Sunday 15 December 2013

The Digital Reader

The Digital Reader

The Morning Coffee – 16 December 2013

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 09:30 PM PST

Top stories this morning include a list of copyright myths (link), an upcoming change to LinkedIn (link), a reply to a Futurebook post on disruption (link), an advertorial on tablet magazine apps (link), and more.

  • tumblr_mxv1y95dWR1qd206po1_250[1]Against ‘Long-Form Journalism’ (The Atlantic)
  • Copyright Half-Truths (Copylaw)
  • Facebook Limiting Your Organic Post Reach (Indies Unlimited)
  • I Don't Care If You Dogear My Pages (And Other Confessions of a Failed Book Fanatic) (Book Riot)
  • The Indie Author: A Jack of all Trades by Jill Edmondson (Theresa Stillwagon)
  • LinkedIn Will Kill RSS Support on December 19 (TNW)
  • A reply to Futurebook: Up with disruption! (TeleRead)
  • The tablet magazine ship is sinking. Fast. (GigaOm)

The post The Morning Coffee – 16 December 2013 appeared first on The Digital Reader.

I Wouldn’t Put Too Much Faith Into That Survey About Kindle Owners Spending More at Amazon

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 05:19 PM PST

The stubkindles[1] of a survey report popped up late last week, and even though it’s getting a lot of coverage in the blogosphere I’m not sure how much weight or attention it deserves.

According to a market research firm by the name of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, Amazon customers who also happen to own one of Amazon’s gadgets tend to spend more than the customers who don’t own a Kindle or Kindle Fire.

The difference is rather stark; according to the press release the Kindle owners spent about 55% more than the other group. This averaged out to about $1,233/year, as compared to the average of $790/year for the rest of Amazon’s customers.

The report goes on to add that 12% of the survey group reported owning a Kindle, 19% owned a Kindle Fire, and 9% owned at least one of each. Based on this survey group, CIRP guesstimated that 20.5 million Amazon customers also owned a piece of Amazon hardware.

kindles[1]

And that, IMO, is where the survey report started to lose its credibility. I’ve read the press release, and I don’t see any explanation for how CIRP arrived that figure.

But more importantly I am still struggling to figure out how a related press release, which was based on the same 300-person survey group, said that 40% of Amazon’s customers are members of one of Amazon’s loyalty programs (Prime, Mom, or Student).

Here’s the fun part. That other press release, which I found via The Huffington Post, said that 16.9 million Amazon customers were part of one of Amazon’s loyalty programs.

Wait, what? Why don’t the estimates state the same figure?

I mean, 40% of Amazon’s customers can’t equal both 16.9 million and 20.5 million, can it?

I don’t know, but I thought it was worth pointing out that this market research firm apparently forgot to fact check their own press releases for consistency. With that in mind, do you really think we can trust them to count past ten without taking their shoes off?

The post I Wouldn’t Put Too Much Faith Into That Survey About Kindle Owners Spending More at Amazon appeared first on The Digital Reader.

Notion Ink Adam II Android Tablet Now Shipping – But Only in India

Posted: 15 Dec 2013 09:39 AM PST

Notion Ink has notion ink adam 2been teasing the blogosphere for over 2 years now with driblets of info about their next Android tablet and it has finally arrived – sorta.

The Notion Ink Adam II is now available in Notion Nnk’s native country of India. Retail for this 10″ Android tablet comes to 16,499 rupees, or about $265 USD, for the Wifi model. There’s also a 3G model listed on the Notion Ink website for 18,999 rupees (~$305 USD).

This tablet is running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean on a 1.5 GHz dual-core CPU with a Mali 400 GPU, 1GHz RAM, 8GB of Flash storage, and a microSD card slot.

notion ink adam 2

It has Bluetooth, Wifi, a couple 3.1MP cameras, and 2 speakers in a novel location. They’re on the front of the tablet, to the left of the 10″ (1280 x 800) screen.

As you can see in the image above, this tablet a squared off design and a rather thick bezel to the left of the screen. The extra space is used to hold the speakers, cameras, and other components, and it is also home to the Adam II’s secondary display.

This tablet’s chief claim to fame, besides having specs not all that much better than the original Adam, is a couple small screens built into the spine of the tablet. Those screens have a resolution of 100 x 5, and they are intended to display updates:

notion ink adam 2This might or might not be useful. If this tablet were sitting in my bag with only the spine visible, it could be nice to be able to glance at the spine and see what’s new. On the other hand those screens are awfully small, which means I would have to get the tablet within arm’s distance to see the update. And if I am already handling the tablet I might as well wake it up and check for updates that way.

And in this day and age, if I really wanted a secondary screen I would buy a smartwatch, not the Adam II. Frankly, I don’t see what practical value the secondary screens bring to this tablet. Sure, it looks cool, but that’s about it.

At one time Notion Ink was the hottest custom tablet maker on the market, but then they released a lackluster tablet and took 2 years to launch a replacement. The original Adam debuted in 2010 with a Pixel Qi screen and running Android, but by the time it shipped in mid-2011 it was chiefly noted for having only a marginally functional Android firmware and a disappointing screen. And so far as I have heard from Adam owners, Notion Ink never repaired all of the software issues.

TBF there was little that Notion Ink could do about the disappointing Pixel Qi screen besides recognize that it wasn’t as good as an LCD screen and decide not to ship it. But they shipped it anyway, resulting in quite a few displeased owners.

Notion Ink

Android Police

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