Daily Marauder

TECHNOLOGY

Amazon Kindle is either Oprah’s favorite gadget or Amazon sent over the largest fruit basket looking for the ultimate endorsement. Either way, by using OPRAHWINFREY as a coupon code, her glorious name nets you $50 off the e-books standard $359 price. (http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/10/24/crunchdeals-oprah-loves-the-kindle-so-heres-50-bucks-off 10/24)

ZeeVee, which recently launched the ZvBox to grab high- and standard-definition video off the Internet so it can be played back on TV screens, is developing a graphical user interface system that is more intuitive for users. Additionally, the company is working on a rack-mountable version of the ZvBox that features better connectivity and cooling. CEPro.com (10/24)

Computer makers will begin marketing a line of quick-booting machines in the next few months, aimed at easing consumer frustration of waiting several minutes for PCs to start. Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo will ship computers that will provide access to e-mail and the Internet within 30 seconds, and Microsoft has pledged to reduce boot time drastically in its next version of Windows. The New York Times (10/25)

Actually, this technology already exists.  It’s called a Mac.  I’m a daily PC-user and Mac-user and I approve of this message.

Flat-panel TV manufacturers are “cautiously optimistic” that strong sales in the first half of the year will continue through the holiday season. Two reasons for hope, despite the dire economic news, are that manufacturers have been rolling out more discounted models lately and the country’s transition next February to all-digital TV signals. “In general LCD sales have been very good through the year. Although there have been negative macro-economic forces since Q1, the flat-panel sector has withstood the pressure very well,” said Jonas Tanenbaum, Samsung visual display products group LCD products marketing vice president. TWICE (10/27)

Denon has introduced a new Blu-ray disc player that the company says is state-of-the-art for the eyes and the ears. According to this report, the DVD-3800BD is the first product to use the 10-bit Silicon Optix Realta chipset with an HDMI connection, and the device features Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoders for optimum sound. Pocket-lint.co.uk (10/24)