Amazon has a new Kindle, well two actually, your standard 3G model, as well as a Wi-Fi only model. The new reader comes in black, or white and has the same size display as previous generations, but contrast has been increased by 50%. The device itself is 21% smaller, and 15% lighter. Amazon has also doubled the internal storage from 2 to 4GB. There's a few other minor improvements including a new webkit-based browser, and improved PDF support.
Kindle 3rd Gen Features- Display: 6.0" E-Ink display
- 4GB storage (holds approximately 3,500 books
- 3G Wireless or WiFi
- Battery life: 1 Month with Wireless off
- Books download in 60 seconds
- Enhanced PDF reader
- new Web-kit based web browser
- Dimensions: 7.5" x 4.8" x 0.335" (weight: 8 ounces)
The Kindle begins shipping August 27th starting at just $139 for the Wi-Fi model, and $189 for the 3G.
Pre-order Kindle 3G
Pre-order Kindle Wi-Fi
Karaoke is huge in Japan. The term originates from there of course, and is a combination of two words meaning "open orchestra". There are hundreds of venues around Tokyo dedicated to the entertaining, often embarrassing endeavor of singing along to your favorite pop singer. For those that can't make it out to these "Karaoke boxes", as they're called, Sony has a portable solution for you. The new NWZ-E450 Walkman series has a new Karaoke mode that reduces the vocal track on songs. This is accompanied with a new scrolling lyrics feature called "Lyrics Sync" that supports standard .lrc files.
The rest of the specs are about what you'd expect from a Sony Walkman. It has a 2.0" display, capacities ranging from 4 to 16GB's, support for MP3, WMA, AAC, WMV, H.264, and MPEG-4, and has an FM tuner and voice recorder. It also gets an estimated 50 hours of audio playback on a single charge. So really, the only thing truly different about this is the Karaoke mode, which sounds rather gimmicky to me. I think a lot people actually enjoy singing
with their favorite artists, not
instead of them.
My suggestion for Sony is to release a portable version of their popular
Singstar games on the player. Singstar uses a points-based system to evaluate how close you've come to the actual song. I think that would be far more rewarding than a standard Karaoke feature. Additionally, Sony could actually make revenue from selling song packs for the game. But I guess all of this makes too much sense, so we'll never see it happen. The E450 series comes out next month, with no official pricing info released thus far.
via
Pocket-Lint
Fellow DAPreview editor Andrew Kim, aka Design Fabulous, is no stranger to getting recognized for his great
concepts. His latest is the "HTC 1", a mobile phone concept that's both stylish and functional. For instance, the bottom half of the solid brass casing rotates, allowing it to double as a kickstand. If you're a germaphobe, you'll feel sane knowing there's a UV light built-in to kill any harmful microbes, as the phone charges.
Kim set out to design a phone with a premium look, and a user interface that complimented that. I think he's accomplished that, and then some. Andrew already has an impressive body of work behind him, and from the looks of it, an even more promising future ahead.
HTC 1 conceptas seen on:
engadgetThanks Saijin_Naib!
