16 Results for amazon

E-Book Ecosystem Should Look to Open Source

Although it's tough to get on a plane or a train these days without seeing someone reading an e-book, typically using Amazon's Kindle, e-book readers were hardly an overnight success. I remember seeing them 10 years ago, maybe a few years before that. It took a long time for design, capacity, book delivery infrastructure and other issues to start making them a success. Now, open source and open standards are starting to take their rightful place in the growing e-book market. Barnes and Noble's new Android-based Nook e-book reader (seen here) is a case in point.


In Embracing an Open eBook Standard, Sony Could Pick Up Market Share

Sony appears to have made a shrewd move in adopting the open ePub standard--and focusing exclusively on it--for its Reader line of digital books and eBook devices. The company's Reader devices competes most directly with Amazon's increasingly popular Kindle, and with the iPhone's eBook capabilities, and many of readers of eBooks are getting books from Amazon, where they can only be read on those devices. Sony also has its own online store for eBooks. While copy protection will still apply in Sony's strategy, here's more on how Sony can benefit from embracing a very popular open standard.


Amazon On-The-Go Shopping Hits Android

As JKOnTheRun notes, Amazon Mobile has landed on the Android platform--further evidence of Android's momentum. The free software provides 40 shopping categories, 1-click purchases, account management, order history and more. And using the camera on an Android device, you can snap a picture of a product barcode, even if you're standing in the middle of a store, after which Amazon will search for the product and others like it, showing them to you. Do you shop a lot? That instant online comparison capability might save you a lot of money. Check out more here.


OStatic Buffer Overflow...

Wikipedia pushes for Ogg Theora. Wikipedia?s move to support Ogg Theora for video uploads may be the last chance to break the proprietary video monopoly.

Amazon shows need for open eBook standards. The company violated the privacy of Kindle users when it remotely deleted copies of Orwell?s 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle Readers.

An open alternative for Palm Pre iTunes users. How about the KDE Amarok 2 media player?

Open source and social media: community, collaboration, freedom. Open source is the natural platform for fast-evolving social media and social networking.

Whom does the Google Chrome OS really threaten? Could the real targets be you and your privacy?



Open Source Cloud Computing Epiphanies and the Structure 09 Conference

Yesterday, GigaOM's Structure 09 conference took place in San Francisco, focused on cloud computing. At GigaOm.com, you can find a number of good posts on what everyone from venture capitalists to Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff had to say about cloud computing. Notably, more than a few of the speakers at the conference expressed caution toward the cloud, and, as we've pointed out on a number of occasions, quite a few of the cloud pundits clearly recognize that open source solutions and more favorable economics are essential to a healthy cloud ecosystem.


Jeff Bezos on Innovation and Entrepeneurship

Commercial open source companies of all stripes could take a few lessons from Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos' comments here. In order for innovative ideas to bear fruit, companies need to be willing to ?wait for 5-7 years, and most companies don?t take that time horizon,? he said in an interview at the Wired Business Conference. People overemphasize their failures when trying something new, he added. Actually failure is not that expensive and it?s part of work. Check out the rest of this thoughts at GigaOm.?


Is Amazon Going to Open Source its Web Services and Cloud APIs?

Although it's only a rumor, Reuven Cohen reports hearing from more than one source that Amazon intends to open source its (AWS) Web Services APIs. Word is Amazon's legal team is currently 'investigating' open sourcing their various web services API's including EC2, S3, etc, he writes. Cohen argues that the move would make a lot of sense, and I agree. Although Amazon's APIs are, as Cohen writes, the de facto standards in cloud computing, Amazon faces significant threats from open source cloud computing efforts if it pursues a purely proprietary path.


Eucalyptus Systems, Focused on Open Source Cloud Computing, Launches With Funding

Last summer, OStatic broke the news about Eucalyptus, an open source (under a FreeBSD-style license) infrastructure for cloud computing on clusters that duplicates the functionality of Amazon's EC2, using the Amazon command-line tools directly. The project rose out of the Computer Science Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has made quite a few waves for its innovative, cost-saving and open approach to cloud computing infrastructure. Fast forward to today, and Eucalyptus Systems is announcing its debut as a commercial company. Eucalyptus Systems has just closed a $5.5 million Series A round of venture financing led by Benchmark Capital with BV Capital also participating. Here's what the company offers.


Report: Nearly Half of Open Source Developers Focusing on the Cloud

Recently we covered open source infrastructure tools for cloud computing, which are on the rise. Providing another indication of convergence between open source and the cloud, Evans Data researchers are reporting today that nearly half of developers working on open source projects plan to offer applications as web services via cloud providers. The survey also found that Google App Engine and Amazon's services remain the most popular cloud infrastructure tools among these developers.


Amazon and OLPC Work Fast Magic: XO Give One Get One in 30 Countries

On Wednesday, Amazon and the OLPC Project announced that the XO-1 laptop would be available for sale in the US as a Give One, Get One arrangement on November 17th. At that point, the OLPC said XO availability on Amazon storefronts in other countries was a possibility.

Today, it was announced that Amazon and the OLPC are opening the sales of XO laptops to 30 countries on Monday. This is the first time that these laptops have been offered for general sale outside of the United States and Canada.



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