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TidBITS#964/09-Feb-09

Today’s big technology news is the announcement of Amazon’s Kindle 2 ebook reader, which adds increased storage, new features, and an improved industrial design, but no changes in terms of what it can display. In addition to looking at the Kindle 2, Adam focuses on the possibility that Kindle ebooks will appear on other devices, and notes iPhone-compatible versions of Safari Books Online and Google Book Search. Google has been busy in other areas, too, tweaking the interface to Gmail and releasing Google Earth 5.0 with information about oceans, Mars, and a neat time travel capability. Also in this issue, Adam unveils our TipBITS feature for sharing staff- and reader-contributed tips, David Weintraub raves about the collaborative benefits of Dropbox, Jeff Carlson reveals 10 secret features of iMovie ’09, and Doug McLean looks at Apple’s updates to iWork ’08. In the TidBITS Watchlist, we note the releases of Things 1.0.3, Firefox 3.0.6, GarageBand 5.0.1, PageSender 4.4, BBEdit 9.1.1, and Twitterrific 3.2.

Adam Engst No comments

Amazon Announces Kindle 2 Ebook Reader

In a much-anticipated announcement, Amazon has thrown back the curtains on the second-generation Kindle, refining the industrial design and improving some of the hardware specs, but not significantly improving the device's onscreen layout capabilities.

TidBITS Staff No comments

ExtraBITS for 09-Feb-09

Read on for a collection of links to the most interesting things that the TidBITS staff discovered on the Web this week, including xkcd on breaking strong encryption and several iPhone-related announcements from Google.

Jeff Carlson No comments

Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk for 09-Feb-09

This week's discussions cover a broad range of topics: backing up large hard disks, putting SATA drives in an Xserve SAS drive sled, proper terminology in Twitter, using an iPhone in Europe, the impending death of the Zune, and 10 secrets of iMovie '09.