Sony’s got a new Reader in the PRS-700 and that Reader, it’s got a touchscreen. Simply slide your dirty, smudge-inducing finger across the six-inch screen and watch as the e-inked pages magically turn, just like a real book. Or use that same finger to enter notes and/or highlight text. There’s also a stylus for people like me who have weird issues with touchscreens. And for those of you who like to read in the dark, the PRS-700 sports LED illumination emanating from either side of the screen. Total weight is 10 ounces, battery life’s good for more than eight hours, and storage should top out at around 350 books (plus anything else you can fit into the SD card or Memory Stick expansion slots). The Reader will set you back around $400 sometime in November. [via DVICE] → Read More
Toronto based b5Media is changing the way it pays bloggers in its hundreds-strong blog network, according to an email memo sent out to partners by CEO Jeremy Wright and copied below.
Gone are guaranteed payments of “$100-$200/month” plus bonuses for traffic. In its place are much smaller guaranteed payments plus monthly bonuses for “press coverage you or your blog gets, exclusive interviews you land and growth of your blog.” Blogs can also get a quarterly bonus based on a scoring system.
The traffic bonus system was over-rewarding bloggers, says Wright. The new system will likely result in a big pay cut, but Wright says it’s necessary to align incentives:
I’m sure by now you’ve run your blog through the system above and realized that (with a handful of exceptions), due to the change to Omniture as a stats package, your pay will go down. For some it will go down significantly. Obviously this isn’t the intent of the new pay system, it was just the flaw in the previous stats package. For the last two years, b5 has been effectively paying bloggers 2-3x more in traffic bonuses than they were actually getting. While, again, this isn’t a blogger’s fault, neither is the new pay system about “cutting pay”. Any reduction in pay is due almost exclusively to the reality of using an inaccurate pay system in the past vs an industry standard third-party audited system going forward.
While this is certainly not good news for the already low paid bloggers in the b5Media network, it isn’t necessarily a sign that the company itself is failing. Rumor is that b5Media has raised a new round of financing and will be announcing it soon. In April, we reported that merger discussions with Technorati fell through at the last minute.
The full email memo is below. I’ve contacted Wright for a comment. → Read More
In the buildup to this election season’s presidential debates, we’ve seen a number of services launch that aim to enhance the viewers’ experience (and hopefully keep them informed). During tonight’s highly anticipated Vice Presidential debate we put a few of them in the test.
Twitter’s Election Homepage:
It sounds like a decent idea on paper: take every tweet about the candidates and stream them on a single, constantly updated site. Unfortunately, while it may be fun to look at for a few minutes, election.twitter.com is far too noisy to be worthwhile. There are no cohesive threads of arguments, and every quote that raises an eyebrow gets repeated ad nauseum. Verdict: Vetoed.
Hack The Debate:
A joint project from Al Gore’s Current TV and Twitter, Hack The Debate offers a video stream of the debate and overlays recent tweets at the bottom of the screen. The video is broadcast on both the cable channel and Current’s website (the site also includes a list of tweets, which are voted on by viewers to determine their popularity). Tweets that appeared during the debate ranged from irrelevant (but funny) to insightful. I could have done without the faded text that was supposed to describe common terms, but it wasn’t too distracting. Verdict: Approved. Nothing ground breaking, but it’s more fun to watch tweets at the bottom of your screen than meaningless “instapolls” on the news networks. → Read More
The ninja was right. Why RIM felt the need to go out and make an iPhone competitor is beyond me. via CrackBerry → Read More
Last week, Bungie’s Teaser Trailer put everyone into a frenzy and fired up the rumor mill about what was going to be announced and when. EDGE is reporting that Bungie will indeed make an official announcement next week at TGS. Yay! → Read More
Somebody must have given Mr. Ballmer his Valium. After blasting Intel for forcing innovation on the industry (damn their eyes!), he used his inside voice to tell us a few secrets about the Zune software. Saying the Zune itself was just the beginning, he hinted that more Zune-ish integration is on the way, including with Windows Mobile. I think that’s a good thing; the Zune interface is good and the aesthetic is slick. It’s what everyone has asked for — integration with Microsoft’s other services — and although MS has been sluggish in making it happen, it looks like they’re on track to deliver the goods. → Read More
Looking for hot NBA action for your next-gen console? Seriously, does anyone even watch the NBA anymore? I think I stopped watching in the mid-90′s when the Trailblazers were contenders. They were decent in the early 90s, but they suck now. 2K Sports’ NBA 2K9 is hittin’ the street October 7th for Xbox 360, PS3, and PS2, but PC gamers won’t be able to get the game till the 21st. Cop it now. Details on what’s new for each platform after the jump. → Read More
It’s fake. Don’t worry. via JWZ → Read More
Steve Ballmer, in a move not exactly challenging Microsoft’s unfortunate reputation as a bloated, last-generation software developer paralyzed by inertia, criticized Intel for focusing on multiple cores — a strategy Ballmer says “mandates and necessitates ongoing OS innovation.” Oh, no! Oh good heavens! What will we do? Design our OS that reflects (or influences!) the general trend of hardware and technology? Or… make the OS reflect the hardware and technology of a decade ago? Microsoft is ceding a huge lead to OS X in this area, as Cupertino works to accommodate multiple cores in Snow Leopard, the first OS X release I’m excited about in years. Seriously, Ballmer — Intel is too big to bully, even for you. Adapt or die. → Read More
Yahoo News has launched a beta version of its massively popular news site that reaches a reported 44 million unique visitors a month. The new site has introduced a number of basic aesthetic changes (the font is slightly larger and there’s more space between text) along with some new design changes that incorporate rich media and gear the site to better serve its diverse variety of readers.
Alan Warms, Yahoo’s VP GM of News, Technology, and Education, says that the site has been tweaked to allow its editors more flexibility when it comes to incorporating media like videos and photos. He also says that the site is being adjusted to give readers easier access to content: at the bottom of each article the site will now include a handful of links to related stories and popular articles, both on Yahoo and elsewhere on the web (this feature incorporates the Buzztracker technology that Yahoo acquired last year).
Yahoo will will also pay attention to where its users are coming from – if a reader comes from Digg or Yahoo Buzz, only five paragraphs of their news stories will be shown initially, with the related links prominently featured (Yahoo figures that these readers are more likely to click through to new stories, and are less concerned with reading the full article). → Read More
In an informative interview with Shack News, Bethesda developer Pete Hines talked about the hotly anticipated game, addressing piracy, platform differences, and so on. Most refreshingly, he said that Bethesda would not be party to the draconian DRM schemes others were trying out; there will be no install limit and probably just a traditional CD-key security system. They also say they’ve done a better job at localizing the PC version than with Oblivion, which is good news, as the most popular mod for Oblivion (BTmod) was the one that corrected the console-ish looks. At the end there was a little stinger about DLC being released for 360 and PC at once. That’s good, but it also makes me think they’ve already got DLC coming down the pipe before the game is done, which I have objected to before. Anyway, this isn’t a place for me to air my petty grievances. This game is going to be great, it’s a multi-platform release done right (hopefully), and I’m going to be buying it day one. → Read More
The problem with radio waves is that they just can’t seem to pass through things. That’s why I maintain a direct line of sight to my wireless router at all times — even when I’m not using it! And with this range extender for my Airport Express, now I can make my router higher up and more visible in the room — because that’s why I bought a wireless networking solution: to make my cabling and backend electronics more prominent! Do you think wireless devices need to be high up in the air in order to transmit effectively over distances of 10 or 20 feet? Do you believe dinosaurs walked the young Earth with mankind? Then have I got a product for you, Sarah Palin! [via BBG and UberGizmo] → Read More
