magazines

HP's solution to the death of print media: Buy more ink

HP today announced a partnership with Conde Nast that will deliver a handful of its most popular magazines (Allure, Details, Epicurious, Wired, Self, Golf Digest, etc.) to your home. Well, more specifically to your printer.

The press release shapes it as a "new digital content distribution medium that merges rich content and digital-to-print service," which really just means that readers can schedule automatic digital content delivery straight to HP's Web-connected printers, which will then use lots of ink to print out excerpts from magazines...in full color. This is the content solution that will save the print industry? Check your calendars; it's not April.… Read more

Amazon inks tablet deal with publishers, report says

The upcoming Amazon tablet will support digital versions of magazines from several prominent publishers, a new report claims.

Citing "industry sources," All Things Digital is reporting today that when Amazon shows off its tablet tomorrow, it will also announce a partnership with Conde Nast, Hearst, and Meredith that will see those companies bring digital versions of their magazines to the device. However, Time Warner-owned Time magazine will not be supported on the device, AllThingsD claims.

Amazon is expected to unveil its new tablet at a press event in New York tomorrow. The latest rumors suggest the slate will come with a 7-inch display and run Google's Android operating system. A bigger version of the tablet, also running Android, is expected to be unveiled early next year.

Magazine publishers have viewed tablets as the next big frontier for their businesses, and a host of publishers, including News Corp., Time Warner, and others, have brought their content to Apple's iPad in the hopes of capitalizing on that device's growing user base.… Read more

Google readies social news magazine app

Google is working on a social-news magazine that will be accessible on the iPad and Android devices, according to reports.

"Mind-blowing good," is how digital pundit and blogger Robert Scoble said a source of his described it in a post late on Wednesday on Google+.

Google representatives did not respond to a CNET request for comment. However, AllThingsD confirmed the news from several sources and reported this evening that Propeller is the name of Google's attempt at making a "Flipboard killer."

The news comes at a time when the social-publishing arena is heating up, with … Read more

Hi-fi vs. home theater speakers; what's the difference?

A lot of people think good sound is good sound, but music and movies have very different requirements. Starting with home theater, remember that today's films have nearly unlimited soft-to-loud dynamic range; dialogue is mixed to the center channel; surround effects may be ambient or point-sourced; and deep bass demands can be extreme. Just about every feature film released over the last 20 years has a multichannel soundtrack.

How different is music? Let me count the ways: an exceedingly small number of new music recordings are available in multichannel sound; stereo rules in the music world; most, probably 99 … Read more

The 404 879: Where we remember, remember (podcast)

Today we're exploring the trend of digital vigilantes (aka digilantes) taking to the Internet for crowdsourced criminal identification and cyberjustice. The most recent example is the hacker collective known as Anonymous' YouTube video threatening to take down Facebook on November 5, otherwise known as Guy Fawkes Day.

We'll also fill you in on the London police toying with facial recognition technology on Facebook to identify looters caught on camera, yesterday's 5,000 percent spike in blunt weapons sales on Amazon.co.uk, and a woman who used an airplane to wag a giant finger at Wall Street.

The 404 Digest for Episode 879

Anonymous: Facebook's going down November 5. Will London's police officials turn to Facebook's facial recognition technology to fight crime? Sales of aluminum bats are up more than 5,000 percent on Amazon.co.uk. The USB toothbrush: Philips' device is the "iPod of toothbrushes." Angry Birds makes it onto the cover of Mad Magazine. Airplane banner circles Wall Street: "Thanks For The Downgrade. You Should All Be Fired"

Episode 879 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

AOL launches Editions, a magazine for the iPad

The tagline for AOL's just-released Editions iPad app is "The magazine that reads you," a nod to the concept that Editions builds a daily "magazine" based on your reading tastes. But in an effort to drum up a little buzz for the app, several weeks ago the folks behind Editions posted a YouTube video jokingly referring to the tagline as the "The app for when you crap."

Sol Lipman, senior director of AOL's Mobile First division in Palo Alto, Calif., and star of the video, says that it was all in good … Read more

Zinio for all (Android devices)

Zinio, the popular magazine reader application for mobile devices, is now available to all Android users running OS version 2.2+. Previously only compatible with Honeycomb-outfitted tablets, Zinio at last gives the rest of the Android community access to its enormous library of full-color digital magazines.

If you haven't heard of Zinio, it takes magazines off the shelves and puts them into your mobile device, letting you buy single issues of or subscriptions to some of your favorite titles. Issues are available either in full color or in text-only mode, and some even include interactive rich media features. Unless … Read more

Samsung, magazine publishers demo new tablet editions

NEW YORK--In the hope of spurring a publishing renaissance, the big magazines continue to try to take advantage of the growing popularity of tablets and electronic readers.

The publishers of Time, Wired, Better Homes and Gardens, and Popular Mechanics got together last night with Samsung managers to demonstrate how their updated tablet edition, Next Issue, operates on Samsung's new Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Next Issue Media (NIM) is the company formed by Hearst, Conde Nast, News Corp., Meredith, and Time Inc. to spearhead their joint efforts into selling their publications on tablets.

A NIM executive showed the gathering of … Read more

If one subwoofer is good, are two or more subs even better?

Subwoofers aren't easy. Sure, adding a decent subwoofer to a system to supply more bass is no big deal, but getting the best possible sound out of a subwoofer is. I've written a few How To Set Up A Subwoofer articles and blogs in my time, but Brent Butterworth's recent "Subwoofers: 4, 2, or 1?" feature in Sound and Vision magazine tackled one of the more difficult aspects of home theater setup: do multiple subwoofers offer any performance advantages over a single sub? Butterworth's premise was simply this: Should I spend my $1,200 … Read more