booking

Apple acknowledges some MacBook hard-drive problems

Apple is investigating whether or not faulty Seagate hard drives are to blame for data loss on some MacBooks.

Retrodata, a U.K. data recovery firm, reported earlier this year that certain 2.5-inch Seagate drives used in MacBooks had a manufacturing flaw that causes the drive heads to scratch the surface of the drive and cause major problems. InformationWeek contacted Apple about the problem, and a company representative said, "We've received a few reports that some MacBook consumer notebooks may have hard-drive issues, and we're looking into it." An e-mail to the same representative checking … Read more

Read free magazines on the iPhone or Touch

I've always loved e-books (I read 'em on my Palm), so I had more than a passing interest in Amazon's new Kindle gizmo (unboxed over at Crave). But $400?! Come on. And then I got to thinking: Man, Apple should really, really get into the e-book game. How cool would it be to flip pages by swiping a finger on the iPhone/iPod touch screen?

Until that glorious day arrives, Zinio Labs is offering free (for now) magazines for iPhone and iPod Touch users. The Zinio Mobile Newsstand includes titles like Car & Driver, Men's Health, and … Read more

Killer Download: Find holiday recipes using cooking database apps

With Thanksgiving only two days away, people are bringing out their favorite recipes for turkey, gravy, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. How do you keep your recipes from year to year? My father's method was to put his favorite recipes into notebooks that would be brought out every year. But even with laminated pages, eventually his notebooks got pretty messy. My mother used index cards to store recipes, but over time the ingredients would fade, especially if the recipe was popular with the family.

In the search for a better method through software, I discovered some good recipe database programs anyone can use. These handy apps let you store all your favorite Thanksgiving recipes (along with all your other recipes) in a searchable database which you can quickly print out for easy access in the kitchen. You can also catalog things like spices and ingredients on hand, and then search for results using those and other parameters. Some of these apps let you explore other databases online with countless recipe variations and varieties of foods to choose from.… Read more

Amazon Kindle: Wait for the sequel?

Amazon has announced its entry into the eBook reader category with Kindle.

It's not in many people's hands yet or mine (CNET's reviewers have some first impressions), so these will have to be preliminary remarks. But I can say that I find it a schizophrenic device and hard to understand what it is trying to accomplish in its current form. It's easy enough to see where it's going, but ambition seems to have got ahead of what Amazon could actually deliver in the near term, and the ambition was not updated for reality. As a … Read more

Amazon Kindle: Hands-on first impressions

The slow drip of rumors and leaks about the Amazon Kindle e-book reader exploded into a full-blown flood over the weekend, once it was revealed as this week's Newsweek cover story. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos filled in all of the remaining blanks (or most of them, anyway) at this morning's New York press conference that officially introduced the product to the world. Some relevant details, finally confirmed:

Measurements: The Kindle weighs 10.3 ounces and is about the size of a trade paperback book. It's both taller and thicker than the Sony Reader.

Connectivity: The … Read more

Amazon debuts Kindle e-book reader

NEW YORK--"Why are books the last bastion of analog?" Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos asked an audience at New York's W Hotel in Union Square as he unveiled Amazon Kindle, the online-retail giant's new electronic book reader.

"Books have stubbornly resisted digitization," he elaborated. "I think there's a very good reason for that, and that is, the book is so highly evolved and so suited to its task that it's very hard to displace."

Indeed, with the launch of Kindle, Amazon is hoping to succeed where hardware companies like Sony … Read more

Amazon's Bezos has lofty ambitions for Kindle

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos believes the Kindle will be to reading what the iPod was to music, according to report published Sunday in the online edition of Newsweek magazine.

In what appears to be the Bezos' first interview about the company's upcoming electronic reader, Amazon's chief told the magazine that the Kindle can store up to 200 books and connect to the Web with the help of a system called Whispernet. Amazon, a company that has become synonymous with buying books online, will also offer Kindle owners a selection of more than 88,000 digital books at … Read more

Amazon to debut Kindle e-book reader Monday

Amazon is betting that e-books aren't a total e-bust.

On Monday, the online retail giant will unveil its Kindle e-book reader at a high-profile event in New York, an industry source told CNET News.com Thursday. Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos is expected to be present for the announcement, to be held at the chic W Hotel in Union Square.

The Kindle is equipped with a Wi-Fi connection that taps into an Amazon e-book store, which users can access to purchase new electronic books--and Amazon has reportedly signed onto a deal with Sprint for EVDO access. Additionally, the device … Read more

Amazon to introduce Kindle e-book reader on November 19?

Amazon's long-awaited--and somewhat anticipated--Kindle electronic book reader may finally get its official introduction on Monday, November 19. At least that's the strong sense I got from a conversation I had earlier today with a PR rep inviting me to an Amazon event here in New York on the 19th. When I asked whether the product was the e-book reader, he wouldn't say (he gave me the usual "you'll have to show up to find out"). But since the Kindle was due to be announced back in October, it seems safe to assume, this is … Read more