	7.5" x 4.7" x 0.45" (190 mm x 120 mm x 11.4 mm).
Weight	14.6 ounces (413 grams).
System Requirements	None, because it's wireless and doesn't require a computer.
On-device Storage	8GB internal. That's enough for 80 apps, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books.
Cloud Storage	Free cloud storage for all Amazon content
Battery Life	Up to 8 hours of continuous reading or 7.5 hours of video playback, with wireless off. Battery life will vary based on wireless usage, such as web browsing and downloading content.
Charge Time	Fully charges in approximately 4 hours via included U.S. power adapter. Also supports charging from your computer via USB.
Wi-Fi Connectivity	Supports public and private Wi-Fi networks or hotspots that use the 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, or 802.1X standard with support for WEP, WPA and WPA2 security using password authentication; does not support connecting to ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) Wi-Fi networks.
USB Port	USB 2.0 (micro-B connector)
Audio	3.5 mm stereo audio jack, top-mounted stereo speakers.
Content Formats Supported	Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively, Audible (Audible Enhanced (AA, AAX)), DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, non-DRM AAC, MP3, MIDI, OGG, WAV, MP4, VP8.
Documentation	Quick Start Guide(included in box); Kindle User's Guide (pre-installed on device)
Warranty and Service	1-year limited warranty and service included. Optional 2-year Extended Warranty available for U.S. customers sold separately. Use of Kindle is subject to the Kindle License Agreement and Terms of Use.
Included in the Box	Kindle Fire tablet, U.S. power adapter (supports 100-240V), and Quick Start Guide.

Here are the pictures:

Let's talk iphone

 Today apple sent out invites to the journalists and publishers regarding the iphone release.

 The invitation was very creative.

 Just by using the icons of calendar app,clock app,map app and phone app they conveyed the message.At the bottom of these icons there is the message stating "Let's talk iPhone".

Apple will be unveiling its next iPhone October 4th at its Cupertino headquarters.

 Here is the invitation for you:

 Nice touch.


Would Steve be there?

Top 10 Streaming Digital Media Players

Top 10 Streaming Digital Media Players

Kiss good bye to your cable company.No not yet.But the time is coming soon.If you are not interested in the current episodes and if you are ok with watching older tv episodes and If you are ok watching old movies,then you will be really interested in these streaming devices.

Basically you will be paying only for the internet and everything else is free is you are ok for the above said.

Still you are not completely thrown in to the old age.If you pay a small monthly subscription you will be able to watch streaming movies without advertisements.
Also you can watch the newer released movies as pay per view.And there won't be any subscription costs.

Streaming Players

What do Streaming Players do?

Most of the streaming players connect to internet via your home network and stream the videos from the video sources like netflix,hulu,google videos ,youtube etc.

What are the benefits of this kind or Digital Streaming Devices?

1.You can watch the program that you like at anytime.This basically gives you the flexibility of living your way of life and not depending on the broadcast time.

2.Most of the programs are free.

3.Not only you are able to watch the programs provided by the broadcast television you can also watch interesting videos posted by common people like us.Sometimes these videos are more interesting than the ones that we get on broadcast television.

4.Some of the streaming media players allow you to browse the internet from your television.Which means you don't need to have a PC(personal computer) to browse the internet.

5.Some of the streaming media players allow you to connect to social networking sites like facebook , twitter etc. This should be very helpful for older people who are not tech savvy.They don't need to worry about something going wrong like in a PC.

As far as disadvantages :

You don't get to watch the newest episodes or some of the live tv.

List of top 10 Digital Media Players and Streaming Devices:

1. Logitech Revue Companion Box with Google TV

2. Roku 2 XS Streaming Player 1080

3. Roku XDS Streaming Player 1080p

4. Western Digital WD TV Live Plus

5. Roku 2 XD Streaming Player 1080p

6. Boxee Box

7. Western Digital WD TV Live Hub

8. Sony SMP-N100 Streaming Player with Wi-Fi

9. Patriot Box Office 1080p

10. Iomega 35039

Top 10 Streaming Media Players

Top 10 Streaming Media Players

 

Kiss good bye to your cable company.No not yet.But the time is coming soon.If you are not interested in the current episodes and if you are ok with watching older tv episodes and If you are ok watching old movies,then you will be really interested in these streaming devices.

Basically you will be paying only for the internet and everything else is free is you are ok for the above said.

Still you are not completely thrown in to the old age.If you pay a small monthly subscription you will be able to watch streaming movies without advertisements.
Also you can watch the newer released movies as pay per view.And there won't be any subscription costs.

Streaming Players

What do Streaming Players do?

Most of the streaming players connect to internet via your home network and stream the videos from the video sources like netflix,hulu,google videos ,youtube etc.

What are the benefits of this kind or Digital Streaming Devices?

1.You can watch the program that you like at anytime.This basically gives you the flexibility of living your way of life and not depending on the broadcast time.

2.Most of the programs are free.

3.Not only you are able to watch the programs provided by the broadcast television you can also watch interesting videos posted by common people like us.Sometimes these videos are more interesting than the ones that we get on broadcast television.

4.Some of the streaming media players allow you to browse the internet from your television.Which means you don't need to have a PC(personal computer) to browse the internet.

5.Some of the streaming media players allow you to connect to social networking sites like facebook , twitter etc. This should be very helpful for older people who are not tech savvy.They don't need to worry about something going wrong like in a PC.

As far as disadvantages :

You don't get to watch the newest episodes or some of the live tv.

List of top 10 Digital Media Players and Streaming Devices:

1. Logitech Revue Companion Box with Google TV and Keyboard Controller

2. Roku 2 XS Streaming Player 1080

3. Roku XDS Streaming Player 1080p

4. Western Digital WD TV Live Plus 1080p HD Media Player

5. Roku 2 XD Streaming Player 1080p

6. Boxee Box by D-Link

7. Western Digital WD TV Live Hub 1 TB Media Center

8. Sony SMP-N100 Streaming Player with Wi-Fi

9. Patriot Box Office 1080p High-Definition Media Player PCMPBO25 (Black)

10. Iomega 35039 1 TB ScreenPlay DX HD Media Player

Streaming movies to TV

Streaming movies to TV :

            This post discuss about the streaming of movies from internet to TV via Roku player.

 What is Roku?

            Roku is a media player which connects to your television either wired or wireless.

It also comes in different versions. It’s a HD player.

            For Roku player to function you should be having a good router. It should atleast be a G router or N is better.

            With Roku player you can watch instant movies from a lot of available movie streaming services. One great example being Netflix.The other is Amazon instant video.

 I connected the roku player wirelessly to the router and started streaming netflix videos to my HDTV.

I was suspecting the picture quality before I bought the player but the picture quality was very good.It is not like a HD channel but you get a very good picture quality similar to the one from an upconverting DVD player.At that time netflix is the major channel that was available in the ROKU player.There were few other documentary channels like the NASA tv etc.

Then amazon added its channel to ROKU, which I mentioned already. It is called Amazon instant video, where you can rent movies, watch trailers etc. That’s where the channel lineup started building up.

Now if you see the channel line up in ROKU player there are a lot of paid channels and free channels available for ROKU.

One doesn’t have to have a cable or any other TV sources except the ROKU player. Most of the tv shows you can watch from HULU plus.

There is a whole free movie channel available in ROKU called as CRACKLE which has a lot of movies to watch with very few advertisements.

For the Indian population they have a huge line up of the channels.

As for as the indian community are concerned they get dish tv or the direct tv to watch their favorite language channel.Even if they don't watch indian channels when their parents visit from India they install dish or direct tv with or without contracts.

But if you have a ROKU player you can have most of the channels without the need for any equipment installation.

Here are a few channel lineups in ROKU:

Channellive - offers Tamil channels(Sun TV, Kalaignar TV, Jaya TV, Mega TV, Isai Aruvi, Jaya Max, Angel TV Free*: Chutti TV, Podhigai),Telugu channels,Kannada channels and is in testing phase of malayalam channels.

BOMTV - offers over 15 Malayalam channels(Asianet news,Asianet ,Asianet Plus,Asianet USA,india vision,Kairali news,MCN,Jeevan TV ,Powervision ,Shalom,Yes Channel ).

ReliableIPTV - offers lot of Telugu channels(ETV,MAATV,GeminiTV,LocalTV,TV1,Vanitha TV,ATV) and news channels. 

Bollywood - This is a free channel that offers Bollywood movies and shows.

The above said are only a small fraction of what ROKU offers.If interested go to http://www.roku.com/ to see the channel line up.

 Now the newly introduced ROKU player has a famous built in game”Angry Birds”.

Google acquiring Motorola Mobility Inc. What does that mean to us?

 A couple of years back Apple and Google were hand in hand friendlier companies.Then Google CEO Eric Schmidt was on the board of Apple.

 Then apple decided to enter into the cellphone market and introduced iphone in 2007.Even then google and apple were in friendlier terms.But when google introduced android 1.0 in september 2008 the relationship kinda broke.

 But in an important note google acquired android even before iphone was released.Android was acquired in the year 2005.

 What is android?

 Before being acquired by google android is a small company which was in development of a unix based operating system for the cell phones.It is the name of the company as well as the name of the operating system.

Within 2 years of introduction of android it over took iphone in sales.

 Then all the patent fights started.

 Apple sued Samsung.Samsung sued apple.Nokia sued apple and won.Apple sued HTC.

 Mostly apple sued Samsung and HTC for the UI(User Interface) and the design of the phone.I am not sure why samsung didn't sue Apple for its iphone 4 resembling Samsung Instinct.Here is the link where I discuss the resemblance of iphone 4 and samsung instinct.

 Basically android is a linux based mobile OS(Operating System).And it is an open source system,meaning anyone can download the OS and customize it according to their needs.

 Thats what Samsung and HTC did for their phones.And apple sued.

 So it is time for Google to step in.But how?

 Google is not an electronics manufacturer nor does it have the mobile patents.

  When Google tried to acquire Nortel networks patents few months ago apple and microsoft together out bid google to acquire them.Apple and Microsoft together. :).

 So by buying out motorola mobility Inc google is acquiring a lot of patents that Motorola holds.Which puts google in a very good position for not only defending the phone manufacturers who use android as their OS but also for improving android based phone's hardware.

Here is the excerpt from the Google press release:

The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.

Larry Page, CEO of Google, said, “Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.”

 Now that google has their own hardware they can bring more bells and whistles to android and the phones that they are going to manufacture.

 And Motorola has been manufacturing a series of products.So google will be trying to implement android in all the products.

 Imagine the cable box that we have also delivers google tv without the need for buying a seperate equipment.That would be awesome. 

 Also the android version for the tablets can be improved a lot since motorola has its own tablet.It can be optimized for a dual core machine.

 So in short google acquiring Motorola is a very good news for us.And we can expect a lot of equipments to have android and everything integrated to your gmail account.Send and receive emails from your tv and no need for a computer.Shop through your tv or mobile phone.The possibilities are nearly endless.

Extensions , Apps and Add ons for your browser.

How many of you are still using the no-fun(hmmm IE) browser?

About a year ago my collegue and my friend told me about angry birds game for iphone and ipod touch.He said it was the number one selling game in Apple app store.When I downloaded the lite version in my ipod touch I was immediately addicted.Then I bought the full version.That is the first app I bought.

Why am I telling this in a post where I am going to talk about browser extensions? Lets see in the post.And I am going to tell you how to get angry birds for free.

I heavily use firefox and google chrome for my browsing.I am also an online shopper and I do most of my purchase online.

There is this cool add on for firefox called invisible hand.When I shop online for a particular product it shows a cool tool bar that whether the product I am looking at is available cheaper somewhere else.

If it is available for cheap somewhere else it displays where and how much it is cheaper.

 Another add on which I use is camelizer.I use amazon a lot.A lot in the sense really A LOT.I will post it in a different post why I use amazon a lot.This camelizer extension displays a graph for the product that I am seeing in amazon and its price ranges for a particular period.

 You can opt for 3 months 6 months 1 year etc to see the price variations for that particular product.It really helps in deciding whether to buy the product or to wait.And also it helps to decide whether the price that you are buying is a the best price.

 And then there is this cool iris.you can watch all your photos in picasa in a wall format and then you can navigate them in 3D.

Now they have extended cool iris for shopping as well. You can do the navigation in 3D.

So there are lot of addons and Apps are available for firefox and google chrome.Try them.

As I said I am going to tell you how to get angry birds for free.

Angry Birds Free .

Click the above link for free angry birds from amazon android app store.

If you want angry birds free for your pc you can install free from Chrome store.For that you need to have google chrome.