Top Click Media Staff Blog » Hardware

Sony to provide Classic Books for free

James Oliver — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:00:38 +0000

In the early days of the eBook reader wars Kindle appears to have the advantage. Its catchier name and cannier marketing have helped it win the vital race to household name status. As a result, few people are even aware that there is an alternative.

That, however, is probably set to change with the news that Sony, makers of the ‘Digital Book,’ have announced a partnership with Google – a partnership that gives Sony’s device a significant added extra.

Thanks to the deal brokered last night, digital book users will now be able to access around half a million classic books completely free, through Sony’s eBook Store.

How is this possible? Well, it’s all to do with the Google Book Search project. Book Search is a scheme that has been going on for years, it involves armies of hapless Google employees scanning thousands upon thousands of books into computers and, in part at least, converting to them digital format.

Sony are able to give the results of Book Search away for free because Google have only given them books on which the copyrights have expired. This means that the vast majority of the new free books available on the Sony reader were written before 1923.

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The Netbook Revolution: Winners and Losers (Part 3)

Simon King — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 08:00:03 +0000

Apple’s price cuts stand in stark contrast to their public statements on the subject of netbooks. The company recently reacted angrily to suggestions that they were developing an Apple netbook. Rather ironically, for a company so skilled at manipulating the media through controlled leaks, they hit out at the culture of rumour mongering on the various Apple-following blogs and stated that Apple have no idea how to make a computer below $500 dollars “That’s not a piece of junk.”

The implication here from Apple is clear, netbooks are junk and Apple is above making one. That attitude however, is not going to save them from competing. It’s not really the netbooks themselves that are causing the trouble for Apple – there’s clearly a big difference between a netbook and a Macbook – the issue is the newly cut-price PCs that can’t help but take market share away from Apple. To a certain extent they can rely on brand loyalty to save them, there are plenty of people out there who are always going to buy Apple products. However, it’s hard to see many ‘floating consumers’ paying several hundred pounds more just for the Apple cool-factor.

So what can apple do to mitigate the situation. Well, for me, they have two choices, either get into a price war they can’t possibly win with PC manufacturers or boost their sales by building a great netbook and stealing some of that market. Looks like they might have to learn how to build a sub-500 dollar computer.

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The Netbook Revolution: Winners and Losers (Part 2)

Simon King — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:14:27 +0000

(Continued from Yesterday)

The impact on the laptop business has been clear. In February, Windows based laptops fell in average price by a whopping 22 percent to $560 dollars a time. As well as demonstrating quite how worried the laptop makers are, this also shows something about the profit margins that they’ve been operating at up until now, that they can just slash their prices so quickly.

But what about the companies that can’t just slash their prices so radically, what about the boutique laptop producers that focus all their efforts on targeting the high-end of the market, essentially, what about Apple? Well, the company have been attempting to follow suit, but lacking the economies of scale that the PC makers enjoy and perhaps also the willing to change, they only managed a 7 per cent fall in average price in February.

This price drop, whilst nothing compared to the fall in PC prices, is significant, particularly from a company usually so allergic to price cuts. It shows that Apple are worried about the situation and willing to attempt to at least attempt to do something about it.

(continued tomorrow)

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The Netbook Revolution: Winners and Losers (Part 1)

Simon King — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:13:57 +0000

The word ‘revolution’ gets overused in blogs like this – a product starts selling well and suddenly it’s the Adwords revolution, or the SmartPhone revolution across the blogosphere. In the case of netbooks however, it might just be appropriate, not only because they’re flying off the shelves but because their bargain basement prices have changed the laptop game, forcing laptop manufacturers to strongly consider sacrificing their profit margins in order to compete.

The trouble is that a lot of people who spend £500 – £1000 pounds on a full laptop only end up using it to view documents and the internet and do a little typing. These people are beginning to realise that they can do all this on a netbook, and that buying a laptop is, for them, a huge waste of money. Essentially, whilst that £170 pound netbook might not be the most powerful machine in the world it does a job, that’s all some people need.

This disparity in price is particularly attractive to businesses, especially in the current climate. If you know your employees only need their laptop to stay in contact or work a little on the train, then why pay that extra few hundred pounds every time?

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PC sales to rebound

Matt Thomas — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 08:37:35 +0000

Whilst financial analysts predict that the recession will get worse before it gets better the computer hardware sector has some reason to be cautiously optimistic. IDC have updated their PC shipping forecasts for the next two years and the new predictions indicate that whilst they are expecting shipments to continue to fall over 2009 a gradual upturn is expected in 2010.

That said, the fall predicted this year has been upgraded to 4.5% from the previous figure of 3.8% made in December. Worldwide PC shipments are expected to total million this year which would represent a drop of 13.2 million from the 295.2 million that were shipped in 2008.

Unsurprisingly, the rise in unemployment and the fall in consumer spending has been blamed for the drop in shipments. A major trend to remedy this amongst computer manufactures is the push to make products more individual. There is a school of thought that laptops and computers are currently too impersonal, that they need a greater number of personalised options like coloured casings, etc.

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Kindle Sales Pitch doesn’t hold Water (Part 2)

Jay Smith — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 08:00:12 +0000

(Continued from yesterday)

Reason 4: It has a new screen!

The new Kindle screen is supposed to make the text clearer. In reality however, it’s kind of just several shades of grey. It is better than the former version’s black and white display but it’s hard to get too excited about it.

Reason 5: You can download blogs and surf the Internet

Well yes, in theory. However, let me once again point to netbooks and the iPod touch, devices that can do this much, much better and also display documents. I think I need a better reason, guys.

Reason 6: It’s smaller than a Book

Yes, it is smaller than most books but once more, guys, so is the iPod Touch or any SmartPhone, even a netbook could make the same claim, depending on the book.
So those are the reasons to buy Kindle, not especially convincing I think you’ll agree. However, to even discuss these issues slightly missing the wider point that, simply put, people like books. They feel good in your hand, you can highlight and write notes in the margin and you look cool reading them in coffee shops (again depending on the book).

The long and short of it I fear is that digital readers are an innovation that nobody except the publishing industry really wants.

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Kindle Sales Pitch doesn’t hold Water

William Peebles — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:00:36 +0000

Kindle, the new ebook reader from Amazon is being promoted hard by its manufacturers, particularly as a business tool though to me the main reasons being given don’t quite seem to add up. See what you think…

Reason 1: It could replace your laptop!

I’m sorry but no it couldn’t – Kindle can read documents, that’s it. It can’t view spreadsheets, it can’t write documents, the only way it could replace your laptop would be if you were tragically under using your laptop. While we’re on the subject, can’t a laptop do everything Kindle can do? So why exactly should I carry an extra device around?

Reason 2: It reads to you while you’re driving

Guys, audio books already exist, they are readily available on iTunes and playable on your iPod. What’s more, they don’t speak to you in a strange electronic voice. The iPod is also a lot smaller than Kindle and so kind of wins this fight hands down.

Reason 3: You can look for information using exciting new techniques

You can search through your entire electronic library for a specific phrase or word using Kindle which seems like something useful, even fun, though how often would you actually use it, really?

Plus, it really isn’t that new a way to search, you can do this with your iPod or Netbook just as easily.

(More tomorrow)

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IBM builds World’s fastest Supercomputer

Jay Smith — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:50:28 +0000

IBM is poised to announce that it will be constructing the world’s fastest supercomputer for the US Department of Energy. The machine, named Sequoia, will be the fastest supercomputer ever built and will significantly outperform the current holder of that title, roadrunner – also built by IBM.

Technical information is understandably scarce but it is thought that Sequoia will be able to run at 20 petaflops (a petaflop means a quadrillion calculations per second). If you consider that Roadrunner was the first system to reach 1.026 petaflops then you start to see the level of performance and the leap in technology we’re talking about. According to Reuters, Sequoia will have the equivalent power of 2 million standard laptops.

Sequoia’s home is to be the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where it will be used to run simulations, designed to test the U.S’s nuclear weaponry stockpile for soundness.

IBM say that Sequoia is energy efficient. However, it is still going to use over 6 megawatts of per year, roughly the energy use of 500 homes.

Unfortunately, sources indicate the supercomputer is predicted to have trouble running Windows Vista… Sorry, I couldn’t resist the obvious joke.

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Sales rally for Blu-Ray

Mark Isle — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:43:23 +0000

In a market where most products are understandably struggling to sell, Blu-Ray has been thriving. The video format that is being touted as the eventual successor to DVD, tripled its sales over the Christmas period as compared with last year. The figures were released at the CES, an event that’s proving to be good luck for Blu-Ray – Last year, just before it, Warner Bros withdrew their support for HD-DVD, all but killing the competing format off.

Last year, with Blu-Ray now the only High Def disk out there, the US market ended up buying 28.6 million in the 4th quarter alone. The best seller was The Dark Night which, incidentally, became the first Blu-Ray disk to sell over a million copies.

The fact that one title can account for such a relatively high percentage of the market begs the question how much is 28.6 million anyway, how far behind DVD does Blu-Ray remain. Well, of course Blu-Ray is miles behind its competitor – HD TV is still in its infancy and people have DVD collections that they’re not yet willing to replace.
However, the heartening thing for Blu Ray is that the adoption rate for the new technology is proving much higher than that of DVD. Now, 2.5 years after the launch of the format, there are 10.7 Blu-Ray players in the United States – A similar time after DVDs launched there were only 5.4 million DVD players.

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New Vaio Netbook

Jay Smith — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:00:04 +0000

We wrote earlier in the week about the revolution in netbooks brought on by the harsh economic times and predicted that the big names would soon be bringing out netbooks in order to satisfy this new demand. Well, anyone who doubts that the TCM team know what they’re talking about should check out the Vaio website today. If you do, you’ll find a load of information on brand new Vaio netbook, the Vaio P Series Lifestyle PC.

The P Series is the lightest ever eight inch notebook, weighing in at a not at all punishing one and a half pounds. Being a Vaio, the device is sleek and stylish though it also offers a good enough range of features to mean that it is not simply a fashion accessory, 3G, GPS, etc.

The new Vaio is also powerful enough to run Windows Vista and provide a range of use comparable to your home PC. The battery life is around 4 hours depending on the type of use.

The device is certainly good looking enough to garner the iPhone-style ‘I want one-factor,’ though it might be worth waiting for the reviews to roll in before you rush out and buy one. Like we said, there are more new netbooks on the way.

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The Netbook Revolution

Matt Thomas — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:00:03 +0000

The recession hasn’t been bad for everyone. Makers of Netbooks, the new range of dirt cheap laptops have been raking in the money as people jump at the chance to own a compact and perfectly decent computer for between $300 and $500 dollars.

The boom in success for this kind of computer hasn’t gone unnoticed by the high tech industries who are falling over each other to tailor their products to this emerging markets and maybe even make their own netbook-like products that address some of the devices’ failings.

One of those failings is a lack of power, which means they sometimes struggle with videos and complicated graphics. In response to this, HP plans to release a laptop which will retail at just under $700 dollars and boast much improved capabilities in this area. Another failing is that the devices are often hard on their batteries and take a long time to load up. In response to this, Phoenix Technologies has developed HyperSpace, a layer of software that is downloadable and addresses these issues to an extent.

Essentially, this is a sign that technology companies are looking hard for any way through the recession and, when they see an opportunity, are not afraid to go after it aggressively.

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Lenovo to produce Dual-Screen Thinkpad

Trent Morgan — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:00:04 +0000

Lenovo are to release the world’s first dual-screen laptop computer. The machine boasts both a 17 inch main screen and a slide out display, the idea is to duplicate the benefits of a dual screen desktop PC in a laptop.

The downside is that firstly, it’s heavy and comparatively chunky, of course it is, it has a additional screen. Secondly, the extra screen is hard on battery life. Finally, it’s going to cost you a fair amount more which could really put how much you need that extra bit of screen to the test.

Indeed, the extra screen is too small to accurately replicate the advantages of a dual screen PC. Realistically the 10.6 inch slide out is not going to be used for anything big like word processing or spreadsheets, so it’s probably going to be relegated to things like instant messaging and emails. When you consider this, you start to wonder how much easier it is really going to make anything – is it really that much of an advantage to be able to look across at your mail rather than simply switching between tabs.

I don’t know, this one has the feel of a fly by night gimmick to me.

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LG to release new line of Broadband Televisions

William Peebles — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:03:31 +0000

For years now media types and Internet gurus alike have been telling anyone who’ll listen about how the competition between Internet and TV is irrelevant, that we’re heading for ‘synergy’ between the two mediums and soon they will be practically indecipherable. Well, that dream came a step closer to fruition today with the announcement that major TV manufacturer LG, is to produce a line of TVs that can receive and play Internet video as well as traditional digital signals.

The new televisions will be known as ‘Broadband HDTVs’. For the privilege of flicking between X-Factor and YouTube-style videos of X-Factor, you’ll be looking at about $300 dollars more than a traditional TV of the same specifications.

These TVs will not allow you to surf the Internet freely – they’re not computers, although, they will be hooked up to specific sites allowing you to download particular programmes and movies. The most exciting of these collaborations is with Netflix – Broadband HDTVs (they really need a better name) will have access to the entire ‘Watch Instantly Library’ on Netflix, which holds around 12,000 films and TV shows.

This is just a taste of the way things are going. LG, like everyone else realise that the eventual goal is to have a TV that can freely connect to the Internet and seamlessly switch between it and regular programming. The trouble for LG is that regular people tend to buy one main TV every decade or so. For this reason people may decide to hold out for a model that gets closer than LG have here, it can’t be far away.

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