The Lovefilm legacy
Lovefilm’s £200m takeover by Amazon has reopened the usual debate about European tech start-ups.
Sure, it’s a great exit for Lovefilm’s management and investors. But as one entrepreneur friend said to me upon hearing the news: “Yet another one gone to the USA then.”
First Take: New Amazon Kindle
Amazon has just updated the Kindle, giving the world’s most popular e-reader a much-needed facelift just in time for the back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons.
The new device is sleeker, stronger and faster than the previous Kindle. Its body is 21 per cent smaller and 15 per cent lighter at 8.7 ounces. It has double the battery life at one month, plus double the storage capacity — enough for 3,500 books.
At $139 for a wifi only version and $189 for 3G, the new Kindle puts e-readers firmly within reach of mainstream consumers. For those looking for a cheap way in to digital reading, the Kindle is a compelling package.
Colour closer with E Ink Pearl on Kindle DX
Amazon’s new Kindle DX, available on July 7, is the first eReader to feature E Ink‘s Pearl technology, enabling a contrast ratio 50 per cent better than the previous DX.
The improvement is a necessary upgrade in order for E Ink to produce its first colour screens by the end of the year.
Social shopping gains steam
Last week’s announcement by Facebook that it would use PayPal as its payments provider brought together two of the most potent forces on the internet – e-commerce and social networking.
Yet for all the promise each sector holds, the two have been slow to converge. Online shopping is still a generally solitary affair, while social networking has yet to place much emphasis on buying stuff. This may soon change.
Today the chief executive of Ebay, which owns PayPal and is the world’s largest online auctions site, offered new insights into how e-commerce and social networking might work in concert with one another, and what he sees as the next big opportunities for collaboration.
Microsoft notches up a win in fight over Linux IP
It looks like Microsoft has won a significant victory in its ongoing campaign to exert its claims over some of the key intellectual property in the Linux open source operating system.
Late on Monday, it announced a patent cross-licensing deal with Amazon. Among other things, this will cover the e-commerce company’s use of Linux in its servers. That is a big deal: given Amazon’s ambitions to become one of the biggest operators of public computing “clouds”, this amounts to a major endorsement of Microsoft’s claims over some of the core IP in Linux.
There is a caveat, though: the announcement was short on detail. And that is sure to bring accusations that the software company is once again using FUD to scare other Linux users into submission.
Amazon responds to Apple’s phantom tablet
Amazon is clearly concerned about the Apple tablet, judging today’s news.
Though it has yet to be unveiled, the impending arrival of the iPad, or iSlate, or whatever it may be called, is likely to shake up the market for digital books in a big way.
Apple is in talks with the major publishing houses in an effort to secure content deals for the tablet. If it succeeds in working out deals, integrating e-book sales into the iTunes store would be a cinch. Add to this that the tablet is expected to boast a large colour touchscreen, and you have an e-reader on steroids.
CrowdFlower sources $5m in VC funding
CrowdFlower, the crowdsourcing start-up that aggregates online labour for data-crunching tasks, has tapped venture capitalists for a $5m Series A funding round.
Lukas Biewald, chief executive of the San Francisco company, said the money would fund expansion.
“We are creating a new global market that will make it possible for everyone in the world to do real, productive work at anytime, from anywhere,” he said.
Sony’s merry eReader Xmas, Qualcomm’s New Year
Sony had a bestseller of a Christmas with its Reader devices in the US, according to executives here at CES in Las Vegas, and Qualcomm is expecting to spice up the market with colour displays in 2010.
December sales of the Reader were four times the value of the previous year, eReaders were the biggest growth area for Sony Electronics in the run up to Christmas and had the largest unit volume of all its products, according to Steve Haber, president of its digital reading division.
Cool-er e-reader takes on the Kindle
A new e-reader entrant is pitching itself as cheaper, lighter and more open than Amazon’s Kindle or Sony’s Reader, and with a larger selection of titles.
The Cool-er is the brainchild of Neil Jones, an avid reader and entrepreneur, whose company is based, appropriately, in Reading, in the UK.
(This review was first posted on May 14 2009)
ZillionTV joins a gazillion services
Another day, another internet box bringing content to the television.
A day after Roku announced it was adding Amazon’s Video on Demand to its $99 box, another Silicon Valley company, ZillionTV, has unveiled its own device and content partners including the big five Hollywood studios.
(This post was first published on March 5 2009)
David Gelles, Joseph Menn, Chris Nuttall and Richard Waters in the FT's San Francisco bureau upload their views - plus tech insights from writers in New York, London, Tokyo and Taipei. The blog includes a separate section on personal technology.
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