h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Three have announced that no FroYo for Desire until at least the end of the summer....

Sigh....

FB

Actual NEWS on Notion Ink's Adam tablet (and a bit of explanation for why there has been so little news in recent months). Includes a rather interesting graph.

http://www.slashgear.com/notion-ink-adam-behind-the-scenes-0997060/

Looks like it's coming together well.

And they have a new website up at www.notionink.in, it's flash based nad they're doing a HTML5 version one as well.

Dell's Streak Android tablet goes on sale starting Thursday.

A 5 inch tablet costing $550 (or $300 with an AT&T contract)?...


Yep, don't care.

An interesting little article about the new age of the literary world. The first straight to digital e-book and its unlikely author.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/books/12hamill.html?_r=1

And another one bites the dust. R.I.P. Plastic Logic's Que.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38664849/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/08/how-star-trek-artists-imagined-the-ipad-23-years-ago.ars

How Star Trek artists imagined the iPad... 23 years ago

I read that earlier. Quite enjoyed it.

Always one step ahead!

Alright how about this one then? Not strictly tablet related but an interesting use of Android. http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/11/exclusive-sony-ericsson-to-introduce-android-3-0-gaming-platfor/

Nah, I'm just catching up. I got more info from you.

Here's fresh news. The Adam pricing has been officially released. The bad part is it will NOT be released until at least November.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/notion-ink-adam-priced-at-498-lives-up-to-promise-of-being-bel/

So, should I get a Kindle 'til then?

Assuming a straight conversion and no price change for UK (unlike the iPad where the price was 7% more in the UK than in the US) then is t £320 which is unreal, I expected it to be more. This is how it's done Apple.

Get a kindle? Nah save it for this and treat yourself to some apps or e-books or something. In the meantime I need to look up and see if there's any way of getting apps on Android devices without the market. I think it's possible but you need the .apk and not all apps provide it.

I notice the new kindles are only going to be £109 for the wifi only version.

Are you still only able to read ebooks purchased from Amazon on them?

FB

The new Kindles are only £89 in the U.S. ($139) (wifi only).

The Kindle will not let you transfer Amazon books to any other device but will accept other formats. It does accept a limited set of other formats including PDF and plain text. It also will play MP3 files in the background and has an "experimental" web browser.

I probably will hold out. The limitations of where I can purchase and what I can do with them after reading them make it not worth it.

Have read that they still wont display the .ePub format which seems everywhere else to be becoming a standard.

I suspect that the new Kindles being so much cheaper will have a deflationary pressure on other eReaders in the autumn.

FB

Correct. Kindles aren't ePub compatible.

Bel's latest journal may help you two out, there's a few people in it that have various e-book thingies. Can't remember which ones though. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F127730?thread=7658966&show=20&skip=100#pi109

Thanks, I'll have to look at that when I have time for the backlog.

UI blog for Adam coming soon apparently and I quote this from their blog "You can see and play with the UI there and start understanding how Adam will work. " If that's true about messing around with the UI then some of those vapourware rumours may start disappearing.

That article the other day (with the graph of events and interest) put most of my fears to rest. Their biggest problem was their original investor and his reluctance to either fully invest or get out of the way. Once that got cleared up things seem to have been moving along quite well.