Kindle family to attack 16,000 stores mid-November

Amazon does not want to leave any store unturned. Aggressive pricing and aggressive launch is now followed by aggressive push to market. Amazon is going to make the new Kindle family available in 16,000 retail locations across USA. The release date is on 15th of November.

“Kindle Fire is a fully integrated, end-to-end service that gives customers access to over 18 million movies, TV shows, books, magazines, apps and games,” – “We’re excited to be working with popular retailers across the country to offer their customers Kindle Fire as well as Kindle, Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G this holiday. Customers can order our new Kindles on Amazon.com or simply go to a store in their neighborhood to pick one up starting next Tuesday.”

Spotify on steroids

 

 Ever since Facebook announced partnership with Spotify, Spotify's growth seems to be on steroids. Recent report indicates that 1.5billion tracks are shared on facebook since september and it's not just that. Spotify has added over 4 million new users. Given that their network is not as wide in Europe and in Asia Pacific, we expect explosive growth once they start 'aggressive expansion'.

ASUS Transformer Prime announced and it's mighty

This is how the just announced ASUS transformer prime looks like. And it is a monster. Transformer Prime is the first device powered by Quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 SoC (four core CPU and 12 core GPU, vSMP technology). Other specs are:

• 10.1" 1280×800 Super IPS panel protected by Gorilla glass
• 1GB of RAM, 32/64GB of storage
• 8mp rear camera, 1.2mp front facing camera, 1080p video recording (rear)
• Currently running Android Honeycomb, ICS will be ready in December
• microSD, micro-HDMI. USB 2.0 (via optional dock)
• $499 for 32GB and $599 for 64GB, keyboard dock for $149.
• 12 hr battery life and 18hr rated battery life when combined with dock.
• Polaris® Office and supernote apps preloaded

Nokia N9 gets PR1.1. NFC, swype and more

Nokia has released first update to N9 and it's a biggie. Here's a quick list of new features added to this amazing device:

• NFC tag reading to instantly interact with NFC tags
• Music controls on lock screen
• Photo and video shooting with color filters: black & white, sepia, vivid, negative, solarize
• More powerful multitasking with improved memory handling
• Swype for fast typing
• Faster MfE synch, synchronizing only active folders
• Noice cancellation reduces background noise so that your friends hear you better
• Close apps easily with swiping down, this now on by default
• New indicators for standby screen like charging and calendar

The udpate is already available OTA and your phone will display a notification when it is ready for update. 

Firefox gets Kindle Cloud Reader add-on

Amazon has added Firefox to the list of browsers that support Kindle cloud readers. With this add-on, Firefox users can read their Kindle e-books. The add-on is HTML5 based and it requires version 6 of Firefox atleast.

Paypal for Android updated, interesting new features added

Paypal for Android is upgraded to version 3.0 and the changelog is impressive. The following image is the most interesting new feature

The widget on the homescreen is actually a NFC widget. Tap your friend's NFC enabled phone that has paypal installed and you will get option to request money. The option and the name of the person will show up whenever the other phone is in the visinity (for NFC).

Firefox 8 released

Yaawn. Yes, Firefox has yet again released another major version of Firefox and here is list of changes:

• Add-ons installed by third party programs are now disabled by default
• Added a one-time add-on selection dialog to manage previously installed add-ons
• Added Twitter to the search bar for select locales. Additional locale support will be added in the future
• Added a preference to load tabs on demand, improving start-up time when windows are restored
• Improved performance and memory handling when using
• Added CORS support for cross-domain textures in WebGL
• Added support for HTML5 context menus
• Added support for insertAdjacentHTML
• Improved CSS hyphen support for many languages
• Improved WebSocket support
• Fixed several stability issues
• Fixed several security issues

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS features revealed

Canonical, at last weeks developer summit, has revealed list of features that will be added to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, known as Precise Pangolin. Given that the version 12.04 will be supported for five years, Ubuntu will not make earth shattering or risky changes to the OS. Here is a list of features:

Galaxy S II MIUI ROM gets injected with ICS

Surprised? Yes, The famous MIUI ROM has just received Icecream Sandwich update. The new MIUI 1.11.7 ICS V1 {11-7-11} is created using galnetmiui 1.11.7 ICS & CM7 11 and has the following updates:

• Edited build.prop
• Fixed home & search buttons
• Fixed Audio issue
• Added Nexus Prime Boot Animation
• Added Rom Manager
• Removed FM Radio
• Removed MIUI Updater

Synaptics posts video on Windows 8 trackpad gestures

Syanptics, leading maker of trackpads has posted a video showing how they can make use of gestures on multitouch trackpad to navigate/use Windows 8. Click on the video if you want to know more about these gestures. For me, they look awesome and pretty useful.

HTC shortlists devices that will get ICS

The following HTC devices are confirmed to get Icecream Sandwich update:

• HTC Vivid
• HTC Sensation
• HTC Sensation XL
• HTC Sensation XE
• HTC Evo 3D
• HTC Evo Design 4G
• HTC Amaze 4G

 All these devices will get ICS by early 2012. Do note that HTC is continuing to assess it's other 'potential' Android smartphones to include more devices to this list.

Another content rich tablet, Nook Tablet

B&N has announced a new tablet, B&N Nook Tablet. This 7" tablet is a lot similar to BN Nook Color, differences being few h/w upgrades and additional content format/codec support. Here is a list of key features:

• 7" 1024 X 600 resolution 16M color display with IPS panel
• Adjustable font. 8 text sizes, 6 font styles
• 1GHz TI OMAP4 (dual-core) processor with 1GB RAM
•  Up to 11.5 hours of reading or 9 hours of video without recharging with wireless off