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Behind Amazon's Silk browser lurks a really fast supercomputer
We were hardly shocked to see Fujitsu atop the most recent list of the world's fastest supercomputers, but perhaps more surprising is the fact that Amazon cracked the top 50, as well. Turns out, the company's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) servers are powered by a Linux-based, 240-teraflop beast that boasts 17,024 cores, 66,000 GB of memory, and a ten gigabit Ethernet interconnect. That's good for 42nd place on Top 500's global rankings, and it's also good enough to power Silk, the browser you'll find on the Kindle Fire. But Amazon has a long way to go before catching up with the Fujitsu K, which recently cracked that vaunted ten petaflop barrier.
Amazon releases Kindle Fire source code, devs figure out how to install Android Market
The Kindle Fire's nascent hacking community is heating up, now that Amazon has released the source code for its new Android tablet. Homebrewers, of course, will first have to root the device before tweaking with the Fire's Gingerbread-based build, but fortunately for them, there's already a guide for that. Once that's taken care of, you can also load the Android Market and a slate of other Google apps, using a handy how-to guide published on xda Forums. It certainly doesn't seem like the simplest of processes, but several xda users have posted successful reports. Check out the links below for the full guide, along with the source code download.
First Impressions of the Kindle Fire
Amazon's hot, new tablet, the Kindle Fire, has been touted as a potential competitor to the iPad. Now that the tablet has launched and landed in the hands of several of our writers, it's time to take a closer look at Amazon's offering. You can read our opinions below and find out if the Fire lives up to its pre-launch hype. Kelly Hodgkins When I first pulled the Kindle Fire out of the box, I fell in love with the size. I love the iPad, but sometimes it's hard to hold the tablet for any length of time with one hand. The Kindle, though, is just perfect. It's not a full-fledged Android tablet like the Xoom or Galaxy tab, but it does most everything I want it to do. You can listen to music, watch videos, read books and browse the web. You can install apps from the Amazon App Store and there's a free app everyday. It's tightly integrated into Amazon's ecosystem and had all my content ready and waiting right out of the box. It helps that I am a long-time Amazon customer and have used the retailer's music store, book store and video store in the past. I'll lose some of my Apple cred, but I must admit I have more content tied up in Amazon's services than I do in iTunes. It's not the iPad, though, and wasn't designed to be. It's a media consumption device for Amazon's content. It isn't a workhorse like the iPad, which I can use to write documents, edit images and create presentations. The Kindle Fire will find a home on my coffee table ready and waiting for me to read that next chapter in a book, watch that TV show or look up information on that web site. For $199, it's the best bargain tablet on the market. Steve Sande It's obvious that Jeff Bezos had taken presentation lessons from Steve Jobs at some time in the past, because when he announced the Kindle Fire I thought it was going to be an incredible device. Don't get me wrong -- I've found some things that I like about the Fire, but it's definitely not an iPad-killer, at least not in its current incarnation. Instead, I think it's a way for Amazon to enter the tablet market with a splash, and then use the first Kindle Fire as a "gateway drug" for larger and better tablets to come. At $199, it's an amazing device. The Kindle Fire is small - surprisingly so. I found that specific size (a 7" screen) to be too big to comfortably hold in one hand like I can an iPhone or iPod touch, and too small in terms of screen size to be friendly to my 54 year-old eyes. That's kind of an uncomfortable neighborhood to be living in, and at least I only had to pay $199 to find out that a 7" device isn't the right size for me. My biggest complaint at this point is the utter lack of decent software. I'm used to the awesome built-in apps and wonderful third-party apps for the iPad. When I was trying to figure out how to take a screenshot, I quickly found out that there was no way to do it that was built into the device. A search for screenshot apps showed nothing. Finally, our own Queen of the iOS App Devs, Erica Sadun, figured out a way to do it -- something that a lot of people in the Android world were also trying to figure out. I'm used to being able to easily set up new email accounts with iOS Mail, which seems to take care of a lot of the details of setting up IMAP and POP accounts. Not so with the built-in email app on the Fire, which took a lot more work. I wanted to listen to some podcasts, so I looked for a way to do so on the Kindle Fire. Surprise - there's no native way of doing it. I was fortunate enough to find a third-party app that would allegedly allow me to download and play podcasts, but after entering in the feed URLs and downloading the feeds, the device just didn't want to play them. I found that to be the case with many things I wanted to do with the Fire. I think Amazon is going to sell a boatload of the devices to Kindle book reader owners, and I think that things will get better as Amazon responds to early adopter feedback and has developers create apps that are designed for the Fire. But right now, it feels a bit like a work in progress. TJ Luoma My first reaction to the Kindle Fire was opening the box and thinking "Wow, that looks great." My second reaction was when I took it out of the box and thought: "Wow, that's heavy." I had one of the previous generation Kindles, and loved the fact that it was so light and thin, you could almost forget you were holding it. The Kindle Fire isn't like that. It might not be very heavy *objectively* but it feels heavy. There were a few immediate frustrations, too. First, unlike all of the other Kindles, the Kindle Fire does *not* come with optional built-in 3G. "Free 3G" is included in the other Kindles primarily to download books, not surf the web. Browsing on the previous Kindles was listed as an "experimental" feature, and the experience was painful (I assume that is still true with the other Kindles). When I tried to download Watchmen (more on that in a moment), the download was painfully slow. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, when suddenly the Kindle announced that it had an OS update, and rebooted itself immediately. It's a little surprising to see an update needed on Day 1, but worse was the fact that the Watchmen download was about 50% completed when the Kindle rebooted, and then I had to restart the download from the beginning. Reading on the Kindle Fire is great. The screen is really bright, it's a nice size despite the weight, and other books downloaded quickly. If the e-ink "flash" annoyed you, you'll be glad to know that it's not a problem with an LCD. Pages don't "curl" like the iPad, but that's not a feature I ever wanted or needed. Instead, pages slide out of the way when you tap or drag. If you've ever used a Kindle before, the move to a touchscreen Kindle is very intuitive...at least for reading books. My wife picked it up and couldn't figure out how to turn it on. There are no buttons on the front, and the button on the bottom is very small. Once she was inside a program, she couldn't figure out how to get back out again (tap on the screen, then hit the back or home icons). Those are minor adjustments that will come with more experience. Cut/copy and paste, however, is a mess. Anyone who thinks Apple made a mistake by waiting to add copy/paste to iOS until they had a good UI should try the Kindle Fire. Trying to select text is difficult. Trying to adjust the selection is difficult. Once you get the word/sentence/paragraph highlighted, figuring out how to get it to cut/copy is difficult. It's so bad that I actually opened the manual and searched for a section on copy/paste. There isn't one. In a world without an iPad, the Kindle Fire would be the best tablet device I had ever seen. But the world has now seen two generations of iPads. It's impossible not to compare them. Yes, the Kindle Fire is less than half the price of the iPad; unfortunately, it's less than half of the experience, too. Before someone objects to comparing version 1 of the Kindle Fire against version 2 of the iPad, let me be clear: the Kindle Fire compares unfavorably against the *first* generation iPad, and the UI compares unfavorably against the first generation of iOS. I was sitting yesterday with my iPhone, iPad, and Kindle Fire. Someone sitting next to me pointed at the iPhone and said "I know what that is" and then pointing to the iPad "and I know what that is" then he pointed to the Kindle Fire "but what's that?" I explained told him what it was. "Is it a big phone or a small computer?" he asked. That's the experiential difficulty with the Kindle Fire. It's obviously not a phone. While there have been plenty of people who have considered trading their laptops for iPads, I don't think many people will try the same with the Kindle Fire (for one thing, the lack of Bluetooth means you can't connect a keyboard). The Kindle Fire is primarily a color Kindle that also has a web browser, email, and some games. The addition of the Amazon Instant video library will be a benefit to some, but again the size makes it too small to be able to set down on a desk or table and watch comfortably, but too heavy to hold for the duration of a movie. One last word, regarding the "Silk" browser. I live behind a high latency satellite connection, and I thought Silk was going to be a huge boon for me because of that. It isn't. In fact, it has no noticeable effect at all. On a fast DSL connection it doesn't seem any faster than my iPhone or iPad. Oh, and about that Watchmen book, which is available exclusively on the Kindle Fire? It's unreadable. There's far too much whitespace around the actual page (a side effect of its shape?) which makes the page itself too small to comfortably read, at least for my 38 year-old eyes. I had expected there would be some sort of special feature or reason why it was only available on the Kindle Fire, but if there is, I can't figure out what. As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no reason why Watchmen isn't available for Kindle on the iPad, where it might actually be readable. Even more surprising, the Kindle Fire cannot play the "Kindle Edition with Audio/Video" version of Stephen King's 11/22/63. If you want to read that, you'll need an iOS device, or get the regular Kindle version which doesn't have the "13-minute film, written and narrated by Stephen King and enhanced with historic footage from CBS News, that will take you back...to Kennedy era America."
TUAW TV Live: Crackpot theories, Kindle Fire, and birthday cake
Welcome back to another exciting episode of TUAW TV Live. It's hard to believe that this show has almost been on the air for two years; time flies when you're having fun with a great group of people! And speaking of time flying, our "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?" proprietress of the House of Crackpot Theories™ is one year older today. Kelly Guimont is my guest co-host on TUAW TV Live today, which means that there should be some craziness, yummy birthday cake (courtesy of Ms. Guimont), and a lot of other fun goings-on. One short but controversial topic will be the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is a little short for a stormtrooper, too. I'll also have the usual introductions to a number of items that will be reviewed on TUAW in the near future. Below, you'll find a Ustream livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or making comments. If you're driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you're stuck in traffic, please don't -- keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone and join the chat by downloading the free Ustream App. It's a universal app and is wonderful on an iPad, both for viewing and participating in the chat. We'll start at about 5 PM ET, so if you're seeing a prerecorded show, be sure to refresh your browser until you see the live stream. For those of you who are not able to join us for the live edition, you'll be able to view it later this evening on our TUAW Video YouTube channel and as part of the TUAW TV Live podcast viewable in iTunes or on any of your Apple devices.
Kindle Fire crept through FCC checks in September, wore a disguise
The Kindle Fire's now out there, but it had managed to tick all those FCC boxes a few months back. Registering the device under the exotic-sounding Okakopa company, the "tablet device' kept its cards close to its chest. Given that we've already given the Kindle Fire a rigorous inspection and it's already suffered a comprehensive teardown, there's not much left to glean from the filings. You can check out the source link below, but it's for labeling and antenna placement fanatics only.
Kindle Fire vs iPad side by side video comparison
A number of people received the new Kindle Fire tablet yesterday from Amazon, and for those of who already own iPads, the device was a bit of a letdown. Yes, it's smaller, and it has a lot of built-in linkage to the Amazon content empire, but in many ways the device is not as well thought-out or executed as the Apple device. iDownloadblog has published a side-by-side video comparison of the two devices so you can get a feel for each device's relative speed of operation. The blog tested boot time, web browsing and video playback (via Netflix) on both tablets, and as the author noted, "It's a decent first attempt by Amazon, and it has tons of potential, but it still suffers from the fact that it's a first generation device." If you're curious about the new device as a first tablet for a family member or yourself, definitely check out the video below.
Goldman Sachs sees iPad demand slowing
Almost two years after the iPad launch, Goldman Sachs reports that demand is slowing down, just as the holiday shopping season begins. "While improving holiday demand into late November could certainly push the momentum in the other direction, we believe it is prudent to assume the iPad is facing some near-term demand challenges," writes Bill Shope. Shope believes price is the reason. Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet is much less expensive at US$199, for example. While many consumers are still willing to pay more for a quality product, there's no question price is a big driver in a market like this. Shope recommends that if Apple wants to keep demand for the iPad as high as it's been in the past, the company will need to get the price down. The iPhone's price dropped off sharply after introduction, but we haven't seen that same drop with the iPad. Shope also says that increasing adoption of iCloud and Siri integration would likely drive iPad demand back up. Shope does call the iPad's growth chart "remarkable by any metric," but his analysis says Apple must act soon to kick the iPad back out into the spotlight as competing tablets threaten to take it away.
Kindle Fire gets rooted with 'one click,' paves the way for Amazonian adventures
Yesterday, we saw the Kindle Fire get ripped apart. Today, it's been rooted. The solution comes courtesy of a user lovingly known as "death2all11o," who posted the "1-click' recipe to Android Forums earlier today. The procedure seems relatively straightforward, requiring only a copy of SuperOneClick 2.2, an Android SDK, and a bit of hacktastic know-how. For a more detailed guide, hit up the source links below. [Thanks, Blake]
Nook Newsstand getting Condé Nast publications (except Vogue)
After all of our tablet stories, the first question people ask is "But will it run Vogue?" Fortunately for all of you who are desperate to strike a pose and let your bodies move to the music, it won't be long now. Condé Nast is bringing 17 of 18 titles to Nook Tablet, the only omission being Vogue; which is coming in early 2012. Until then, you'll be able to enjoy the rest of the publisher's stable including Glamour, GQ, Teen Vogue and The New Yorker from the end of November. You can purchase individual issues or an annual subscription, print subscribers will get the digital edition free of charge and anyone who does pay will get a fortnight's trial. The only downside to the trial is that it's significantly shorter than the three months offered by the same publisher on the Kindle Fire. There's plenty more details after the break, where we've got a press release all waiting for a closeup.
Kindle Fire torn down by iFixit, asbestos gloves curiously absent
We already had a pretty good idea of what's inside the Kindle Fire -- basically, the same thing that was inside the BlackBerry PlayBook. But of course we're still fans of seeing all the circuits and components that make up a modern gadget, and that's why we love iFixit so much. With gentle touches and tiny tools the disembodied hands here split Amazon's new hotness in twain and then started pulling out silicon and copper with wild abandon. The teardown is still ongoing, so set those browsers on Refresh, but already the small 4,400mAh battery and 8GB of Samsung flash have been exposed. Click on through to see the rest!
Netflix reveals new user interface experience for Android tablets, iPad counterpart coming soon
You've already had a peek at it in the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, but it seems that redesigned user interface is going to be hitting more than just the holiday's most-talked about duo. Netflix has made official a newly redesigned user interface experience for Android tablets -- one that "makes browsing and instantly watching unlimited TV shows and movies streaming from Netflix better than ever." The new look provides multiple rows of titles with larger artwork to scroll through, with Neil Hunt, chief product officer at Netflix, noting that the company has seen a "threefold increase in how long Netflix members are watching on their tablets." As of today, interested consumers can simply update their Netflix app in the Android Market, while iPad users are being asked to wait "a few weeks," after which the new tablet experience will be dubbed Tabster and led on Twitter by a 17-year old methamphetamine addict.
Zinio now available on Amazon Appstore, brings 5,000 magazines to Kindle Fire
After having already arrived on a host of Android slates, iPads and even TouchPads, Zinio's reader app has now made its way to the newest tablet platform -- the Kindle Fire. The magazine marketplace made its debut on the Amazon Appstore today, just in time for today's grand launch. Available as a free download, Zinio brings more than 5,000 magazine titles to Amazon's new slab, including The Economist, Rolling Stone and US Weekly, among others. New subscribers, meanwhile, will benefit from an extra $25 in credit, redeemable through March of 2012. Find more specifics in the full PR, after the break.
Appcelerator: iOS still has highest developer interest, Kindle Fire heating up
The latest Appcelerator survey says developers are still most interested in putting together apps for the iOS platform, with 91 percent of them "very interested" in developing for the iPhone, and 88 percent going for the iPad. iOS 5 was also cited by developers surveyed as the most significant announcement for mobile in the last quarter. But just because iOS is leading the pack doesn't mean developers aren't still looking at other platforms. In fact, the Kindle Fire is shooting up the charts of developer interest, and it's sitting at just a few points lower (49 compared to 53 percent) than the iPad was back when it launched. Android in general has been tempting developer interest, but the Kindle Fire specifically has developers giving it a serious look. That said, reviews are coming out today on the Fire (just as the device is shipping), and they say that the device doesn't have much to offer besides price when compared to the iPad. But as any freemium developer knows, a cheaper price can make for a bigger install base. If the Kindle Fire turns out to burn up the tablet charts, we could see more developers heading off to that platform in the future.
Comics on the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet hands-on (video)
Way back in 2000, cartoonist turned comics theorist Scott McCloud discussed infinite canvas in his book Reinventing Comics. The concept, simply put, is that electronic mediums afford artists an infinite space on which to create their work. Cartoonists should, therefore, take advantage of this new found freedom. Of course, old media companies don't operate that way, and for the past decade or so, the quest has revolved around finding the most ideal way to repurpose existing comics formats for new devices. The clunky interaction and relative lack of portability made PCs less than ideal methods for this consumption. On the flip side, smartphones are just too small for anything but a panel-by-panel reading. Devoted e-readers, meanwhile, didn't do much better, thanks to slow rendering grayscale e-ink screens. The iPad hit the sweet spot, with its portable form factor and large, vivid display. The charge was led by Comixology, through its devoted app and market and apps designed for the industry's largest publishers, Marvel and DC. Reading comics on a device was finally easy enough to convince many physical media devotees make the leap to the digital realm. There are still some roadblocks, however: for one thing, there's that whole $500 starting price. If your primary objective in picking up a tablet is reading comics, that's certainly enough to dissuade all but the richiest of riches.
Kindle Fire shipping a day early for those who pre-ordered
Officially, the Kindle Fire isn't supposed to launch until tomorrow, November 15th. But, if you were one of the impatient many that jumped on the chance to pre-order the Amazon-branded tablet, the online retailer has a surprise -- it's already on its way. In a statement, Dave Limp (VP of Amazon Kindle), said the company was "thrilled to be able to ship Kindle Fire to our customers earlier than we expected." We already knew that early sales of the device had exceeded expectations and production had to be ramped up to meet demand. Putting them in the mail 24 hours ahead of schedule is really just icing on the cake. Sure, it's not the full week that Kindle Touch purchasers are enjoying, but when it comes to the latest gadgets, getting our mitts on it even just a few hours early is a pleasant surprise.
Amazon Kindle Fire review
It seems like ages since Amazon introduced us to the $199 Fire at a hectic New York City event, but in truth that was only about six weeks ago. Maybe our perception of time is warped because we've been hearing talk about this 7-inch Android tablet for months now. Maybe it's because Amazon launching a tablet seemed like such a natural thing to do after Barnes & Noble paved the way with its Nook Color. Or, maybe it's just because the gadget Amazon shipped looks nigh-identical to the 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook that we've had for, well, ages.For whatever the reason, what Amazon has delivered is a device that is intimately familiar yet mysterious -- a simple, minimalistic exterior design hiding a flashy, seemingly quite trick customization that's sitting atop a decidedly ho-hum Android Gingerbread build. Our questions leading up to this review were many: How will it handle sideloading? Are the battery life and performance better than the PlayBook? Can a tablet that costs two hundred bucks stand a chance against those that cost two and three times as much? C'mon baby, click on through to find out.%Gallery-139262%
Amazon adds Hulu Plus, ESPN ScoreCenter to Kindle's Android apps, Nook Tablet loses its edge
Not sufficiently amped up for the impending release of Amazon's first tablet? That could very well change as the Seattle-based company's just made its thousands-strong app pot a little sweeter. After reminding the product-buying populace a few days ago that the newly birthed Kindle Fire is, indeed, a tablet with access to a boatload of Android apps, Bezos and co. are now upping the slate's ante by announcing the availability of Hulu Plus and ESPN ScoreCenter. It's an obvious swat at the Nook Tablet's two greatest lures and could sway indecisive customers back from the brink of Barnes & Noble's beguiling clutches.
Amazon Appstore for Android gets a Kindle Fire-inspired facelift
The Kindle Fire itself may still be a week away from release, but users of other Android tablets and phones can now get a small taste of what's in store courtesy of version 2.0 of the Amazon Appstore. That update began rolling out late last night and, as you can see above, it brings with it a refreshed UI that moves the app more in line with the Kindle Fire's steely gray interface. The update also adds support for in-app purchases and parental controls, as well as a number of other tweaks and performance improvements. Still no sign of those big-name apps that are promised for the Kindle Fire, though.
Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and 'several thousand' more apps set to hit Kindle Fire next week
Sure there's little doubt that Kindle Fire will offer up Amazon's top-tier reading features when hits next week, but let's be honest, this is a tablet we're talking about here -- we want to hear about the apps. The budget slate will also play host to "several thousand" other Android apps next week, according to Amazon, including some top-tier names like Facebook, Netflix, Pandora, Rhapsody, Twitter, Comixology, plus popular games like Fruit Ninja and Doodle Jump. The $199 slate starts shipping November 15th. Press release after the break.
ZDNet: Adobe's no longer developing Flash for mobile devices (Updated)
According to a report from ZDNet, Adobe is no longer working on Flash for mobile devices. A statement released to developers claims Adobe will provide bug fixes and security updates for the current version of mobile Flash for Android and RIM's Playbook, but will halt further development. Adobe writes, Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates. This surprising move, if true, is a big blow to Android which touts Flash as a competitive advantage over iOS. It's also a small victory for Apple. In a scathing public statement released last year, Steve Jobs explained why Apple didn't add Flash support to iOS and attacked Adobe for its mediocrity in developing the Flash mobile plug-in. Jobs was widely criticized for this decision, but it appears he was right. Flash never lived up to its potential and now Adobe may be killing it, leaving Google handset makers in the lurch. Companies like HTC will have to drop their support of Flash like Apple or follow Amazon's lead with the Kindle Fire and build their own plug-in if they want a working version of Flash on their future devices. Update: Adobe confirmed in a blog post that Flash will continue to be supported on the PC, but not on mobile devices. Adobe will focus its efforts on HTML5 for mobile devices and will help Flash developers create Air applications for all the major App Stores.
