From Gizmodo:
[…] Google’s going to announce a 7-inch, Nexus-branded tablet called the Nexus 7. According to the leak, it’s built by Asus, with a 1.3Ghz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, GeForce 12-core GPU and 1GB of RAM with two different storage variants: 8GB and 16GB.
[…] The screen is an IPS display with a 178-degree viewing angle, running a resolution of 1280 by 800. The device will also sport a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera. The battery will also give you 9 hours worth of operation.
[…] this could all prove to be an elaborate fake. We’ve seen them before and we’ll see them as long as there’s a rabid tech-loving public that will queue up around the block for value this good.
If true, this appears to be Google’s answer to Amazon’s Kindle Fire. If not, congrats to the those who caused tech reporters/bloggers to react excitedly.
From the Verge:
The Sunday Times reports today that RIM is considering a plan to split its handset division and messaging network into two separate companies, and will sell off the struggling BlackBerry hardware business. The British paper doesn’t cite any sources in the report, but it says that Facebook and Amazon are both “potential buyers.”
Facebook and Amazon? I guess I could see Amazon as a potential buyer, but Facebook does not compute. Amazon could make sense if they were looking at building their own internal hardware team. The RIM employees could simply move from one hierarchy to another and continue with their daily grind; all but under different management.
While there have been rumors of Facebook creating their own phone, the existing mobile market is already heavily saturated with Android- and iOS-based phones. If Facebook were to enter the market, I believe they would follow Amazon’s lead and fork Android. And since Bing has Facebook integration, I wouldn’t be surprised if their maps app would be powered by Bing as well.
Amazon’s newest tablet, the Kindle Fire, helped increase Kindle Family sales by 4x when compared to the same period last year, and was also the best-selling item at Amazon.com on Black Friday. The boost in sales wasn’t exclusive to Amazon’s online market, with both Best Buy and Target reporting increased demand for the new tablet. From The Next Web:
Nik Nayar, vice president merchandising at Target said that the Kindle Fire was so popular, sales of the device outperformed all other Android devices at its stores: “This was a great Black Friday for Target and for Kindle Fire, which was the bestselling tablet in our stores on Black Friday”
If you are wondering how many Kindle Fires were sold, Amazon will most likely let you down. Not because the number is low, but because they refrain from releasing sales figures. What we do know is that the number before Black Friday was in the millions, with unofficial 2011 sales estimated at five million.
According to an article on The Register, Apple’s iCloud service is rumored to run jointly on Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure. I cannot help but wonder if Apple is relying on established, reliable vendors for the initial iCloud launch, and later migrating the service over to their data center in North Carolina when they feel it is ready.
Lady Gaga’s new album Born This Way is available today on Amazon.com for only 99¢. Although I am not a fan of her music, I am pleased to see that by purchasing the album, I qualify to receive a free upgrade to 20GB of space on Amazon Cloud!
If you are interested in Amazon’s cloud offering and have yet to move on it, this is a good time to start with 20GB for only 99¢! If 99¢ is too much of an investment, Amazon is offering 5GB for free.
