The Hanvon Windows 7 tablet is a new competitor to Apple’s iPad and will hopefully arrive till the end of this year. Until then you can whatch this video where it competes directly with the iPad. And the Hanvon kinda busts the iPad and it might become even better when it becomes available.

The iPad clearly wins when it comes to zooming in the browser. Typing on the keyboard, and web page rendering is slightly faster than on the Hanvon, but the Hanvon comes really close. Not much difference there. But with Windows 7 you’ve got Adobe Flash support of course. So your YouTube experience is infinite better than he would get on the iPad.

Other than the restricted iPad the Hanvon Windows 7 tablet comes with an quite open operating system and is packed with a front-facing camera, three USB 2.0 ports, a SD card slot, and even a trackpad.

But see for yourself:

Finally you can read Kindle books on your Android phone! As with iPhone, iPad and so on no Kindle is required. Or if you own a Kindle, access your Kindle books even if you don’t have your Kindle with you. Automatically synchronizes your last page read and annotations between devices with Whispersync. Adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle, computer, or other Kindle-compatible device. Read in portrait or landscape mode.

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Amazon today announced a new update to Kindle for iPad and Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch. It allows readers to enjoy the benefits of embedded video and audio clips in Kindle books. The first books to take  advantage of this new technology, including “Rick Steves’ London” by Rick Steves and “Together We Cannot Fail”  by Terry Golway, are available in the Kindle Store.

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It seems that after updating the iPhone to iOS4 the shelf of your iBooks app is empty, even if you already bought some ebooks. If you want to redownload these books, the store recognizes that you already purchased them but wants you to buy them again at full price.

Just to remember: with  my Kindle I can redownload any book I bought on Amazon at anytime anywhere for free! Well actually you can do this with all Kindle applications on any device, but at the Kindle itself even the 3G connection is for free. It goes even further, I actually can download any mobipocket ebook for free from the internet from any site i.e. from google docs.

Also with the Kindle you can read any  ebook purchased at Amazon on any of your devices with a Kindle app running, no matter if its a Kindle, a PC, a Mac, Android device and so on! Any device with an internet connection can instantly download your books, sync the last read position as well as bookmarks and annotations.

The conclusion: “Forget about iBook, and use Amazon Kindle and Stanza for your reading needs.”

Read the hole story over at www.baekdal.com

If you plan to use an iPad as an e-reader or just as a web pad outside of buildings, for surfing while sitting in park or a street café you should whatch this video first.

At the Computex there was a face off in broad daylight between the iPad and a Pixel Qi netbook. Well, the iPad definitely lost this. It is just not the kind of device you can use outside.

Amazon announced the Kindle for iPad applications availability for users worldwide. It had previously been available for US subscribers only. The Kindle for iPad offers access to the complete Kindle-format bookstore with over 550,000 titles.

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Today Amazon announced in a press release that, in the near future, Kindle software will come pre-installed on many ASUS models including the 1005PE line of Eee PC Netbooks and their UL Series of notebooks.

There is no doubt that preloaded software is not an entirely new concept. But the implied partnership strengthen rumors that the upcoming Eee Pad tablet device will be unveiled by the end of this month.
In spite of the shortcomings compared to an e-Ink display, these devices are useful as reading tools.

Thus, Amazon is simply following its strategy of countering Apple’s iPad and iBooks through ubiquity. Kindle Reader software is available for nearly every big OS or smartphone platform. So buyers are able to easily buy and read e-books on nearly any device. Since netbooks are the most obvious competitors for the iPad, getting Kindle on the Eee PC out-of-the-box makes a great deal of sense for both Amazon and Asus.

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.

Just a few months ago, there seemed to come an alternative to the iPad – Microsoft Courier. While Apple released the iPad  in April the Microsoft Courier will never make it.

Microsoft has decided to stop the project and focus other projects. The MS Courier could have become a real iPad killer. But obviously MS has other plans, rumors say the will concentrate their efforts on the netbook market.

Microsoft’s Frank Shaw:

At any given time, we’re looking at new ideas, investigating, testing, incubating them. It’s in our DNA to develop new form factors and natural user interfaces to foster productivity and creativity. The Courier project is an example of this type of effort. It will be evaluated for use in future offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.

There is no explanation why Microsoft gave up on Courier project. Maybe the resulte would just be too expensive compared to the iPad.

It is sad, since the Courier could have been that different kind of  e-reader to challenge the iPad and other e-readers on the market.

The iPad Camera Connection Kit has finally shown up. It consists of a pair of two white dongles. One is just a simple SD card adapter. It adds one-touch image and video import to the iPad. If you take your pictures in RAW format you might be interested in the fact, that it also imports RAW pictures complete with the EXIF data.

The second dongle provides a USB port with some new functionality. It is reported, that you could connect a USB-keyboard and actually type on the iPad via this USB keyboard. Also there are rumours, about USB audio. The dongle should enable you to make Skype calls after connecting a USB headset. It is said though that the USB and SD image transfers are one-way only, and not all peripherals are supported. For instance you can not connect an external hard drive to the iPad using the Camera Connectivity Kit. Camera Connection Kit shipments are two to three weeks out.

Demo movie:
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