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Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.This theme is Bloggerized by Lasantha Bandara - Premiumbloggertemplates.com.
Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.This theme is Bloggerized by Lasantha Bandara - Premiumbloggertemplates.com.
There are many gadgets that are available in the market and they have multiple uses, but in case you are a blogger then there are some specific gadgets that are of use to you and in fact they are every blogger’s dream. Here is a list of the 5 gadgets that every blogger dreams of.
The Samsung Galaxy SII is a smart phone that is the ultimate dream for any blogger as it is filled with features that are beneficial for a blogger while he/she is on the move. The Samsung Galaxy SII replaces the laptop completely and that is a good thing for a blogger who travels a lot to find things that he/she finds exciting and write about them later. Also as it is a smart phone there are many apps that are present that helps the blogger to take down quick notes and also reminders can be set using the app. But the feature that the blogger benefits from the most is the portability of this device.
There is no handset as good as the Apple iPhone4, except the iPhone 4S. It is the phone that suits everyone and yes it is the perfect choice for a blogger too, as the handset is packed with features that will be of great use to the new age blogger. There are apps that help bloggers not just to take notes, but they can also take photos and the videos with the help of the apps and store them and make use of them later.
This laptop is best if have the time to sit, relax and type out stuff while enjoying a cup of coffee. The laptop is a powerhouse of features and I think that if you are one of those people who like to take out time and think before writing stuff, then this is the device that best suits you. As it has the Lion OS and the typing software that the system has is clearly a cut above the rest
Bloggers come in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. There are gamer bloggers too. And the Sony PS3 is the best device for them as it has features that will satisfy the gamer as well as the blogger in them. The PS3 provides the ultimate gaming experience and I don’t think that there is any other gaming gadget that can compete with it. The gaming experience is sure to bring out the best in the blogger.
Mainstream bloggers travel a lot and ponder upon situations before penning down anything and the best companion that they can have during their days of travel is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It will be helpful in more ways than one, as you can take pictures and videos of the places that you like. You can take down notes and most importantly, you can get the exact location of places from where you are with the help of the GPS technology that this tablet is pre-loaded with.
These are the 5 gadgets that every blogger dreams of, and you should know that all of them enhance the blogging experience to a level that not everyone understands.
Friendism Network wrote this article for Exoplore Feed representing a Best Web Hosting comparision and see the Exclusive WordPress Hosting.
'SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.
We've evolved over millions of years to sense the world around us. When we encounter something, someone or some place, we use our five natural senses to perceive information about it; that information helps us make decisions and chose the right actions to take. But arguably the most useful information that can help us make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with our five senses, namely the data, information and knowledge that mankind has accumulated about everything and which is increasingly all available online. Although the miniaturization of computing devices allows us to carry computers in our pockets, keeping us continually connected to the digital world, there is no link between our digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. Information is confined traditionally on paper or digitally on a screen. SixthSense bridges this gap, bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures. ‘SixthSense’ frees information from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer.
The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.
The SixthSense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness, viability and flexibility of the system. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by Multi-Touch based systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements. The drawing application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of the user’s index finger. SixthSense also recognizes user’s freehand gestures (postures). For example, the SixthSense system implements a gestural camera that takes photos of the scene the user is looking at by detecting the ‘framing’ gesture. The user can stop by any surface or wall and flick through the photos he/she has taken. SixthSense also lets the user draw icons or symbols in the air using the movement of the index finger and recognizes those symbols as interaction instructions. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application or drawing an ‘@’ symbol lets the user check his mail. The SixthSense system also augments physical objects the user is interacting with by projecting more information about these objects projected on them. For example, a newspaper can show live video news or dynamic information can be provided on a regular piece of paper. The gesture of drawing a circle on the user’s wrist projects an analog watch.
The current prototype system costs approximate $350 to build. Instructions on how to make your own prototype device can be found here (coming soon).
VIDEOS
PUBLICATIONS
P. Mistry, P. Maes. SixthSense – A Wearable Gestural Interface. In the Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, Sketch. Yokohama, Japan. 2009
P. Mistry, P. Maes. SixthSense – A Wearable Gestural Interface. In the Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, Emerging Technologies. Yokohama, Japan. 2009
P. Mistry, P. Maes, L. Chang. WUW - Wear Ur World - A Wearable Gestural Interface. In the CHI '09 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. Boston, USA. 2009
SPARSH (स्पर्श) lets you conceptually transfer media from one digital device to your body and pass it to the other digital device by simple touch gestures.
Our digital world – laptop, TV, smart phone, e-book reader and all are now relying upon the cloud, the cloud of information. SPARSH explores a novel interaction method to seamlessly transfer something between these devices in a real fun way using the underlying cloud. Here it goes. Touch whatever you want to copy. Now it is saved conceptually in you. Next, touch the device you want to paste/pass the saved content.
So, what can you do with SPARSH? Imagine you received a text message from a friend with his address. You touch the message and it is conceptually get copied in you - your body. Now you pass that address to the search bar of the Google map in the web browser of your laptop by simply touching it. Want to see some pictures from your digital camera on your tablet computer? Select the pictures you want to copy by touching them on camera display screen and now pass it to your tablet by touching the screen of the tablet. Or you can watch a video from your Facebook wall by copying it from your phone to TV. SPARSH uses touch based interactions as just indication for what to copy, from where and where to pass it. Technically, the actual magic(transfer of media) happens on the cloud.
“Siri, start my car”, “Siri, Set the thermostat to 72 degrees” – saying that to the iPhone and having an AI agent perform those tasks sounds futuristic doesn’t it? It’s not from the future though, it’s now, thanks to the ambitious work of a third party developer who created something called Siri Proxy.
As the name suggests, SiriProxy is a proxy server to Apple’s Siri assistant that allows for creating custom plugins that perform virtually any function, including tasks like remotely starting a car, locking and unlocking car doors, and even querying and controlling a home thermostat. The potential here is huge, and none of it requires any on-device hacks or jailbreaks because it’s handled away from the iPhone on a remote server.
Due to it’s very early stage in development, setting up Siri Proxy isn’t the most easy thing in the world. You’ll need an iPhone 4S, and some experience with Ruby, certificates, web servers, and OpenSSL (you’re setting up a web server, after all). If that’s you,check out the source code and instructions on how to get it working here.
Here are some videos of Siri Proxy in action:
Siri starting and stopping a car remotely
Siri controlling a home thermostat
Siri locking and unlocking car doors
On the SiriProxy projects page you can find more videos of third party implementations, including Siri interaction with Twitter, Dreambox, Plex, and even retrieving sports scores.
With so much obvious potential, it wouldn’t be terribly surprising if Apple wound up opening Siri to iOS developers. Apple pays close attention to third party hacks and isn’t afraid to embrace some of the ideas born from these outside developers, the most recent example of which includes a wide variety of the features in iOS 5.
Heads up to MacGasm and Adem Semir for the video links.
Posted by Stephen Shankland | 11/25/2011 | 07:31 AM
Google has begun adding its own ads to the top of Chrome's new-tab page.
(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET) Google just found another digital billboard for online ads: its Chrome Web browser.
I just started noticing the ads on one of my computers yesterday, and I'm not the only one to see them. Right now, the ads tout Google's Chrome OS-powered Chromebooks, which not coincidentally happen to be on sale for the holidays.
The ads don't interrupt ordinary Web browsing by pushing aside Web page content and don't compete with regular Web page ads. Rather, they appear in a yellow-tinted box at the top of the new-tab page in Chrome.
That page is typically a mere way station for users on their way to other destinations, but it's getting more important as a hub for Chrome Web Store apps and as the home screen for Chrome OS.
The ad reminded me most of the occasional promotions Google puts on its otherwise spartan Google.com home. They're not obnoxious flashing distractions, but they stand out against amid the uncluttered field.
You can't blame Google for wanting to take advantage of a chance to make money. But as the Spiderman saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility.
When Google launched Chrome in September 2008, it made it clear that the browser was a secondary mechanism for making money. The company wanted people to see Web pages faster and to enable programmers to build more advanced Web applications--like Google Docs, for example.
And as we've seen since then, Google likes using Chrome as a vehicle to bring new Web-app features to market--a new experimental interface to let Chrome extensions use a speech-to-text conversion, for example--and to encourage would-be Google standards such as SPDY networking, WebM video, and WebP images.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that Chrome's new-tab page ads will likely remain like Google's home-page ads. They're chiefly used to promote Google services, and occasionally to offer important information such as links to natural-disaster response pages. But Google doesn't sell the ad space the way Yahoo does with its main page.
There's nothing stopping Google from plastering its entire browser with ads. But the moment it did so, it would start annoying users who already have plenty of other strong choices in the browser market right now. And in the long run, I believe Google will make a lot more money using browsers to advance Web services and to drive people to Google search ads than it will selling banners in its browser.
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! We're well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties surrounding the seasonal shopping experience, so we're here to help you sort out this year's tech treasures. Below is today's bevy of curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season.
With cameras popping up on tablets, smartphones and even Bluetooth headsets, there's a fairly good chance that there's already a device in your pocket capable of shooting high-res stills and HD video. But even with popular apps like Instagram on-board, mobile devices still can't match the versatility and image quality of a dedicated snapper. If you're looking to hide a new point-and-shoot under the tree this year, there are plenty of great options to consider, for any budget. So clear off the memory card and get ready to jump past the break for our top picks that will deliver -- and capture -- plenty of holiday cheer.
A 16.1 megapixel sensor, 28mm wide-angle 8x zoom lens, optical image stabilization and 720p video to boot for just a couple hard egg nogs above $100? Yeah, we'll take ten. With such a robust feature set and low price tag, it's no surprise that the DMC-FH25 is one of Panasonic's best-selling models so far this year -- and it's sure to be a hit through the holiday season as well. It won't blow you away with record performance, but it's an excellent choice for anyone on a budget -- and it comes in fun colors, too!
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX9
Budget shoppers don't need to compromise much with the Sony WX9. This compact cam packs a 16.2 megapixel CMOS sensor, 5x wide-angle zoom lens, 10fps full-res burst capture and 1080i HD video. And if you're super-quick with the unboxings, you may even be able to snap Santa's post-drop escape in glorious 3D.
When friends ask which point-and-shoot to buy, we typically recommend a Canon PowerShot, regardless of their budget. And you can't go wrong with this sub-$200 snapper, which sports a 12 megapixel CMOS sensor, 1080p video and an impressive wide-angle 24mm 5x zoom lens with optical image stabiilization.
The S100 is in good company -- its predecessor, the S95, sat in this exact spot in our Back to School guide, but if you didn't pull the trigger on Canon's top-of-the-line point-and-shoot at that point, you're in for a treat. This year's compact has a nearly identical footprint, but boosts the optical zoom from 3.8x to 5x, while maintaining an f/2.0 maximum aperture, for excellent snaps in terrible light with a fair amount of creamy bokeh to boot. You'll also find a full range of advanced shooting features, including a manual mode and RAW capture, along with a new 12.1 megapixel CMOS sensor, 3-inch display and GPS functionality.
This clever hinged-screen cam has a 3-inch touchscreen that flips 180 degrees to face front, letting you take advantage of the full display for self-portraits and videos. Flipping it up halfway lets you frame shots from above, or turn the 16.1 megapixel camera upside-down for overhead shots.
The Fujifilm X100 was a hit with reviewers, but its $1400 price tag and fixed lens made it impractical for those without deep pockets. Its new sibling, the X10, sports a 4x f/2-2.8 zoom lens and a cheaper price tag, but lacks the APS-C sensor of the older model. Still, its speedy lens and gorgeous rangefinder-like design make this hardy cam a win in our book. Price: $600 on Amazon
We're still just as smitten with Sony's entry-level mirrorless cam as we were during the review earlier this year, with the ILC earning a permanent spot in our trade show kit (and our hearts -- no, really). It serves us quite well when shooting hands-ons, but is also our top pick for personal travel and casual shooting. It's not powerful enough to use as a primary cam for pros, but for everyone else, the NEX-C3 is worthy of your consideration, even if you've saved up enough for a more expensive (and heavier) DSLR kit. We really can't say enough good things about this camera.
Its price has dropped just $70 since the fall, but the 16.2 megapixel D7000 is still our top DSLR pick from Nikon. There's also 1080p video capture, 39-point autofocus, a wide-view 3-inch LCD, and a top ISO sensitivty of ISO 25,600.
Canon EOS-1D X
It won't be available until next year, so you'll need to draw up an IOU if you want to gift a 1D X, but this 18 megapixel monster will likely be crowned king of the jungle come 2012. Canon's latest full-frame flagship will be worth the wait, if not the estimated $6,800 price tag.
By Gary Cutlack - gizmodo uk, Nov 22, 2011 7:00 AM
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A group of Italian scientists have questioned those faster-than-light neutrino test results, claiming that anything moving that fast should lose energy — but that's not what the original tests showed.
Claiming that they "refute a superluminal interpretation" the team from the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy say the original test results don't support the light speed breaking claims, because no energy was lost by the neutrinos in the original 2010 test.
All this despite the original faster-then-light claims recently being retested and once again stated as a fact by the original testers. [The Register via Gizmodo UK]
Back in April, the Nook Color underwent a magical change of sorts: a software update that transformed the device from a color screen e-reader into an honest to goodness Android tablet. It was the company's first swipe at the space -- a backdoor approach that beat out fellow e-reader manufacturers like Amazon and Kobo. Its follow-up, the Nook Tablet, marks the company's first out-of-the-box shot at the consumer tablet market. Not to mention, it also goes head to head with the Kindle Fire, a device that's sure to be one of the best-selling gadgets of the holiday season, thanks to its price and wide content selection.
Does the Nook Tablet have what it takes to topple the Kindle Fire? Do the product's benefits justify its $50 premium over Amazon's device -- or the recently discounted and soon to be upgraded Nook Color for that matter? Find out the answers to these questions and so, so many more, after the break.
Need a fun way to pass the time this weekend? Why not roll down to your local Barnes & Noble for a round of "Nook Tablet or Nook Color?" It's the gadgety game that's sweeping the nation. Yes, it's been said before, but it bears repeating: the Tablet is nearly identical to its predecessor. When we asked Barnes & Noble why it opted to go with the same form factor, a company rep told us it was because the Nook Color was such a successful device with an immediately recognizable design. In other words, the Nook Color wasn't broken, so B&N didn't fix it -- besides, the company surely wanted to make the most of its Yves Behar investment.
The only major changes to the body are a lighter color (a metallic silver to the Color's dark gray), and a slightly more textured back, which should help when it comes to keeping the thing from slipping to the floor during a particularly saucy D.H. Lawrence passage. Also, in spite of some revamped innards, the company managed to shed a little more than an ounce on the reader, knocking it down to 14.1 ounces (400 grams) -- half an ounce less than the Fire.
However, familiar it is, the Nook Tablet has a distinctive design in a market filled with iPad lookalikes. And yes, its chief competition, the Kindle Fire, looks an awful lot like the BlackBerry PlayBook, as we've mentioned many times before. The most distinctive feature, hands-down is the little carabiner loop that juts out from the bottom left corner of the reader, a design decision largely to set the device apart from other tablets according to B&N -- and to offer some protection for the slot that lies on the other side.
The Nook tablet measures 8.1 x 5.0 x 0.48 inches, making it slightly larger than the Fire in every respect, particularly height. The Nook is tall for a seven-inch tablet. This is thanks, in part, to its sizable plastic outer bezel, as well as a bar below the screen that houses the home button, which is better defined here than on the Color. The black bar is flush with the display this time out and at first glance appears larger than the one on the Color. Still, once you turn on the Color, you'll notice a black bar lining the bottom of the screen, which effectively cancels out the benefit of having a narrower bezel
Two large volume buttons are located on the top of the Tablet's left side, with the power button on the right side. The Nook has four physical buttons in all -- three more than the Fire's solitary power button, a plus for easy access and those moments when the touchscreen acts up, which has certainly been known to happen on these budget tabets. Oh, and unlike the Fire, you can actually adjust the volume without diving into the settings. Point Barnes & Noble. A headphone jack is located along the top of the slate, with a micro-USB port positioned at the center of the bottom. Flip the device over, and you'll see a small speaker grill. The speaker has been bumped up a bit this time out. It can achieve a audible volume, but like the Kindle Fire, the quality is abysmal. You'll most likely find yourself reaching for the headphones (not included).
The back of the Tablet is convex (which is why it comes in a tiny bit thicker than the Fire), so it conforms to the hand a bit better than the perfectly flat Kindle Fire. A big, indented lowercase "n" sits in the middle of the non-removable back. On the bottom, next to the carabiner is a silver strip reading "nook." Pry it open with a finger nail and you'll find the microSD slot.
The Nook has a nice size and shape that come in handy during long reading sessions -- something B&N clearly took into account when building it. Your thumb grips comfortably around the plastic bezel, with your fingers on the upside down horseshoe on the rear, which brings to mind the Nook Simple Touch'sconcave backing.This might have served as another avenue for aesthetic distinction here, though no doubt would have ultimately served to add more girth to what is already a largeish footprint for a seven-inch tablet.
The Nook ships with a micro-USB cable and AC adapter, which you'll need to charge it up -- no PC charging for this guy. The former has the device's "n" logo on one end, changing color with battery status: yellow for charging and green for full. Sure, you can simply unlock the device to find out, but it's a nice little extra touch.
Here's where the Tablet shines, compared to its older brother. Here, B&N has given us a 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM, both upgrades from the Color's 800MHz single-core CPU and 512 MB of RAM. The RAM is also double that of the Fire, though the processor clocks in at the same speed. As with the Fire, the Nook Tablet only comes in one flavor, spec-wise -- B&N likely didn't think it would be able to get away with offering another level for $50 more. After all, it already chose to keep the Nook Color around for $199.
The Nook Tablet steps things up on the storage front, too, with 16GB -- double that of the Kindle Fire. Things get a little tricky here, however. As with the Fire, around 2 to 3GB are monopolized by OS-related content. A full 12GB of the Nook's storage, meanwhile, are devoted to content downloaded from B&N, like books and magazines. That leaves a paltry 1GB of storage for non-B&N content -- i.e. all of the stuff you're side-loading onto the device. That may not sound like a crazy proposition if you're only planning to store some documents on the thing, but if you were planning on storing a bunch of music and movies from your own collection, you're kind of out of luck. And, indeed, the ability to simply drag and drop content from a PC and have it show on the device is certainly a selling point for the Nook Tablet.
Barnes & Noble assures us that, as the company moves forward with multimedia deals in the year ahead, more third-party content will be storable in that 12GB section. There are a few things to note here on top of that promise. First, like Amazon, B&N is really focused on streaming multimedia content here through apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Pandora, all of which come preloaded on the Tablet. Also, there's the aforementioned expandable memory, a feature that Amazon has roundly eschewed in its Kindle line. Pick up a microSD card, and you can rock up to an additional 32GB of storage.
Connectivity-wise, we're talking WiFi. As with the Fire, there's no 3G option here, and if the Color is any indication, don't expect to see one any time soon. The Nook maintained a WiFi connection fairly well, even managing in some places where the Fire failed. The company is also taking advantage of its brick and mortar presence to offer up free in-store WiFi on the Tablet, as with its other Nook brethren. As far as Bluetooth goes, however, you're gonna have to look elsewhere.
Display
Pick up an SD card, and you can rock up to an additional 32GB of storage.
As with the rest of the outside of the Tablet, Barnes & Noble left the Nook Color's screen intact. Like the Fire, we've got a 1024 x 600 seven-inch IPS LCD. Placed against Amazon's device, the Nook Tablet seems a touch brighter. B&N is talking up the diplay's lamination, which helps reduce glare, helping improve the Tablet's viewing angles. The glare does appear to have been reduced just a bit, but again, we were hard pressed to detect any major differences between the Nook and the Kindle in that department.
Again, the perpetual e-reader vs. tablet disclaimer is in place here: if you're just in the market for a device to read long chunks of prose on, invest in a Nook Simple Touch or Kindle Touch. E-ink is easier on the eyes than backlighting for long stretches and is much more easily read in sunlight. That said, you can read the Nook Tablet in a dark room, without the aid of a booklight, and there's surely something to be said for that, right?
Battery
As with the Fire, the Nook Tablet's battery pales in comparison to its E Ink brethren, but as far as seven inch color tablets go, the device didn't do all that shabby in our standard battery rundown rundown test, managing eight hours and twenty minutes on a charge. It's not quite the "up to nine hours" promised by the company, but it still handily beat the Kindle Fire's seven hours and 42 minutes. That'll get you through a lot of Archer episodes on Netflix.
Tablet
Battery Life
Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet
8:20
Amazon Kindle Fire
7:42
Apple iPad 2
10:26
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
9:55
Apple iPad
9:33
Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9
9:21
HP TouchPad
8:33
Lenovo IdeaPad K1
8:20
Motorola Xoom
8:20
T-Mobile G-Slate
8:18
Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
8:09
Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet
8:00
Archos 101
7:20
Archos 80 G9
7:06
RIM BlackBerry PlayBook
7:01
Acer Iconia Tab A500
6:55
Toshiba Thrive
6:25
Samsung Galaxy Tab
6:09
Performance
[Kindle, left; Nook, right]
As mentioned earlier, the internals are the key distinction between the Nook Tablet and its still very much alive predecessor. This time out, the Nook is rocking a 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM, and yes, there's a noticeable difference in speed, even with something as simple as loading an app like Angry Birds. The distinction is a bit less pronounced between the Kindle Fire and the Nook, though it is there, with the Nook just beating the Fire when loading apps. The Tablet was able to take just about everything we threw at it with minimal hiccups.
The most clear performance distinction between the Fire and the Tablet can be seen when playing video.
There isn't a ton of distinction between the Nook and the Fire, when it comes to browsing. The Kindle seems a bit more equipped to handle text and the Nook does a better job with images when loading pages. Both devices do pinch-to-zoom, scrolling and the like capably. SunSpider 9.1 told a bit of a different story, with the Book racking up a 4,135 -- that's low, especially compared to the Fire's score of 2,440. The difference in results may have something to do with the Kindle's Silk Browser, which utilizes Kindle's massive server resources, to do the heavy lifting for page rending -- a tool that the company promises will continue to improve over time.
The most clear performance distinction between the Fire and the Tablet can be seen when playing video. We streamed Shutter Island on Netflix and were blown away by the difference. The Nook's video playback handles motion far more gracefully than the choppy Fire. And it picks up on subtle details that bleed and blur when played back on the Kindle. The Nook Tablet definitely wins that round.
Interface
Amazon seemingly went out it its way to mask all traces of the Android interface it was running on top of. Barnes & Noble made some big adjustments to the operating system as well, but anyone who's used Android for any length or time will likely recognize the operating system. Where the Fire is locked into a bookshelf-like UI, the Nook offers up a pretty standard mobile desktop -- one with a default wallpaper that is thankfully less busy that the one offered up on the Color.
The Color's top bar is largely intact here, however, deferring to the Tablet's reader roots by offering up the name of the book you've been reading. Barnes & Noble is having it both ways, however, pushing the device's multimedia functionality at the same time. Click "More," and you get a list of your books, periodicals and Netflix picks, if you're online and logged into the service. A row of icons offers up apps you've used and books you've recently read -- these can be dragged and dropped onto the desktop, if you're so inclined. Below that row are icons for including movies (via Netflix and Hulu Plus), music (via the built-in music player and Pandora), and a list of apps. Barnes & Noble is really driving home the fact that it's got a true multimedia device, this time around.
Still below that row is a battery-level indicator, the time, and an open-book icon, which is visible across many of the Tablet's features, a gentle reminder that, even in the face of streaming movies and music, this device is a reader at heart. Clicking the "n" button brings up yet another menu, offering up options ways of accessing home, library, the shop, search, apps, the web, and settings. Clicking the library icon will bring up an interface more like the Fire's default screen, complete with shelves. It doesn't look as good as the Kindle's classy wood design, bit does the trick. There are shelves for apps, books, magazines, newspapers, kids books and further customizable options.
As with the Fire, the app selection is limited to those Barnes & Noble wants on the device. Of course, there are workarounds -- lots of them, in fact. We were feeling a bit saucy and managed to load the Amazon Appstore on the slate (here's where that microSD card comes in handy) with little effort. Or, you can always just root the Tablet. Barnes & Noble would prefer you score your content through officially sanctioned channels, of course, but the company hasn't exactly made it difficult to find other avenues.
Browser
Where the Silk browser was one of Amazon's major selling points for the Fire, browsing speeds are less of a focus on the Nook Tablet. After all, Barnes & Noble doesn't have its servers doing all of the work for the device. The Nook browser doesn't offer a lot of bells and whistles, though unlike some seven-inch Gingerbread tablets like the Kobo Vox, the thing actually renders pages in their desktop form, rather than as mobile sites.
Layout-wise there's not a whole heck of a lot of differences between the browsers on the Nook Tablet and Color. At top is an address bar, a back button, a star icon for bookmarks and an icon for additional options like opening up new windows, viewing bookmarks, refreshing, and paging forward. Hold down on a page, and you'll get options for searching on it, getting page info, adjusting settings, viewing your downloads and bookmarking.
Zooming and scrolling are zippy on the reader. You accomplish the former by either pinching, double-tapping or clicking plus and minus buttons that pop up as you scroll. And, yes, unlike some other tablets, this one is fully capable of playing Flash video, and it does so quite smoothly.
Magazines
The thought of reading an image-heavy magazine on, say, the Nook Simple Touch, seems like a downright nightmare -- the grayscale images, the clunky zooming, the endless scrolling. Compared to its e-reader predecessors, the Nook Tablet's full-color multitouch screen is a delight. Given the real estate limitations of the seven-inch screen, however, there's a still good deal of pinching to zooming and scrolling happening here to properly take in all of the text and images.
As we suggested in the Fire review, a 10-inch display is a far more ideal size for reading standard format magazines. Many magazines not formatted specifically for the device will show a black bar on the bottom to format them to the page -- of course, this will go away as you zoom in.
As with other texts, the Nook Tablet will offer you the option of picking up where you've left off, if you've been reading a copy of a given magazine on another device. The pages have animation similar to that on the iPad, simulating the experience of flipping through a physical magazine. Tapping a page in the center will bring up buttons for the table of contents, brightness adjustment and a handy gallery of thumbnail pages that you can quickly swipe through to find a spot in the periodical that you'd like to check out. Along the top of the page is a black bar offering up the magazine's name in one corner and a plus in the other that you can tap to bookmark a page, dog ear-style.
Comics
Comixology on the iPad is still the gold standard for digital comics reading. That said, the Nook Tablet's built-in comics reader certainly does an admirable job recreating the experience. The screen offers up vibrant screens for brightly color books. The blues and reds of Spider-man's costume really pop on the seven-inch screen.
Unlike the Fire, the Nook Tablet can pinch to zoom in those spots of artwork that require closer inspection or pieces of text that are just too small to read with the page at full-size. However, the Fire's panel-by-panel reading method is really the ideal way to experience a comic on a screen with limited screen space. With the Nook, you regularly find yourself pinching to get a closer look and scrolling around like mad to make it around the page. Once you flip the page, the whole thing pops back into place.
If you're reading a book with two-page splashes, you can shift the device to landscape mode, to look at two at once. Of course, given the size constraints, the text becomes much harder to read. The preview gallery found in magazine mode is also present here, and it looks really great flipping through brightly-colored action pages.
Children's books
The full-color screen is also great for kids books, and thanks to their relatively limited text, they generally scale better than magazines or comics. Given the Nook Tablet's smaller size and cheaper price point, it actually may be a be a better option for young readers. When you click open a compatible title, you're greated with three options. Read By Myself gives you the standard reading experience, Read and Play offers narration that reads for you as you flip through, And thanks to a built-in mic, Read and Record lets parents record narration on a selection of kids titles, so children have someone to read to them when they're not around.
A little arrow icon on the bottom of a page offers up a similar thumbnail gallery with large images of the book's pages. Some of the titles, like the Michael Chabon-penned The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man offer up activities on each page. Clicking the star icon on the top lets kids now how they interact with the book, such as touching characters to see animations.
Books
This wouldn't be a Nook without the reading, right? In spite of all of its flashy multimedia capabilities present, Barnes & Noble clearly considers the Nook Tablet a reading device at heart. The reading experience doesn't stray too far from the one offered up by the Nook Color. The pages are monopolized almost entirely by text, save for the ubiquitous bar at the bottom offering up WiFi strength and battery level and pages numbers, with both your present page and the total number in the book, a feature curiously absent from the Kindle's default layout. Clicking on the numbers brings up a slider for adjusting your place in the book. You can also just enter number manually by clicking Go to Page.
As with the Fire, you can navigate through the text by swiping forward or back or tapping a margin. Tapping on the center, meanwhile, brings up a menu offering up the table of contents, a search function, sharing, text, brightness adjustments and a Discover feature, which offers up texts similar to the one you're reading. Interestingly, both Barnes & Noble opted not to feature a pinch-to-zoom option in the standard reading interface, a simple method for adjusting text size.
In the menu, you've got a healthy number of options for looking at the page, however, including eight text sizes, six fonts, six color themes from black on yellow to white on brown (for when the white LCD gets to be too much), three margins and three line spacing layouts. Barnes & Noble does a solid job leveraging the color screen here by giving you a ton of viewing options for the reasonably simple task of looking at plain text on a page.
Wrap-up
The market was already crowded well before Barnes & Noble announced the Nook Tablet, a situation that certainly didn't improve for the company with the announcement of the Kindle Fire. Anyone eyeing the Nook Tablet either as a gift or for themselves will almost certainly be cross checking it with Amazon's new much discussed slate. And then there's the fact that the Nook's predecessor didn't actually go away with the announcement of the new device -- rather, it got cheaper and better.
At $249, the Nook Tablet also costs a full $50 more than those products, a difference that's not negligible when we're talking about budget devices. The words "under $200" mean a lot to shoppers. Of course, you get some decided advantages along with that premium, including more RAM, great video, a microSD slot and attention paid to smaller things, like the built-in mic, which lets users do things like recording narration for kids books.
Amazon, on the other hand, offers up a smaller form factor, price and better proprietary media options. There's really no clear winner here, but with the addition of two now solid products to the ever-expanding world of tablets, there's an even greater chance that the consumer will get precisely what they're looking for.
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