Amazon on Monday announced its second-gen ebook reader Kindle 2 in a press event at New York’s Morgan Library. It will be released on February 24 and is available for preorder at $359. This is the same price as Kindle 1. If you have Kindle 1 order unfulfilled, Amazon will ship you Kindle 2.
So what is new and different and attractive about this new hotness?
Intel has started volume shipping of its second Atom N280 processor to PC manufacturers. Already Asus’s new Eee 1000HE netbook is equipped with this new processor. More significant is the release of new GN40 graphic chipset to accompany the new processor. Vendors now have a choice of using the older GMA 950 chipset with N280 or have more graphics power using the GN40 chipset.
Atom N280 is still single core with CPU speed increased to 1667MHz, the first-gen Atom N270′s CPU speed is at 1600MHz. The other notable spec bump is the 667MHz FSB bus speed compared with 533MHz FSB on the N270.
Looking at the N280 spec, the new Atom does not seem to differ much from its predecessor. This looks like CPU processor tweaks, with the GN45 chipset aims at fending off the assault of NVidia ION. NVidia ION platform is a recent offering which combine NVidia’s GeForce 9400 with Intel’s Atom that transform netbook to be 1080p HD video capable.
There is rumor that Apple is looking at Atom processor for some of its future products such as AppleTV or even Mac Mini. We are guessing Apple will have Atom based products when the dual-core Atom 330 processor is released sometimes towards Q3/Q4 of this year. We will never know, Apple might surprise us with a MacBook targeting the netbook market. How about a Mac Touch netbook with touch panel LCD?
We have enhanced Sanziro to optimize the website display when view from mobile devices such as iPhone, Nokia phones and Windows Mobile phones. Just point your mobile browser to the same Sanziro URL http://sanziro.com.
Thanks to MobilePress plugin that enable this feature on our blogging system.
Here is a screenshot of Sanziro on the iPhone Safari browser:
“I wrote the program for my younger sisters, who like to draw” said Lim Ding Wen, age 9 of Singapore, the developer of Doodle Kids iphone app.
The free finger painting app has been downloaded more than 4,000 times in two weeks from the App Store.
Lim, probably the youngest iPhone app developer at the moment, is fluent in six programming languages and has been using computers since he was two years old. He likes programming and has completed more than 20 programming projects since age 7. Lim is working on his second iPhone app called Invader Wars, we can’t wait.
Two iPhone technologies, CoreLocation and Multi-Touch, are coming to the Mac. These software frameworks are included in the latest developer seed of the upcoming Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, allows developers to add CoreLocation (ability to identify the current latitude and longtitude of your Mac) and multi-touch features to Mac applications.
In the iPhone, CoreLocation makes use of the hardware’s GPS or WiFi to identify its location. Current Macs will make use of less accurate WiFi method for obtaining the location since there is no GPS technology included. We suspect that future Macs especially MacBooks will have built-in GPS technology as standard.
Current Macs already have multi-touch support via the multi-touch trackpad in newer MacBooks. By including the multi-touch APIs framework, Apple is making it easier for developer to multi-touch enabled their application. We are guessing Apple will extend the support for multi-touch to include touch-panel LCD in future Macs.
Microsoft has confirmed that there will be six SKUs for the Windows 7 OS. This follows long standing Microsoft tradition of having multiple version of its Windows OS, a practice widely-criticized and mocked for bringing confusion to the marketplace.
Starter: Available to OEMs on new PCs. Missing Aero UI. Can run 3 applications concurrently.
Home Basic: For ‘emerging markets’. Missing Aero UI.
Home Premium: Available to OEMs and retail. Includes Aero UI, multi-touch capabilities, media features. Can create home network groups.
Professional: Includes all of Home Premium features. Adds enhanced networking, Mobility Center and Presentation Mode.
Enterprise: Available only in volume licenses. Includes all of Professional features. Adds Branch Cache, Direct Access and BitLocker.
Ultimate: The same features as Enterprise, with limited availability to OEMs and retail.
Several hints and evidence that are uncovered lately signal a likely introduction of next-gen Apple iPhone in June.
Apple’s marketing cheif Phil Schiller, when outlining Apple’s general product cycles in a post MacWorld 2009 interview, said the plan includes an iPhone cycle in June.
Recently, a reference to an unknown ‘iPhone 2,1′ string in firmware codes and web server logs indicate that a major hardware revision of iPhone is in the works and being tested. Apple refers to original iPhone as ‘iPhone 1,1′ while iPhone 3G is identified as ‘iPhone 1,2′.
This week, Mark Davis (Program Director for iPhone at Emirates Communications Etisalat), when spoken to Dow Jones on iPhone 3G’s launch later this month in UAE and Saudi Arabia, said that the “next version of the device, which is due out in June, will be launched in the UAE at the same time.”
Enough info to get the Apple rumor mill spinning hot. Most industry watchers expect new iPhone during mid-year, citing Apple’s history to refresh its iPhone model once a year. The first iPhone was launched in June 29, 2007. iPhone 3G was released July 11, 2008.
Lets wish the new iPhone model includes video recording capability (make it 720p), with a higher resolution flash camera, and with higher capacity option.