While most of its energy is concentrated on the XO-4 Touch, the One Laptop computer Per Child project is swinging into full gear for software application, too. The project team has actually merely uploaded an OS 12.1.0 update that sweetens the Sugar for a minimum of present-day XO units. As of this newest revamp, text-to-speech is woven into the user interface and vocalizes any type of selectable text– a large help for students that are more comfortable talking their language than reviewing it. USB video outcome has been provided its own lift through support for even more everywhere DisplayLink adapters. If you’re trying to find the majority of changes, however, they’re under-the-hood tweaks to deliver the OLPC architecture up to snuff. Upgrades to GTK3 + and GNOME 3.4 assistance, however we’re mainly noticing a shift from Mozilla’s internet engine to WebKit for scanning: although the OLPC crew may have been forced to exchange code due to the fact that of Mozilla’s policies on third-party apps, it’s promising a much faster and more Sugar-tinged web experience as part of the switch. While they’re not the exact same as getting an XO-3 tablet, the upgrades found at the source link are huge enough that classrooms (and the periodic person) will be happy they hung on to that early XO design.

Filed under: Laptop computers, SoftwareOLPC delivers

huge OS update with text-to-speech, DisplayLink and WebKit initially appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Sep 2012 02:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for usage of feeds.

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Most user reviews of the new Kindle 3, especially those with photo spreads, have focused on the newly-available graphite model, but if you really want to see the differences in the hardware, screen quality, and web capabilities in the new model, it may be more useful to put the two white models head-to-head.

That’s just what Andrys Basten did at her blog A Kindle World. They might be the first user photos of the white Kindle 3 online (I haven’t been able to find any earlier ones).

Also, if you pay close attention, there are terrific user tips for Kindle 3 users embodied in these photos. I’ve been really impressed by the new WebKit browser, but found full-sized web sites harder to navigate than their mobile versions. When I saw Basten’s pictures, I said, “Oh, put the NYT in landscape, not portrait! That’s genius!”

There are a few dumb things the Kindle’s web browser can’t do. Clicking on a link that tries to force you to open a new window just gets you a “this web browser does not support multiple windows” message. You can easily edit titles of bookmarks but not URLs. Drop-down menus sometimes just fool the browser altogether.

And to get to the web browser at all, you’ve got to go to the “Experimental” section of the menu, then tinker around in there for a while. (Would you guess to change the orientation from portrait to landscape, you should click the font-size button? I wouldn’t.)

Amazon’s packed plenty of smart features into its web browser, but mostly failed to acknowledge them, Basten told Wired.com. “Amazon’s paying for the Kindle’s 3G access,” she says. They “will be conflicted about [heavy internet use], and it shows.”

But once you get the hang of these little tricks — use mobile URLs in portrait, full URLs in landscape, use the built-in article mode (just like Safari’s Reader/Readability/Instapaper) whenever you can, and start building up your own workarounds — the web browsing capability on the Kindle 3 is really tremendous. Newspapers, blogs, Twitter, Google Reader — it does them all well. It’s not just an e-book reader; it’s an honest-to-goodness reading machine.

All images courtesy of Andrys Basten and A Kindle World.

See Also:

• Amazon Strikes Back at the iPad With New, $140 Kindle
• The Best Gadget Is the One That Gets To Your House
• Why Does the New Kindle Have A Microphone?
• Safari 5’s ‘Reader’ Nudges Web Publishers to App Store
• Amazon Kindle 3 May Be On Its Way
• New, Improved Instapaper for Kindle

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Photos: Putting Kindle 2 and Kindle 3 Head-to-Head

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