Color E-Readers, HP Slate and No More Walkman Sale
Description
Coming up on World Tech Update this week Barnes and Noble introduces a color e-reader, HP puts the Slate 500 on sale, OLPC delays its tablet debut, Sony stops selling its Walkman in Japan, YouTube plans the next Symphony Orchestra, celebrities try out Microsoft Kinect and Foursquare offers a tough to get badge.
Transcript
Color E-Readers, HP Slate and No More Walkman Sale
Nick Barber: Thanks for joining us here today on World Tech Update. I’m Nick Barber.
Coming up on this weeks show eReaders and Tablets makes some news.
Celebrities try out motion gaming and four square makes very tough to get
badge. On Tuesday Barnes & Noble introduced the Nook color an eReader
with a 7 inch color touch LCD screen. The device runs Google’s Android
OS and blurs the line between traditional eReadres which have typically
featured grade scale EM displays and tablets which are color and have
increase functionality.
In addition to text and photos the Nook color is capable of playing video
but not flash content. It’s just under half an inch thick and includes 8
gigabytes of internal memory as well as a micro SD card slot. It boast 8
hours of battery life and WiFi but doesn’t have 3G capabilities. The Nook
Color goes on slae on November 19 for $249.
Amazon announced this week that it will allow users have its Kindel to
electronically lend books to other Kindel Users. The service does have
catches though, it’s up to publishers whether lending will be allowed if it
is a book can only be lent ones and only for up to 14 days. Plus if you’ve
lent a book then you can’t be reading it.
HPs highly anticipated and first tablet computer the slate 500 went on sale
late last week. Targeted at businesses the tablet has an 8.9 inch screen and
runs windows 7. The Slate 500 was first designed as a consumer product
when HP announced it in January but the company reassessed its plans for
the device after acquiring palm in April. HP plants to release a separate
tablet for consumers with palm’s Web OS software. It comes with a 64 gig
solid state drive and 2 gigs of RAM. It’s only available in the U.S for now
and HP said it will evaluate expanding in to other markets.
Back in May 1 I interviewed Nicholas Negroponte Chairman of the one
laptop per child project. He said that the group would debut a tablet at
CES in January. I caught up with him this week and asked him if plans
were on track.
Nicholas Negroponte: We’re going to miss CES by 45 days. We’ll show we’ll have
something middle of February but that’s actually not bad. The issue has
been really finding an unbreakable material.
Nick: You’re seeing a rendering of the XO3 here and once it does debut that
doesn’t mean the original OLPC will go away.
Male: The current laptop in the tablet will co exist for at least some period of
time. It is unclear to us now both in the labs and sort of imagining the
future if the haptic version of the tablet keyboard is going to be sufficient
to allow you to really use it as a general purpose computer.
Nick: The initial XO3 won’t be OL PC branded but rather made by Marvell and
designed for first world use with the actual XO3 to follow.
Sony announced the sweet that it will sees to sell its walkman portable
music player in Japan. Other markets are safe for now. What you’re seeing
here is the first Sony Walkman that debut in 1979 as well as later
renditions. Sony stopped manufacturing the walkman for the Japanese
market in April and says its selling through the end of its Japanese stock
now. The original 1979 walkman caused $200 and today best buy sells a
single model in the US for $40 the same price as some MP3 players.
YouTube is once again scowering the globe for talented musicians to take
part in the second youtube symphony orchestra. The first performance was
in April at Carnegie Hall and the group was made up of 96 professional
and mature musicians from 30 countries that were chosen by an online
audition. This year the concert is at the Sydney Opera House and just
about anyone over 14 is eligible to enter.
Male: Whatever you play, wherever you play.
Male: Even if you’re not a classic musician we still need to hear from you.
Male: But first you have to audition.
Female: Go to the YouTube Symphony site.
Male: Find the music for your instrument.
Female: Practice like crazy.
Male: And when you think you’re ready.
Male: Make a video of yourself playing.
Male: And then submit it to the YouTube symphony channel.
Male: Before the 20th of November.
Nick: Audition pieces and practice videos are available at the YouTube
Symphony orchestra site and the concert will be held in March 2011.
Good luck.
Celebrities gathered in Los Angeles over the weekend before a preview of
Kinect the motion gaming system for Microsoft XBOX 360. It goes on
sale November 4th at the party actress and singer Ashley Tisdale used
video Kinect to talk to Nick Cannon fellow celebrity and husband of
Mariah Carrey
Ashley: Hello everybody its Nick Cannon.
Nick: Are you guys having a good time over there at the Kinect party?
Ashley: Yes we’re.
Nick: I wish I could be there with you but I’m working here in the studio
finishing up some music and taping this new movie that I’m doing.
Nick: Microsoft Kinect tracks all the parts of the body and has an RGB camera
for facial recognition. There’s also a multi array microphone that can
locate voices and extract ambient noises.
Soccer star David Beckham also stopped in to check out the system which
Microsoft hopes will give them a leg up against Nintendo’s Wii that
started the motion gaming craze and Sony’s Playstation Move which is
also available this holiday season.
For those of you out there obsessed with getting new four square badges
here’s one that only a very select few will be able to get. 4 square is of
course the popular location based social networking service. Let’s check
out what’s happening with it a few hundred miles above earth.
Doug Wheelock: Hi I’m Doug Wheelock. Commander of the Expedition 25 aboard
the International Space Station Welcome aboard, you can call me estro
wheels and I arrived on the space station back in June on a capsule and I’ll
be living and working here in space until the end of November when I
return to the planet earth. I think its about time that I checked in.
Houston I just unlocked 4 squares NASA explorer badge for my check in
to the international space station. 220 miles above the planet welcome
aboard.
Nick: Well that’s our show for this week. Thanks for joining us here on World
Tech Update. Tune in next week for all the latest tech news and to find out
what’s coming up follow us on Facebook and Twitter. As we head out this
week we’ll leave you with some more shots from the Microsoft Kinect
Party. I’m Nick Barber and for all of us here in the IDG News Service
thanks for watching and we hope to see you next week.
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