Amazon Tablet Rumors: What if they're true?

{EAV_BLOG_VER:12a8ae1d61ba62ef}Image via CrunchBaseAmazon is a very forward thinking company. My personal experience working for them at a customer support call center gave me a chance to see how they work to make their company better every single day. Not only was the organization extraordinarily fast paced it was also very customer centric bending over backwards at times to make a customer happy. Why would I preface this post in such a way? Well Amazon is a household name for a reason and with their first foray into consumer electronics they were successful in large part because they have had such laser-like focus on the consumer experience. This will be the key to their rumored second consumer device reportedly coming in fall this year.
The tech part of this is important. Amazon has one of the best libraries of Video's on Demand of any company. While Netflix is unarguably the monster in this category, Amazon has a very respectable catalog that warrants attention. Netflix, and Hulu Plus are services that have made the transition to tablets and this transition is important to their future success as these devices become our primary connection to the world and entertainment. Amazon's creation of a tablet follows on surprise moves like the Amazon App store that sells Android Apps. This new store allows them to leverage their huge retail presence and the digital accounts associated with it to rival the Android Market by Google. But this store is more of an opportunity to support their new Android powered tablet and that tablet, like the Kindle before it, could be a huge deal. If Amazon puts all of their current apps on this new tablet and announces a new app with the tablet they could enter the tablet wars as a legitimate force. So what app do they need to introduce still? AmazonVOD (Video on Demand) for Android would allow them to enter the tablet market more prepared to do battle than almost any other Android tablet released or rumored to be released. While working there over a year ago I mentioned that they needed to make such an appliance...low and behold here it comes. No doubt it's been in the works longer than that but it's like they were reading my mind. With this product they would be positioned so well to compete with Apple that Motorola, Samsung, Dell, and other Android tablet manufactures would seem like second class citizens in the market. I make this assertion on the fact that none of those organizations is paired with a content source that comes anywhere near rivaling Apple or Amazon. Apple has iTunes and thousands of movie titles that are available for rent/purchase with ease. If Amazon plays their cards right (and they almost always do) they will be THE Apple iPad competitor. Between their cloud MP3 service and cloud drive offering they'll be able to point to cross platform functionality from almost any consumer entertainment or computing device. Apple has this only in so much as you have lots of Apple products. If Amazon is able to add uploading and streaming of movies like they do music they will have one up on Apple and will be able to draw the iPad2 and it's lesser competitors back to the drawing board.
Of course all of this is speculation at least until this holiday season when all our entertainment dreams come true thanks to Amazon.

After The Leaves Fall by Nicole Baart

So Facebook is one of those things that is a huge time suck and rarely gives as much back as you give to it...and then sometimes you find something worthwhile among the complaining and birthday wishes of your 300 closest friends. This book was one of those things. On a tip from Glenn Beck I checked out this free Kindle book. I was skeptical since it wasn't a political book. But the last book I read that he suggested was good (Atlas Shrugged) so I thought 'for free I'll give it a shot'. I was not disappointed.
Julie, the main character, has to be fashioned after someone because there is no way in this world that a story like this could be a purely fictional tale. Tragedy is the beginning middle and end of this girls life. From the formative pre-teen years when her mother left to the devastating early teen years when her father died of cancer this girls life is anything but peaches and cream.  Beyond the storyline (which could be summed up rather quickly and would be one giant spoiler) the writing is mature and almost over the top descriptive.  Across the entire text I can find unique descriptions of seemingly everyday occurrences. The language feels like Leaves of Grass meets As I Lay Dying and the same tones and voice seems to come through in a very feminine way. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the writing event though the content of the book isn't my typical genre I was enthralled by the wonderful imagery and the overwhelming tragedy of Julia's life. In parts the writing seems nostalgic but in a present tense sort of way almost as though the story is being written years after the events took place with the knowledge of the outcome and yet unflinching in the way it describes the events in present tense. You experience it through a lens of right now but in a way that keeps you guessing about the narrators (Julia) relationship to the timeline of the story. Has Julia grown up and is just telling the story from an incredibly accurate memory or is this a travel log that grows with each new struggle? It's a great way to experience a story like this.
I would recommend this book to the same type of people who would be reading all the books on Oprah's list (for all I know this is on her list). The end of the book is a cliff hanger...just so you know this is the first book in a series and the end is natural but very much incomplete leaving you eager to finish Julia's story.