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Kindle Fire HD 7 and 8.9 now available for pre-order in ‘over 170 countries’ (update: Appstore open in ‘nearly 200′)

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Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD 7- and 8.9-inch slates have only seen limited shores since they were formally announced, but today the company said they’re now available for pre-order in more than “170 countries and territories around the world.” We could try and list all the new tablet markets, but it’s easier to say that until now, they’ve only found spots in Amazon stores in the US, Europe and Japan. We’re not surprised to see the hardware get a much wider release, given that the e-tailer revealed its plan to take the Appstore global last month. The only other nugget in the PR is an expected shipping date of June 13th. Head over to your local Amazon portal to confirm if your region is one of the lucky 170.

Update: Amazon’s issued a second PR saying those international plans for the Appstore are no longer plans — it’s now up and running in “nearly 200 countries.”

Filed under: Tablets, Amazon

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Source: Amazon

Vine Has Been Taken Over By Teens

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Author:

The Teens Have Spoken. And they like Vine.

Vine doesn’t break down user numbers, much less demographics. And if you visit Vine today, it's hard to tell what's changed since it came out in January. The people I follow post a little less, and they're a little better at it. But otherwise it's pretty much the same deal.

But if you visit Vinepeek, a site that pulls in random Vines as they're posted, you'll find that a lot has changed. It's completely and utterly dominated by teens — teens at school, teens teasing each other, teens screaming, teens smoking weed, teens teening. It's horrifying.

FWD's staff monitored Vinepeek for an accumulated 20 minutes, taking note of the apparent ages of the users. We watched 152 vines, which broke down as follows:

- 103 teens
- 24 non-teens
- 25 unidentifiable ages

In our (admittedly small) sample, teens accounted for over 80% of Vines. Some factors may have skewed our number: time of day (about 4:30 p.m. EST); day of the week (Wednesday); or some hidden quirk in Vinepeek’s mechanics.

But this is most definitely a huge shift from the early days of Vine. The day Vinepeek came out, I described the experience like this:

In the span of a few minutes, I saw a poorly attended church concert (above), a dance party from somewhere in East Asia, a jump-edited children's karate class, and a skit a man created about the terrible feeling of opening a refrigerator, hungry, and finding nothing you want to eat. In another, a father asked his young son what was on his mind. After pausing for a couple seconds the son blurted out, “I love you.” Another user, three videos later, had filmed the toilet while he took a piss.

Today, FWD Deputy editor Charlie Warzel counted four instances of teen twerking and three vocalizations of “fuck school.” The teens have seized Vine. It's like Snapchat in public.

This won't affect most adult Vine users, who will still only see videos from people they follow. Likewise, the fact that Instagram skews young doesn't affect my Instagram experience at all. Plus, tech companies covet young people, so this is probably a good thing for Vine.

But it's jarring nonetheless. If you've been wondering what Vine, Twitter's strange six-second video app, is for, now you know: teens taking videos of themselves between class.

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What is the government plan when all jobs are taken over by robots? What will the humans do?

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Author: Angela Chin

Question by Blue: What is the government plan when all jobs are taken over by robots? What will the humans do?
Well people say US is a service country now. A factory could be ran by robots. Almost any job can be replaced with robots. I am a programmer, studying Artificial intelligence and Stuff. Working on a website which will one day run it self. If someone abuse reports, the system decides. This site when done can be ran by just one person,Me, updating and adding more code. What will the government do when the US gets to a point where all jobs are done by robots? What will the humans do?

Best answer:

Answer by Jim Em
Well, it does seem we’ll need to figure out a way to keep the people in money and happy. Otherwise the robots will be killed off to save the country.

Sounds like Science Fiction? Not really.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

Excitement over draft, but not so much from columnist

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Author: jos

Excitement over draft, but not so much from columnist
The moth-to-flame phenomenon may be even more amazing this season because, unlike 2012, when big-talent quarterbacks were on the menu, this year's draft is a buffet of beefcake familiar mostly to scouts, agents, parents and Todd McShay. … Note that …
Read more on The Virginian-Pilot

These terrifyingly cute robots just want to make a movie
Fittingly, the New York event the robots are taking over is the TriBeCa Film Festival,an event that draws filmmakers and other media types like moths to a flame. So the robots are making a film about humans who make films about robots. That's some …
Read more on DVICE

'Oblivion' review: Tom Cruise is solid in visually inspired, but derivative …
Jack is stationed on Earth, maintaining the flying spheroid robot drones that seek and destroy the remaining alien invaders, dubbed Scavengers, that caused the war. His partner in love and work, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), sits at a computer …
Read more on Mlive- flint

AAP reports e-books now account for over 22 percent of US publishers’ revenue

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Author: Brittany Turner

It’s well off the triple year-over-year development that e-books saw a few years ago, but the newest report from the Association of American Publishers shows that e-books did inch up even further in 2012 to account for a significant piece of total book sales. According to its figures, e-books now stand for 22.55 percent of United States publishers’ overall revenue– up from simply under 17 percent in 2011– a boost that helped push net income from all book sales up 6.2 percent to $ 7.1 billion for the year. As the AAP notes, this report also happens to mark the tenth anniversary of its yearly tracking of e-book sales; back at the beginning in 2002, their share of publishers’ net revenue clocked in at a simple 0.05 percent. The team does caution that the year-to-year comparison back that far is rather anecdotal, nonetheless, provided changing methodologies and meanings of e-books.

CommentsVia: The Next

WebSource: AAP

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Verizon to offer one year payment plans on smartphones costing over $349.99

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Author: Brandon Zimmerman

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In addition to the dour news that Verizon will be strictly enforcing a 24-month upgrade cycle, the company is extending a small olive branch. Customers who want to get a new phone before their contract is up (or, presumably, anytime) will be able to do so without paying the full device cost up front. Instead, Verizon will let consumers sign up for a “Device Payment Plan” that will break up the full retail price into monthly payments over the course of a year. A Verizon spokesperson tells The Verge that smartphones and tablets costing more than $ 349.99 will be eligible, but there’s also a $ 24 “finance charge, billed at $ 2 each month.”

The plan was originally leaked by Droid-Life earlier today, and it’s mainly an extension of a program…

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Microsoft and others file EU antitrust complaint over Android app bundling

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Author: Tiffany Shoman

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A group of companies including Microsoft, Nokia, and Oracle has filed a new antitrust complaint in the EU, alleging that Google’s Android mobile OS gives an unfair advantage to the company’s mobile applications. The group, called Fairsearch Europe, states in a press release that while the core Android OS is free, OEMs that want to license Google’s mobile apps like Maps, YouTube, or the Play store, need to take the whole Google Apps suite and give it “prominent default placement on the phone.” The group adds that Google’s “predatory” practice of offering Android “below-cost” also makes it difficult for competing software makers to recoup their investments. The New York Times points out that regulators will need to respond to the…

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WikiLeaks’ ‘Kissinger Cables’ is largest release ever with over 1.7 million diplomatic records

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Author:

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WikiLeaks has returned with its largest ever before launch of previously confidential information. The “Kissinger Cables” consist of over 1.7 million polite records from 1973 to 1976, of which 205,901 are linked to controversial US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. In overall, the release is around 700 million words long, and contains what WikiLeaks calls “substantial revelations about United States involvements with fascist dictatorships, specifically in Latin America, under Franco’s Spain (including about the Spanish royal household) and in Greece under the routine of the Colonels.”

Continue reading & hellip;

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Driving Over Water Hazards: A Hovercraft Golf Cart

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Author: James Cliff

This is Bubba’s Hover, a collaboration between pro golfer Bubba Watson and Oakley, and allegedly the world’s first hovercraft golf cart. I find it hard to believe some other rich golfer hasn’t zipped down the fairway in a hovercraft already which is why I looked it up on Youtube and realized I WAS CORRECT. Of course the hovercrafts in those videos were just there for the wide open spaces and weren’t carrying clubs so I guess we’ll have to let Bubba have it on a technicality. Admittedly, driving a hovercart across water hazards does make golf sound more appealing. But you know what would make it even more appealing? Jetpacks. You strap one of those suckers on my back and I’d caddy all day. And night. AND STRAIGHT THROUGH THE NEXT FOUR DAYS. I won’t even sleep, I’ll just keep caddying until my heart stops midair.

Hit the jump for a video demo.

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Internet Borked? The Amazing Jellybean Resets It All In The Right Order With One Button Press (Or Over Bluetooth)

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Author: Ian Simpson

A few years ago, I received a panicked phone call from a friend I hadn’t heard from in months. His Internet connection was on the fritz, and he had a huge project due the next morning. He’d called his ISP, and they were no help. As his only friend that, as he said, “knew computers and stuff”*, I was bound by International Homie Law to fix his crap.

“You’ve reset your modem, right?”

“Yeah, man — Comcast had me do that.”

“You reset your router, too, right?”

“Yeah. It’s still broken!”

“I’ll be over in a while.”

I arrive at his house a bit later, and have him point me toward his networking gear. It’s stuffed behind the TV in his living room, as it’s the only place in his apartment with a functioning coax cable coming out of the wall.

I ask him to reset his modem again. He reaches over and unplugs his modem. So far, so good.

I ask him to reset his router again. He reaches over and unplugs his roommate’s AppleTV.

Whoops.

Every geek has a story (or 10) like this one. The Amazing Jellybean, an ongoing Kickstarter project, wants to make them a little less common.

The Amazing Jellybean is, at its core, a power switch. But it’s a power switch with smarts.

You see, the modem/router reset dance is a bit more complicated than it probably should be. Unplug both. Wait 60 seconds. Plug in modem. Wait 60 seconds. Plug in router. Wait 60 seconds. That’s 180+ seconds! Nicholas Cage could have stolen your car like three times by then.

The Amazing Jellybean (a name which I am starting to feel ridiculous typing) handles all that with a single button push. Push the button, walk away. It’ll kill both the modem and the router, then bring them back online in the right order and with enough time in between for a proper boot sequence.

That alone makes it a pretty killer product to get for, say, your mom. Or your uncle. Or that one friend who has no idea how he keeps getting spyware from all of the totally legit sites he browses on his curiously sticky Dell. Cough.

But you, you don’t need this, right? You’re a titan of technology! You don’t nee no stinkin’ box rebooting your modem for you! Oh, did I mention it has Bluetooth connectivity so you can reset your broken connection without getting out of your chair to battle dust bunnies? Yeah, that’s what sold me on it, too.

Is it a more of a band-aid than a permanent solution to a bigger problem? Sure — but it’s a problem that has been lurkin’ around consumer grade networking gear for decades now. It’s probably not gonna disappear anytime soon.

As for why it’s shaped like a Jellybean? I have absolutely no idea.

Find the Kickstarter page here.

[* Pro tip: When a conversation starts with "Hey, you know computers and stuff, right?", the only correct answer is a straight-faced "What's a computer?"]

Posts Tagged ‘over’

Kindle Fire HD 7 and 8.9 now available for pre-order in ‘over 170 countries’ (update: Appstore open in ‘nearly 200′)

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Excitement over draft, but not so much from columnist

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Internet Borked? The Amazing Jellybean Resets It All In The Right Order With One Button Press (Or Over Bluetooth)

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