Kindle, Nook hitting rock bottom prices

Technorati Tags: iPad,Apple,Kindle,Android,iPhone,Kindle 2,Nook,Barnes and Noble,Amazon,Sony,Kobo,Borders,E Ink,Vizplex

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With the arrival of iPad from Apple and book reading applications coming quickly on iPhone and Android phones, competition is getting neck-breaking among E-reader devices.

Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook have apparently seem to hit the rock bottom prices for their e-readers and margin of profit is very sleek for e-readers. Only Sony e-reader has not cut down the price among the bigger players whereas smaller companies like Kobo( Borders ereader at $149), iRex,Plastc Logic and others  have to work very hard to compete with the big guns like Amazon and B&N even with drastic cut in prices for their respective e-readers.

The price war started with Barnes & Noble’s introduction of Wifi only Nook for just $149 and Wi-Fi/3G model at $199. Amazon was quick to follow the lead by dropping 3G Kindle 2 price to $189.

Kindle and Nook both uses Vizplex E Ink for crispy paper like display which is superior at daytime compared to its counter part brighter and sharper LCD display used in iPad and smartphones.

After some search and reviews from authetic sites, i believe the main reason behind this critical price cut is due to the launch and popularity of iPad from Apple which has passed the 3 MILLLION mark. Barnes and Noble has openly admitted that they have to cut the price because an all purpose device at $500 is hard to compete with only book reader device at $249.

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$42 Billion Lost to Pirated PSP and DSGames

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According to the study by the Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association, nearly $42 billion worth of Sony PSP(Portable Play Station) and Nintendo DS games were illegally downloaded from internet. This does not include peer-to-peer sharing methods and pirated CDs in Asia especially China, India , Pakistan, Bangladesh which could put the numbers at a significantly higher value. America is number one with the most servers hosting piracy sites, with China at number 2.

This figure is quite close to the approximate loss in software industry in 2009. Italy tops the list of countries with Video Games Piracy Losses followed by China, Spain , South Korea, Russia, Mexico, Taiwan, Brazil, Sweden, India (losses more than 100 Million) and so on. 

TorrentFreak reveals that in 2009,the PC version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 was downloaded 4.1 million times from torrent sites. The Xbox 360 version of the game was downloaded more than 970,000 times.

The figures are related to portable games and Console based games are yet to be comprehensively analyzed

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Is Eee Pad a Competitor to iPad from Asus

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iPad has made its debut in the market with flash colors and is already been a success. It seems that after iPhone everything launched by Apple is a success no matter if world requires it or not. Even without including estimated revenues from iPad, Apple is already on a bumpy profit line and second quarter seems to be far more profitable with iPad revenues and launch of new iPhone model.

Other companies like Microsoft, Dell and Asus has jumped into the bandwagon of Tablet PCs after the sensational tablet PC from Apple, the iPad. It seems that Asus is going to be second best company to launch a tablet PC that can offer a real competition to our beloved Apple iPad.

This new tablet PC is going to be named as Eee Pad right after popular netbook series of EeePC. The device will run google’s Android on Nvidia Tegra Processor and costs between $479 and $510 with an expected launch in couple of months.

Dell is working on an Android based tablet to compete with hp’s Windows 7 based Slate.

By the end of this year, we are going to see lot of Tablet PCs and this really gonna be a fun.

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iPod History

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First iPod

On October 23, 2001, Apple held a press conference in Cupertino, California,the birth place of Apple to announce a new product ----the first non computer product released by Apple since the ill fated console gaming system, Pippin, and the first such product produced since Apple co-founder Steve Jobs returned to the company. Web based rumor sites were rife with speculation information manager? An advanced console computing ultimate crock pot?

Steve Job introduced Apple’s first portable music player, iPod which disappointed the audience at the conference who were expected a hifi computing gadget from Apple, Mp3 player was not on their speculative list.

“It has a lot of capacity to store music, ample battery,aesthetically appealing, ease of file transfer and very easy to use  but we were not expecting a mere MP3 player after so much hype in the media and at that too at such a high cost. $399,are you kidding?

This was the initial response from the audience but Apple made a very intelligent move by awarding every attendant a free iPod ath the end of the event.

The trick worked as almost every review appreciated the beautiful slim design, soft rich sound and easy navigation through its menus. Price was criticized but iPod was rated best among the lot. Apple sold 125,000 of them in the first 60 days.

Release 2 and the Second Generation:

In march 2002, Apple released a second iPod model that featured 10GB hard drive costing $499---$100 more with additional features as the ability to keep contacts on your iPod, music scrubbing, on-board equalization.

On october 17, 2002, a new generation was announced with new prices and higher capacity model. New features included calendar information, a new touch-sensitive scroll wheel, redesigned earbuds that fil smaller ear canals more comfortably, support for Audible.com content. Apple also welcomed PC users into the iPod fold by issuing models compatible with Windows.

 

List of iPod Models

Classic:

First Generation with 5,10 GB released on 23 Oct 2001

Second Generation with 10,20 GB released on 17 July 2002

Third Generation with 10,15,20,30,40 GB released on 28 April 2003

Fourth Generation with 20,40 GB released on 19 July 2004

Fifth Generation with 30,60,80 GB released on 12 Oct 2005

Sixth Generation with 80,120,160 GB released on 5 Sep 2007

Mini:

First Generation with 6 GB released on 6 Jan 2004

Second Generation with 4,6 GB released on 22 Feb 2005

 

Nano:

First Generation with 1,2,4 GB released on 7 Sep 2005

Second Generation with 2,4,8 GB released on 12 Sep 2006

Third Generation with 4,8 GB released on 5 Sep 2007

Fourth Generation with 4,8,16 GB released on 9 Sep 2008

Fifth Generation with 8,16 GB released on 9 Sep 2009

Shuffle:

First Generation with 512 MB, 1 GB released on 11 Jan 2005

Second Generation with 1,2 GB released on 12 Sep 2006

Third Generation with 2,4 GB released on 11 Mar 2009

Touch:

First Generation with  8,16,32 GB released on 5 Sep 2007

Second Generation with 8,16,32 GB released on 9 Sep 2008

Third Generation with 32,64 GB released on 9 Sep 2009

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iPad Another Cool Gadget by Apple

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We can lot of hand carrying devices coming out in the market in the name of E Readers from Amazon, Sony and Barnes and Noble. Amazon Kindle was a real success after many unsuccessful attempts to build a good E-reader. iPad has added a stiff competition to Amazon Kindle and other E-readers including Soney E-reader and B&N Nook.

Apple is likely to transform the way we do everything from reading the newspaper, sending emails, listening music to preparing business presentations.

IPAD OVERVIEW

It can viewed as an oversized iPod touch with a modified interface. Its features include the ability to browse the web, check email,listen to music and edit photos.Apple also launched onary iBookstore for the device which will serve up books from atleast five major publishers.

According to Apple

A magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price Starting at $499.

 

IPAD COMPOSITION

Accordign to Wikipedia

The iPad has a 9.7-inch (25 cm) LED backlit multi-touch display with a pixel resolution of 1024×768, 16 to 64 gigabytes (GB) of flash memory, a 1-gigahertz (GHz) Apple A4 processor, Bluetooth 2.1, and a 30-pin dock connector to sync with iTunes and connect wired accessories.

It has built-in 802.11n to take advantage of the Wi-Fi networks. It also comes with Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR to connect to devices like wireless headphones or Wireless Keyboard. A model with 3G is expected soon.

It comes with a choice of 16GB,32GB,64GB of flash storage and battery life of 10 hours.

It also comes in with a headphone jack and builtin microphone.

ACCESSORIES

Popular iPad accessories are iPad keyboard dock that combines a dock for charging iPad with a full size keyboard. There is also iPad case,USB power adapter and iPad Camera connection kit.

COST

Prices range from $499 with 16GB to $829 for top 3G wireless enabled model

SPECS

• 1.5 pounds
• 1GHz
• 10 hours of battery life and month of battery standby.
• Speaker
• Microphone
• Accelerometer
• Compass
• Headphone jack
• 16 to 64GB of flash storage
• Bluetooth

Softwares

iPad will run only softwares downloaded from Apple App Store. It will run almost all third party applications that run on iPhone. iPad comes with the following applications:

• Safari
• Mail
• Calendar
• YouTube
• Video
• iTune Store
• App Store
• Maps
• Spotlight
• iBooks (display books from iBookStore)

Features Missing

• Mutlitasking
• USB port
• SD slot
• Camera
• Flash