Tablet Trouble
As of today, the new Nook Tablet from Barnes and Noble and Amazon’s tablet the Kindle Fire are available in stores. Except, as far as this Nook user is concerned, there’s only one worth buying.
Both the Android tablets have longer battery life and flash video watching capability. The Nook Tablet comes installed with Netflix and Hulu. Yet, while the Nook Tablet has potentially more storage when you include the potential memory card (48GB), Amazon’s Fire offers much more in terms of design, service, and price.
The Fire’s new design is a complete overhaul from it’s previous model’s look, whereas, the Nook Tablet resembles much of its predecessor the Nook Color. Add that to the fact the Fire comes with Amazon’s already burgeoning app store, movie collection, digital library, and a cloud service allowing you to access your files anywhere, and the Nook’s developing app store begins to look negligible. In addition, the Fire ($199) is a good $50 cheaper than its rival.
However, what seems to be the consensus on the blogosphere is that neither of these Android tablets are anything we haven’t seen before. Actually, the point that makes the Android’s operating system so valuable to the user is the Android marketplace, which isn’t offered on either. Unless, that is, you want to attempt to hack your Kindle Fire, you’re stuck with what each provider offers.
What is interesting is the effect these two soon-to-be popular holiday gifts will have on the elite $500-and-up iPad 2. There is no doubt Apple will milk every penny out of the iPad possible, but take a look at some other Apple products fiscal history.
Social Netwoking Site for Online Tutoring Prepares to Launch Beta Release
TutorUniverse.net is a social learning platform that connects teachers and students from all around the world. Composed of three major components: free market for student and tutor matchmaking, social networking platform for leveraging group collaboration, and an integrated marketplace for buying and selling educational products and services.
Initially inspired by founders, Thomas Hornbeck, Hung Tran, John Garber, and Jim Cremer while working as teaching assistants in the Computer Science department at The University of Iowa, they discovered there were few tools currently available to help students in more advanced subjects of their field; and little specialized help available outside of class.
They realized many schools across the country are finding themselves on tighter budgets with increasing student enrollments than there are faculty or office hours to meet all their students’ needs. The solution was simple: to develop an integrated learning platform that could potentially offer both students and tutors a flexible place for them to learn and teach more efficiently and at greater convenience.
What I Like About Google +
Google has just launched their new social network called Google Plus. Google+ offers some cool features and I wanted to share some of my first impressions.
- Circles: The way you can organize friends is impressive with their simple drag and drop feature. It also lets you share information more effectively by only sharing to certain circles.
- Hangout: Although I haven’t video chatted yet, I think that Google’s video chat application is a going to be a big success when more people are joined. Google hangout allows you to talk with up to 10 people and also has a sweet camera switching feature that changes to who is talking. This can be great for socializing, collaborating or group projects.
- +1 button: The plus one feature is going to be great tool to utilize when saving links you like searching Google. It will also be a strong way to see what your friends like when the site grows.
