Amazon Unveils Netflix-esque Prime Streaming Service

Amazon on Tuesday unveiled its long-rumored movie streaming service. Amazon Prime members -- the ones who pay $79 per year for free two-day shipping and discounted overnight shipping -- can now stream more than 5,000 movies and TV shows.

Much like Netflix's Watch Instantly service, Amazon's video-on-demand offering already integrates with numerous Internet televisions and set-top boxes, including Roku devices. Of note, however, is that there's currently no way to watch Amazon video with Apple TV or iOS devices.

Amazon's video streaming options will look familiar to anyone who's perused Netflix's own streaming catalog, with a focus on older titles, though newer releases like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy are also available. Each services streams movies that the other doesn't; Amazon, for example, offers "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," and Netflix streams more than 10,000 movies-double Amazon's initial offering.

The Prime Instant Videos service is available only to paying Amazon Prime customers-notably excluding free participants in sub-Prime programs like Amazon Mom. Amazon's launch of its new membership-based streaming service, coupled with Redbox's recent announcement that it too plans to enter the streaming game suggests that Blockbuster's bankruptcy woes won't be ending anytime soon.

Netflix introduced its $8/month streaming-only plan in November 2010 that works out to $96 per year, versus Amazon's $79 price point, which of course also includes the free two-day shipping incentive.

For more Macintosh computing news, visit Macworld. Story copyright © 2010 Mac Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.

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Research in Motion Unveils Their PlayBook

With every technology company coming out with their answer to the question of who can compete with the iPad, Research in Motion (R.I.M), the creator of the Blackberry smart phone, announced their own tablet at a developers’ conference in San Francisco. Their name for it is the PlayBook.R.I.M. is known for popularizing wireless e-mail and making it easy for people to get their e-mail to their phones. However, since Apple and Google have released phones, R.I.M. has been giving up its incredibly sizeable lead. Some analysts even suggest that R.I.M. now has to play catch up with Apple to ensure that they stay successful.However, R.I.M. is tackling this from a different perspective. The iPad is a general use product. According to Michael Lazaridis, CEO of R.I.M., this is “the world’s first professional tablet” and will be compatible with the servers that corporations and governments use to track their employee’s Blackberries.One of the features that were discussed about the PlayBook is the built in outlets that allow users to connect their tablet to a computer monitor or a TV. This makes presentations considerably easier because users only have to carry the small tablet rather than a laptop.Many criticize R.I.M. for their outdated operating system used on their phones. They listened. They are using a new operating system developed by QNX Software Systems which is a company that R.I.M. acquired earlier this year. This new software, it is assumed, will run effectively.To demonstrate how the PlayBook is a slight jab at the iPad, but not in direct competition with it, Mr. Lazardidis demonstrated how they will be using Adobe Flash on their product. It can be recalled that Steve Jobbs was very firm on the fact that Adobe Flash was the reason that his products crashed and therefore, he wouldn’t put them on the Apple line.The one part that is a little discouraging for some about the PlayBook is the fact that it doesn’t connect to a mobile phone line. However, it can connect to your Blackberry device—if you have one—and a WiFi connection, so you can still have total coverage. It connects to your Blackberry device by means of a Bluetooth connection.On the announcement of the PlayBook, Amazon came out and said that they would be releasing a Kindle app for the PlayBook.Little is known about the price, release date and other features for this product. While Mr. Lazaridis turned on the device, he didn’t do much more. However, it is speculated that the device will be released in the New Year.

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Acer Unveils Iconia Dual-Screen Laptop Tablet

Whether you agree tablets will replace laptops or not the idea does seem to be slowly gaining traction, this time with Acer announcing Iconia, a tablet with two 14-inch touch screens in a laptop-like clam shell form.

The two multi-touch screens are ultra-thin, scratch and fingerprint resistant LED backlit LCDs made from a durable glass material, and featuring a resolution of 1366×768, and support for up to 10 fingers touch control at once.

They act as a dual-screen set up so a window can be maximized over both screens or each screen can be used for its own tasks. For example, the bottom screen can be used for a media file browser and the top screen for viewing videos.

Perhaps most importantly for those who might consider this as a laptop replacement Acer Iconia comes with a QWERTY Virtual Keyboard that activates when both palms are placed on the bottom display. It includes a virtual touchpad, a numeric keypad, predictive text input, and support for international keyboard layouts. The intent was to make the virtual keyboard good enough to replace a physical keyboard of traditional laptops.

Acer also emphasized software applications tailored to multi-touch capabilities. The special software is launched by putting five fingers on the display and making a grabbing gesture, which Acer calls an "Acer Ring". This gives a choice of applications including a Gesture Editor which allows assigning user defined gestures to specific tasks, a Window Manager, a Device Control Console, and a Virtual Keyboard.

Acer Iconia also comes with Acer's existing applications from their other touch screen devices including TouchBrowser, TouchPhoto, TouchMusic and TouchVideo, and three new ones including SocialJogger for checking Facebook, YouTube and Flickr in one place, My Journal for collecting web clippings of interesting stuff, and Scrapbook for storing clippings, notes, screen shots and so on.

Its Intel Core i5 CPU reminds more of a laptop than a tablet, but Acer didn't provide any information about memory and storage capacity. They did boast about an HDMI for connecting to an HDTV, and possible 3G connectivity.

Iconia should be available in December or early 2011, but the pricing is still unknown.

Here is a video preview:

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