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.
Still running iWork '08? Apple has released maintenance updates for the now-obsolete productivity suite, though, as usual, it's not clear what has changed.
We're finally making the public announcement of our new TipBITS feature, which provides lots of staff- and reader-contributed tips throughout our Web site.
See who won copies of MathMagic Personal Edition and save 50 percent on any version of MathMagic.
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.
A pair of announcements from Google and Safari Books Online, along with hints from Amazon, promise an ever-improving future for ebook reading on the iPhone and iPod touch.
If you use Gmail, you may have noticed that the main toolbar has changed, adding a pair of menus and tweaking the button style. The changes don't add new features, but are instead aimed at making common actions easier to perform.
If you haven't yet had the chance to check out Google Earth, version 5.0 offers some great reasons to do so, including 3D ocean floor terrains, historical imagery, and even the surface of Mars.
While starting work on the next edition of his book about iMovie, Jeff Carlson reveals 10 tips and new features in iMovie '09 that until now have escaped attention.
David Weintraub takes a look at Dropbox, a file syncing and sharing utility ideally suited for people who need to collaborate on documents.
Notable software releases this week include Things 1.0.3, Firefox 3.0.6, GarageBand 5.0.1, PageSender 4.4, BBEdit 9.1.1, and Twitterrific 3.2.
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.
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.