ShareBy Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
Despite the fact that the Kindle 2’s Read-to-Me feature isn’t really a threat to audiobooks, Amazon.com decided to take the expeditious route to a solution for the objection of The Authors Guild over the feature, announcing that they would allow publishers to decide on a [...]

ShareBy Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
Emoji is the Japanese term for the pictographic characters or emoticons used in Japanese SMS messages and webpages. With firmware version 2.2, the iPhone gained support for entering and displaying emoji, supposedly only for Japanese users, but it turns out there are many ways to get around that, even on a [...]

ShareBy Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
The Authors Guild seems to be of the opinion that the Kindle 2’s Read-to-Me feature is ripping off authors in terms of audiobook rights. They used a quote from an audio expert as ammo, but that expert doesn’t agree with their ideas about Read-to-Me.
On Wednesday Roy Blount, Jr., president of the [...]

ShareBy Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
AYKM (are you kidding me)? No, contrary to popular belief, text message-speak or textisms actually improve language skills, according to a recent study. No, RLY (really).
The study, published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, studied 88 children aged between 10 and 12. The researchers, from Coventry University, gave [...]

ShareBy Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
I wrote earlier about the warning made by the Authors Guild to its members over the Kindle 2’s Read-to Me feature. In Wednesday’s New York Times, Roy Blount, Jr., president of the Guild makes no bones about it, calling it “The Kindle Swindle.”
The concerns of the Author’s Guild around the Kindle [...]

ShareBy Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
According to a report, a father has mandated to his gamer son that if he wanted to play a game in the Call of Duty (CoD)series, he could do so only if he — and his teammates — observed the Geneva Conventions while doing so.
The Geneva Conventions chiefly address the treatment of [...]

ShareBy Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
After two weeks of testing, Layoff Tracker was released formally on Monday. It’s a widget you can add to your website to constantly remind visitors just how bad things really are job-wise.
Written by Telonu.com (Tell On You, get it?), a site that lets you “Rave, Rant, Rateâ„¢ your Office, your School, [...]

ShareBy Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
On Monday, Amazon.com announced it had started shipping the Kindle 2, a day early (as it had previously announced availability on Feb. 24). Although some people had gotten email updates on their orders stating the device had already shipped Sunday, we all know that it really didn’t enter the [...]