I previously mentioned the OpenPandora Linux-powered gaming tablet back in April. As an entirely open Linux-powered device with a 4.3” 800x480 screen, it might have the same potential for e-book reading as any other small hand-held, and perhaps even better. Well, the $350 device is now shipping in dribs and drabs, as they become available to those who pre-ordered—but a number of the units have been set aside for immediate sale at the higher price of $500 for those who absolutely can’t wait, guaranteed to ship within 7 days. (As Engadget points out, this can’t make people who...

I’ve had a couple of days to play with iOS 4.2 on my iPad, and I can’t deny that it is by and large an improvement. It’s nice to be able to play Pandora in the background while I read an e-book or browse the web, for example. Of course, the multitasking isn’t perfect. Sometimes multitasking apps can crash but hang around zombie-like in the background. TCGeeks has advice for how to deal with that problem if it ever happens to you—go to the multitasking display by double-tapping Home, hold your finger down on a program, and hit...

On the Daylife blog, Rachel Sterne posts about a new iPhone app (submitted to Apple but not yet approved) called the Accidental News Explorer, that uses the Daylife API to create a “Pandora for news.” (Referring to Pandora.com, the streaming music service that presents you with a channel full of music similar to given artists or songs you selected.) As seen in the demonstration video (embedded below the jump), the app is really simple in concept: a reader searches on a particular keyword, producing a list of stories. Then while reading any given story, he can tap a button...

Just upgraded my 3GZ to iOS4 and am greatly enjoying the ability to use folders and to multi-task Pandora. Can't wait for Last.fm, which has far fewer repeats. Supposed to be available at the end of the week. As part of the upgrade I noticed that iBooks is now available. I downloaded it, but will never buy a book from Apple. It's OK for public domain stuff, but I can't imagine why anyone would buy books from Apple and then restrict themselves forever to reading on Apple equipment. At least with Kobo, Amazon, etc. I can...

While it was tempting to grace this post with a picture of blue-skinned aliens, I’m actually talking about a quite different Pandora than the one depicted in James Cameron’s Avatar (though the humans in that movie did use electronic tablets for data display, complete with a very nice user interface for syncing where the image was simply slid off of the desktop and onto a tablet a la Minority Report). After residing in Development Hell for some time, it appears the Pandora open-source Linux-powered hand-held game console is nearly ready to ship. The device will have a 4.3”...

Update: Video of the event is now available for download, in multiple resolutions of Quicktime and MPEG-4. I just got finished watching the iPhone OS 4.0 preview event through liveblogging from Ars Technica and Engadget. Here are the points of overall interest. Steve Jobs began the event with some figures about the iPad: 300,000 sold on the first day, 450,000 sold to date, over 600,000 iBooks downloads with 250,000 in the first 24 hours (he must mean iBook e-books, since nobody would need to download the app more than once per iPad), 3.5 million iPad app...

These days digital media are causing so many shockwaves through the world of on-line content that it seems like every time we turn around there’s a story about a paywall going up here, or publishers raising the prices for e-books there. Content providers are seeing their sources of revenue dry up, and the instinctive reaction is to try to grasp whatever revenue source they can as tightly as possible. But there’s another business model that can work, at exactly the opposite end of the spectrum: the “freemium” model. Under freemium, the basic service is made available absolutely free,...

Here are some interesting bits of news from the last couple days of the iPad sales frenzy. Investor Village estimates that 120,000 iPads were preordered in the first day, with wifi-only models beating out wifi+3G by a 2:1 ratio. "Apple has been able to generate over $75 million in revenue in one day on a product that 99.9% of purchasers haven't touched or for that matter, even seen in person," said Victor Castroll, an analyst with Valcent Financial Group. "And, we're still three weeks away. That is amazing." The Unofficial Apple Weblog...