Choices choices. Which kindle to buy?

 Amazon’s Kindle product line, which expanded with three new models Wednesday, has come a long way since it was first introduced in 2007.

That original $399 Kindle had a poor design–I bought one and returned it after a couple of weeks. The $359 Kindle 2 introduced in 2009 was better—a lot better—and I bought one and kept it. The 2010 model continued the trend of a rapidly declining price ($189 for a Wi-Fi and 3G version, $139 for a Wi-Fi-only model) bad credit loans and rapidly improving hardware design. (Let’s not speak of the enormous and expensive Kindle DX, please.)

For the fourth generation of Kindle, Amazon’s fragmented the Kindle product line even further. There’s the fourth-generation Kindle itself, the new Kindle Touch, and of course the full-color Kindle Fire. If you’re in the market for an ebook reader, choosing among Kindle options has never been unsecured loans more confusing.

The namesake

Fourth-generation Kindle.

Let’s start with the Kindle’s namesake. Like previous Kindles, it’s powered by a grayscale E-Ink screen that looks great in sunlight and requires lighting at night. This little guy is the cheapest Kindle yet, but the trade-off is that it’s got no touchscreen. As with previous-generation Kindles, you move forward and back through the pages of your book via buttons on the left and right side of the device. Four other buttons and a directional square sit just below the screen, and you presumably use these buttons to navigate through the rest of the Kindle interface. Since the keyboard of old Kindles has vanished, you’ll need to do any typing through the laborious use of a “ouija board” keyboard, guided by the directional square.

If that sounds painful, well, yeah, it’s painful. But I’d wager that most Kindle users do very little work with the keyboard, which is why I’m excited that Amazon decided to dump it. I will occasionally highlight a passage and leave a note, but it’s rare. I basically only use the keyboard to enter in wi-fi passwords, and I can manage that from the ouija board.

If you do type a lot on your Kindle, the new fourth-generation Kindle isn’t for you. (The fourth-generation Kindle only supports Wi-Fi networking, so if you’re a big traveler who is often without nearby Wi-Fi, it’s also not for you.) But starting at $79, I suspect, will make it the right Kindle for a whole lot of people who are curious about the ebook thing.

The whole “starting at $79” complication to the product is because of a new wrinkle to Amazon’s price structure, added earlier this year: the ad-supported “Kindle with Special Offers” approach. In exchange for a discount on the Kindle hardware, your Kindle displays ads when it’s turned off, as well as a small ad tile on its home screen. (Relax—there are no ads in the books themselves.)

It sounds kind of chintzy, embedding ads in a product like this. And that’s why Amazon will let you pay $109 for a fourth-generation Kindle without Special Offers. However, I’ve talked to some people with the Special Offers Kindle who say that the ads are more of a feature than a liability. I’ve heard of good deals on Amazon merchandise, and even gift-card deals such as $20 Amazon credit for $10. If you have a stomach for a little marketing and enjoy getting deals on Amazon.com goods, the Special Offers Kindle might be an even better deal than it appears to be.

(And honestly, since Amazon doesn’t let you swap in your own images for its custom screen saver, all you’re doing is seeing ads instead of old woodcut illustrations of dead authors. I’d think more carefully about the Kindle with Special Offers if I was replacing pictures of my kids with ads.)

The touchscreen

Kindle Touch.

The upgraded version of the “classic” Kindle design is the Kindle Touch, which starts at $99. It’s an e-ink-based device as well, very much like the fourth-generation Kindle but without all of those buttons. Instead, it’s the first e-ink Kindle to be driven by a touchscreen. (Kindle’s archenemy, Barnes and Noble’s Nook, got a touchscreen in May.)

To turn pages with the Kindle Touch, you just touch the screen. The bulk of the screen turns the page forward; a narrow strip on the left side turns it backward, and a tap at the very top brings up a toolbar. If you need to type, you bring up a software keyboard and tap on the keys as you would on an iPhone or iPad.

It all sounds quite civilized, and I’d expect that the Kindle Touch will eventually spell the death of the classic buttony Kindle. But if you don’t do a lot of text entry on your Kindle, I’m not sure just how crucial that touch interface is to the enjoyment of books. Clicking the next button works pretty well. I don’t have to move my finger to tap on the screen (and get my finger grease on that screen).

I admit that in the long run using a square of directional buttons to navigate around will feel about as modern as stone knives and bear skins. Yet I find myself wondering if I might actually prefer the fourth-generation Kindle to the touchscreen model—it’s a bit smaller and lighter than the Kindle Touch. I guess I’ll have to try the Kindle Touch’s touchscreen out to see just how it works in real life.

The pricing of the Kindle Touch is more complicated than the fourth-generation model, because it comes in both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi/3G versions, with and without Special Offers. The Wi-Fi-only version will cost $99 with Special Offers or $139 without; the Wi-Fi/3G version (which offers 3G cellular-data connectivity to the Internet without any data charges, ever—still a pretty good deal) costs $149 with Special Offers, $189 without.

Arcade Fire

Kindle Fire.

At the top of the line—and only $10 more than the 3G/Wi-Fi Kindle Touch without Special Offers!—is the $199 Kindle Fire. This is the big one, a seven-inch backlit color touchscreen. (No need for a clip-on Kindle book light!) It’s unlike any other Kindle (and more akin to the archenemy $249 Nook Color).

Though it’s based on Google’s Android operating system, it’s not meant to be Yet Another Android Tablet. Indeed, the Kindle Fire doesn’t contain any Google apps, so far as we can tell. Instead, Amazon’s built its own interface, tied into not just the Kindle Store, but the rest of the Amazon ecosystem: Amazon’s Appstore, MP3 music store, and video store.

The Kindle Fire is a media-consumption device that goes way beyond book reading. Though you can read books on the Kindle Fire, it’s meant for web browsing, videos, music, and apps—especially games. As always, the devil is in the details, but the Kindle Fire looks primed to rapidly become the first successful tablet product not made by Apple.

So is the Kindle Fire an iPad competitor? It certainly seems to fit right between the iPod touch and the iPad. When Apple launched the iPad it made a big deal about it being capable of running iWork apps, about not being just a content-consumption device. The Kindle Fire is unabashedly a content-consumption device. And it looks like it might be a pretty good one. It’s also hard to see how other Android-based tablets will compete with the Kindle Fire, which comes pre-wired with an entire entertainment ecosystem for a remarkably low price.

To get the Kindle Fire to be priced at $199, Amazon has definitely made some compromises. It has no cameras, for instance, and only Wi-Fi networking. I’m not sure if most people will care.

However, let’s also remember that the Kindle Fire is a 1.0 product. It’s Amazon’s very first attempt to build an Android-based backlit color-LCD device. There are bound to be bugs and quirks and, who knows, there are even rumors that this is a stopgap product to get Amazon through the holidays.

So, what to buy?

If you picture a giftwrapped Kindle in your holiday plans, you’ll need to get in line soon. I imagine Amazon will rapidly sell out for the holidays. As always, which device you should buy depends on how you’ll use it.

If you’ve already got an iPad, I’m not sure the Kindle Fire makes sense. The iPad already lets you read Kindle books, visit websites, rent videos, and the rest. If you haven’t bought an iPad, though, it looks compelling, but I’m a little concerned that the first-generation model is going to have some rough edges. Buyer beware.

I’ve got an iPad and a Kindle, though. I love my iPad, but I prefer reading books (and even my morning newspaper) on the light, small Kindle with its e-ink display. Personally, I’m torn between the fourth-generation Kindle and the Kindle Touch.

If you are a current Kindle user who uses the physical keyboard a lot (or if you’re a non-Kindle user who anticipates taking lots of notes on the books you read), you should buy the Kindle Touch. If you don’t expect to use the keyboard, the adjectiveless Kindle is probably just fine. If you’re like Cayce Pollard and allergic to branding, you should pay the extra dough to avoid the Special Offers models; if you’re a deal-finder, you might prefer to save cash and then take advantage of those selfsame offers.

If you want a new Kindle for the holidays you may have to take your best guess, order one, and see what happens. If you’re not satisfied, at least Amazon will let you return it for a refund—a policy I took advantage of way back in December of 2007. The Kindle’s sure come a long way since then. 

Motorcycle alarm to control thefts

 Motorcycle theft remains a growing problem in the UK due to owners failing to take solid steps like buying something as simple as a tough motorcycle security chain. It takes only approximately 12 seconds to steal an unsecured loans unprotected and unchained motorcycle. Due to lack of bike security more motorcycles are stolen, disappointed and inconvenienced and even more is spent on anti-theft insurance policies. Theft accounts for on third of insurance claims. U.K. is the largest supplier of motorcycle alarms. Its alarms are rock solid and come complete with very clear instructions written by them and designed to match your exact make and model of bike including showing your bikes wire colors at the connection points. They are also cheap and even suitable for all motorcycles or scooters that use a 12V electrical system. Motorcycle alarm fitters cover London, North Lancashire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Cumbria, Birmingham, Gloucester, Hull, Coventry,  Oxford and Lincolnshier in U.K. Motorcycle alarms are designed exclusively for installation on all other types of motorcycles. Page Alarms and Thatch-am Combined Alarm Immobilizer and full range online. Advanced alarm system is always available in U.K.’s market now that is most up to date and featured packed motorcycle alarm and in most cases these are installed in motorcycles without cutting any bike wires. The V3 has come with a microwave cloaking system that detects someone before they even touch your bike and can be adjusted from a few mm around the bike up to as far as a meter out to cover a small shed. It includes American micro-chip technology alarm unit, remote key less engine starting, shock sensor adjustment, bike locating function, detailed user guide, overtake warning, presentation gift box, wiring kit, bad credit loans 12 month warranty, built in clock on remotes, wiring diagram for your exact motorcycle type, blue flashing LED shows its armed, silent alarm function, vibration alert on pager fob, two way communication system to keep you aware, anti-hijack function kills the engine using the remote, two way remotes with color LCD displays and finished with chrome metal, 125db siren..

SoftHeat Plush Triple Rib Review

Owning an electric blanket and using them during the winter season can save you hundreds worth of dollars on electric bills. By using an electric blanket at night, you unsecured loans are no longer going to be needing to turn the centralized heat on at home. It’s cheaper and much more convenient.

An electric blanket is also considerably lighter compared to conventional blankets. These types of blankets make it really hard for you to move around confortably on your bed because of the weight. An electric blanket is so much lighter.

Now that we have taken a look at the advantages of an electric blanket we are now going to take a look at the SoftHeat Plush Triple Rib Electric Heated bad credit loans Warming Blanket. Will it easily break? Will it give enough warmth? What about the cords? Is that going to be a problem?

SoftHeat Plush Triple Rib at a Glance

Check out what the SoftHeat Plush Triple Rib blanket has to offer.

• This blanket uses a patented Safe & warm technology that is low in voltage and is safer compared to most blankets
• An energy saver
• The wires inside the blanket are not at all bulky and are very thin that it’s almost impossible for you to feel anything
• Heats evenly, no cold or hot spots
• Has a pre-heat feature and a temperature hold feature
• Dual controls (on both sides) would let you set it to automatically shut itself off after ten hours
• Fabric is soft and luxurious to the touch
• Can be washed and dried by machine without stretching or shrinking the fabric

We recommend the SoftHeat Plush Triple Rib for staying effectively warm during the cold season.

Honda Asimo Robot

I'm Going Where? Wikimedia Commons

[Updated 2:25 p.m.] Honda sent us an e-mail saying the Asahi Shimbun report is "speculative." "Although Honda hopes that ASIMO will someday be a helper to people, at this point the robot is unsecured loans solely a research and design project," a Honda spokeswoman said.

A couple camera-toting robots have been tooling around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where radiation levels are still making it unsafe for human workers. Now Japanese media are reporting the crews are getting their first humanoid counterpart.

Honda is aiming to redesign Asimo, its 4-foot-tall humanoid robot, so it can join workers at Fukushima Daiichi, according to Japanese media. Asimo would  need tires or caterpillar tracks instead of its delicate legs, and the robot would also need updates to its arms so they can move as smoothly as a human’s, according to the newspaper Asahi Shimbun (reported by AFP).

Since it was introduced a little more than 10 years ago, Asimo has been a robot ambassador of sorts, used mostly to spur robotics research and development. The robot greets children at science museums and has even met heads of state. But it has not been tapped for such difficult labor before.

Asimo can easily shake hands, carry a tray and push small objects, but it would need motorized shoulders, elbows and wrists to get more human-like moves, the paper says. It’s not clear what Asimo would be doing inside the Fukushima plant, but it would likely go into radiation bad credit loans hotspots where it remains dangerous for humans to enter.

Fukushima Daiichi’s reactors have been leaking radiation since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out its cooling systems. Workers are being exposed to high levels of radiation while trying to make repairs. Japanese elderly have even offered to do the job, to spare the younger workers from harmful radiation. But a human-like robot would clearly be a better 

YouTube - Updates

As I was updating my post on the iPad Experience unsecured loans by adding a video from YouTube, I noticed that YouTube updated the UI of its video player. Here’s how it looks like:

YouTube video player - new UI

It seems that after the new video and profile pages that YouTube rolled out over the past few months, it was time to bring the flash player up to speed with the rest of the site’s interface (note: the new UI is not available in all videos yet).

As you can see, the controls have been re-arranged and they have a updated look and feel. In comparison, these are the old vs new designs:

YouTube video player - old vs new design

As a first impression, I like the improved aesthetics of the player and the less cluttered interface. The right-hand side of the old player was starting to look like a full loaded toolbar from Word (just to watch a video!).

The most obvious change is the progress bar, which has been moved above the other buttons and changes in size as you interact with the video. In its normal state it takes only a few pixels, but when you move your mouse cursor on top of the video player, it expands (having a minor transparency) bad credit loans and lets you interact with it. The rest of the buttons become ‘active’ as well, by a small change in color tone.

In regards to the new progress bar, although they moved it in order to free space for the other buttons, there is a small delay now before you can use it (move the cursor over the player > wait for the bar to appear > locate the progress indicator > click). So, this might have a negative usability effect when you just want to skim through a video quickly.

YouTube video player - new progress bar

Another interesting change is the volume control, which now expands horizontally as your mouse cursor hovers the button and doesn’t float over the video (how many times I had to click the volume button after I had adjusted the volume, just for the indicator to go away and let me watch the video). I still find the size of the volume bar small. They could increase its width and let us have a finer control over the volume.

YouTube video player - new volume control

YouTube found a simple way to reduce the clutter in the right-hand side of the player, by separating the buttons into two groups:

• buttons that appear in every video (player size, full screen)
• buttons that appear only under specific conditions (captions, subtitles, quality)

and giving them a distinct design:

YouTube video player - new misc buttons

Overall, the new UI design is less cluttered, straightforward to use and looks sleek (while providing the same functionality). I’m sure we are going to see further updates as the YouTube team starts getting feedback from the users. Well done YouTube!

last.fm.com a visual guide to your music tastes

I have been a member of last.fm.com for well over three years. It’s a site dedicated to the scrobbling of your music being played on your computer and mp3 player. You can collect the stats concerning the your fav artists and songs. You also get suggestions for other bands and genres that might interest you based upon your current stats. In other words its Facebook unsecured loans for music lovers.

They incorporate a layout approach like flickr has, with thumbnails and photostreams of images of the artist. To to me this site adds a visual experience to baD CREDIT loans my music that I didn’t really have before while listen to music on my computer. It organizes your top favorites and provides you with rotating photos of your favorite bands and artists. You even get a choice of switching between a red or black layout.

last.fm has experienced a refresh on their design this past summer which has improved the usability of the interface.

Blu-Ray vs HD DVD

Shuji Nakamura’s blue laser diode exactly fit requirements for next generation DVDs: accurate, reliable, small and affordable both for manufacturing and running costs. It was a brilliant invention, and it offered the opportunity for a single, industry wide high-definition optical storage standard to be agreed upon by the turn of the new millennium.

Of course, that is not what happened. Instead, chasing a supposed multi-billion dollar prize, two opposing factions backed mutually incompatible blue laser optical storage solutions: Blu-ray and HD-DVD. There followed years of deadlock which, though Blu-ray finally bad credit loans came out on top, arguably nobody really won, least of all the consumer.

At the time specifications for the technologies were first disclosed, a comparison with the current DVD format looked as follows:

Format	Current generation	Next generation
DVD playback	4.7GB (single-layer disc); 650nm red laser; MPEG-2 video compression.	Blu-ray disc; 27GB (single-layer disc); up to 50GB (dual-layer disc); 405nm blue-violet laser; MPEG-2 video; incompatible with DVD format.
DVD recordable	4.7GB (single-layer disc); DVD-R (write-once); DVD-RAM (rewritable); DVD-RW (rewritable); DVD+RW (rewritable); 650nm red laser; MPEG-2 video compression.	HD-DVD disc; 9GB (dual layer disc); 405nm blue-violet laser; MPEG-4 or improved MPEG-2 with extensive pre- and post-processing; compatible with DVD format.

Initial indications were that DVD Forum member Warner Bros. and other movie content production companies were firmly in the HD-DVD camp, since it would allow Hollywood studios to repurpose their content one more time without having first to incur high investment costs in transitioning to brand-new replication equipment. In effect, the similarity between HD-DVD and the then current DVD manufacturing processes made it much less expensive to adapt production lines for producing HD-DVDs than it would be to adapt for BD production.

This initial support from Hollywood, likely the quickest to market vendors of the new technology, gave considerable weight to the HD-DVD argument, and quite possibly proved the single most significant factor in precipitating the debacle that followed. Despite most technology manufacturers support for Blu-ray from the off, the DVD Forum could easily justify its decision to support HD-DVD technology on the grounds of production costs alone.

Furthermore, as late as 2005 Intel and Microsoft both announced their backing for HD-DVD, as several of their developments (including Microsoft’s HDi technology) were vested in HD-DVD’s future. Horns seemed locked immovably, despite long and vigorous negotiations.

Some hopefuls suggested that it might be possible for the HD-DVD and BD technologies to co-exist. HD-DVD, they suggested, could be positioned as a playback format for pre-recorded HD-DVD movies. BD, on the other hand, could provide a recording format for real-time interlaced TV programs, including HDTV programming. Others tried to combine the technologies. LG and Samsung released dual HD-DVD/BD drives. Some computer manufacturers, including HP and Acer, sold PCs with combination HD-DVD/BD drives.

These experiments, however, were failures. Progress on a compromise seemed so doomed to failure that sabotage rumours arose. Some said the war was being deliberately fostered by companies who would benefit from the failure of high definition optical disk technology. For instance, companies serving high definition content online, or over airwaves, with hard disk high definition content storage, would certainly benefit if there  was no alternative disk medium. Of course, all such intimations were strongly denied.

Possibly, and perhaps surprisingly, the final death blow for HD-DVD came from the gaming industry. As next-generation consoles came through, anticipation was not only focussed on graphical and processing advancements, but on the optical drive technology to be employed. For their part, Microsoft created a HD-DVD player as an add-on for the X-Box console, but Sony’s PS3 shipped Blu-ray ready.

It was a smart move by Sony. Sales of the PS3 far outstripped the X-Box in the influential Japanese market, and uptake of Microsoft’s add-on HD-DVD player, or indeed any HD-DVD player, was poor in comparison. It was clear; Blu-ray had finally outflanked its opponent.

By the end of 2005 the BD format appeared to have a lead over its rival. By then, most major movie studios had come over to the Blu-ray camp, and committed to releasing films in the format by the following year. There were a number of skirmishes still to play out. Notably, HD-DVD players were first released by Sony in January 2006, a few months ahead of Blu-ray, which they hoped was a major coup. It Unsecured loans didn’t prove to be any great advantage, though, as consumer take-up was very slow. Also, new triple layer HD-DVD specifications created ripples as late as September 2007, bring the HD-DVD’s capacity up to 51GB.

But it was too late: HD-DVD had lost. The power and influence of the DVD Forum waned, membership numbers falling. At time of writing, with considerable irony the DVD Forum’s FAQ for HD-DVD technology still reads: Coming soon!

The years 2002 to 2008 saw an ugly and damaging battle between rival formats echoing the VCR VHS/Betamax format war which raged in the decade ending in the late 1980s. However,  unlike the prevailing opinion of the VCR war’s outcome, perhaps this time the better option won through. Blu-ray’s advantages over HD-DVD included better interactivity, better Internet connectivity, and far larger storage capacity.

But it was a fight to the bitter death. Blu-ray only walked away victorious when Toshiba finally announced the discontinuation of HD-DVD technology in the autumn of 2008.