Digital Media Bytes: Last100 Edition

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our friends at Last100: Netflix beats Hulu to secure “South Park” episodes “There was no talk of ad splits or guarantees or advances, just a payment for a show Netflix seemed really happy to have,” Matt Stone, co-creator of South Park, tells NYT. “We’ve never given the show … Read more

The Vudu Status Report

It’s been awhile since we’ve talked Vudu here on ZNF, so it’s time for a 2009 status update. The year started with a second round of layoffs, which came as no surprise given some of the funding chatter that came my way late in 2008. Not surprisingly, Vudu followed this by announcing a renewed focus … Read more

Accessorizing the Slacker G2

Not everyone is a Slacker fan. Analyst Michael Gartenberg blogged recently that the application crashed his Blackberry, and he subsequently dropped it from both the Bold and his iPhone. However, I’ve had good luck with the online app and certainly with the Slacker hardware, and as a result I’m interested when the company tosses out … Read more

Kindle Experience Lands on iPhone

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As a guy who’s been reading e-books for nearly a decade on handheld devices (Palm V , Dell Axim, PPC 6700, etc), I’m pretty psyched this AM to see Amazon follow through on promises to expand the Kindle experience beyond their own hardware. While both Stanza and eReader are installed on my iPhone, they don’t offer nearly as many titles as Amazon. More importantly, they can’t compete on price. (Amazon’s best sellers and new releases run $9.99.) However, my hopes of a directly integrated bookstore have been dashed with the initial Kindle on iPhone app release. In fact, Amazon’s own shopping app can’t even purchase Kindle books. I assume this is a temporary limitation, and Amazon.com is optimized for mobile Safari. Because as an infrequent and spontaneous (book) reader, I know I’ll be looking for titles in an airport just before boarding a flight.

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Obviously the iPhone reading experience is much different from using Amazon’s dedicated Kindle hardware. The screen is smaller and while the backlight is great for reading in dim locations, a bright LCD can be visually fatiguing. Above, notice the macro Kindle e-ink shot taken by Tumblr lead developer Marco Arment. He’s concluded the little splotches are unintended artifacts, a result of immature tech. However, I believe this is intentional – mimicking the the composition of paper. Certainly the Kindle screen is easy on the eyes. When it’s not blinking with each page turn.

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Letting the GiiNii out of the Bottle

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GiiNii was perhaps the biggest surprise out of CES in January. The company seemed to appear out of nowhere with a brilliant line-up of CE devices including C-U-C-Me cameras, PixPlus Wi-Fi photo frames, and a touch-screen, Android-based handheld called the Movit Mini (think iPod Touch with an Android OS). Of course it’s one thing to put on a good show at CES, and quite another to bring good products to market, so I went digging for a few more details… and landed an interview with GiiNii VP Dennis Sones.

The most exciting gadget news I learned during the conversation is that GiiNii’s 7-inch touch-screen tablet, the Movit Max (due out in Q4), will be priced “about the same as other brands’ Wi-Fi picture frames.” In other words, for this year’s holiday season we could be looking at a sub-$300 tablet display. Other companies are focused on introducing their own “kitchen computers,” but the $600 price tag is simply too high for a secondary device. On the other hand, the 7-inch GiiNii MoveIt Max could well be within reach if it truly hits the lower price point. And that brings me to GiiNii’s overall strategy for CE products. In brief: emulate Vizio.

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Data Robotics Charging for Drobo Firmware Updates

This is the first time in my 25+ years in computing that a hardware manufacturer has informed me that it wants to charge me for a firmware upgrade. I innocently checked my Drobo for firmware updates yesterday and was startled to receive the message above. It was bad enough that my DroboShare experience was a … Read more

Dumping Gear the Green Way

If you collect as many gadgets as I do, it’s inevitable a percentage will outlive their usefulness. In the past, I’ve purchased Office Depot’s tech recycling boxes ($5) to unload that broken and limited-value gear. In fact, I’ve got an overflowing box ready go. Which is why LifeHacker’s recent coverage of Best Buy’s expanded recycling … Read more

Verizon Home Products land on Mobile Portal

I’ve seen several demos of pre-release Verizon FiOS TV remote DVR scheduling via dedicated mobile applications. But tonight an anonymous Lakers fan tipped me off to a live, handset-agnostic mobile web portal… that will support a variety of Verizon home services. Despite the “beta” designation, Kobe our tipster was able to successfully log into FiOS … Read more