JetLib News

An opinion piece by tech writer, David Gilbert, looks at how CES might be losing some of its luster. “It’s hard to know who the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) really benefits. A common perception is that CES is the place where all the major technology companies launch their latest and greatest gadgets. But this is simply not the case. Let’s look at 2012 as an example. Last year’s most talked about consumer technology products (in no particular order) were: the iPhone 5, iPad 3, iPad mini, Microsoft Surface, Samsung Galaxy S3, Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire HD and the Wii U. How many were launched at CES 2012? None.”

An anonymous reader writes a court has dismissed Apple’s allegations that Amazon’s use of the “app store” phrase constituted false advertising. “Apple’s efforts to protect its intellectual property sometimes result in lawsuits that leave even the most ardent of Apple fans scratching their heads. One such suit was Apple’s March 2011 lawsuit against Amazon over the retailer’s use of the phrase ‘app store’ as used in its Amazon Appstore for Android. “

rtfa-troll writes “Amazon’s latest table of the top selling laptops will be a surprise for many on Slashdot whose first reaction when we discussed this before was ‘so what,’ with pundits describing it as ‘an enterprise contender.’ Given the recent launch and huge advertising campaign, you might expect that the top selling consumer laptop would be based on Win8. If you read recent discussions about Microsoft’s troubled new system you might expect a Mac to be leading, but Google’s Chromebook topping the sales chart on a consumer site without any major advertising campaign is a major surprise. We’ve discussed before that apart from its web based ChromeOS, Chromebooks are also very fast running Ubuntu Linux and have several other distributions already ported.”

In an effort to step up its fight against astroturfers, Amazon has barred authors from reviewing books. It’s not simply that authors can’t review their own books — they can’t review any book in a similar genre to something they’ve published. “This means that thriller writers are prevented from commenting on works by other authors who write similar books. Critics suggest this system is flawed because many authors are impartial and are experts on novels.” British author Joanne Harris had a simpler solution in mind: “To be honest I would just rather Amazon delete all their reviews as it… has caused so much trouble. It is a pity. Originally it was a good idea but it is has become such an issue now. The star rating has become how people view if a book is a success and it has become inherently corrupt.” How would you improve the online review system?

Amazon and Google, both giants in the online business world, started out as separate entities with two very different agendas. As each has grown into an empire, the overlapping areas of business between the two companies has grown as well. But with both companies moving strongly into the electronic device market, cloud services, and Amazon now building out its advertising network, they find themselves increasingly at odds, and 2013 may bring more direct battles.”Amazon wants to be the one place where you buy everything. Google wants to be the one place where you find everything, of which buying things is a subset. So when you marry those facts I think you’re going to see a natural collision,” said VC partner Chi-hua Chien. Adds Reuters, “Not long after Bezos learned of Google’s catalog plans, Amazon began scanning books and providing searchable digital excerpts. Its Kindle e-reader, launched a few years later, owes much of its inspiration to the catalog news, the executive said. Now, Amazon is pushing its online ad efforts, threatening to siphon revenue and users from Google’s main search website.”

judgecorp writes “ICANN has held a raffle to determine in what order it will examine new domain name applications. This doesn’t guarantee applicants will win the generic top-level domain (gTLD) they have set their hearts on, as the applications still have to be considered. There may be competition, or objections such as the South American governments’ objection to Amazon’s .amazon bid. None of the first batch is an English language domain, and the first one likely to make it through all the hurdles is an application by the Vatican, for a domain spelling ‘catholic’ in Chinese.”

Nerval’s Lobster writes “Are e-readers doomed? A research note earlier this week from IHS iSuppli suggested that, after years of solid growth, the e-book reader market was ‘on an alarmingly precipitous decline’ thanks to the rise of tablets. The firm suggested that e-reader sales had declined from 23.2 million units in 2011 to 14.9 million this year — around 36 percent, in other words. The note blames tablets: ‘Single-task devices like the ebook are being replaced without remorse in the lives of consumers by their multifunction equivalents, in this case by media tablets.’ Even Amazon and Barnes & Noble, the reigning champs of the e-reader marketplace, have increasingly embraced full-color tablets as the best medium for selling their digital products. Backed by enormous cloud-based libraries that offer far more than just e-books, these devices are altogether more versatile than grayscale e-readers, provided their users want to do more than just read plain text.”

Nerval’s Lobster writes “Are e-readers doomed? A research note earlier this week from IHS iSuppli suggested that, after years of solid growth, the e-book reader market was ‘on an alarmingly precipitous decline’ thanks to the rise of tablets. The firm suggested that e-reader sales had declined from 23.2 million units in 2011 to 14.9 million this year — around 36 percent, in other words. The note blames tablets: ‘Single-task devices like the ebook are being replaced without remorse in the lives of consumers by their multifunction equivalents, in this case by media tablets.’ Even Amazon and Barnes & Noble, the reigning champs of the e-reader marketplace, have increasingly embraced full-color tablets as the best medium for selling their digital products. Backed by enormous cloud-based libraries that offer far more than just e-books, these devices are altogether more versatile than grayscale e-readers, provided their users want to do more than just read plain text.”

pigrabbitbear writes “Farming, logging, and strip mining has long altered much of the Amazon rainforest, with slash-and-burn land-clearing techniques turning large portions of the forest into patchworks of pastures, second-growth forest, and degraded land. Now, rural people are increasingly moving to booming Amazonian cities; paradoxically, the land they’re leaving behind is being ravaged by wildfires. A new paper published in PNAS shows that in the Peruvian Amazon, land use changes and depopulation have let large wildfires fly through converted land. It puts a damper on those optimistic that the urbanization of the Amazon may allow parts of the forest to recover, by centralizing populated areas and leaving old converted land to be slowly gobbled up by the encroaching forest.”

An anonymous reader writes “Several large movie studios have asked Google to take down legitimate pages related to their own films, including sites legally hosting, promoting, or discussing them. Victims of the takedown requests include sites where the content is hosted legally (Amazon, CBS, iTunes, Blockbuster, Verizon on demand, and Xfinity), newspapers discussing the content in question (the BBC, CNET, Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The Independent, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, and Wired) as well as official Facebook Pages for the movies and TV shows and even their Wikipedia entries. There are also a number of legitimate links that appear to be completely unrelated to the content that is supposedly being protected. The good news is that Google has so far left many of the links up.”