Create Your Own Sun Jar: Lifehacker Edition

Inspired by a tutorial we posted last year, we decided to make our own DIY sun jars. The trendy summer time lighting accessory retails for $30+ but we were able to make ours for around $10 each. The sun jars proved to be our most popular non-computer DIY of the entire year and readers shared their own creations with us.

The First-Timer's Guide to Building a Computer from Scratch

Building your own computer is a great way to get exactly what you want, the way you want it, without being constrained by the limits and high-prices of mass produced computers. We showed you how to build a computer from start to finish and have fun doing it.

Turn a Sharpie into a Liquid Fueled Rocket

What's standing between you and some office mayhem? Certainly not a lack of Sharpie markers and keyboard dusting spray. Combine the two with this fun DIY project and you've got one of the most awesome pieces of office-machinery we've ever featured.

Properly Erase Your Physical Media

You need to be properly erasing your physical media: all the time, every time. Our guide will show you how to get the job done and done right whether you use software to scrub your disks or you send them to the great data mine in the sky with a 21-gun salute.

Turn an Old Laptop into a Wall-Mounted Computer

Why settle for a digital picture frame when, in the same wall space, you could mount an entirely functional computer/slideshow player/TV tuner? One Lifehacker reader turned an old laptop into a super-charged digital frame.

$8 DIY Aluminum Laptop Stand

We've always been keen on DIY laptop stands, but reader Aaron Kravitz—inspired by an attractive $50 stand—went above and beyond, creating one of the most attractive DIY laptop stands we've featured to date.

Build an IKEA NAS On the Cheap

If the Hive Five on best home server software got you excited about setting up a home server but you're not keen on another unsightly PC in your home, check out this DIY IKEA NAS.

Build a DIY Portable Air Conditioner

We've shown you how to make an air conditioner (even for as low as $30), but what if you wanted something you can put in your car and take with you? While it's no substitute for a fully-charged and factory-fresh AC system, it'll keep you cool.

Turn a Bookshelf into a Secret Passage

Who hasn't dreamed of having a mystery-story-style secret passageway? While a trick bookshelf is pretty awesome in itself, this secret passage hides a home office with clever style. One industrious Lifehacker reader and his girlfriend had grown tired of seeing their office from their living space, so they hid it behind a wall of books.

Wire Your House with Ethernet Cable

You've ripped a movie on your laptop, and now want it on that fancy new home theater PC next to your TV. If you've got the time, wiring your house with Cat-5e cable could make transfer times a distant memory.

Rain Gutters as Cable Management Tools

We're all about creative cable management here at Lifehacker, so we were instantly drawn to reader Seandavid010's rain-gutter cable management setup. He was awesome enough to send detailed photos and step by step instructions to help other readers recreate his setup.

Build Your Own DTV Antenna

The lights went out on analog television this year and we were there with a guide to help you build a great DIY antenna for boosting your reception and getting that crisp digital picture you crave.

DIY Laptop Rack Hack Turns Your Monitor into an iMac

Lifehacker reader Matt Lumpkin saw our monitor stand from door stoppers post and thought we might like his laptop rack hack as another space-saving desktop solution for laptop-lovers. He was right.

Build Your Own Pizza Oven

Suppose you were inspired by the cheap DIY home pizza oven—but weren't so sure your home insurance would cover oven modifications. It's time to build a safer, more eye-pleasing oven, and we've got a thorough guide.

Crack a Master Combination Padlock Redux

Two years ago we highlighted how to crack a Master combination padlock for those of you who may have lost the combination to your bulletproof lock; now designer Mark Campos has turned the tried-and-true instructions into an easier-to-follow visual guide.

DIY Invisible Floating Bookshelves

We've covered the invisible floating bookshelf once or twice before, but if you liked the idea but weren't keen on ruining a book in the process, weblog May December Home's got you covered.

DIY Inverted Bookshelf

Instead of storing your books upright on top of the shelf, the inverted bookshelf holds all of your books in place using elastic webbing so you can hang them below the shelf—all the while allowing you to still take them out and put them back on as needed.

Build an Under-the-Cabinet Kitchen PC from an Old Laptop

Inspired by our guide to giving an old laptop new life with cheap or free projects, Lifehacker reader Brian turned his aging Dell laptop into an incredible under-the-cabinet kitchen PC.

Turn Storage Containers into Self Watering Tomato Planters

If you'd like to have delicious home-grown tomatoes but lack a garden to grow them in, you'll definitely want to check out this ingenious and inexpensive self-watering system.

Deter Thieves by Uglifying Your Camera

A few years ago, blogger Jimmie Rodgers's camera was stolen while volunteering in an impoverished Brazilian community, so he did what any sane person would do: He bought a new camera and made it ugly. With his uglified camera, Rodgers was able to snap pictures freely during the rest of his trip without worrying too much that his ostensibly crappy camera would end up stolen.

DIY TV or Monitor Stand from Door Stoppers

Nothing adds space to a desk or home theater setup like a simple monitor or TV stand, and weblog IKEA Hacker details how to build your own stand on-the-cheap with a few inexpensive items from IKEA.

Repurpose Your Analog Television

You don't need to run out and buy a new TV because of the DTV switchover. If you did anyways, Make Magazine has put together quite a guide to giving old TVs new life.

Use Ping-Pong Balls to Create Diffused Party Lights

If you need some cheap and novel ambient lighting for your next party, you're only a box of ping-pong balls and a string of lights away from solving your lighting worries.

Build a Custom-Made BoxeeBox

DeviceGuru blogger Rick Lehrbaum, inspired by the cheaper set-top boxes, made his own higher-powered "BoxeeBox" for the free, open-source media center. He posted all the parts, the how-to details, and lots of pictures.

Build a Sturdy Cardboard Laptop Stand

You already shelled out your hard earned cash for a swanky laptop, why drop more cash on an overpriced laptop stand? Cardboard alone can do the trick, as detailed in this step-by-step tutorial.

Install Snow Leopard on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required

Earlier this year we put together a wildly popular guide to building a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, start to finish, and then followed it up with an even easier guide to install Snow Leopard on your Hackintosh PC, no hacking required. Computers + DIY is all sorts of geeky fun waiting to happen.

Have a favorite DIY from 2009 that wasn't highlighted here? Sound off in the comments with a link to your favorite project. Want to see more popular DIY guides courtesy of the ghost of Lifehacker past? Check out our huge DIY guide roundup from 2008.

This chart breaks down each activity by hours, bytes, and words for the total population, average per user, and average per American in 2008. There's a lot to process here, but my first reaction is: that many people still watch TV in standard def?

*A 1 with 21 zeros after it [UC-San Diego]

Bartz couldn't resist a shout out to the beleaguered golfer when speaking to analysts in New York yesterday afternoon. Yahoo's traffic has been doing gangbusters since the Tiger story broke, which in some ways validates their strategy to be a "portal" rather than a search company. When something big and gossipy like this happens, Yahoo's multichannel setup allows them to cover it from a number of different angles. On the other hand, if your sprawling search and content company is set up so that a single tabloid story can "make" your quarter, well, what happens if that story doesn't break?

Oh, that's right. Google drinks your milkshake. [WSJ via Huffington Post]

Today's initiative has been variously billed as "iTunes for Magazines" (correct philosophically, but wildly overstated) and "Hulu for Magazines" (incorrect, since Hulu is free). Basically you can now go to this digital storefront and buy all your favorite Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst, Time Inc., and News Corp publications, to read on your "portable digital device" of choice. Your crappy mobile phone, or iPhone, or upcoming Apple tablet, or, hey, Time Inc. is making its very own tablet, & ad infinitum.

And, of course, this is not the only "digital storefront" thing—Hearst, a partner in this venture, is also going forward with its own personal digital storefront called Skiff , and there are similar services already operating, although, hey, there's not dominant iTunes-type player yet, so you never know.

This could be a successful venture. Then again, it could fade into irrelevance in months. Somebody will make the dominant digital storefront for content like this, just like someone will make the dominant digital reader. Magazine publishing companies, one would think, are likely to get smoked by someone like Apple in this particular sector. But they think it's worth the gamble, after watching what happened to the music industry.

But it'll take a few years. How much would you pay to read Sports Illustrated on your E-reader right now? You don't have an E-reader. And you can read Deadspin for free. So, you'd pay nothing. Changing that dynamic is what media companies need to worry about.

And here's Time Inc's announcement to employees, just because we have it:

December 8, 2009
To: Time Inc. Employees
From: Ann Moore
Re: New Digital Venture

Today, five leading publishers including Time Inc., Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst and News Corporation announced the formation of a new venture to develop a digital storefront and a common reading application that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite magazine and newspaper content on any platform they choose.

We already know that the next generation of mobile devices will be loaded with color touchscreens, flexible displays, video capabilities and other features that will make them ideal for consuming rich content and an appealing environment for advertisers. These devices will allow us to combine the best of what consumers love about magazines – quality, curated journalism, engaging content and beautiful photography – with the speed, convenience and portability of the latest technology.

While Time Inc. is pursuing a number of initiatives that will help us expand our current digital businesses and develop new products and revenue streams, our participation in this venture is an important part of our efforts. You'll be hearing more about it in the coming weeks and months.

In the meantime, for a look at some of the work Time Inc. is doing around portable devices, check out the demo Sports Illustrated developed, which will give you an idea of how our digital content might be enjoyed in the near future.

www.si.com/tablet

A.M.

While we've gotten a look at the MyDeskFriend gadgets before, Pingo is the first one to actually be released. He's bringing a lot of cuteness, an internal speaker, a microphone, some freaky LED eyes, two proximity sensors, three ground sensors, and a two-wheel drive.

Basically this penguin bot is a ridiculously interactive alert system for news, email, Facebook updates, and whatever else you set him to check for. I say "ridiculously interactive," because Pingo reacts to pokes, shakes, and voice commands and can be nurtured and played with as if a pet. I'm sure all of those things would turn more annoying than useful or entertaining quickly, but the damn thing is way to freakin' cute for me to care.

At $149, Pingo is definitely more expensive than the Furbies it acts and looks like, but—never mind the features—the minimal creepiness is worth the price difference.

A FACEBOOK FRIEND YOU'LL NEVER IGNORE: MYDESKFRIEND, A TINY ROBOTIC PENGUIN, PLAYS, READS, CONNECTS TO WEB AND FACEBOOK

New York, NY ( December 7, 2009) – Pingo is one Facebook friend you'll never ignore.

Tiny and irresistibly cute, Pingo is the first official mydeskfriend, a tiny robotic penguin launching today at www.mydeskfriend.com.

An ideal holiday gift for anyone passionate about the latest in gadgets, robotic toys, and consumer electronics, the interactive playmate can zoom around desktops, express moods, respond to voice commands, sing songs, and read aloud email messages, headlines, stock quotes, and weather.

The device integrates into its owners' Facebook account via a Facebook application that allows users to give their device its own name, profile, and personality, as well as nurture its moods and manage its daily life.

Owners can set mydeskfriend up to read RSS newsfeeds from their news sites and blogs, spoil it with food and vitamins from a Facebook gift page, and lull it to sleep by gently rocking it in their hands. Pingo can follow fingers around a desktop, while sensory devices ensure that it never falls off a desk when moving around on its own.

Friends who have their own devices can play and communicate via Facebook, including poking, sending messages, and giving Facebook gifts directly from one Pingo to another.

The device can fit in the palm of hand and displays its moods, like happy and angry, by changing the color of its LED-lit eyes.

mydeskfriend retails for $149.99 and is available for purchase at www.mydeskfriend.com. Orders must be placed before December 14th in order to arrive by December 23rd via priority delivery service. The device is compatible with the following systems: Mac OS (10.5 and 10.6), Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

mydeskfriend is developed by Arimaz, a Switzerland-based company specializing in creating entertainment robotic devices and Internet-connected toys.

"mydeskfriend is the first of a new generation of Internet-connected robotic devices," said Pierre Bureau, the CEO of Arimaz. "It's fun, entertaining, and helpful, keeping you connected to the Internet and Facebook even when you're not online."

About Arimaz

Arimaz SA is a company active in the fields of entertainment robotics and interactive toys. Arimaz creates, develops and market products integrating the latest technologies in domains such as electronics, wireless communication and artificial intelligence. For information, contact www.arimaz.com.

[Arimaz]

BRIAN'S $15 BILLION BET

First, let's review the terms of the bet:

* Comcast is wagering about $15 billion (approximately half in cash and half in equity shares in its cable networks) in exchange for half of the New NBC Universal.

* If Comcast gets more than $15 billion back from the New NBC Universal in a reasonable timeframe, the bet will have paid off.

Comcast gets to keep half of the cash flow of the new NBC Universal each year, less interest costs. In 2009, a crappy year, New NBC Universal will generate about $3 billion of cash flow. Subtract, say, $1 billion of interest payments (on $9 billion of debt), and you're left with net cash flow of about $2 billion a year. Comcast's share of that, therefore, will be about $1 billion a year.

Some scenarios:

* Let's assume the New NBC continues to grow. Comcast will get its money back in 10 years. Any more cash or remaining value in NBC from then on will be upside.

* Let's assume that the new NBC Universal never grows again. Comcast will get its money back in 15 years.

* Let's assume that the New NBC Universal starts shrinking but doesn't completely fall apart. Comcast will get its money back in 20 years.

* Let's assume that the New NBC Universal completely collapses. Brian Roberts will be proven to have been an idiot.

So that's the bet.

Now, what is Brian Roberts really thinking?

He's thinking: I've got cash coming out of my ears, I know the world is changing, and I've decided to buy myself a hedge.

A hedge against what?

A hedge against two things:

* Further extortionist increases in cable content carriage fees
* The gradual conversion of cable into dumb pipes that just deliver Internet access and IP-video

THE HEDGE AGAINST CABLE PROGRAMMING FEE INCREASES

Specifically, Brian Roberts is thinking that he's sick to death of that bastard Bob Iger at Disney holding him up for higher carriage fees on ESPN, et al, every few years. And, before he bought NBC, Brian was sick to death of that bastard Jeff Zucker holding him up for higher fees on CNBC, et al. Etc.

Now, in the future, if anyone does any holding up, Brian Roberts is:

1) going to cash in, too (because now he owns a lot of cable programming), and

2) going to have more leverage in telling Bob Iger, et al, to take a hike. Until now, if Brian Roberts wanted to tell Bob Iger to take his ESPN and stuff it, he would risk losing a significant percentage of cable subs who are sports addicts. Now, Brian Roberts will be able to say to Bob Iger, "Actually, we've decided to make ESPN a premium channel, because most of our subs are happy with the many offerings of NBC Sports, including our new NBC Sports ESPN-killer. So if you want to jack up your fees, that's fine, we'll ask our subs to pay you for ESPN directly." At which time, Bob Iger, no fool, might say, "I think we'll stick with our current fees."

Either way, Brian Roberts is okay.

Those two hedges, by the way, may well help either the New NBC or the Old Comcast drive more dollars to the bottom line. If this happens, Brian Roberts will get his money back even faster.

THE HEDGE AGAINST CABLE BECOMING A DUMB PIPE AND PROGRAMMING GOING A LA CARTE

Eventually, the current cable TV business is toast. There is NO WAY today's teenagers are going to be shelling out $150 a month to get 500 channels they don't watch when what they do watch is available for free over the Internet. Eventually, therefore, this whole "carriage fee" game is done—or at least radically changed.

But it's going to take a while. At least 10 years.

And all those future adults who are going to be watching TV for free over the Internet in 10 years are still going to need Internet access (or else how are they going to watch?). And Comcast is in a great position to keep providing it.

So, regardless of what happens, Comcast won't go to zero. But if programming goes a la carte, providers like Comcast won't get to mark up channels by buying them at wholesale prices, bundling them together, and selling them at retail anymore. Instead, they'll have to settle for getting, say, $50 a month for providing your Internet access and phone and just letting all the video providers sell to you directly.

Now, providing a fat dumb pipe is not a bad business. And Internet access might be so important at that point that Comcast might be able to jack up prices to, say, $75, with no programming fees (which would be less than you pay for your internet access and phone now).

But it might be a worse business than the one cable has today. In which case, Brian will have hedged his bets by taking a big chunk of cash and buying something else with it.

OF COURSE, THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A GUARANTEE

How can Brian Roberts lose?

A couple of ways.

First, he can blow the execution, like AOL Time Warner did. But this is a business that Brian already knows, and it won't involve smashing two completely different cultures that hate each other together. So the execution risk is less.

Second, cable can become a dumb pipe AND the TV programming business can blow up like the newspaper business—causing Brian Roberts to lose on both sides.

If that happens, Brian Roberts would have been better off selling the whole thing and buying a fertilizer company.

But Brian Roberts is a media mogul. And there isn't a media mogul on earth who would give up being a media mogul to run a fertilizer company.

We knew about the FlipShare TV awhile ago, thanks to an FCC leak. It's basically a companion piece to Flip's camcorders, streaming video shot with the Mino HD, Ultra HD or what have you to a TV. But oddly enough, it's dumbed-down enough that it somehow circles back around and becomes complicated again, starting with the seemingly-basic hardware.

The FlipShare TV is actually comprised of three necessary components: A cute, small, square white box about the size of a Roku that plugs into your TV (featuring RCA and HDMI ports); a fairly large USB dongle; and a super simple remote reminiscent of Apple's remote. The USB dongle is actually required to be plugged in (and your computer turned on) if you want to use the FlipShare TV at all, forming kind of an point-to-point wireless network. Yeah, it's supposed to eliminate the trouble of logging into a wireless home network, but it brings up problems of its own—what about multi-computer households? And while it may be a pre-release issue, my box dropped the connection with its dongle when the two were on opposite ends of my apartment, a problem my normal wireless router doesn't have.

Also released today is the updated FlipShare 5.0 software, which is easy enough to use. Plug in a camcorder, drag its videos to your library, and your precious moments can then be watched on your computer or via the FlipShare TV, or alternately shared via Facebook or YouTube. Also supported are FlipChannels, a sort of private online video storage that lets you upload videos and "share" access with other people. Anyone with whom the FlipChannel is shared can watch your videos on a computer, mobile device (iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry are supported) or, again, through the FlipShare TV. So those are your two choices for streaming: Computer or FlipChannel.

Therein lies another problem: The FlipShare TV can only play back the very specific video format used by Flip camcorders, some kind of WMV at 30fps. Nothing else. This is not a media streamer, it's a Flip streamer. Music? Forget it. Your ripped DVDs? No way. (JPEGs are also supported, but that's it for non-Flip media). Playback quality is good, but these aren't exactly super high-quality files we're dealing with here.

The FlipShare TV is a thoroughly simple device, often to its detriment. It does only one thing, and does it fairly well, but it's really designed for someone who finds the glut of excellent modern media streamers far too threatening. Given its limitations (no storage, only one compatible format, no extras), it's pretty surprising that it also commands a pretty expensive price at $150 (available tomorrow). Theoretically, parents, grandparents and other less tech-savvy folks would appreciate the simplicity of the FlipShare TV—but if you're reading this, you'll definitely find its limitations to be a dealbreaker. [Flip]

Veronica Belmont, of Tekzilla/Mahalo/BOL fame/general video on the internet fame, sees Apple finally going ahead with that Courier concept Microsoft keeps dragging their feet on. Or, Apple subsumes Microsoft entirely. What do you know, Belmont?

BoingBoing's/MAKE's Mark Frauenfelder goes as DIY-y as is humanly possible, and projects a future in which Apple is just a bunch of dudes with Arduinos and a pair of pliers. You see, we'll just buy Apple's designs, and your iMake object printer will print them out.

Brian Lam, Man With Hat, just wants his iPhone to get reception in San Francisco, for once. Hence, bunny ears.

There are a couple more, and they're all in the same whimsical, not-quite-serious vein. Check them out at [Maclife]

So say you're at the airport. You want to rent, I dunno, some movie that wasn't good enough to see in the theater. You just format a spare SD card filled with vacation photos you'd forgotten to back up (it doesn't appear they give you a card, but I could be mistaken), pop it in the machine, select a movie, pay $4 or so, and then have the film loaded on your card, a la ticking time bomb, with DRM.

And what can't you do with an SD card? I mean, it plays in my iPhone...wait...I mean my Blackberry...wait...

Mini SD and Micro SD—those are the cards that most of our mobile devices will take (if they take any at all)! In case no one told you, Blockbuster, we can't play this shit back on our digital cameras.

(Granted, netbook owners and some laptop owners will be able to utilize the standard.)

Ah Blockbuster, you've arrived just in time to ignore the growing popularity of iTunes/Zune Marketplace syncing, 3G streaming and in-flight Wi-Fi all while offering your service on a medium less convenient than DVD. But don't worry, I'm not angry. You're just hurting yourself. [Fast Company]

The device was described as a larger iPhone, "small enough to carry in a handbag but too big to fit in a pocket."

This makes the tablet smaller than a breadbox, right? [Apple Insider]

Before we get into the HD-XR, there's the other new model to introduce. The low-end Roku SD is pretty much a stripped-down version of the current Roku HD model, appropriately enough. It has Wi-Fi b/g and Ethernet, but only offers composite output—no HDMI, component, S-video or optical audio out, all of which the Roku HD has. The SD offers just standard-def streaming to go along with its standard-def output, and retails for $80 (the HD, in comparison, sells for $100). Both the SD and HD-XR are crammed into the same small, fanless case as the HD, so they're all the same size.

The HD-XR is Roku's new high-end model, selling for $130: In addition to everything the Roku HD has, the HD-XR is packing 802.11n Wi-Fi and, intriguingly, a USB port. But therein lies the problem with the HD-XR, and the reason we're bringing you a hands-on and not a review today: The USB port doesn't do anything. Yet.

Roku tells me that they've got some substantial additions coming to their service via automatic firmware upgrade in "the coming weeks." First is the Roku Channel Store, which "will offer a number of new content channels for the Roku player, many of which are free." This comes in addition to the currently offered Netflix (duh), Amazon and MLB. What could the new channels be? We'd say Hulu is a fair bet, given past rumors. Other dedicated streaming sites like ABC or MSNBC wouldn't be out of the question either, and since everybody's doing it, I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook and Twitter come to invade your tidy little Roku box.

Second is that currently-useless USB port—it may not do anything yet, but I assume it'll allow video playback from UMS devices like hard drives and flash drives when it's enabled through firmware. A helpful tip, Roku: Extensive codec support is mandatory, not optional, in a device that has as few features as this one. It only does a couple things, so it had better do them damn well. DivX, MKV, and H.264 would be a start.

So how does the HD-XR perform? Just about as well as I could hope. It's a bit slow to start streaming a video (two minutes at most, but that's a long time to stare at a progress bar on your TV), but once it started it never stutters, and video quality is nearly as good as when streaming on a computer. I do wish you could browse through Netflix's catalog, rather than only being able to stream what's in your Instant Watch queue, but it's super simple and works well. The remote is small but feels solid, and has few enough buttons that pretty much anyone can figure it out. Setup is easy and the antenna picks up my Wi-Fi signal just as well as my laptop. Overall I was really pleased with it, and so were my non-tech-savvy roommates—no mean feat, since they're not usually into all the nerd stuff that I deal with every day.

So what's new right now? Um, well, 802.11n. That's it. It's pretty disappointing to see new hardware released without the accompanying software that takes it to the next generation, especially given Netflix's invasion onto Blu-ray players (only $100!), HTPCs, PS3s and god knows what else. I'm not so sure the HD-XR is worth $130, given the growing ubiquity of Netflix streaming, so Roku had better bring it with this firmware upgrade—the days of a one trick pony in the living room are nearly up. [Roku]

It could easily just be that Bill Keller reads rumors, too. But what if that was a whoopsie letting loose a secret that Bill knows with first hand knowledge? So what? We already know it's coming, having talked to people who have seen and heard things first hand. And we do know the NYTimes is involved with the project. So that's just more of what we already know, but in a way that's not really more proof.

Silly. [gawker]

The first shot at Amazon reported by the WSJ is kinda weak in the grand scheme of things: Yesterday, Walmart started selling 10 "hotly anticipated" books, like almost-President-of-the-United-States Sarah Palin's Going Rogue for 10 bucks. The paper kind. For the same price as the pretend books you buy on a Kindle. Amazon fired a volley back, matching the price. Walmart went to its classic $9 position this morning. Ker-plow.

This is apparently deeply frightening to already publishers. Why? Because once people expect a book for 10 bucks, they're not gonna pay $28 for it, which would seriously alter the economy of the publishing industry. And I mean, they're already deathly afraid of the very uncertain future of publishing. A standard $10 price would make books feel more disposable—granted, this is the future that's coming with ebooks anyway.

Walmart actually still makes a bit of money at that price—and obviously Amazon does hawking ebooks for that much. The people this would seriously screw are independent booksellers, who couldn't scrape by on margins that low. Which makes you wonder how they're going to continue existing in a world where we're all buying books, for cheap, on tablets. Amazon and Walmart's likely just the beginning of the end. [WSJ Image via Ryan Conway/Brave New Films/Flickr]

Technologizer excavated the reviews from every major publication of the time, and the early reactions are kind of amazing given how people felt about Vista just a few months after launch (the Walt Street Journal's Walt Mossberg called it "the best version of Windows that Microsoft has produced"). Only Forbes' Stephen Manes' ventured that Vista is "at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Wash. and rip somebody's liver out."

Given the massive public beta for Windows 7 and all of the telemetry data Microsoft's been able to gather before launch (among a ton of other factors), I really doubt 7's gonna be Vista all over again, even if Steve Ballmer himself feels the need to leave Microsoft a little bit of room to maneuver. Still, Vista's a solid illustration of how different a product can be for a handful of isolated reviewers than it turns out to be for everybody else. [Technologizer]

According to TechCrunch, UK company INQ is developing the full-out Spotify phone for telecommunications provider Telia. And with recent news that Spotify service is expanding to television (in Sweden), the handset would be a notable multimedia force—even if the iPhone app makes an easier upsell.

So theoretically, if Spotify made its way to the US, and if the Spotify phone made its way to the US, we'd all have Spotify phones. Yes, all. Every single citizen of the United States of America. [TechCrunch and TechCrunch UK and image]

Starting today, four Vooks are available for $7 a pop. They're essentially part-book, part-video stories and instructional texts that can link you to social networking sites should you want to fanboy out to your awesome Vook.

While the idea is sound, the product looks no better than a mid-90s encyclopedia on CD.

And it really makes us realize, mixing medias—especially enhancing text for fiction—is tricky beyond the mere subject of taste. We're used to watching both news and fart-related video clips on a blog, but embedded flash video is just corny when placed next to a murder mystery.

Part of the challenge is format. UI needs to be updated to something we haven't really seen before—or maybe even imagined. Jumping across media should be a natural, passive experience. That part seems doable, though extremely difficult, with touch, camera and even voice interfaces. For instance, you could track a reader's eyes to a certain word and activate a sound. You could make a page turn naturally to a full screen video as opposed to relegating clips to an awkward 480x360 box.

But when hybridizing media, the part that could be even tougher is one of budgetary constraints. As soon as a book includes video, a publishing house becomes a production house and a writer becomes a director/editor. Stephen King's prose might send chills up your spine, but the local cable commercial quality video blurb sitting beside it won't have the budgetary love of a Hollywood flick, at least, not unless Stephen King or somebody else is going to take a paycut (or sell a LOT more books).

Advertising books costs money. Printing and distributing books costs money. But writing a book? That part's basically free.

So whatever Apple and publishing houses are cooking up, we hope it's beyond what we've seen in Vooks. No offense, Vook—someone had to do it (wrong) first. [Vook via NYT]

Several years ago, a modified version of OS X was presented to Steve Jobs, running on a multitouch tablet. When the question "what would people do with this?" couldn't be answered, they shelved it. Long having established music, movie and TV content, Apple is working hard to load up iTunes with print content from several major publishing houses across several media.

Two people related to the NYTimes have separately told me that in June, paper was approached by Apple to talk about putting the paper on a "new device." The R&D labs have long worked on versions of the paper meant to be navigated without a keyboard or mouse, showing up on Windows tablets and on multiple formats using Adobe Air. The NYTimes, of course, also publishes via their iPhone application. Jobs has, during past keynotes, called the NYTimes the "best newspaper in the world."

A person close to a VP in textbook publishing mentioned to me in July that McGraw Hill and Oberlin Press are working with Apple to move textbooks to iTunes. There was no mention of any more detail than that, but it does link back to a private Apple intern idea competition held on campus, in their Town Hall meeting area in 2008, where the winning presentation selected by executives was one focused on textbook distribution through iTunes. The logic here is that textbooks are sold new at a few hundred dollars, and resold by local stores without any kickbacks to publishers. A DRM'd one-time-use book would not only be attractive because publishers would earn more money, but electronic text books would be able to be sold for a fraction of the cost, cutting out book stores and creating a landslide marketshare shift by means of that huge price differential. (If that device were a tablet, the savings on books could pay for the device, and save students a lot of back pain.)

Apple also recently had several executives from one of the largest magazine groups at their Cupertino's campus, where they were asked to present their ideas on the future of publishing. Several mockups of magazines were present in interactive form. It is presumed that more talks took place after the introduction and investigatory meeting. Some magazine company is also considering Adobe Air as a competing option for digital magazines, but without a revenue/distribution system that iTunes has, it seems unlikely.

I haven't heard anything about traditional book publishers being approached yet, but given the scope of the rest of the publishing industry's involvement, it's not hard to imagine they're on board as well. (If you know something, please drop me a line.) Update: Reader Tom reminds me of this Andy Ihnatko rumor, from several sources, that Apple is receiving truckloads of books at its HQ. It's a thin line to draw, but its something.

Another source corroborates that the January announce date others have reported is correct within the month, with this information heard from a high level.

Some I've talked to believe the initial content will be mere translations of text to tablet form. But while the idea of print on the Tablet is enticing, it's nothing the Kindle or any E-Ink device couldn't do. The eventual goal is to have publishers create hybridized content that draws from audio, video and interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers, where paper layouts would be static. And with release dates for Microsoft's Courier set to be quite far away and Kindle stuck with relatively static E-Ink, it appears that Apple is moving towards a pole position in distribution of this next-generation print content. First, it'll get its feet wet with more basic repurposing of the stuff found on dead trees today.

The Atom CE4100 is pretty similar to the CE3100, except it replaces the CE3100's Pentium M core with an Atom core (hence the name change). It also supports MPEG-4 and can actually capture uncompressed 1080p video, not to mention support for every high-end audio codec you can think of. We don't know for sure where the CE4100 is headed, but it's a fair chance that we'll see it popped into high-end DVRs and media streamers at some point soon. [Engadget]