With great power comes great responsibility. This means you, Amazon!

• Amazon reached onto many Kindles and deleted certain audiobooks that had been purchased. Big mistake.

The New Yorker Reviews the Kindle: “Buy an iPod Touch”

• Peter Kafka writes that “Amazon … is very good at selling things. It isn’t so good, to date anyway, at making things. But, fortunately, if you want to read electronic books there’s another way to go. Here’s what you do. Buy an iPod Touch (it costs seventy dollars less than the Kindle 2, even after the Kindle’s price was recently cut), or buy an iPhone, and load the free “Kindle for iPod” application onto it.” We’ve heard that somewhere before. Oh yeah, episode 5 of this podcast.

Quarterly Business Results

• Some quarterly business results from Apple, NetFlix and Microsoft. Two are better than analyst estimates. The other,… not so much.

Windows 7 RTM takes place

• Microsoft kept it’s Windows 7 operating system on schedule for the October release by sending the software to manufacturing. Now all of those discs are getting burned and put into the shrink-wrapped boxes that will soon appear on a store shelf near you.

Laptops for less than $300?

• Why is competition good for the consumer? You’ve heard us talk about the growing popularity of netbooks in recent weeks. But now Compaq is fighting back. They will soon be offering a nicely-equipped Presario laptop at Wal-Mart for $298. If you can get all of the power of a laptop for this price, who would still consider a netbook? Stay tuned. Wal-Mart execs believe this laptop will fly off shelves quickly. Expect other companies to react quickly based on what happens here.

Microsoft issues an out-of-band critical patch for Windows

• Surprise, surprise. A vulnerability in Internet Explorer requires a critical patch. This one can’t wait until Microsoft Tuesday. So check for Windows Updates and patch your browser. While we personally prefer Safari on Mac or FireFox on Windows, it’s always a good idea to check for browser updates frequently.

Chris Shuler is our guest this week. He enlightens us on some killer performance of his Kindle DX and very handy cellular access.

MacBook Air USB – choose wisely

• Due to limitations in Tom’s hotel room, he joined us via telephone. That MacBook Air needs more USB ports!

Google Wants to see Chrome on your desktop

• The search giant has announced that it’s getting into the desktop operating system market. They are working with netbook manufacturers to bring this to you as early as Fall 2010. They got their feet wet with the Chrome browser and developing for the Android phone.

Microsoft Fights Back with a free version of Office

• Not to be outdone, Microsoft seems to be going after Google Docs and other free Office alternatives with their announcement of a free web-based version of Office coming in the next version of the popular suite.

Kindle DX 1st Hand Experience

• Killer battery life, surprisingly handy cellular coverage (without a data plan), crisp display of text. Hear a first hand account of the new Amazon device for reading books from our special guest.

iTunes 8.2.1 Patch

• Apple released an update to iTunes today. It suggests that a fix for the AirTunes speaker problem may be included. But we know that Apple is notorious for simping on details of software updates.
• UPDATE: since recording the show, we’ve had more time to test this out. It looks like the problem still exists unfortunately. So you’re still stuck with having to restart iTunes to get your remote speakers back.

Charge your iPhone while it’s in your belt clip case

• Tom talks about the Fuel case for iPhone. He finds it very handy for recharging his iPhone without connecting it to a wall outlet or USB port.

Nerd of the Week

• Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla!
• Born on July 10th, 1856
• The inventor of radio (though wrongly credited to Marconi at the time) would be 153 years old now.

]]> http://www.wordsfromnerds.com/2009/07/wfn-23-3-months-on-a-single-charge/feed/ 0 http://www.wordsfromnerds.com/2009/05/wfn-16-education-tech/ http://www.wordsfromnerds.com/2009/05/wfn-16-education-tech/#comments Sun, 17 May 2009 05:51:27 +0000 Mike http://www.wordsfromnerds.com/?p=175 Main topic

• Kindle DX
• Colleges issuing it to students at select universities in Fall 2009.
• Amazon acquires Lexcycle, maker of the very popular Stanza e-book application for the iPhone.
• John talks about a tech refresh project at school.
• Analysts & Microsoft recommend skipping Vista to companies thinking about upgrading off of Windows XP.

Since Mike was with Tom in Tampa this week, we tried out a new Snowflake USB microphone and had John call in via Skype. The Snowflake is a much smaller version of the Snowball mic that we used back in episode  14. It has remarkable sensitivity as it was picking up all kinds of sounds in Tom’s house while we were testing before we started the show. It’s a great mic in a little package.

Movie Quote

• “My CPU is a neural net processor; a learning computer.” – The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Kindle 2 
Amazon now shipping Kindle 2.
Will this version finally catch on? 
Priced at $359, is this the right price point? 
Is portability of a book THAT much in demand? 

Nerd Word of the Week – Poladroid

www.poladroid.net

Our Dad’s Polaroid camera was the SX-70. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SX-70