| iPodObserver - Happy Birthday, iPod: Six Years of Apple Innovation
Apple released the original iPod six years ago on October 23, 2001. During its first six years, the iPod has gone from a 5GB Mac-only music player to a cross-platform 160GB music and video player and the most popular media player on the market. Happy birthday, iPod. .
Lighting a Kindle: Amazon.com introduces new electronic reading device for e-books
Amazon.com Inc., the world's largest Internet retailer, introduced an electronic reading device Monday, seeking to do for books what Apple Inc.'s iPod did for music. The portable device, called Kindle, sells for $399 and is about the size of a paperback. More than 90,000 books are available electronically, including best sellers and new releases, many of which cost $9.99 each, Seattle-based Amazon.com said in a statement. Amazon.com boosted technology spending to add Unbox, a video-download service and a music-download store to reduce its reliance on sales of books, CDs and DVDs. The stock has doubled this year, topping $100 last month, as shareholders have expressed optimism the investments will pay off. "It's a bold move by Amazon, it's a very promising start," said Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C.
Amazon to take on iPod with Kindle
Amazon.com has introduced an electronic reading device as it seeks to duplicate Apple�s success with the iPod in the music industry. The device, called Kindle, would retail for $399 (R2 677), Amazon said yesterday. Amazon has boosted technology spending to add Unbox, a video download service and a music download store to reduce its reliance on sales of books, CDs and DVDs. .
But will it survive a dip in the bathtub?
The battle to persuade us all finally to abandon the familiar spine-creased paperback in favour of words on a flickering screen was ratcheted up several degrees yesterday with the launch by Amazon of its long-awaited - and undeniably natty - electronic book-reading device christened Kindle. "Why are books the last bastion of analogue?" Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos asked at an unveiling of the gadget in a New York hotel, referring to the recent revolution in digital entertainment that increasingly has us downloading the music we listen to and even the films and videos we watch. It is Mr Bezos's dream that the 283g Kindle, which has been under development at Seattle-based Amazon for the past three years, will change how we enjoy the written word just as quickly (and as profitably) as the iPod, the ground-breaking player from Apple, has done our music-listening habits.
Apple 'backdate' suit tossed
Apple Inc. won dismissal of a lawsuit claiming company directors and managers, including Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, lied to shareholders about how they backdated option awards to maximize personal profit. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose, Calif., dismissed the suit Monday because it was based on statements made more than three years before the case was filed, his ruling said. Apple, maker of the iPod and iPhone music-and-video players, said last year that it backdated 6,428 stock-option grants issued between 1997 and 2002, according to the order. Apple argued the suit is "time-barred" because it wasn't filed within the required three years after the statements the case relies on were issued. Fogel said in his order that he'll allow shareholders to file the suit again if they can show Apple filed false statements about the option awards on or after July 30, 2003.
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