amazon

OLPC revives Give One, Get One program with Amazon.com

The One Laptop Per Child project is bringing back its two-for-one deal on its low-cost laptop.

It has tapped Amazon.com to handle its Give One, Get One program, launched initially last year. Through the program, anyone can pay for two XO laptops; one is shipped to the buyer, and the other is sent to a school kid in a developing nation. It will run from late November to late December this year.

An OLPC official told PC World the group is working with Amazon because the nonprofit just doesn't have enough manpower to handle the program.

In other … Read more

Amazon flicks on its streaming-video service

Amazon.com on Thursday made available to the general public its video-on-demand service, through which ad-free movies and TV shows can be streamed on Macs, PCs, and Sony Bravia flat-screen TVs.

The broader release of the Amazon Video on Demand service comes two months after the online-retailing giant began offering the service to a limited number of its users.

Amazon's service aims to enable users to instantly watch movies or TV shows via a Web browser on their Mac OS or Windows machine. The online retailer is also teaming up with Sony to enable users to purchase or rent … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 799: Pop a cap in your usage

Comcast comes clean with its bandwidth cap: it's coming, it's coming in October, it's 250GB, and they won't give you any tools for monitoring their use, and if you exceed your cap twice, you get the boot for a year. So, we have a little fun with that. Also, a little fun with IE 8 Beta 2 bugs, the lack of Kindle this year, and the pseudo-alphabetical distribution of spam. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 799

Comcast puts a cap on Net usage http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2008/08/25/daily35.html … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 796: Is that an HTC Dream in your pocket?

In today's show, we're introduced to the concept of the "banana phone" (complete with drawings), China tells GoDaddy to Go Away, a Scottish bank sends a computer into the eBay abyss full of customer data, and Apple's latest iPhone firmware shuts down copy-and-paste. As expected, Molly blows her stack. Like, a couple times. It's crazy. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 796

Apple event for September 9 http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/08/25/rumor-apple-event-for-september-9th

Network notary system thwarts man-in-the-middle attacks http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080826-network-notary-system-thwarts-man-in-the-middle-attacks.html http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/New-Firefox-Extension-Thwarts-MITM-Attacks-97239… Read more

Amazon to acquire book networking site

Amazon.com is buying Shelfari, the social-networking site for book lovers announced in a blog post to its users Monday night. Terms of the deal were not immediately announced.

In announcing the acquisition, Shelfari likened its mood to a spring day:

The rain has stopped, the birds are chirping and the biggest news of all--we are being acquired by Amazon.com.

We've got some big plans ahead. With more resources and Amazon's expertise in building a platform where people come to share ideas, there are a lot of new opportunities in the future that will benefit each of … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 795: New Zealand judge misses entire point of Internet

In the news today, NBC fails to medal in its online streaming of the Olympics, but Google never fails to meddle (by driving up and down your private roads). OK, that was a Tom joke. Also, the Obama text dissected (but not in a political way), the Pentagon and its fake cat brains, and how to vote better. Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 795

FCC outs HTC Dream’s dimensions: It’s smaller than the iPhone 3G http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/25/fcc-outs-htc-dreams-dimensions-its-smaller-than-the-iphone-3g/

iPhone 3G reception just fine, say curious Swedes with engineering degrees http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/25/iphone-3g-reception-just-fine-say-curious-swedes/ … Read more

Newegg reverses practice of charging New York sales tax

Online electronics retailer Newegg has stopped charging sales tax to its New York customers, according to a posting on the Consumerist.com.

The move by Newegg reverses action the online retailer took in June, in which it began to charge applicable sales tax for all shipments to New York, following passage of a new state law that required certain companies to charge sales tax on shipments to New York state.

Effective August 21, however, Newegg discontinued the practice and is leaving it up to New York residents to pay that sales tax themselves. That policy basically returns the responsibility of … Read more

Report: A Kindle for college kids?

Amid reports that Amazon is working on new models of its e-book reader, the Kindle, one analyst says the online titan has an academic spin in mind.

Amazon sees a chance to cash in by marketing the Kindle to college students, according to McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Tim Bueneman, by way of Seattlepi.com reporter Andrea James.

A collegiate version could be just one of a number of potential Kindles-to-be, apparently. "There are already several new, improved versions of the Kindle in the works," Bueneman wrote in a note Friday, per James.

In July, the site Crunchgear reported … Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: Why security experts still fret about DNS

MessageLabs revealed that an intricate flaw in the underlying design of the Internet's DNS (domain name system) protocol is still vulnerable several weeks after patches were made available. Elinor Mills, who covers security for CNET News, explains what's going on.

Why in the world would Microsoft make available a free--and very cool--digital photo-viewing technology? Josh Lowensohn of Webware, who has been testing the new tool, offers his take.

Still having a rotten time with parallel parking? Well, if you have deep pockets--and I mean really deep pockets, have I got the car for you.

Listen now: … Read more