Amazon Allows Kindle Owners to Share Books

In the last couple weeks, Amazon made good on two announcements made some months ago. One is you can now share Kindle titles with other Kindle owners.

The lending feature has been on the want list of Kindle owners for some time. If you are a Kindle customer you can now be able to share titles you have purchased with any other Kindle user - including those using the free Kindle apps.

While a title is on loan the lender has no access to it and this seems fair, but you can only loan a title once and only for 14 days - which seems far too short. There are also other restrictions,  lending can only be initiated by customers in the U.S and recipients in some countries won't be allowed access to some titles.  Currently, sharing can only be administered via the Amazon website.

In addition, the facility is controlled by the publisher who can opt to enable or disable sharing. As you can guess most publishers see no advantage in letting users share a book with another user and so lose a potential sale. As a result you have to look quite hard to find a Kindle book that you can use to even just test the facility!

Here's hoping more and more books become sharing enabled. I can understand if newly released titles won't be able to be shared, but after a period of one year, most books should be able to be shared.

Major Earthquake Hits Chile

A major earthquake of 7.2 magnitude hit central Chile on Sunday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The epicenter was 60 miles northwest of Temuco, which is a city of 245,000 people.

There is no current widespread tsunami threat, although there are reports of people fleeing the area.

An 8.8-magnitude earthquake in the same area last February caused widespread destruction and left dozens dead.

Casualty and damage estimates are unknown.  

Chile, the world's top copper producer, has seen its economy surge on heavy spending to rebuild cities ravaged by the February quake and record prices for its main export.

Emergency officials in Chile ruled out a tsunami after Sunday's quake and operations were normal at the Andean division of Chilean copper miner Codelco after the tremor, a spokesman said.

A spokesman for state energy company ENAP said operations were also running as usual at the Bio Bio oil refinery in the area.

Week 17: NFL Play of the Week

The Houston Texans

The Texans take on a depleted Jaguars squad today at 4:15. 

For the Jags, David Garrard is out as is Maurice Jones-Drew.  The Texans aren't playing for anything at this point, and word is head coach Gary Kubiak will be returning again next season.  You can classify this as another disappointing season for the team in Houston.  I say the Texans will cover the three they are giving Jacksonville. 

The Texans have proved they can hang with the best teams in the AFC as they are 4-1 ATS in their last 5 home games vs. a team with a winning road record.

This isn't my strongest play of the year, but you should be able to pony up a little and ride the Texans this week to a victory.  Take the Texans and give the 3 pts.

Floods Ravage Queensland, Australia

Australia has endured its wettest spring on record, causing six river systems in tropical Queensland to flood, as soaring temperatures in the states of Victoria and South Australia sparked warnings of devastating bushfires.

The heavy rain has flooded coal mines and hit farming hard, with many roads still impassable, and prompted warnings of the dangers of crocodiles and snakes in flooded homes.

The inland sea that stretches across Queensland is dotted with the roofs of flooded homes, islands of dry ground crowded with stranded livestock and small boats ferrying people and emergency supplies.

On Saturday, coastal areas were preparing for the worst. Evacuations were under way in the town of Rockhampton where the Fitzroy River, one of Australia's largest river systems, was expected to flood sometime that day.

Also closed was the town's airport and warnings say the flood may go as high as 30 feet.

As the northeast struggled to recover, a new storm was brewing off the coast of mineral-rich Western Australia.

What Will the Story Be at CES 2011?

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will descend on Las Vegas next week as 100,000+  attendees will get a glimpse at some of the new gadgets and gizmos that companies like LG, Sony, Motorola and Samsung plan to offer later this year or in the future.

Each year, certain products garner more attention than others and draw the biggest crowds, clogging up the narrow convention center aisles.  I've been to CES seven-times and have seen all sorts of products that became staples of our lives and even more that we never saw again.

Here's what to expect this year.

Tablets, tablets, and more tablets.  With the success of Apple's iPad, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, look for a HP-Palm product running webOS, RIM’s PlayBook, the much talked about Droid Xoom and countless other pretenders to the throne.

3D TVs and Content.   Prepare yourself for much lower cost active-shutter 3D glasses, big drops in 3D TV prices and lots of stunning content for both.  Customers main complain about 3D televisions has been the lack of content to watch.  We might even see how we can convert out regular DVDs to #D capable DVDs.  That sounds interesting.

Superphone Smartphones.   Smartphones are all going multi-tasking while improving both single- and multi-threaded application performance. These phones will offer 4G as well, providing what may be the biggest single bump in performance ever, and giving us an early look at what might be in the fifth-generation iPhone.  Mobile phones are where it is all happening and handset makers are racing to showcase the latest innovations.

Smart TVs.  Hoping to steal some of the attention from smartphones, Smart TVs will be at the show this year, in full force.  The vast majority of which will be DLNA compliant. These TVs have been quietly getting better all this year, and advance press materials I've received have me impressed.  Watch for them to be wrapped with products like Skifta, which allow you to seamlessly move your content from any source to any player, be it a DLNA-compliant TV or stereo.  Ease of use will be a key for this product.

Auto innovations.  Head on over to the automotive pavillion this year and you'll see what you may soon be doing in your car.  Expect to see  in-car hotspots, and some incredible sound systems ane touch screens that will allow you to control your life from the dash of your car.

More e-book readers.  Thought you saw it all last year when it comes to e-book readers?  Think again.  Will the next generation of e-book readers offer video, or also act as tablets?  E-book readers continue to be a popular category of consumer electronics.

Who knows, maybe something we've never herd of will steal the show this year.  By this time next week well be on electronics overload, but we'll have some idea of what to expect in the coming months.