Recession? Not if you’re the Amazon Kindle, it turns out — it’s currently the bestselling product across all categories at Amazon. Yes, that means it’s outselling the robotic hamsters, the t-shirts with wolves howling at the moon, and the limited edition Snuggies. November, when people traditionally start trampling each other in the name of gift giving and holiday cheer, has also been the best single month of sales ever for the e-reading device, in spite of the fact that there’s more competition than ever for it — so that’s good news for them, right? Amazon hasn’t released any actual numbers, of course, so it’s hard to say what it all means. The other good news is that as far as we can tell, it doesn’t look like they’ll sell out anytime soon. Full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Kindle is the biggest selling item on Amazon, bests sliced bread

Kindle is the biggest selling item on Amazon, bests sliced bread originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just weeks after going on sale here in America, Creative’s underwhelming ZEN X-Fi2 portable media player is already seeing its first firmware update. If you’ll recall, we found the unit darn near unusable back at IFA, and even now it’s being panned for forcing users to mash the screen too often and wait too long for things to happen. Reportedly, the 1.10.04 update solves those responsiveness issues, and it also brings about colored icons (yeah, seriously), accelerometer usage (but only for photos), a Sudoku game and a “press and hold” behavior for powering the unit on or off. The most interesting aspect here (in our humble opinions) is the Sudoku bit, as it certainly hints at more titles being possible in future firmware refreshes. Hit the Read link to get that download going, and hop on past the break if you need any video convincing.

Continue reading Creative ZEN X-Fi2 sees its first firmware update, still has aways to go

Creative

Alright, so iPhone and N97 knock-offs probably aren’t the rarest of gems around these days, but how many handsets do you know that can lay claim to being both? The Cooli902 takes the iPhone’s 3.5-inch touchscreen, spit-shines a pretty realistic iPhone OS clone-job, and then adds the Nokia flavor with a fully fledged QWERTY keypad ripped straight from the heart of the N97. Not only does it open to that familiar angle, it also sports the same layout and what we can only imagine to be the same violent opening mechanism as found on the original Nokia handset. And to think that poor Philippe Starck had to pick between these two phones, when for only $143 we could have had both. More pics after the break, or hit the read link to get your own.

Continue reading Keepin’ it real fake, part CCXLV: the Nokia iPhone

Keepin’ it real fake, part CCXLV: the Nokia iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AP – A New Jersey blogger about to stand trial on charges he made death threats against federal judges apparently was paid by the FBI in its battle against domestic terrorism, according to a published report.

Read more here:
Report: FBI paid controversial NJ blogger for help
(AP)

We’ll admit we save our Nikon excitement for the sort of gear that comes with “bad mother” stitched into its casing, but sometimes even our jaded souls can get intrigued by a compact. This particular slimline unit has an OLED touchscreen display, with the additional inclusion of multitouch and gesture support, which already gets it right up to speed on the latest trends. With a 5x optical zoom, 12 megapixel sensor, and 720p/30fps video, it’s also no slouch on the spec sheet, but reviewers at Photography Blog found a few shortcomings. The Nikon S70 is said to be overly reliant on the 3.5-inch touch display for controls, and although the camera is both thin and ultrafast to start up, those benefits come at the greatest cost of all: image quality is only average, and noise handling is poor even at base ISO. We’ll file this one in our “vivacious but vapid” archive while you busy yourself with reading the full review.

Nikon Coolpix S70 review: excellent spec, but mediocre image quality originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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