Ubuntu 10.10's multitouch Unity UI demoed on Dell, makes multitasking look easy (video)

Want to see how multitouch works in Maverick Meerkat's Unity UI, but don't have a convertible tablet PC? You're in luck today, as Ubuntu Developers put together a handy-dandy video of the Ubuntu 10.10 interface running on their very own Dell Latitude XT2's dual-digitizer touchscreen. As you'd expect, the $2,400 convertible does a bang-up job as a tablet PC, playing Flash video and OpenGL games with ease, but the uTouch gestures appear to contribute to the overall experience by making window management a relative breeze. But in the immortal words of LeVar Burton, you don't have to take our word for it -- see for yourself right after the break, while we pray for Canonical to reconsider its stance on a dedicated tablet version of Ubuntu.

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Kindle books outselling print 2 to 1 for Amazon's top 10 bestsellers, and other relatively positive sales figures

New Generation Kindle Device Sales Already Surpass Fourth Quarter 2009 - The Peak Holiday Shopping Season and Busiest Time of Year on Amazon
Amazon.com Customers Now Buying More Bestsellers on Kindle Than Paperbacks and Hardcovers Combined--At a Rate of 2 to 1

SEATTLE, Oct 25, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- NASDAQ:AMZN)--The new generation Kindle devices are the fastest-selling Kindles of all time and the bestselling products on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Today, Amazon.com announced that sales of the new generation Kindle devices since their introduction have already surpassed total Kindle device sales from October through December 2009.

"It's still October and we've already sold more Kindle devices since launch than we did during the entire fourth quarter of last year--astonishing because the fourth quarter is the busiest time of year on Amazon," said Steve Kessel, Senior Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "Readers continue to choose Kindle for its all-new electronic ink screen with 50 percent higher contrast, readability in bright sunlight, long battery life of up to one month, light 8.5 ounce form, flexibility to read their books across all major LCD devices and platforms, and low $139 price. It's clear that this is going to be the biggest holiday for Kindle yet--by far."

In addition, Kindle book unit sales continue to overtake print on Amazon.com, even while print book sales continue to grow. During the past 30 days, Amazon.com customers purchased more Kindle books than print books--hardcover and paperback combined--for the top 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 bestselling books on Amazon.com.

"For the top 10 bestselling books on Amazon.com, customers are choosing Kindle books over hardcover and paperback books combined at a rate of greater than 2 to 1. Kindle books are also outselling print books for the top 25, 100, and 1,000 bestsellers--it's across the board," said Kessel. "This is remarkable when you consider that we've been selling hardcover and paperback books for 15 years, and Kindle books for just 36 months."

Other recent milestones for Kindle include:

* In the 12 weeks following the introduction of the new generation Kindles, Kindle devices or Kindle-related items such as Kindle books and covers represented 15 of the top 15 bestselling items on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined.
* Amazon sold more than 3 times as many Kindle books in the first nine months of 2010 as in the first nine months of 2009.
* The Association of American Publishers' latest data reports that e-book sales grew 193 percent between January and August 2010. Kindle book sales growth during the same period exceeded this rate.

Learn more about Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/kindle.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Kindle, Kindle 3G and Kindle DX are the revolutionary portable readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle 3G and Kindle DX utilize the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so users never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Kindle is the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items sold on Amazon.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including http://www.amazon.com, http://www.amazon.co.uk, http://www.amazon.de, http://www.amazon.co.jp, http://www.amazon.fr, http://www.amazon.ca, and http://www.amazon.cn. As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

SOURCE: Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc.
Media Hotline, 206-266-7180
http://www.amazon.com/pr

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Even If Solar Grows 30X, It Will Only Be 4% Of America’s Power Capacity

For all the talk about solar, the US market for solar power still has a long way to go before it makes a real dent in the country’s overall power capacity.

On Monday morning, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a major aggregator of green industry data released a few key projections: the US solar market is on track to grow 30x to 44 gigawatts by 2020 and could make up 4.3% of America’s total power capacity. Of this fraction, the bulk (or approximately 68%) will be in photovoltaics with solar thermal making up the remainder.  Furthermore, Bloomberg predicts that consumer traction will also move noticeably higher, with 2.4% of homes solar-equipped by 2020.

Of course, that path to 4.3% of national power capacity is not cheap. In order to get there, the US market will need to attract $100 billion in investment dollars.

The possible leap from 1.4GW to 44GW is an impressive growth curve, but these figures certainly highlight the simultaneous growth and challenge of solar installation.

As Bloomberg New Energy Finance points out, the surge in solar capacity has been supported by two crucial trends: the drop in prices (the price of photovoltaic modules has tumbled from roughly $300 per watt in the mid-20th century, to less than $5 per watt today) and the heavy hand of government support. And yet, even as solar becomes more affordable, it’s still playing catch up to other sources of energy. That may be a well known fact but it often gets muffled in the bucolic vision for solar panel farms as far as the eyes can see.

“The group’s latest analysis places the unsubsidized cost of best-in-class photovoltaic and solar thermal electrivity generation at just below $200/megawatt hour— nearly four times the equivalent cost for a coal-fired power plant ($56/megawatt hour)— and between two and four times the cost of onshore wind power, ” according to the Bloomberg report.

On the investment front, it will be interesting to see how the solar industry fares in the money race. Overall, the sector has been a major beacon for investment dollars but momentum has recently waned. According to a Mercom Capital report for the third quarer,  VC funding for the solar sector was $169.35 million on 11 deals, versus $922 million for 18 transactions in the prior quarter. On the flip side, there was strength in other funding sources (including credit lines from banks), which totaled a healthy $20.7 billion for the quarter.

(Image: Flickr/Warm N’ Fuzzy)

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The Truth: Why iPhone Users Will Ditch AT&T and Run to Verizon

Last week we saw the carriers’ growth numbers for Q3 2010, and AT&T completely blew away Verizon with new subscribers. Despite mass availability of Android phones, Verizon only added 1 million subscribers in Q3, its lowest total in years. AT&T added 2.6 million.

It’s now completely clear why Verizon has finally capitulated and cozied up with Apple—even with tons of Android models, Verizon simply can’t compete with AT&T in terms of new subscriber growth.

Right now the question du jour among iPhone aficionados is how many net subscribers will leave AT&T and switch to Verizon once the iPhone becomes a reality in January 2011. That number is going to be a lot larger than people think for a series of compounding reasons.

First off, let’s establish that iPhone service on AT&T has not improved. Dropped calls are one issue. But so are dead connections, intermittent signal, and my personal favorite—the inability to use the phone for voice or data even when you have “full signal”.

There is a reason why these issues are endemic to iPhones on AT&T, but don’t affect either Android smartphones on Verizon, or iPhones on other GSM carriers worldwide. And it always intrigues me that it’s hardly ever mentioned by either analysts, the media, or by Apple and AT&T themselves.

I suppose the former community doesn’t understand the issue, and the latter doesn’t want you to know the truth. Earlier this summer I uncovered the real reasons why AT&T’s network is so terrible, just prior to iPhone 4 and iOS4 being released.

Contrary to what’s normally discussed in the press, the issues are not capacity related. It’s not about the number of cell towers or wireless bandwidth. Instead, they relate to “signaling”, control and status information which is communicated back and forth across wireless networks. Smartphones use signaling for network polling and status updates, for functions like SMS, billing, and for DHCP requests.

When I wrote that piece, Steve Jobs had just gone on record at D8 saying that AT&T was working hard and the issues would get better by the end of the summer.

Well guess what? They haven’t.

The issues have not been alleviated because they require a completely rethought approach to network topology at the signaling layer, and after three years it’s clear AT&T has no clue how to do this, especially amidst a continual onslaught of iPhone subscriber growth.

Attempts to overhaul its signaling network present a chicken-and-egg problem. AT&T must also build out its LTE network, which is the real solution to creating robust signaling.

This dilemma is compounded by the fact that 3G isn’t going away—I recently learned Apple plans to bypass LTE in 2011, instead opting to wait for “4G” to mature. This means that AT&T subscribers will be relying on AT&T’s woefully strained 3G network for another 18 months or more.

Unless they switch to Verizon.

The premise that Verizon’s network will support the iPhone fine is now anecdotally supported by the fact that Verizon smartphone subscribers use more data than iPhone subscribers, and because Android phones actually use the same power saving disconnect methods that the iPhone popularized.

Up until this point AT&T could physiologically assuage the concerns of iPhone users since they had exclusivity. But soon people will be able to compare Apples to Apples, if you will. An iPhone user on Verizon will not experience the same issues an iPhone user on AT&T. If you don’t believe me, this will become clear for everyone when the Verizon CDMA iPhone becomes available.

The really interesting part is that it appears Apple is going to supply a dual mode GSM/CDMA iPhone in mid-2011 which supports all carriers worldwide.  Imagine the scenario of a new customer walking into the Apple store—why on earth would they go with AT&T when their neighbor talks about how well the iPhone works on Verizon?

This confluence of reasons—the general delay of 4G, coupled with Apple’s plans to support a dual mode GSM/CDMA iPhone—will be hurt AT&T. It’s beginning to look like there are going to be a lot more AT&T defections to Verizon than the majority of people think. And once again, Steve Jobs will smile like the Cheshire cat while Apple stands above the fray, as the primary beneficiary.

_________________________

Contributor Steve Cheney is an entrepreneur and formerly an engineer & programmer specializing in web and mobile technologies.

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In Time For The Holidays, Borders Slashes Prices Of E-Book Readers

The arrival of the holiday shopping season is certainly escalating the e-book wars. Today, Amazon released data showing rapid Kindle sales and Barnes and Noble is expected to release a color version of the Nook. Borders is jumping into the mix by announcing a number of deals on its assortment of e-readers in time for the holiday shopping season. For the next week, Borders is offering free shipping on online eReader orders, a $25 gift card, free eBooks, 20 percent off device accessories and more incentives for shoppers to choose Borders for the e-book gifts.

So if you purchase the Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet, which costs about $299.99, you will receive a $25 Borders gift card. Borders is also knocking $30 off the Velocity Micro Cruz Reader with WiFi to bring the price down to $169.99. The Kobo eReader, which lists for $129.99, is now priced at $99.99; and the Aluratek Libre is now $99.99 through Nov. 15.

Borders is also throwing in five free eBooks with any pre-order of the Kobo Wireless eReader ($139.99) and offering a Sony Reader cover with built-in light with the purchase of any Sony device. The company will be knocking off 20 percent on all eReader accessories with the purchase of any e-book device.

It’s a competitive market, and Borders doesn’t nearly have the share that Amazon does. Price cuts can be a sales driver during the holiday time, and these sort of deals are necessary to compete with the big guys. And Borders has previously used price cuts on readers to draw traffic and sales. Earlier this year, Borders launched a branded eBook store and released the BlackBerry, Android, iPad and iPhone eReading applications, all powered by Kobo.

And as more and more players enter the market, prices will continue to drop. I think we can expect more price-cuts, features and deals coming from all e-book distributors over the next few months.

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Dept. Of Advertising: Check Into Cheryl Cole Billboards With Facebook Places

When Facebook launched Places in August, it encouraged advertisers to list their businesses in the Places directory. But now an advertiser is taking it one step further and asking passersby to check into a billboard using Facebook Places.

In a new outdoor campaign across the UK for British singer Cheryl Cole, who has a new album coming out and a concert tour, fans who check into the billboard will be taken to her Facebook page and get a chance to win two free tickets (plus travel and hotel) to one of her X Factor shows. The campaign was designed by Mediacom and Polydor Records.

I am not really sure a billboard counts as place, although I do suppose it is location-specific. But tying together check-ins with outdoor advertising like billboards and posters is something we will probably keep seeing. It is not the first time someone has this approach. A Nets billboard on the side of a building in New York City this summer, for instance, urged people to check in with Gowalla.

It is not clear how successful these billboard check-in campaigns will be, however. It just seems more natural to offer promotions tied to actual places of business. But as the check-in concept expands from checking into a place to checking into brands, it could become more of a simple call to action.

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Digg To Layoff 37% Of Staff, Product Refocus Imminent

It was just a few months ago that Digg dropped 10% of its staff. Now the company is making much deeper cuts – 25 employees will be laid off, a little more than 37% of Digg’s total staff.

This comes on top of news that Digg lost their chief revenue officer, Chas Edwards, earlier today.

I spoke with founder Kevin Rose and new CEO Matt Williams about the cuts earlier this morning. The company will be refocusing the Digg product, Williams says, and more announcements will be made tomorrow.

The company, with around $15 million in revenue, is also running at a loss today. With these cuts, says Williams, the company should reach profitability in mid 2011.

Here’s the blog post from Williams:

Team,

When I joined Digg six weeks ago, we set an immediate focus on improving the web site. We listened carefully to user feedback and started making changes to generate momentum in our business.

As I mentioned in one of our first all-hands meetings, another top priority was to take a hard look at the entire business, across product, sales, and operations. Through the time I have spent with each of you, I’ve been impressed by the commitment and enthusiasm you’ve shown. I’ve also learned a great deal about what is working well at Digg, and what is broken.

Many things are working well. The team is listening and acting quickly on the feedback from our passionate community. We’ve been able to deliver nimbly on the new platform, with over 100 bug and feature releases to the web site in the past two months. Our Diggable ads product has seen a notable increase in use by advertisers and clicks by users.

Unfortunately, to reach our goals, we have to take some difficult steps. The fact is our business has a burn rate that is too high. We must significantly cut our expenses to achieve profitability in 2011. We’ve considered all of the possible options for reduction, from salaries to fixed costs. The result is that, in addition to lowering many of our operational costs, I’ve made the decision to downsize our staff from 67 to 42 people.

It’s been an incredibly tough decision. I wish it weren’t necessary. However, I know it’s the right choice for Digg’s future success as a business. I’m personally committed to help find new opportunities for everyone affected by the transition. Digg’s Board members have also offered to help find placements within their portfolio companies.

Let’s please use today to show our sincere appreciation for our friends and colleagues who will be moving on. Tomorrow, we’ll go forward with a new strategy for Digg.

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