Hey, everyone, I�m Molly Wood, and welcome to the Buzz Report, the show about the
tech news that everyone is talking about.
This week, Amazon is en fuego with the new
Kindle lineup, iPhone 5 is oh so close, and Facebook is just creepy and annoying like an
ex who won�t go away.
On Facebook.
But let�s begin with the Gadget of the Week.
The Gadget of the Week is the Amazon Kindle Fire!
Amazon finally announced its long-
awaited tablet this week and at first blush, I gotta tell you � it seems like i delivers.
The
Fire is a 7-inch tablet running an Amazon style of Android.
It�s got Amazon�s big content
library behind it, a dual-core processor to handle video and music streaming, a pretty
nice-looking multi-touch IPS display, Whispersync, free Amazon Cloud storage and
integration, and a whole new Amazon browser called Silk that they say is SUPER fast
because it does half its work in the cloud.
Oh, oh, I�m sorry � am I burying the lead?
It
costs one hundred and ninety nine dollars.
Yeah, for real.
Shipping November 15.
So,
this holiday season, when your friends and family and spouses are looking at you with
tears in their eyes, begging for streaming video, Facebook on a tablet, and Angry Birds,
the answer is just 200 dollars away.
I�m just saying.
Look out, Apple.
On to the news � which is MORE Amazon news!
As if the Fire wasn�t enough, Amazon
ALSO announced three new regular old e-ink Kindle readers this week.
There�s the new
top of the line, a touch screen Kindle with 3G, for an ad-subsidized price of 149 bucks.
Then a WiFi touchscreen Kindle for 99 bucks, with ads.
And a new basic Kindle with NO
touchscreen that will cost just 79 dollars, with ads -- which by the way, only show up
when your Kindle is asleep.
So, yeah.
Amazon?
Had a pretty freakin� good week.
I�m
expecting a good holiday season for them, too.
Uh huh.
We�ll see if we�re still talking Amazon this time NEXT week � we finally have a date for
Apple�s big iPhone event.
Tuesday, October 4th, all the months of speculation about the
iPhone 5 will end for a few weeks, until we start speculating about iPhone 6 will begin.
It�s a new American tradition.
Rumors suggest a new design with a sleeker shape more like the iPod Touch.
Possibly
speech to text, faster processor, 8 megapixel camera, possibly a world phone � and �
just POSSIBLY, TWO iPhone models.
A regular iPhone 5 and a cheaper model that�s
aimed at maybe developing countries or pre-paid users.
After the happy reception for all
those cheap Kindles, if I were Apple, I�d be supergluing some gorilla glass to a couple of
gum sticks and showing off the iPhone Lite prototype shipping sometime �next quarter.�
Pocketbooks ain�t what they used to be.
CNET, of course, will be live with in-depth coverage, so stay tuned.
In quick updates this week, Microsoft released the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango OS
update this week, with its 500 tweaks and changes.
Go check that one out this week,
before iPhone 5 gets announced and ruins it for you.
It�s actually pretty cool.
Also, is Facebook jumping the shark?
Spotify users are furious that the music service
now REQUIRES a Facebook account before you can sign up, and it�s nagging current
users to cozy up to Facebook so Spotify can post updates in the ticker that show every.
single.
song.
you or your friends are listening to.
And that�s just the beginning -- imagine
what it will be like when every movie, TV show, book, and Web article is showing up
there too, along with privacy-invading comments, likes, and photo tags from people who
aren�t even your friends!
God, I hate the ticker.
Also, Facebook admitted this week that a �bug� was causing its cookies to continue to
track your Web activity as you browse, even if you�re logged out of Facebook.
I love that
they�ll cop to like, every other privacy invasion on earth, but they say the cookie thing is
a bug.
That is not a bug.
Come ON.
Ok, speaking of Facebook, let�s have a look at what�s clogging the tubes.
Now,
when Mark Zuckerberg tried to sell us on the new Timeline Facebook profile, it
sounded weird, confusing, and a little creepy.
But then Eric Leist mashed up the
Facebook Timeline concept with a scene from Mad Men and has Don Draper
selling it to us instead, take a look.
Oh, Don Draper, so dreamy, so smart, so � sad.
(sigh) yes, I�m sold, Timeline
me Facebook.
Do that thing with the cookies, too, I don�t care.
And that�s the Buzz Report for this week, everyone.
I�m Molly Wood and thanks for
watching.
