The new technology from Amazon will automatically swap unwanted presents for books, CDs and DVDs you really want.

Amazon might soon allow customers to swap unwanted presents for items they really want before before the gift even leaves the warehouse.
The company has been granted a patent application entitled “System and method for converting gifts” that will make it easy for them to request a different item in place of the gift ordered by a friend or relative.

It would allow users to set up “rules,” so that whenever an order is placed by relative or friend, the item would automatically be replaced by a gift certificate of the same value, or a similarly-priced item from the recipient’s Amazon “wish list.”

Amazon has not yet indicated whether or how it plans to make the gift conversion tool available on its site.

E-Reader like the Kindle, Kobo or Sony eReader with eInk technology have a rather low power consumption compared to other gadgets with large displays, you can read up to two weeks with just one charge. But what when you go on vacation or due to other reasons there is no way to charge your device?

Other than real books, eReaders need power to run, without it there is no way you can read your books or documents.

Here is possible solution to that dilemma – a solar charger. It can charge all your little electronic gizmos, your eReader, your cell phone, GPS, digital camera, MP3 player, etc.  And this one ought to be really effective,  it just needs 2 to 3 hours to fully recharge your cell phone. It is about $60 at amazon.com

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Western Digital’s TV Live HD will be even more powerful due to a firmware update that has been recently released. Western Digital signed an agreement to make its WD TV Live HD network media players compatible with Microsoft’s “Play To” feature. This way media content can be streamed from a PC to TV by pushing media right to the TV Live HD box from a Windows PC with Media Player 12 installed.
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Amazon let you see what other Kindle users highlight: click here

All Amazon Kindle applications, the Kindle itself, the Kindle for iPhone and Kindle for iPad each provide a simple mechanism for adding highlights to books in the Amazon azw or mobi and prc format. This function is heavily used by Kindle customers who highlight millions of book passages that are meaningful to them.

When the sync function on the Kindle or inside the other applications is switched on, the highlights are transfered to Amazon and to the other devices a user has registered to his account. Now Amazon identifys the passages with the most highlights and puts them on its web page. Now you can see passages that are meaningful to the greatest number of people. Amazon only shows passages where the highlights of at least three distinct customers overlap. Amazon does not show which customers made those highlights although they know who it is.

You can also search for specific authors: i.e. Dan Brown

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The german iPad – Neofonie’s WePad can now be preordered at amazon.de So to all you non believers (including me) – it seems to be real.

The Android tablet WePad (wordplay on I Pad?) has a large 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) display, a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, GMA 3150 graphics, webcam, two USB ports, flash card reader, UMTS modem, and six hours of battery life. The manufacturer, Neofonie, also has designs on a WePad app store and Google Android and the Android Market. There is also the so called “WeMagazine publishing ecosystem” with names like Berthelsmann and Gruner+Jahr standing behind it.

One big advantage besides USB, SD card slot, open system, webcam and so on over the iPad might be the innovative thumb navigation which lets you use the pad without placing the device on a surface.

A new kind of  “touchscreens” may be around the corner – proximity sensitive ones.
These screens can sense a finger approaching. So you actually do not have to touch the screen to cause a reaction of the device. This new technology is developed by Cypress Perform, maker of the touchscreen for the Palm Pre.

One possible use could be creating a magnifying bubble over a web browser to allow more easily selecting a link. A major advantage, especially on small screens could be the fact that you now can actually see what is beneath your finger at the time you are tapping.

But what in my opinion could be a much greater benefit would be the reduction of necessary touches at all and thus reducing the number of fingerprint smudges on the screen.

Video:
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