I’m pretty sure I wrote the complete opposite story several days ago, but who cares, right? It’s cold and rainy and there’s not much else to talk about. So! As you’re probably well aware, Jay Leno’s new show isn’t doing too well. Why is that? Well, you can try to sit down and analyze if the show is any good or not (note: I haven’t seen the show), or if the show’s earlier time slot isn’t conducive to that type of show. You know, just try to examine what’s going on. That, or you can blame those damn DVRs for ruining everything. Let’s go with that one.

DVRs are now in one-third of Americans households. In the past year, according to Nielsen data, NBC has lost an average rating of 1.8. Simultaneously, DVRs use is up by a ratings point of 1.4.

Coincidence? Maybe, but that’s not how the powers that be are reacting.

Network executives are complaining that, yes, people can skip commercials when viewing shows via DVR. At the same time, they admit that they’d rather have DVR viewers than no viewers at all. That sounds like having their cake, and eating it, too.

Leno’s new show is an interesting one to study. It’s the first really big show to have launched in the DVR era, one that NBC put an awful lot of money behind. (Or don’t you remember all the ads for Leno when the show first debuted?) NBC wanted to make it a nightly show, as opposed to weekly like Saturday Night Live (which would have made it a lot easier to come up with material), so that it would be “DVR-proof.” Like, you can’t DVR the show because he’s talking about today’s news… today.

Only that didn’t happen at all.

If people know that a show is all about topical humor, why would they go back and watch Monday’s show on Thursday night (when they have two hours free)? Let’s assume that tonight Leno runs Tiger Woods jokes, but that on Wednesday, I don’t know, Rush Limbaugh slips on a banana peel while at a political rally. So, do you want to hear Tiger woods jokes or Rush Limbaugh banana peel jokes?

You know what I mean. Because the show is so tied to the day’s events, unless you watch it on the day of release it won’t be worth your while.

So, not DVR-proof but rather DVR cryptonite.

It’s one thing to watched a recorded sitcom a few days later, but a recorded, topical, variety show? That’s a hard sell.

This is before you even factor in that today’s 18-49 year-olds aren’t necessarily going to either A) sit down and watch some TV show live or B) a few days later on DVR delay. We live in an age of streaming Netflix movies, Spotify, iTunes, Xbox Live, PSN, Steam, Twitter, nook and Kindles, etc.

Believe it or not, people can entertain themselves these days without having to sit back and watch TV.

And here’s another idea: maybe Leno’s show just isn’t any good? Again, I haven’t seen it, but I can’t imagine it’s easy coming up with material five days a week, so maybe the product suffers? I never found Leno funny during his run on The Tonight Show, but I know he’s a funny guy. You have to play to your audience. He can’t exactly get away with comedy club-level content on NBC, now can he?

In conclusion, I’m not sure that DVRs, per se, have killed Leno’s show. That’s a gross oversimplification of what’s probably going on: people’s media consumption habits are changing, and NBC relied on people staying in tune with the old model.

But what do I know, I’m over here trying to figure out if I should go AMD or Intel with a gaming PC I’m very close to building.

Amazon is mighty proud of its Kindle. So much so that the retailer outed a press release proclaiming that the Kindle is the best selling device on Amazon.com and even pre-Cyber Monday, November was its best selling month so far. Nook what?

It’s too bad that we have to take Amazon’s word though. The company still hasn’t released any hard sales numbers for the device and probably won’t anytime soon. But if this press release is true, and there really isn’t any reason to doubt it, the Kindle outsold the iPod touch, Sarah Palin and Dan Brown’s books, and everything else. That’s impressive.

Kindle Breaks Record for Sales in a Single Month During November

Kindle is the Hottest Gift This Holiday Season Across All Amazon Product Categories–Not Just Electronics SEATTLE, Nov 30, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN 133.00, +1.26, +0.96%) today announced that November is already the best sales month ever for Kindle, even before Cyber Monday. Kindle continues to be the most wished for, the most gifted, and the #1 bestselling product across all product categories on Amazon. The latest generation Kindle — just released in October — is $259 and available for immediate shipment today at www.amazon.com/kindle.

“Kindle is a great gift for anyone who loves to read and it’s flying off the shelves faster than any other product Amazon sells,” said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “We’re seeing lots of people buying from one to a handful of Kindles as gifts for friends or family, as well as many businesses and other organizations buying Kindles in large quantities for their employees or customers.”

Kindle is the revolutionary portable reader that wirelessly downloads books, magazines, newspapers and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution 6-inch electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle utilizes the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so users never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. The latest generation Kindle with Global Wireless enables readers to wirelessly download content in over 100 countries and territories.

In addition to the PDF functionality and improved battery life; the firmware update also adds the ability to manually control your screen rotation and makes it possible to convert your PDF files to the Kindle format. To read more about this update or to download it manually go here.

[via ZDNet]

For the Information Junkie: WikiReader ($99)

The WikiReader is a handheld device loaded up with every Wikipedia article available. It uses two AAA batteries, requires no data connection whatsoever, and features a power-sipping monochrome screen that works in direct sunlight. It’s the perfect gift for your yarn-spinning know-it-all grandpa, except now he’ll actually get his facts straight.

When it’s time to update the WikiReader to the latest articles, Gramps can have a new microSD card sent to him twice a year for $29 (just pop it in behind the batteries) or you can download the update yourself for free and load it up for him.

Product Page | CrunchGear Hands-on

For the First-Time Computer User: Litl Webbook ($699)

As the resident computer expert in your family, to hear that someone who’s never used a computer before wants to “see what all the fuss is about” and wonders if you can teach them how to use it should send chills up and down your spine (and up and down again).

The new Litl Webbook removes an entire layer of the traditional operating system, providing direct access to music, movies, photos, the internet and more. Everything is kept “in the cloud” and all system updates are pushed to the device automatically. Think of it as a smartbook.

There’s a two-year return period, a 12.1-inch LCD with a 178-degree viewing angle, and the device flips over into “easel mode” to double as a digital photo frame.

Product Page | CrunchGear Hands-on

For the Music Lover: SanDisk slotRadio ($79.99)

Take the portability of an MP3 player, strip out the hassle of loading music onto it, and you’ve got SanDisk’s slotRadio player. Once you’ve grown tired of the 1,000 popular songs included with the player, pick up another card preloaded with 1,000 additional songs for between $30 and $40 apiece and spread across genres such as Classical, Rock, Oldies, Country, and more.

Pop out the old card, pop in the new card. Boom. Simple like tapes and CDs, newfangled like an MP3 player.

Product Page | CrunchGear Review

For the Bookworm: Amazon Kindle ($259)

You’ll probably want to drop some hints before you gift an e-book reader to someone, just to get an idea about whether or not they’d actually use an electronic gizmo for reading. Our own Devin Coldewey is in his late twenties and he won’t touch an e-book reader with a ten foot pole, opting instead to throw on a cardigan, light up an academic-looking pipe, and read a book the old fashioned way. He likes the smell of paper or something weird like that.

If you’re able to plant the e-book seed successfully, though, the Kindle should be easy enough to use for just about anyone. And it doesn’t require a computer, so there’s that. You could go with one of the other wireless e-book readers, but the Barnes & Noble “nook” is sold out and there’s loose talk that Sony’s Reader Daily Edition might be waylaid until after the holidays.

Product Page

For the Neatnik: iRobot Roomba (starting at $129.99)

It’s a strange world when a robot is a vacuum and the entire combination is as simple to operate as hitting a single button. That’s Roomba for you, though. Perfect for the compulsive cleaner in your life, the Roomba series gets into corners and around furniture, finds its way back to its charging base, and makes the mundane chore of vacuuming a thing of the past. Truly anal neatniks may complain that Roomba misses a spot here and there but, hey, that just gives them something to clean by hand – and that’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Product Page

Figures. Just yesterday we write about all the different e-books you can get your hands on this holiday shopping season, and then we get a bombshell:Barnes & Noble is 100 percent sold out of nook . The company says that it has exhausted its current supply, and will only have enough nooks to fulfill current pre-orders. In other words, if you were thinking about getting a nook for Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate) but didn’t pre-order one yet, well, too late now.

To throw some cold water on this volcanic story, Barnes & Noble says people won’t have to wait too long to get their nook if they order now. The expected ship date here on out is January 4, 2010, only a few days after Christmas day. So while the nook won’t be sitting under your tree, it’s not like you’ll have to wait months and months to get yours.

The big winner in all of this, of course, is Amazon, whose Kindle 2 is widely available. Considering there’s really not too much of a difference between the two readers, I think it’s safe to say that a few people who were prepared to buy a nook may now spring for the Kindle.

Bits Blog

I point you in the direction of Business Insider, which has compiled a list of knock-off products that’s worth your time. It’s not just the typical, Chinese iPhone wannabe, either. Like, nalencia oranges? Never heard of those. Dolce & Banana? I might be able to afford that. And, hmm, that looks an awful like the Amazon Kindle, but it’s not quite it, now is it?

The Kindle’s new read-aloud feature shows great promise for the visually impaired, something that has been missed by other e-readers on the market. The issue becomes activating the read-aloud feature. It’s buried fairly deep in the menu system, and would pretty much require a sighted person to activate it.

In a rather interesting move, the Federation for the Blind has sued one of the schools that participated in a pilot program that brings e-readers into libraries and classrooms for students. The group also filed complaints with the DOJ against 5 other schools that were participating in the trial with Amazon.

MSNBC reports that Amazon has already stated that they working towards making the software easier to navigate, and now many schools have stated that they are not going to be rolling out the electronic devices to their students any time soon.

From the VentureBeat review:

The paperback-sized device is aimed at 55 million people in the U.S. who have eyesight problems and don’t want to be dependent on others for the pleasure of reading a novel, looking at a restaurant menu, or reading web site pages. It comes with a 5-megapixel digital camera that can be used to snap pictures of book pages. Foss said he was able to scan a 262-page book in a half hour and listen to the first chapter of the book while he was doing it. The device can read text in the DAISY format, plain text, as well as MP3 music files.

Can the Kindle or Nook help a vision-impaired individual order from the menu at a restaurant? I think not. The ability to scan and read custom text makes the Intel Reader something very different from the current offerings of e-book readers. This is clearly a multi-purpose device designed to enrich the life of its user, not just be a portal to selling electronic books. The Reader can speak the menus aloud to the user, and the instruction manual comes as an audio CD, making this extremely friendly to visually impaired individuals.

An optional book scanning system, the Intel Portable Capture Station, can be purchased, to allow home users to digitize books with ease. A lot of time and effort has gone into researching the ergonomics of the Reader and its accessories, since the target audience isn’t your normal fully-abled young-to-middle aged person.

The Intel Reader boasts some custom made parts, but is otherwise fairly run-of-the-mill in terms of capacity and performance:

The device has an Intel Atom microprocessor and two gigabytes of flash memory storage. It runs Linux software and some third-party software for scanning and reading aloud. With a fully charged battery, the device can read aloud for four hours. It can last for days on standby power. It can store about 500,000 pages of text or 600 pages of scanned book pages.

Here’s a video of the Intel Reader in action:

I think this is a terrific use of technology, and it demonstrates an impressive commitment from Intel in terms of research spending. I think this will create a lot of opportunities for the people who can afford to purchase it, and Intel deserves a lot of praise for cooking this thing up.

But I think that we, the general Internet population, can do a lot more. Listening to books read aloud by crappy digitized computer voices doesn’t really do justice to a lot of printed materials — especially novels. When I read a book, I hear in my mind’s ear distinct voices for each character. I read faster during tense or exciting scenes. I experience the story in a way that the monotonous drone of a computer voice can never reproduce.

Something like Project LibriVox can breathe real life into stories. We, the general Internet population, can donate a couple of hours of our leisure time to read a chapter — or a complete work — of a book so that others can enjoy the story in the dramatic manner in which it was intended. It’s a lot of work, I know: I recorded Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. But it’s also a lot of fun, and a very rewarding experience.

The Kindle for PC app has full access to the Kindle Book store, but it’s through the computers Internet browsers and not a touchscreen-friendly app. Ebooks look great in the app but only Kindle ebooks; you can’t import anything including PDFs or any other ebook. The app itself looks great but isn’t especially meant for a a touchscreen.

Amazon is onto something here but it’s a good thing this app is still in a beta. If Amazon could make the app a little more touchscreen friendly with larger buttons and a dedicated book store, it very well could be a must-have app on all the touchscreen MID and UMPCs. The stradegy would be solid, get those proven gadget fans hooked with a free app and then possible sell them a Kindle. If they don’t buy a Kindle, at least they are still dropping $10 for each book. That’s money.

The beta is free so why not jump over to Amazon and download it yourself. Mac users will need to sit quietly in the corner until Amazon outs an OS X edition.

B&N is saying that the delay was caused by higher than expected sales numbers and the new ship date is December 11. The Nook is just more popular that B&N had thought it would be and you can totally understand why. It comes sporting a 3G wireless connection like the Kindle, the same price as the Kindle, but also the two screens and an equally vast eBook store. The Nook is where it’s at, kids.

The dawn of the 21st century brought us a problem: we had lots of data, but no real way to bring that data into the real world. We could feasibly lug laptops and phones around, but did they ever do exactly what we needed them to do? Don’t answer that.

Manufacturers, in their wisdom, decided to do something about it and so devices like the Peek – for email – and the CueCat – for nothing – were born. Here’s a look at ten ‘avatar’ gadgets, gadgets that brought a web service into the real world, for better or worse.

Twitterpeek – We should be nicer to the Twitterpeek. This standalone device, designed specifically for Twittering, mirroring our own obsession with the microblogging service and, if anything, we willed it into existence with our collective desires for always-on Twitter. Does it work? Eh. Is it a good idea? Eh. Is it for us? Probably not, but what do I know?

Peek Pronto – Now this makes a little more sense. The Peek Pronto is an email-only device. It’s great for business owners who want to give on-the-go email access to their employees without spending hundreds on monthly cellphone charges. The company, in fact, is reaching profitability so all our bellyaching isn’t hurting the company’s bottom line. The Peek Pronto costs $299 for unlimited email, a pretty good deal.

Kindle – The one real success story in this list. Kindles bring Amazon’s electronic book store to a hand-held device. It’s so popular, in fact, that everyone and their dog is getting in on the act. It’s an avatar device simply because it enables offline access to Amazon content.

Nook – This is supposed to be the Kindle on steroids. This is odd because B&N isn’t quite the name synonymous with online book-selling so what they’ve done is a double-reverse Lutz avatarization of their product. They created a device to showcase their web offerings and are now tooling up web offerings for the device.

Zipit – I popped over to the Zipit website and discovered that they’re actually still making these things! Zipit is basically an IM/SMS-only device that costs $49 and lets you send IMs, listen to music, and look at pictures over Wi-Fi. It’s for kids, obviously, and after the initial purchase it costs $29 a year for unlimited text messages and IM messaging. Kind of a good idea if you want to keep your wee ones from dumping a few grand on SMS messages.

IMfree – Now this is a blast from the past: the IMFree. It’s basically like the Zipit, but primitive. It is probably one of the first avatar devices out there with an actual useful purpose.

Augmented Reality Toys – Augmented reality creates ‘holograms’ on your PC screen when your webcam sees a special bar code. This is sort of a reverse-avatar situation where the physical device unlocks on-screen content. Expect to see more of these but Avatar seems to be going whole-hog on these.

ASellerTool and other bar code scanners – Devices like this abomination promise to allow offline pricing of various items like wine, books, and media. Useful for flea markets and the obsessive.

Wikireader – Dream: Hey! Why don’t we stuff an ever-changing information source on a device! Let’s call it the Wikireader! We’ll be rich!
Reality: This thing is a waste of plastic.

Cuecat – The winner of the dumbest avatar device is the Cuecat, a silly bar code reader that was supposed to bring online content to magazines. You’d plug in your Cuecat and scan magazines as you read them. Sadly, even back in 1999, reading your magazines by your PC was a bit silly. The company went belly up and now the Cuecat is remembered as one of the most ridiculous examples of dot-com hubris ever.

The Eris is basically a mini Hero. It’s slightly thinner and clad in all black and but the Sense UI is in place and all of the things that made the Hero great – responsive OS, apps, and social networking connectivity – are here. One thing lacking, however, is the “latest” version of Android with its superior navigation application and multi-touch.

I asked some HTC folks about what was going on and they informed me that HTC is sticking with Sense UI and that some of the tweaks they did to pre-2.0 Android didn’t mesh well with the latest version. The result is, as I’ve mentioned before, a new “branch” of the OS.

To be sure HTC can’t sit on the sidelines with this for long, but it’s abundantly clear that the issue of non-centralized OS development is rearing its head here. This is Anrdoids blessing and its curse and I think the real problems will occur when handset manufacturers try to hide Android behind their own proprietary masks, much in the way TiVo and Kindle use Linux on the inside but make not mention of it.

It’s a question of when, not if, HTC will go 2.0. But for now they’re sitting things out and perfecting their UI going forward.

Update: We just heard back from HTC, and it appears that the Eris does in fact have multitouch in certain areas. They (being HTC) added multitouch capabilities through their own coding using android 1.x, so as a result the code isn’t available to 3rd party developers. But for the record, the Eris does have multitouch in the photo album and a few other places.

Now to be fair, the Alex only has a frame rate of 3 FPS. But when you compare it to other readers, that have a rate of (generally) 0 FPS, you’re talking a significant improvement. This will allow the Alex to show simple animation, and other types of moving data. The Alex also sports dual screens, a 6 inch reader screen and a smaller touch capable screen mounted below. Maximum PC has a complete write up (and teardown) of the Alex, and they go into a little more depth about what the Marvell chipset is capable of.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Amazon Kindle the first device to launch with built-in wireless (that is, cellular data) access? You know, you pay for the device, and then you don’t have to pay monthly wireless access because it’s already included in the cost of the device? It’s pretty neat, I think I can say without too much grief, and is a model that’s been copied by other e-book readers. Now it looks like Nintendo is considering such a model for future versions of the Nintendo DS (and not necessarily the XL, mind you). Exciting!

So Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata, said at a recent briefing that he’s “interested” in the business model (wireless access that’s built into the cost of the device) because it’s new, and, well, it could help expand the popularity of DSi Ware. Right now, to access DSi Ware you need to be connected to Wi-Fi, which sorta limits its availability. What if you’re sitting on a park bench on a warm spring day and want to download Something? You can’t!

You can imagine other scenarios, I’m sure.

Iwata did express concern that Nintendo would have to be careful with such a model because Nintendo is, in his words, an “amusement company.” It’s not Apple in the sense that it can’t charge $LOTS for its products.

Such a move would also give this theoretical new DS an edge over the PSP Go, which you’ll recall only ships with 802.11b access. That’s a bad move on Sony’s part, yes.

Keep in mind that Iwata could have just been thinking out loud, and that none of this will ever see the light of day. So there’s that.

via Gamasutra

Information is somewhat sparse at this time, but we do know that Asustek has made WiMAX hardware before, for companies like Clearwire, so that part of the technology isn’t new to them. Of course, Asustek frequently produces hardware and sells it to other vendors for re-branding, so we might see this technology under another brand name. We can probably expect Asustek to price their reader in the range of Amazon and B&N, in order to be competitive. One thing for sure, it’s turning out to be a good year for e-book readers.

Tire maker Bridgestone isn’t the first company that comes to mind when thinking about electronic paper, but the company has been experimenting in this field for quite some time now. Today, Bridgestone claimed that it has developed the world’s first flexible e-book reader [JP]. The device, which is pictured above, uses electronic paper (instead of, say, an LCD) and will display the content on the screen even after you turn it off.

Bridgestone says the prototype has a 10.7-inch-screen, is just 5.8mm thick (Kindle 2: 9.1mm) and can display color pages. The device can be bent to some extent since the circuit board and the electronic paper are flexible.

First tests with end consumers will begin in spring of next year, but Bridgestone already said it doesn’t plan to commercialize the e-book reader at this point.

The company also unveiled another device that features a 13.1-inch e-paper (touch screen) that can display up to 4,096 colors, communicate with cell phones and comes with a reaction rate of 0.8sec (that’s how long it takes to refresh a screen). It’s pictured above.

You see, after hemming and hawing about all this “digitalization” of the computer nerds with all their Kindles and ebooks and supercomputers he lets loose with this rocking little piece of fluff:

“… we need to figure out the right journalistic product to deliver to mobile platforms and devices. I’m hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate, or whatever comes after that.”

BLAM! WAP! When a man past a certain age plops the word WAP next to the words “impeding Apple slate,” you can be sure said man knows nothing on either topic.

However, if you want to hear a smart man talk about his views on the future of journalism, feel free to enjoy this video in that way.

Bill Keller speaks to the digital group at The New York Times from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

via Reg

Now please remember that Best Buy’s system has been known to have incorrect pricing, and this might be the case with the IREX. For their sake I hope that is the case here, because pricing yourself above the Kindle DX and the nook is pretty much suicide at this point. So, $499. Gonna rush right out and buy that anybody?

[via Engadget]

No expected release date. It’s just being worked on. And now you know. And knowing is half the battle.