The e-reader market: Still young and restless

The price for some e-readers with black-and-white displays could drop below $100 before the end of 2010, and possibly hit $50 in 2011, according to analysts. Declining prices are just one indication that the e-reader market is young and likely to remain in a state of uncertainty for a few more years, they said. One major question still on the minds of experts is how long e-readers equipped with black-and-white e-ink displays can survive in the face of competition from full-color tablet computers, such as the highly successful iPad, which offers multimedia functionality and a backlit 9.7-in. LED display. Adding more complexity to the market outlook, e-readers with color e-paper will appear this fall, said Dmitriy Molchanov, an analyst at Boston-based Yankee Group Research. Fujitsu has shown color e-paper prototypes for years. Meanwhile, Qualcomm, using a different technology, has since 2008 been working on a color Mirasol display that could appear in coming months, Molchanov said. Also, this month, LG Display revealed that it's working on flexible color e-paper for e-readers or tablets. Molchanov said color e-paper will force a market split, with Kindle maker Amazon.com leading a number of manufacturers down a low-cost path typified by devices that have black-and-white displays and cost as little as $50. Amazon doesn't plan to introduce a Kindle with a color screen anytime soon, he noted. Meanwhile, Sony, which makes the Reader device, will lead other manufacturers into a "high-feature" segment for devices that have color displays, touchscreens, video support and more, Molchanov said. Allen Weiner, a Gartner analyst, wrote in a blog post earlier this summer that it is "early in the e-reader evolution" and postulated that the market is becoming segmented three ways. Many choices for e-reader devices One of the three "flavors" of e-readers that Weiner expects to see is a class of devices with e-ink displays that cost about $149 or less. That group would include the 6-inch Kobo, which is offered at the Borders Web site for $149.99. Since Weiner's blog post appeared, Amazon has launched two versions of its next-generation Kindle. Both have 6-inch screens, but one is a Wi-Fi-only model that sells for $139 and the other supports both Wi-Fi and 3G and sells for $189. Both start shipping Friday.puffin web browser for windows flash player for philips smart tv stellar phoenix windows data recovery crack serial lexmark x1100 series drivers getjar nimbuzz chat radmin viewer 3 4 full version fat head drivers golf clubs my wcp watermark editor 1 0 1 blackberry desktop software 6 0 2 42 return of the condor heroes 2006 direct

More Americans own e-readers than tablets, survey finds

More American are using e-readers than tablets, according to a Pew Research Institute survey. The Pew survey of 2,277 adults that finished on May 22 found that 12% of Americans owned an e-reader device in May compared to 8% who owned a tablet like the popular iPad Also, ownership grew faster for e-readers like the Nook or Kindle than ownership of tablets over the six months between November 2010 and May, the Pew survey found. The telephone survey found that Hispanic Americans are the fastest-growing ownership group of both e-reader and tablet devices. E-reader ownership grew from 6% of American adults in November 2010 to 12% in May, Pew said. Tablet ownership grew from 5% to 8% over the same period. Tablet ownership had been climbing "relatively quickly" through Nov. 2010, Pew said, but growth was virtually flat from January to May, growing from only from 7% to 8%. Pew also found that 3% of U.S. adults own both kinds of devices, while 9% own an e-reader but not a tablet, and 5% own a tablet but not an e-reader. Among demographic groups Pew studied, Hispanics showed the biggest growth in e-reader ownership in the six month period ending in May, tripling from 5% to 15%. Hispanics represented the largest e-reader ownership group, followed by whites at 11% and African Americans at 8%. Hispanics also had the biggest tablet ownership by demographic group in May at 15%, up from 7% in November, Pew said. Ownership of the devices among white Americans jumped from 4% to 7% over the six months while African Americans grew from 4% to 8%. Pew didn't comment on the reasons for the trend toward owning e-readers, although observers note that the devices are much less expensive (and far less functional) than tablets and have been on the market longer. The Kindle e-reader with special offers can be had for $114, while Pad 2 pricing starts at $499. Pew started tracking e-reader ownership in April 2009 (although some e-readers were around much earlier). The researcher started tracking tablet ownership in May 2010, about a month after the first iPad went on sale. The Pew survey also confirmed the widely-recognized trend that laptops are as popular as desktops. The May survey found desktop ownership at 57% of Americans compared to laptop ownership at 56%, a statistical tie since the poll has amargin of error of 2 percentage points. In November, desktop ownership had outpaced laptops by 8 percentage points, 61% to 53%. Even though tablets and e-readers get plenty of media attention, Pew found that cell phones are by far the most widely owned computing devices in the U.S. (83%), with desktops second (57%), and laptops third (56%). E-readers and tablets were well behind at 12% and 8% respectively. vgp vcc5 driver chrome specforce crack free wechat for pc without bluestacks belkin f5u002 driver usb mass storage driver method get asus p5n73 am audio driver mafia wars 2 bot free new york dmv drivers license renewal chinese 2000 driver sis6215 win animal ink ebook

Bookeen Cybook Orizon Touchscreen Ebook Reader

The Bookeen Cybook Orizon joins a growing group of ebook readers with built-in Wi-Fi, which allows you to download material without having to hook the device up to a PC. The $240 (as of August 5, 2011) Orizon also has a 6-inch touchscreen electronic-paper display, which makes for easy and intuitive menu navigation, text selections, and page turns using your fingertip. Wi-Fi and touchscreen are great technologies, but on the Orizon they don't always work well in tandem, which I discovered when I tried to shop for books using the Orizon's built-in browser. Because pages loaded slowly on the Wi-Fi connection, tapping a book from a search results list (for example) often produced unintended selections, making the whole experience painfully time-consuming and frustrating. In most other respects, the Orizon was much more satisfactory. Like its pocket-size sibling, the Cybook Opus, the Orizon--available with a black or white plastic case--is thin for its 6-inch screen size and 7.5-by-4.9-inch footprint: It's not quite three-tenths of an inch thick. That's about the same thickness as the current 3G/Wi-Fi Amazon Kindle, but the Kindle doesn't have a touchscreen. The Orizon weighs about the same as that third-generation Kindle, 8.6 ounces to the Kindle's 8.7 ounces. While most of the dedicated e-readers we've seen use E Ink's electrophoretic displays, the Orizon uses a touchscreen from E Ink competitor Sipix. Like the E Ink Pearl panel on the Kindle and other competitors, it boasts 16 shades of gray and a screen resolution of 800 by 600 pixels (167 dpi). The display supports multitouch, so you can make fonts larger or smaller and zoom in on websites by pinching and zooming with your fingertips. In my tests, I found the screen quite responsive to page turns, accomplished with fingertip swipes from right to left or left to right. But pinching and zooming sometimes required two or three attempts. Tapping on the lower left of the screen (most of the time the corner is marked with several translucent concentric quarter circles) produces context-sensitive pop-up menus that you can also summon and navigate using a hardware button embedded in the bezel. When you're reading, for example, the menu allows you to choose from among seven font families and 12 gradually increasing font sizes; you may also customize the page layout via options for justifying text, toggling the boldface version of your font, and hiding or showing the header and the so-called pageometer (which shows how many pages you've read out of the total number in the book).miami drunk driver accident attorneys brazilian android full crackle apk divx web player for windows 7 64 bit game call of duty modern warfare 2 highly compressed cx25878 vista drivers angry birds for samsung champ gt c3303i 3 com lan card driver samsung digimax 350se driver d link easy search utility mac shank 2 pc demo

Microsoft-Barnes & Noble deal could lead to Windows-based tablet

Microsoft's new partnership with Barnes & Noble could lead to development of a Windows-based tablet or e-reader, not just a Nook e-reader application for Windows 8, some analysts believe. The operating system for such a tablet or e-reader could be Windows 8, Windows RT, or even Windows Phone 8, analysts said Monday. Both companies confirmed that a Nook application for Windows 8 is planned, but officials were vague about whether the two companies would develop a Windows e-reader or a tablet, which would likely involve a third-party tablet maker. Whatever version of a Microsoft operating system would be used, the two companies hope to mine enormous potential revenues from e-books, especially from the relatively untapped market for college e-textbooks, said Allen Weiner, an analyst at Gartner, in an interview. Microsoft might also hope to tie in Skype videoconferencing to develop a social connectivity tool for e-book readers, said Jack Gold, an analyst at J.Gold Associates, noting that such a tool would enable students to, say, confer with one another on a college microbiology text. Microsoft's Bing search engine could add more value to such an offering, he said. Microsoft will invest $300 million in a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary, which will include the digital Nook and college businesses of Barnes & Noble. In two years, the global market for college textbooks -- which are primarily still published in paper form -- will reach more than $4 billion, meaning there's great potential for companies that want to get involved in sales of e-textbooks, Weiner said. "That market's pretty open, and Barnes & Noble owns 135 college textbook stores already, so they're in an incredible position in the textbook market," he said. Moreover, Amazon has not shown much interest in e-textbooks, Weiner added. If the new partnership develops a Windows-based tablet or e-reader, the device would likely give college students and other users the ability to use Microsoft Office apps that either aren't available or aren't fully usable on Apple's iPad, Weiner added. "I don't think the iPad is a killer device for education users, so running Windows with productivity software and Barnes & Noble, with its really good relationships with publishers and college distribution, could be really interesting," Weiner said. Microsoft could even be eyeing the possibility of developing some kind of reader device as part of its partnership with Nokia. Such a device would likely be based on the Windows Phone 8 operating system, also called Apollo, or a future variation of Windows Phone, Weiner said. "I would bet that Nokia will have a tablet, and they would do well in the international market," Weiner said, adding that Barnes & Noble would be a third partner for e-book content for a Nokia-Windows tablet. Windows 8 could power "lots of devices, including tablets," said Gold, adding that "an e-book reader on such a platform, together with an integrated book marketplace [via Barnes & Noble], can help the sale of such devices, especially convertible notebook-tablet devices." The Microsoft-Barnes & Noble partnership stems in part from both companies recognizing the success Amazon has had with its Kindle e-readers. "Microsoft wants a piece of that action, so having the content to sell is critical, and the [sales] volumes could be huge," said Gold. Microsoft is keeping tabs on Apple's deals for e-textbooks and other e-books, Gold noted. "Microsoft can't afford to sit back and ignore Apple, as each e-book on an iPad could easily lead to movement away from back-end computing on a PC or Mac desktop," Gold added. "Microsoft needs to protect its turf." The Bing search engine could add even more value to the Microsoft-Barnes & Noble e-book partnership, Gold said. "Microsoft has made a huge bet on Bing," he said. "The book market could easily be coupled to Bing for additional services, as Google is trying to do." And if that's not enough, Microsoft could bundle Skype calling and videoconferencing to add social networking capability to e-book readers. Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion last October. "That's a potential new market offering," Gold added.vimicro diamond audio model emc 2 0 driver sound card driver for linux nforce 430 linux drivers polish wechat custom emoticons angry birds for psp 3004 lucida grande bold font kamus al munawwir visual basic express edition 2010 tutorial pdf driver oracle jdbc driver oracledriver

Low-cost iPhone: 'C' for cheap, color or classic?

Apple's new low-cost iPhone may be called the iPhone 5C, a name that didn't strike analysts as "C" for "Comforting." The name of the long-rumored lower-priced iPhone -- meant to give Apple new ammunition in its war against Android smartphone makers in emerging markets -- was recently teased in a photograph claiming to show product boxes for the new device. But iPhone 5C? Is that the right name? "The first word that comes to my mind is 'cheap' or 'cost,' but that's because I have context," said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, in an email reply to questions about how the "C" may be interpreted by consumers. Some have slapped the label "Color" onto the "C" in the iPhone 5C moniker, tying that to speculation that the low-price phone will have an all-plastic case and be sold in a rainbow of bright colors. Current iPhones are available only in black and white. "The first thing that comes to mind when I see 'C' is 'cheap,' but I think this is because we are so close to all of it," said Carolina Milanesi of Gartner, referring to herself and her fellow analysts who watch Apple's every move. Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, cited "cheap" as a likely interpretation of iPhone 5C too, but also rattled off a long list, ranging from the serious "classic" and "complete" to the tongue-in-cheek "crumb," as in "apple crumb cake" and "core," with a tip to "apple core." Some letters have more of a history with Apple than others. The letter "C," for example, was used in 1984 by the Cupertino, Calif. company on the Apple IIc, the letter representing "compact" in that case. In 1990, it put "LC" on a Macintosh to designate "low-cost color" for a more-affordable desktop line produced during the reign of CEO John Sculley, who had ousted co-founder Steve Jobs in 1985. Apple has continued to prefer certain naming conventions. In 2009, it introduced the iPhone 3GS, the successor to the iPhone 3G, with the "S" supposedly standing for "speedy" or "snappy" because its new processor was twice as fast as the one in the model of the year before. That "S" has stuck -- Apple used it again in 2011 to identify the iPhone 4S -- and most assume it will again do duty with this fall's new model, the iPhone 5S. But if iPhone 5C makes customers think of "cheap," what are Apple's options? Gold thought it was a waste of time to worry. "I don't think you can come up with any letter designation that people couldn't find a negative connotation if they tried hard enough," he said. Milanesi echoed that when she pointed out that the letter need not carry baggage. "If you look at the [Mercedes-Benz] S-Class and C-Class, [they] are still all in the higher end of the market, but of course 'C' is a lower spec," she said. Alternative names the analysts suggested ran from "iPhone Mini" (Milanesi) to "iPhone Classic" (Moorhead). "Apple has never just done a cheaper version of one of its leading devices," Moorhead observed. "They've either water-falled a more-expensive device downward (iPhone 4GS), miniaturized and provided a descriptive name (mini/nano/shuffle) or institutionalized (classic). If the lower-priced iPhone truly is just a lower-cost and -priced iPhone, I would call it the 'iPhone classic.'" But if Apple's already settled on "C" as the identifier, Moorhead had one piece of advice. "If Apple were to use something along the lines of 'C,' they would need to fill it with meaning or [risk having] the industry fill it for them," Moorhead said. "Consider the 'iPad,' initially mocked, but not anymore, because Apple filled it with meaning." Milanesi also had some free branding advice for Apple. "I think it is about time they moved away from numbers, because even at one model a year getting to iPhone 10 in 2018 seems a little daft," she said. Apple has not confirmed a lower-priced iPhone -- it regularly refuses to discuss upcoming products -- but analysts anticipate a fall release, most likely in September, alongside a revamped iPhone 5. Both would run iOS 7, Apple's new mobile operating system. Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His email address is gkeizer@ix.netcom.com. iPhone, iPad dwarf mobile rivals in small- and mid-sized firmsessay writer online decma biology help online latti writing help incon essay writting boltjo powerpoint services gentai marketing assignment inav essay helper bruxpuzz thesis statement help nmuswolf buy essays dornreads custome writing gaca

Fingerprint sensor in iPhone 5s is no silver bullet, researchers say

The fingerprint sensor in Apple's new iPhone 5s has the potential to enhance the security of the device, but the devil will be in the details. Its effectiveness will depend on the strength of the implementation and whether it's used in conjunction with other security credentials, researchers said. Apple unveiled two new iPhone models Tuesday, the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, the latter of which has a fingerprint sensor dubbed Touch ID built into the home button. The sensor will allow users to use their fingerprints instead of a password to unlock the device and make purchases on iTunes. It's not clear if the feature will also be used in other scenarios that have yet to be revealed or if third-party applications will also be able to use it to authenticate users. In presenting the technology Tuesday, Apple said the fingerprint data is encrypted and locked in the device's new A7 chip, that it's never directly accessible to software and that it's not stored on Apple's servers or backed up to iCloud. Fingerprint scanners have historically been susceptible to errors and replay attacks that involve stealing fingerprints and using them to trick the scanners by employing a variety of techniques. According to Apple, Touch ID scans sub-epidermal skin layers, has a 500-ppi resolution and can recognize fingerprints at any rotation. But how well it will resist attempts by security researchers to bypass it remains to be seen. "Common attacks against fingerprint readers include using photos of fingers or creating fingerprint molds based on captured prints," said Dirk Sigurdson, director of engineering for the Mobilisafe mobile risk management technology at security firm Rapid7, via email. "Hopefully the iPhone sensor will have strong protections against using copied fingers." Fingerprint technology is not a high-security feature, said Marc Rogers, principal security researcher at mobile security firm Lookout. That's why most military installations, for example, use hand geometry or retina scanners instead, he said. "It is possible to copy a fingerprint and I think that as the technology sees wider usage, the techniques of copying fingerprints will only improve," the researcher said. However, a fingerprint is still better and more convenient than a four-digit PIN, he said. The best single factor of authentication is a strong password stored only in the user's brain, but it's inherently difficult for people to create and remember strong passwords, Sigurdson said. This often results in bad passwords being used, so a good fingerprint reader and matching algorithm will likely improve the security of iOS devices, he said. Many people probably don't even set a PIN because it's inconvenient to enter it every time, so a fingerprint gives them the opportunity to secure their device in a way that's better than nothing, Rogers said. Research suggests as many as half of users never set up a four-digit PIN or a more complex password to lock their devices, Apple said during its presentation. Rogers believes fingerprints could add great security if they're used in conjunction with other security credentials as part of two-factor authentication. For example, Apple could allow users to set a strong, complex password that's used to encrypt the file system and which would need to be entered only when the device is switched on. The user's fingerprint could then be used as a medium-strength access credential to unlock the device when it's on and needs to be used. This would provide both security and convenience for users, Rogers said. In addition, if Apple would allow other applications on the device to use the fingerprint sensor, it could increase the security of those applications. For example, a banking application could require users to authorize transactions by scanning their fingerprints, limiting what attackers can do if they steal those users' log-in passwords, he said. Overall, the sensor has the potential to increase the security of the device, but it depends on implementation and whether consumers will actually use it, Christopher Pogue, director of security vendor Trustwave's SpiderLabs security research team, said via email. "It is key that consumers can easily understand how to use the sensor." Like Rogers, Pogue believes that fingerprints would be most valuable if used as part of a two-factor authentication system. "Like anything else that runs on a mobile device, the scanner itself is an application that interfaces with the underlying operating system and like other applications, regardless of function, there are vulnerabilities that exist due to a multitude of factors," Pogue said. "This application will likely be no different, and exploits will certainly be forthcoming if not already here." Unlike a password, a fingerprint is not something a person can forget or share with someone else, so in that regard it provides stronger access control than a password, Pogue said. However, there has to be a failsafe mechanism to prevent the device owner from being locked out in case his fingerprint is modified as a result of an injury, for example, he said. 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Amazon redesigns Kindle app for iOS 7, adds Collections

Many new iOS app updates are being released today to work with the new iOS 7 on iPhone 4 and later, but one free update expected to draw general interest is a major update to the Amazon Kindle for iOS reader. The 4.0 Kindle update is optimized for iOS 7, and shares many of the flat design features central to Apple's latest mobile OS. Amazon's description says the design is based on "themes of deference, clarity and depth." A new Collections feature in 4.0 lets users organize books, documents and magazines more easily. Content can be added to multiple categories. For example, an Amazon spokeswoman said that "A Game of Thrones" could be categorized in both "My Favorites" and "Fantasy Epics."algebra help online vifit best essay writing service reviews borgstar custom coursework ferke assignment writing service thyouder customer writing watmi essay help online fiwar research help sforhealth

Apples 64-bit A7 chip is a marketing gimmick

Apple's 64-bit A7 processor in the iPhone 5s is more a marketing stunt than a technical enhancement and though it will not deliver any immediate benefits to smartphone users, there are other reasons to move to 64-bit, a Qualcomm executive said on Tuesday. "I know there's a lot of noise because Apple did [64-bit] on their A7," said Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Qualcomm, in an interview. "I think they are doing a marketing gimmick. There's zero benefit a consumer gets from that." A benefit of 64-bit is more memory addressability, but that is not relevant in today's smartphones or tablets, Chandrasekher said. The iPhone 5s has only 1GB of DRAM. "Predominantly... you need it for memory addressability beyond 4GB. That's it. You don't really need it for performance, and the kinds of applications that 64-bit get used in mostly are large, server-class applications," said Chandrasekher, who previously ran Intel's mobile platforms group. The 5s is the first smartphone with a 64-bit chip, and almost a year ahead of its Android smartphone rivals. So far, 64-bit chips have largely been relegated to PCs and servers, but the technology's merits in smaller mobile devices has been questioned. Apple claims the iPhone 5s is two times faster than its predecessor, and that the A7 brings desktop-style computing to the smartphone. But benchmark tets have raised questions about how much of the performance gains can be credited purely to 64-bit capabilities. Qualcomm is the one of the world's top suppliers of chips for smartphones and tablets, and its Snapdragon chips are used in Android and Windows Phone smartphones. The chip maker ultimately will deliver a 64-bit mobile chip, but sees the move as more beneficial from engineering, chip design and OSes standpoints. "From an engineering efficiency standpoint it just makes sense to go do that. Particularly the OS guys will want it at some point in time," said Chandrasekher, who declined to say when the its 64-bit chip would be introduced. Consumers and tablet and smartphone makers won't drive the demand for 64-bit chips, Chandrasekher said. Chip makers are upgrading to 64-bit in order to keep up with the latest chip designs and to reduce manufacturing costs. Qualcomm designs chips based on architecture from ARM Holdings, which in 2011 introduced its first 64-bit architecture and subsequently announced 64-bit processor designs. Top ARM-based chip makers like Samsung and Nvidia have already announced that they would make 64-bit ARM-based processors. But outside the iPhone 5s, the first 64-bit ARM-based chips are expected to appear in servers like Hewlett-Packard's Moonshot. Companies like AppliedMicro, Advanced Micro Devices and Calxeda are expected to ship 64-bit ARM-based server chips starting next year.temple run pc softonic find codec gom player gezginler northern rail driver asus p4p800e drivers microstar mid2020 drivers drivers canon 3110 3228 cheat money in plants vs zombies cheat engine viber for blackberry curve 9320 flash player 6 myegy ok netgear print router