Back in?December 2010, I bought myself and a close friend a Christmas present: a Nook tablet?by Barnes and Noble. I must confess, one of my favorite pastimes is getting a cup of coffee and skimming through magazines at B&N. So I said to myself, “If it’s from B&N, it has to be good”. I couldn’t have been more wrong!
This was supposed to be the next big thing in device technology. But it’s turning into a big joke. During the 2012 holiday season,?the Nook?fell $316 million short of investor’s expectations. During the last quarter alone, sales declined nearly 27 percent. Keep in mind they just came out with two new brands and cut prices to older ones in the past year or so. They tried to kiss up to the college market by creating? Nook Media, kind of like I-Tunes U. Well, I-Tunes U just celebrated one billion downloads. I doubt Nook will be celebrating anything anytime soon.
So who and what?is to blame for this melee? It’s been argued Amazon Kindle and other devices were too much competition for them. I’m not exactly buying it. If so,?maybe it’s because Amazon knows how to do better business. Maybe it’s because of the cool apps?Kindle offer (I learned this when I wised up and bought a Kindle). Maybe because the customer service at Amazon Kindle is a lot better; don’t even get me started. You don’t have to take my word for it. Look at the stock market board. Amazon’s stock is at $266 a share.?Barnes and Noble, at $16.?Now don’t go rushing to buy?B&N stock. It might be 16 cents by this time tomorrow.
So what am I going to do with?my Nook tablet? It sure would hide that nasty stain on my wall.
There is has been plenty of rumors and speculation regarding the next new Xbox, one interesting report, is the Microsoft was going to do away with used games. Meaning if you want to own a game you’re going to have to buy it new. Now there was speculation that the disc would have special coding on it that would attach to your profile but now there is a report from the MCV website that Microsoft has been reported the next version of its Xbox will not feature a disc drive at all. Leading many to believe in the video game world that Microsoft will be giving us the ability to digitally download these games, but I feel that to do this they are going to have to gear up on bandwidth. Could you imagine hundreds of thousands of people downloading the newest Halo at 12:01 AM on launch vs. people waiting outside of a video game store for the product? Also then we have to look at the impact this would have on the retail industry. Would they sell the games like they sell the digital content? With code cards that you input into the Xbox? If that be the case why would anyone want to even think of going out to buy these cards when they can easily download it from the comfort of the couch. Outside of people who don’t have a credit card and use cash only, but at this stage that is most likely the minority. There are rumors that the console would be revealed at this year’s E3 which Microsoft did squash. Though the system is rumored for 2013 launch.
If you are an avid follower of my blog you would have seen last month that I reported a March 7th announcement for the iPad 3 from Apple. Well it looks like the iPad is going to have share some of the spotlight. Some sources that are familiar with the Apple product announcements have also said that they will be launching the Apple TV as well. The Apple TV is suppose to have a very fast processor which most are reporting a variation of the dual core A5 processor which from all accounts be needed for the TB to stream 1080p video but there is also some speculation of a new A5X chip which is similar to the A5 but will have a better graphics engine. Some other fun rumors to play around with is that it will have a Bluetooth 5.0 remote and even Siri support. So it looks like some of the steam is taken out of the iPads sails with the possible announcement of the Apple TV, but will this TV be good? Has Apple finally figured out how to get into this TV business where they have to be able to put a firm grip on like they have with so many other products? Only time will tell.
It has been reported that 27 minutes before the news broke the death of Whitney Houston, it was on Twitter. There was a tweet sent out at 4:57PM PT that was reported by the Associated press that confirmed Whitney’s death by citing her very own publicist retweeting more than 10,000 times, which is according to data from Topsy Labs but the first tweet to actually reveal the news was put out around 4:30PM PT and that was only retweeted once. The police reports have her pronounced dead at 3:55PM PT so within 1 hour the news leaked through twitter before it hit the news. Though this wouldn’t be the first time news had leaked through twitter before major news outlets were able to report. In Pakistan a programmer live tweeted the military attack on Osama bin Landens camp inadvertently. So are we looking at Twitter becoming the next big news outlet?
First off I would like to wish all my readers a safe and happy holidays. Now I would like to talk about something that I found very interesting. A comedian by the name of Louis CK has done something that in recent memory I haven’t seen anyone do before. He created his own comedy special and instead of getting it done through HBO or Comedy Central, he decided he was going to show it through the internet. Now if you don’t know much about Louis CK, he is a comedian that started right here in the home town of Computer Geeks, Boston and has had decent success over the years. Now that success has gone to a new realm, an online comedy special. The comedy special is Live at the Beacon Theater which you can purchase for $5 on his website. In just 12 days of this special being put on his site he has cleared the $1M mark. Which just goes to show you that you always don’t need the brass of high power TV executives to make something happen for yourself. If you have followed anything that Louis CK has done in the past, the great thing about this is that he has a TV show on FX just called Louie. Now that might not seem like it is special, it is more or less just like anything else right? Wrong, he has total and utter creative control of the show with no say from the people at FX. So this is probably the greatest thing for artists who want to make something special for themselves. I salute you Louis CK for making such a bold move that paid off in a big way.
Google Music has finally launched and there is plenty to talk about for all you Android users out there. You can get it on the Android marketplace.
The store offers more than 13 million tracks from artists on Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and the global independent rights agency Merlin as well as over 1,000 prominent independent labels including Merge Records, Warp Records, Matador Records, XL Recordings and Naxos. Google has also partnered with the world’s largest digital distributors of independent music including IODA, INgrooves, The Orchard and Believe Digital.
You can purchase individual songs or entire albums right from your computer or your Android device and they?ll be added instantly to your Google Music library, and accessible anywhere. Google is also giving you the ability to share a free full play of a purchased song with your friends on Google+.
So let’s see what Google Music can do!
