1.
Android (operating system)
–
Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google, based on the Linux kernel and designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. In addition to devices, Google has further developed Android TV for televisions, Android Auto for cars. Variants of Android are also used on notebooks, game consoles, digital cameras, beginning with the first commercial Android device in September 2008, the operating system has gone through multiple major releases, with the current version being 7.0 Nougat, released in August 2016. Android applications can be downloaded from the Google Play store, which features over 2.7 million apps as of February 2017, Android has been the best-selling OS on tablets since 2013, and runs on the vast majority of smartphones. In September 2015, Android had 1.4 billion monthly active users, Android is popular with technology companies that require a ready-made, low-cost and customizable operating system for high-tech devices. The success of Android has made it a target for patent, Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California in October 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White. Rubin described the Android project as tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are aware of its owners location. The early intentions of the company were to develop an operating system for digital cameras. Despite the past accomplishments of the founders and early employees, Android Inc. operated secretly and that same year, Rubin ran out of money. Steve Perlman, a friend of Rubin, brought him $10,000 in cash in an envelope. In July 2005, Google acquired Android Inc. for at least $50 million and its key employees, including Rubin, Miner and White, joined Google as part of the acquisition. Not much was known about Android at the time, with Rubin having only stated that they were making software for mobile phones, at Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform powered by the Linux kernel. Google marketed the platform to handset makers and carriers on the promise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system, Google had lined up a series of hardware components and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation. Speculation about Googles intention to enter the communications market continued to build through December 2006. In September 2007, InformationWeek covered an Evalueserve study reporting that Google had filed several patent applications in the area of mobile telephony, the first commercially available smartphone running Android was the HTC Dream, also known as T-Mobile G1, announced on September 23,2008. Since 2008, Android has seen numerous updates which have improved the operating system, adding new features. Each major release is named in order after a dessert or sugary treat, with the first few Android versions being called Cupcake, Donut, Eclair. In 2010, Google launched its Nexus series of devices, a lineup in which Google partnered with different device manufacturers to produce new devices and introduce new Android versions
2.
IPad
–
IPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. which run the iOS mobile operating system. The first iPad was released on April 3,2010, the most recent iPad models are the 9. 7-inch iPad Pro released on March 31,2016, the user interface is built around the devices multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard. The iPad includes built-in Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity on select models, as of January 2015, there have been over 250 million iPads sold. IPad tablets are second most popular, by sales, against Android-based ones, since 2013, an iPad can shoot video, take photos, play music, and perform Internet functions such as web-browsing and emailing. Other functions – games, reference, GPS navigation, social networking, as of March 2016, the App Store has more than one million apps for the iPad by Apple and third parties. There have been six versions of the iPad, the first generation established design precedents, such as the 9. 7-inch screen size and button placement, that have persisted through all models. The third generation added a Retina Display, the new Apple A5X processor with a graphics processor, a 5-megapixel camera, HD 1080p video recording, voice dictation. The fourth generation added the Apple A6X processor and replaces the 30-pin connector with an all-digital Lightning connector, the iPad Air added the Apple A7 processor and the Apple M7 motion coprocessor, and reduced the thickness for the first time since the iPad 2. The iPad Air 2 added the Apple A8X processor, the Apple M8 motion coprocessor, an 8-megapixel camera, and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, there have been four versions of the iPad Mini. The first generation features a screen size of 7.9 inches and features similar internal specifications as the iPad 2 except it uses the Lightning connector. The iPad Mini 2 features the Retina Display, the Apple A7 processor, the iPad Mini 3 features the Touch ID fingerprint sensor. The iPad Mini 4 features the Apple A8 and the Apple M8 motion coprocessor, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said in a 1983 speech that the companys strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put a great computer in a book that you can carry around with you. And we really want to do it with a link in it so you don’t have to hook up to anything and you’re in communication with all of these larger databases. Apples first tablet computer was the Newton MessagePad 100, introduced in 1993, powered by an ARM6 processor core developed by ARM, Apple also developed a prototype PowerBook Duo based tablet, the PenLite, but decided not to sell it in order to avoid hurting MessagePad sales. Apple released several more Newton-based PDAs, the one, the MessagePad 2100, was discontinued in 1998. Apple re-entered the mobile-computing markets in 2007 with the iPhone, smaller than the iPad, but featuring a camera and mobile phone, it pioneered the multi-touch finger-sensitive touchscreen interface of Apples iOS mobile operating system. By late 2009, the release had been rumored for several years
3.
IPhone
–
IPhone is a line of smartphones designed and marketed by Apple Inc. They run Apples iOS mobile operating system, the first generation iPhone was released on June 29,2007, the most recent iPhone model is the iPhone 7, which was unveiled at a special event on September 7,2016. The user interface is built around the devices multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard, the iPhone has Wi-Fi and can connect to cellular networks. Other functionality, such as games, reference works, and social networking. As of January 2017, Apples App Store contained more than 2.2 million applications available for the iPhone, Apple has released ten generations of iPhone models, each accompanied by one of the ten major releases of the iOS operating system. The iPhone 5 featured a taller, 4-inch display and Apples newly introduced Lightning connector, in 2013, Apple released the 5S with improved hardware and a fingerprint reader, and the lower-cost 5C, a version of the 5 with colored plastic casings instead of metal. They were followed by the larger iPhone 6, with models featuring 4.7 and 5. 5-inch displays.5 mm headphone jack found on previous phones. The iPhones commercial success has been credited with reshaping the smartphone industry, the original iPhone was one of the first phones to use a design featuring a slate format with a touchscreen interface. Almost all modern smartphones have replicated this style of design, in the US, the iPhone holds the largest share of the smartphone market. As of late 2015, the iPhone had a 43. 6% market share, followed by Samsung, LG, Apple CEO Steve Jobs steered the original focus away from a tablet and towards a phone. Apple created the device during a collaboration with Cingular Wireless at the time—at an estimated development cost of US$150 million over thirty months. Apple rejected the design by committee approach that had yielded the Motorola ROKR E1, among other deficiencies, the ROKR E1s firmware limited storage to only 100 iTunes songs to avoid competing with Apples iPod nano. Jobs unveiled the iPhone to the public on January 9,2007, the passionate reaction to the launch of the iPhone resulted in sections of the media dubbing it the Jesus phone. Following this successful release in the US, the first generation iPhone was made available in the UK, France, and Germany in November 2007, on July 11,2008, Apple released the iPhone 3G in twenty-two countries, including the original six. Apple released the iPhone 3G in upwards of eighty countries and territories. Apple announced the iPhone 3GS on June 8,2009, along with plans to release it later in June, July, many would-be users objected to the iPhones cost, and 40% of users had household incomes over US$100,000. The back of the original first generation iPhone was made of aluminum with a black plastic accent, the iPhone 3G and 3GS feature a full plastic back to increase the strength of the GSM signal. The iPhone 3G was available in an 8 GB black model, the iPhone 3GS was available in both colors, regardless of storage capacity
4.
Barnes & Noble
–
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company, the largest retail bookseller in the United States, and one of the nations leading retailers of content, digital media, and educational products. As of January 6,2017, the company operates 638 retail stores in all 50 U. S. states. After a series of mergers and bankruptcies in the American bookstore industry since the 1990s, previously, Barnes and Noble operated the chain of small B. Dalton Booksellers stores in malls until they announced the liquidation of the chain. The company is known for large retail outlets, many of which contain a café serving Starbucks coffee and other consumables, from cannolis to spinach and feta pretzels. Most stores sell books, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, graphic novels, gifts, games, toys, music, Barnes & Noble originated in 1886 with a bookstore called Arthur Hinds & Company, located in the Cooper Union Building in New York City. In the fall of 1886, Gilbert Clifford Noble, a then-recent Harvard graduate from Westfield, in 1894, Noble was made a partner, and the name of the shop was changed to Hinds & Noble. In 1901, Hinds & Noble moved to 31–35 W. 15th Street, in 1917, Noble bought out Hinds and entered into a partnership with William Barnes, son of his old friend Charles, the name of the store was changed accordingly to Barnes & Noble. In 1930, Noble sold his share of the company to William Barnes son John Wilcox Barnes, Noble died on June 6,1936, at the age of 72. In the long history of the bookstore, the partnership was a brief interlude of thirteen years. In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, the moved to a flagship location on 18th Street and Fifth Avenue. The Noble family retained ownership of a publishing business. In 1940, the store was one of the first businesses to feature Muzak and that decade the company opened stores in Brooklyn and Chicago. William Barnes died in 1945, at the age of 78, John Barnes died in 1964, and the company was sold to the conglomerate Amtel two years later. The business was purchased in 1971, by Leonard Riggio for $1.2 million, by then, it had been badly mismanaged over the prior two years and consisted only of a significantly reduced wholesale operation and a single retail location—the store at 105 Fifth Avenue. Between the 1970s and the 1980s, Barnes & Noble opened smaller discount stores and they also began to publish their own books to be sold to mail-order customers. These titles were primarily affordable reissues of out-of-print titles and selling them through mail-order catalogs allowed Barnes & Noble to reach new customers nationwide. Barnes & Noble continued to expand throughout the 1980s, and it purchased the primarily shopping mall-based B. Dalton chain from Dayton Hudson in 1986, the last B. Dalton stores were scheduled to close in January 2010. In 1989, Barnes and Noble had purchased the 22-store chain Bookstop, the acquisition of the 797 B. Dalton bookstores turned the company into a nationwide retailer, and by the end of fiscal year 1999, the second-largest online bookseller in the United States
5.
Barnes & Noble Nook
–
The Barnes & Noble Nook is a brand of e-readers developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The original device was announced in the United States in October 2009, the original Nook had a six-inch E-paper display and a separate, smaller color touchscreen that serves as the primary input device and was capable of Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity. The original nook was followed in November 2010 by a color LCD device called the Nook Color, in June 2011 by the Nook Simple Touch, and in November 2011 and February 2012 by the Nook Tablet. On April 30,2012, Barnes & Noble entered into a partnership with Microsoft that will spin off the Nook, on August 28,2012, Barnes and Noble announced partnerships with retailers in the UK, which began offering the Nook digital products in October 2012. In December 2014, B&N purchased Microsofts Nook shares, ending the partnership, Nook users may read nearly any Nook Store e-book, digital magazines or newspapers for one hour once per day while connected to the stores Wi-Fi. This may encourage customers to visit B&N stores, the Nook name and Identity was devised and created by the Brand Development Group at R/GA. Nook was initially rejected as a name by Barnes & Noble and this decision pivoted on the information contained within an NPR article which suggested that women readers tend to read more than men. The name is claimed by Rex Wilder when he was consulting for Ammunition Design Group. The Nook software is run on Android 4.4 KitKat, the GlowLight Plus uses a Freescale i. MX61 GHz CPU and has 512MB RAM. Since the device runs Android 4.4, third party apps, due to the lack of physical buttons, initial set up to install third party apps is done through a USB connection to a computer. In February 2014, B&N announced a new Nook color tablet would be released in 2014, in June 2014, Barnes & Noble announced it would be teaming up with Samsung to develop co-branded tablets titled the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook. The devices would feature Samsungs hardware with a 7-inch display, the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook was released in the US in August 21,2014, with B&Ns Nook Division focusing on the software and content, and Samsung focusing on the hardware. The product specs, matching the Samsung Galaxy Tab 47.0 and it launched with a US$199 retail price. In May 2015, the price was reduced to $149, in September 2015, B&N released the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 Nook, which is a Nook branded Samsung Galaxy Tab S28 LCD tablet that includes some Samsung and B&N software. It uses Android 5.0.99 retail price, in October 2015, B&N released the Samsung Galaxy Tab E Nook, which is a Nook branded Samsung Galaxy Tab 9.6 LCD tablet that includes some Samsung, B&N and Microsoft software. In November 2016, B&N released the Nook Tablet 7, which is a Nook branded Chinese tablet 7 screen has a resolution of 600 x 1024 and it is using Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Nook apps included with a 1. 3GHz MediaTek CPU. It has 8GB storage, a card slot, Wi-Fi. It weighs 8.8 ounces and has a battery for up to 7 hours, the device has two versions, a Nook that includes Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity, and one that only includes Wi-Fi
6.
Kindle Fire
–
The Kindle Fire is a tablet computer developed by Amazon. com. The Kindle Fire HD followed in September 2012, and the Kindle Fire HDX in September 2013, in September 2014, when the fourth generation was introduced, the adjective Kindle was dropped. In September 2015, the fifth generation Fire 7 was released, followed by the sixth generation Fire HD8, on September 7,2012, upgrades to the device were announced with consumer availability to those European countries with a localized version of Amazons website. The original Kindle Fire retailed for US$199 in 2011, estimates of the devices initial bill of materials cost ranged from $150 to $202. Amazons business strategy was stated in 2011 as making money through sales of digital content on the Fire, rather than through sales of the device itself. On September 6,2012, the Kindle Fire was upgraded to the second generation, a more powerful and video-friendly version, the Kindle Fire HD was also made available, initially priced at $199 and $299. On September 25,2013, the Kindle Fire HD was upgraded as the third generation Fire, priced at US$139, the Kindle Fire HDX had an improved graphics engine, double the memory, and triple the processor speed of the previous model. The 7-inch and 8. 99-inch versions were introduced at US$229, in September 2014, the Fire HDX8.9 and the Fire HD were upgraded to the fourth generation of Fire tablets, removing the Kindle adjective in the naming scheme. There was also the Fire HD6 that has a screen with a quad-core processor priced at US$99. In September 2015, Amazon announced the release of the Fire 7, as of March 2016 it was the lowest-priced Amazon tablet. In June 2016, its price was dropped briefly to US$39.99 and this fifth generation tablet includes for the first time a micro SD card slot for extra storage. In September 2016, Amazon announced the release of the Fire HD8, as with most of Amazon’s devices, the aim isn’t to make money off of the hardware but instead to sell digital content such as books, movies, and TV shows to users reports Fortune. The Kindle Fire hardware was manufactured by Quanta Computer, which had also helped design the BlackBerry PlayBook. First-generation Kindle Fire devices employed a 1-GHz Texas Instruments OMAP4430 dual-core processor, the device has a 2-point multi-touch color LCD screen with a diagonal length of 7 inches and a 600×1024-pixel resolution. Connectivity is through 802. 11n Wi-Fi and USB2.0, the device includes 8 GB of internal storage—said to be enough for 80 applications, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books. The first-generation Kindle Fire has a sensor on the upper corner of the screen. This was widely considered to be a sensor, disabled since an early software upgrade. The first generation of Kindle Fire devices run a customized Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread OS, the second-generation Kindle Fire HD runs a customized Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich OS
7.
Amazon (company)
–
Amazon. com, also called Amazon, is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing company that was founded on July 5,1994, by Jeff Bezos and is based in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest Internet-based retailer in the world by total sales, the company also produces consumer electronics—notably, Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV, and Echo—and is the worlds largest provider of cloud infrastructure services. Amazon also sells certain low-end products like USB cables under its in-house brand AmazonBasics. Amazon has separate retail websites for the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, Japan, China, India, and Mexico. Amazon also offers international shipping to other countries for some of its products. In 2016, Dutch, Polish, and Turkish language versions of the German Amazon website were launched. In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States by market capitalization, in 1994, Bezos left his employment as vice-president of D. E. Shaw & Co. a Wall Street firm and moved to Seattle. He began to work on a plan for what would eventually become Amazon. com. Bezos incorporated the company as Cadabra on July 5,1994, Bezos changed the name to Amazon a year later after a lawyer misheard its original name as cadaver. In September 1994, Bezos purchased the URL Relentless. com and briefly considered naming his online store Relentless, the domain is still owned by Bezos and still redirects to the retailer. The company went online as Amazon. com in 1995, Bezos placed a premium on his head start in building a brand, telling a reporter, Theres nothing about our model that cant be copied over time. But you know, McDonalds got copied, and it still built a huge, multibillion-dollar company. A lot of it comes down to the brand name, brand names are more important online than they are in the physical world. Additionally, a beginning with A was preferential due to the probability it would occur at the top of any list that was alphabetized. Since June 19,2000, Amazons logotype has featured a curved arrow leading from A to Z, representing that the company carries every product from A to Z, with the arrow shaped like a smile. After reading a report about the future of the Internet that projected annual Web commerce growth at 2, 300% and he narrowed the list to what he felt were the five most promising products, which included, compact discs, computer hardware, computer software, videos and books. Amazon was founded in the garage of Bezos home in Bellevue, the company began as an online bookstore, an idea spurred off with discussion with John Ingram of Ingram Book, along with Keyur Patel who still holds a stake in Amazon. Amazon was able to access books at wholesale from Ingram, in the first two months of business, Amazon sold to all 50 states and over 45 countries
8.
3M
–
The 3M Company, formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in Maplewood, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul. 3M has operations in more than 65 countries including 29 international companies with manufacturing operations and 35 companies with laboratories, 3M products are available for purchase through distributors and retailers, and online directly from the company. Five businessmen founded 3M in Two Harbors, Minnesota, in 1902, originally a mining venture, the goal was to mine corundum, but this failed because the mines mineral holdings were anorthosite, which had no commercial value. Co-founder John Dwan solicited funds in exchange for stock and Edgar Ober, the company moved to Duluth and began research and producing sandpaper products. William L. McKnight, later a key executive, joined the company in 1907, 3M finally became financially stable in 1916 and was able to pay dividends. The company moved to St. Paul in 1910, where it remained for 52 years before outgrowing the campus and moving to its current headquarters at 3M Center in Maplewood, Minnesota in 1962. The new Maplewood campus is 475 acres and has over 50 buildings, the company began by mining stone from quarries for use in grinding wheels. Struggling with quality and marketing of its products, management supported its workers to innovate and develop new products, twelve years after its inception, 3M developed its first exclusive product, Three-M-ite cloth. Other innovations in this era included masking tape, waterproof sandpaper, by 1929, 3M had made its first moves toward international expansion by forming Durex to conduct business in Europe. The same year, the stock was first traded over the counter. The company is currently a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the founders original plan was to sell the mineral corundum to manufacturers in the East for making grinding wheels. In reality, however, Dwan and his associates were not selling what they thought, failing to make sandpaper with the anorthosite, the founders decided to import minerals like Spanish garnet, after which sale of sandpapers grew. In 1914, customers complained that the garnet was falling off the paper, the founders discovered that the stones had traveled across the Atlantic Ocean packed near olive oil, and the oil had penetrated the stones. Unable to take the loss of selling expensive inventory, they roasted the stones over fire to remove the olive oil, the companys late innovations include waterproof sandpaper and masking tape, as well as cellophane Scotch Tape and sound-deadening materials for cars. In 1947, 3M began producing PFOA by electrochemical fluorination, during the 1950s, the company expanded worldwide with operations in Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom in large part by Clarence Sampair. DuPont referred to PFOA as C8, in 1951, international sales were approximately $20 million. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, 3M published a line of board games and these games were marketed to adults and sold through department stores, with easily learned simple rules but complex game play and depth and with uniformly high-quality components. As such, they are the ancestors of the German Eurogames, the games covered a variety of topics, from business and sports simulations to word and abstract strategy games
9.
E-book
–
An electronic book is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Although sometimes defined as a version of a printed book. Commercially produced and sold e-books are usually intended to be read on dedicated e-reader devices, however, almost any sophisticated computer device that features a controllable viewing screen can also be used to read e-books, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. In the 2000s, there was a trend of print and e-book sales moving to the Internet, where readers buy traditional paper books and e-books on websites using e-commerce systems. With e-books, users can browse through online, and then when they select and order titles. At the start of 2012 in the U. S. more e-books were published online than were distributed in hardcover, the main reasons that people are buying e-books online are due to possibly lower prices, increased comfort and a larger selection of titles. With e-books, lectronic bookmarks make referencing easier, and e-book readers may allow the user to annotate pages, although fiction and non-fiction books come in e-book formats, technical material is especially suited for e-book delivery because it can be searched for keywords. In addition, for programming books, code examples can be copied, E-book reading is increasing in the U. S. by 2014, 28% of adults had read an e-book, compared to 23% in 2013. This is increasing, because by 2014 50% of American adults had an e-reader or a tablet, E-books are also referred to as ebooks, eBooks, e-Books, e-journals, e-editions or as digital books. The devices that are designed specifically for reading e-books are called e-readers, the idea of an e-reader that would enable a reader to view books on a screen came to Bob Brown after watching his first talkie. In 1930, he wrote a book on this idea and titled it The Readies, although Brown came up with the idea intellectually in the 1930s, early commercial e-readers did not follow his model. Schuessler relates it to a DJ spinning bits of old songs to create a beat or a new song as opposed to just a remix of a familiar song. The inventor of the first e-book is not widely agreed upon and her idea behind the device was to decrease the number of books that her pupils carried to school. The first e-book may be the Index Thomisticus, a heavily annotated electronic index to the works of Thomas Aquinas, prepared by Roberto Busa beginning in 1949, although originally stored on a single computer, a distributable CD-ROM version appeared in 1989. In 2005, the Index was published online, augment ran on specialized hardware, while FRESS ran on IBM mainframes. All these systems also provided extensive hyperlinking, graphics, and other capabilities, van Dam is generally thought to have coined the term electronic book, and it was established enough to use in an article title by 1985. FRESS was used for reading extensive primary texts online, as well as for annotation and online discussions in several courses, browns faculty made extensive use of FRESS, for example the philosopher Roderick Chisholm used it to produce several of his books. Thus in the Preface to Person and Object he writes The book would not have been completed without the epoch-making File Retrieval, despite the extensive earlier history, several publications report Michael S. Hart as the inventor of the e-book
10.
Amazon Kindle
–
The Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. com. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, all Kindle devices integrate with Kindle Store content and as of January 2017, the store has over five million e-books available in the US. Founder and CEO of Amazon. com Jeff Bezos commanded his deputies in 2004 to build the worlds best e-reader before Amazons competitors could, in reference to this e-reader, Amazon originally used the codename Fiona. The Kindle name was devised by branding consultants Michael Cronan and Karin Hibma, lab126 tasked them to name the product, so Cronan and Hibma suggested Kindle, meaning to light a fire. They felt this was an apt metaphor for reading and intellectual excitement, Kindle hardware has evolved from the original Kindle introduced in 2007 and the Kindle DX introduced in 2009. The range includes devices with a keyboard, devices with high resolution and contrast screens, a tablet with the Kindle app. Amazon has also introduced Kindle software for use on devices and platforms, including Microsoft Windows, iOS, BlackBerry, Mac OS X, Android, webOS. Amazon also has a reader to allow users to read. Content for the Kindle can be purchased online and downloaded wirelessly in some countries, through a service called Whispersync, customers can synchronize reading progress, bookmarks, and other information across Kindle hardware and other mobile devices. Amazon released the Kindle, its first e-reader, on November 19,2007 and it sold out in five and a half hours. The device remained out of stock for five months until late April 2008, the device features a 6 inches 4-level grayscale display, with 250 MB of internal storage, which can hold approximately 200 non-illustrated titles. It also has a speaker and a jack that allows the user to listen to audio files on Kindle. It is the only Kindle with expandable storage, via an SD card slot, the devices Whispernet feature was co-designed with Qualcomm, and Kindle was the first device to include free US-wide 3G access to download e-books from Amazons Kindle Store. Amazon did not sell the first generation Kindle outside the US, on February 10,2009, Amazon announced the Kindle 2, the second generation Kindle. It became available for purchase on February 23,2009, the Kindle 2 features a text-to-speech option to read the text aloud, and 2 GB of internal memory of which 1.4 GB is user-accessible. By Amazons estimates, the Kindle 2 can hold about 1,500 non-illustrated books, unlike the first generation Kindle, Kindle 2 does not have a slot for SD memory cards. It was slimmer than the original Kindle, the Kindle 2 features a Freescale 532 MHz, ARM-1190 nm processor,32 MB main memory,2 GB flash memory and a 3.7 V1,530 mAh lithium polymer battery. To promote the Kindle 2, in February 2009 author Stephen King made UR, his then-new novella, on July 8,2009, Amazon reduced price of the Kindle 2 from $359 to $299
11.
Windows 8
–
Windows 8 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Development of Windows 8 started before the release of its predecessor, Windows 7 and it was announced at CES2011, and followed by the release of three pre-release versions from September 2011 to May 2012. The operating system was released to manufacturing on August 1,2012, Windows 8 added support for USB3.0, Advanced Format hard drives, near field communications, and cloud computing. Windows 8 was released to a critical reception. Despite these shortcomings,60 million Windows 8 licenses were sold through January 2013, on October 17,2013, Microsoft released Windows 8.1. It addressed some aspects of Windows 8 that were criticized by reviewers and early adopters, Windows 8 was ultimately succeeded by Windows 10 in July 2015. Support for Windows 8 RTM ended on January 12,2016, per Microsoft lifecycle policies regarding service packs, Windows 8.1 must be installed to maintain support, Windows 8 development started before Windows 7 had shipped in 2009. Three milestone releases of Windows 8 leaked to the general public, milestone 1, Build 7850, was leaked on April 12,2011. It was the first build where the text of a window was written centered instead of aligned to the left and it was also probably the first appearance of the Metro-style font, and its wallpaper had the text shhh. Lets not leak our hard work, however, its detailed build number reveals that the build was created on September 22,2010. The leaked copy was Enterprise edition, the OS still reads as Windows 7. Milestone 2, Build 7955, was leaked on April 25,2011, the traditional Blue Screen of Death was replaced by a new black screen, although this was later scrapped. This build introduced a new ribbon in Windows Explorer, Build 7959, with minor changes but the first 64-bit version, was leaked on May 1,2011. The Windows 7 logo was replaced with text displaying Microsoft Confidential. On June 17,2011, build 7989 64-bit edition was leaked and it introduced a new boot screen featuring the same fish as the default Windows 7 Beta wallpaper, which was later scrapped, and the circling dots as featured in the final. It also had the text Welcome below them, although this was also scrapped, on June 1,2011, Microsoft unveiled Windows 8s new user interface, as well as additional features at both Computex Taipei and the D9, All Things Digital conference in California. The Building Windows 8 blog launched on August 15,2011, featuring details surrounding Windows 8s features, Microsoft unveiled more Windows 8 features and improvements on the first day of the Build conference on September 13,2011. Microsoft released the first public build of Windows 8, Windows Developer Preview at the event
