Bob Caswell

Toward the end of last week, I pointed out a deal on Amazon for an HD-DVD player with 10 movies for $174. Interestingly enough, I purchased the player online during Black Friday. That is, the day where all the good deals are supposed to be in stores at early morning hours.

Since I had a few other gadgets in mind (not to be named, as they might be for some who may be reading this!) which weren’t offered at any discount during Black Friday, I thought I’d wait until the infamous “Cyber Monday.” For the uninitiated, Cyber Monday is the Monday after Thanksgiving that is supposed to be the online equivalent of the day-after-Thanksgiving sales. Here is a good article on CNN Money.

But to my surprise and frustration, I have found less interesting online deals today versus Black Friday. In fact, Amazon actually raised the prices on a few of the items I had my eye on. And that HD-DVD player deal? Here it is again for those who missed it the first time, but this time it’s priced at $179 and only comes with 7 movies (update: now two months later it’s only $132). Still a pretty good deal even if I’m glad I didn’t wait till today for mine.

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The iPhone will go on sale next week in France. While the exclusive French carrier, Orange, has not disclosed any details, French law has already forced Apple to promise that consumers will have the option to buy a version of the iPhone without a long-term contract with Orange.

And now T-Mobile is in a similar situation in Germany. The unlocked iPhone is now officially available but for €999, around $1,478 even if normally available with contract at €399.

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*Update* Thanks for the emails and comments that answer some of the questions posed below. Each of the questions has been updated with the latest answer (even if not all are satisfying). The product page for the Amazon Kindle provides some good information as well. Also, check out Boing Boing’s excellent review plus read here for more on the polarized responses this new technology is creating.

So the big technology news for today comes from Amazon. The company is trying to reinvent one of the forms of media which hasn’t taken off digitally: the book. Here’s what we know:

The eBook reader is called the Amazon Kindle and is priced at $399. It weighs 10.3 ounces and has a keyboard. It can hold 200 books via built-in memory and has a long battery life of approximately 30 hours (with 2 hours to recharge)

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So Google today announced its plans to be the latest force in the cellphone industry. The gist of the press release is that Google has partnered with 34 companies to develop and release an “open source” operating system, user interface, and applications. What this means in terms of the highly anticipated Gphone is best explained in the words of the Google engineer in charge of the project, Andy Rubin: “We are not building a GPhone; we are enabling 1,000 people to build a GPhone.”

This is really only news if you’re a developer. As for what this means for technology consumers specifically, see below for a compilation of the most relevant and interesting quotes surrounding the latest news of the pseudo-Gphone:

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The latest info from our good friends those “people familiar with the matter” is that Google is in advanced talks with two U.S. cellphone operators: Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel. The talks, of course, are revolving around the two companies offering new Google-powered mobile phones. Google has to get some major wireless operators to sign on to this project if it’s to reach its rumor-generated goal of getting Gphones in front of consumers by the middle of next year.

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The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) is quoting “people familiar with the matter” in stating that within two weeks Google will announce plans to bring Google-powered phones to market by the middle of next year. Apparently, Google’s goal is “[T]o make applications and services as accessible on cellphones as they are on the Internet.”

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ARM is a British company best known for designing chips for cellphones and licensing them to semiconductor companies. The company’s technology is the most widely used in cellphones, though any company implementing the technology modifies it however it deems best. But now a new effort is under way to exploit this chip technology by creating a standard layer of software.

The collaboration was announced at the fourth annual ARM Developers’ Conference being held this week in Santa Clara, California. The idea is to address the rise in consumer demand for Internet access and advanced applications on cellphones. The seven companies are ARM, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Mozilla, Marvell, MontaVista, and Movial. The new standard chosen: a Linux-based open source platform to be designed for next-generation mobile applications.

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Purdue University plans to test a text messaging system in late September. So far, about 6,000 students, faculty, and staff have signed up, according to Scott Ksander, executive director of information technology networks and security. In order for the test to be valid, however, the university claims it needs three times that number.

Registration is a simple process. Users go to http://www.purdue.edu/securepurdue and click on “Change My Password.” They then enter their account name and password, and then select the “Emergency Contact Information” link.

Results from the test will be used to determine what works, what can be improved, and how best to evaluate a system for the campus. The university explained that it will use the system only for this test and emergencies involving public safety. Here are some more details (which you can only get to after logging into the system as a student or staff member):

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