On cancelling and depriving digital artists livelihoods

An increasing issue is the tendency for financial institutions to apply restrictions to either who may have a bank account for business or political purposes or to impose terms on any organization that may use their services which not about law, financial or otherwise but more about their own values.

Last year it was reported upon that the politician Nigel Farage had his Coutts account closed and only after much investigation did it transpire that behind words around meeting requirements to have one was obvious mentioning of his politics which tend to be rather like marmite.

Groups who feel well intended trans inclusion measure disadvantage or sideline those assigned as females at birth can find certain bodies they may need access to just refuse to do business with them.

You may disagree their views but is it right to deny services on that basis?

In the modern economy many publish fiction and art electronically and they often have payment options so the creators whose works are entirely legal can make a living out of it but it isn't unknown for some payment services to refuse to provide it as they don't "align" with their values.

A more worry tendency than that is to made demands on sites that host such works to remove anything and anyone in whole categories that they *think* may be problematic even if its is legal and therefore can be sold openly in physical printed form.

That happened to a raft of self published titles and creators on Kindle, the Amazon E-book service.

This also can be connected to the likes of Apple inc, setting terms for any apps via its store which caused many issues on Tumblr even when age restrictions are in place several years back and issues on Patreon where many age play or ad/dl artists whose work was legal and had suitable restrictions in place to keep minors out just mass terminating any and all accounts with either no inspection of the persons own content or rights of appeal.

Given for a good number this wasn't some hour a day side project but actually their main income as a job to have no warning and no appeal of in effect being prevented from employment with immediate consequences financially is unjust.

R.I.P. Sanriotown.com

My adventures online started in the mid 2000's and one rabbit hole I soon found myself going further down was very much the kawaii so it was not so long before I bumped into Hello Kitty online from many unofficial sites and blogs connected to all things Sanriotown.

What it offered was gaming, all sanrio themed with Chococat and Hello Kitty herself, forums for endless discussion of everything Sanrio and beyond, post cards you could email and even blogging.

It also offered the ability to have your own very kawaii email with a choice of domains so I opted to have a @hellokitty.com email.

It was the ideal place for that younger than my years Littles me to play in a more child-like environment.

Thus there was a finality when on Monday September 18th I had this email.

"Dear SanrioTown Users,

We are writing to inform you about a significant upcoming change regarding your SanrioTown email account (“Your Account”).

After careful consideration and evaluation of our business operations, we regret to inform you that we have decided to cease the operations of SanrioTown. As a result, the SanrioTown website, Your Account and the relevant services that we have been providing to you will no longer be available from November 1, 2023 (“Shutdown Date”).

We understand the significance of email communication in both personal and professional capacities and assure you that this decision has not been taken lightly. Over the years, we have appreciated your loyalty and trust in SanrioTown, and we want to ensure a smooth transition during this period.

Therefore, we encourage you to save the chat history and any essential contacts or information of Your Account. On and after the Shutdown Date, you will no longer be able to access or retrieve any data in Your Account.

To facilitate the transition, we recommend that you take the following steps:

1. Backup Your Data: Please ensure that you back up all the essential emails, contacts, and any other important data in Your Account. This will allow you to retain access to the valuable information of Your Account on and after the Shutdown Date.

2. Choose a New Email Service Provider: To continue receiving and sending emails on and after the Shutdown Date, we encourage you to select an alternative email service provider, such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail, among others.

3. Inform Your Contacts: Please notify your contacts about your upcoming email address change to ensure that they can update their records and communications accordingly.

We understand that change can be challenging and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this shutdown may cause you.  Once again, we extend our gratitude for your support and loyalty to SanrioTown over the years. We genuinely value your business and trust that you will find an alternative email service that meets your needs."

For a period there had been issues with the email account being down for months and being locked out too so I had made an account with Gmail but now it seems that playground in the Ether will be no more.

Rather like Tinier Me, Friends Reunited and Experience Project another element of the past sails away to the internet scrapyard.

R.I.P. Sanriotown.com

An old friend goes...

This blog goes back quite a few years and will soon be marking  its tenth year which in the world of computing and the internet in particular is quite some time.

The origins of this blog go back to joining Friends Reunited in 2004 which had a blogging or perhaps more accurately a journalling facility to which you could send links via email to but was designed for site members to help keep in touch with each other.
I looked at it, tried it but even Blogger circa 2006 was a better tool so that's why this blog ended up here.

The site Friends Reunited launched in 2001 with a simple premise which was to enable people to get in touch with each other by holding information people freely submitted about the school, college, university and places of work they went to in groups.
You could search by name, year, place or establishment they had something to do with which soon made this UK site one of the biggest sites on the web.

  I joined to keep track of some of my friends who were still alive (many sadly have life-shortening conditions) from the schools we attended using it to get back in touch and learn more about how our lives had moved. 
It's success bought it to the attentions of various groups like ITV Plc who bought and in the eyes of many messed it up to fit its commercial interests introducing fees too and in 2010 it was returned to it's original owners.
The world has moved on since those heady days, with the growth of things like Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr etc and so in that time it's users fell.
It'll be closed shortly simply because it's really lost what would keep it a  sustainable entity a lot of big users posting with the small number left using it to just post messages to each other.
R.I.P Friends Reunited.

Computing eras end

Peoples who've know this blog since it's very start way way back in 2006 know that apart from a very brief period at the start, the majority of its posts came from desktop computer obtained around October 2006 mainly because of the ahem 'extra curricular' activities I was having to undertake for more hours than inevitably were really good for me not least having to have means of emailing and working on shared documents.
Time hadn't been kind to said machine and I had gotten a laptop in 2012 for most activities but it has a recurring fault that so far has proved hard to fix leaving me with that old desktop for most things which had gotten so slow at starting like 15 minutes minimum, run on Windows XP Pro and only had 256MB of RAM (with very limited expansion prospects) and to cap it all, a hard drive with a maximum capacity of 18.6GB of which the operating system ate a good portion.
I called it "Treacle" as using it was akin to trying to walking through thick treacle, getting so far and hitting a sticky patch every time something required an update just as you were attempting to do anything. It also was incapable of running Tumblr and Google Plus never mind any sort of online games. 
Hardly an economic candidate for revamping with various upgrades so as a few friends know I was looking for an affordable replacement given I'm not into gaming or video editing placing humongous demands on the processor  and I do really like some portability.

After looking around I spotted something with potential from Microdream in Devon which was a bit out of the box when it came to ideas and this was it, the Dell 2100.
A netbook, that small laptop concept that got a bit lost between Chromebooks and upscale 10 inch tablets but very much the rage a few years back because the one advantage as being a full computer was thanks to its Windows 7 operating system, you can use full programs on, a generous 160GB Hard Drive for storing music and pictures on and obviously being an all in one,  a newer 10.1" screen as my 15 monitor has some burnt on tramlines and needed to replaced at some point although this machine does have a VGA connector for external monitors.
The negatives looked workable, such as not having a  dvd re-writer wasn't an issue as I have an external spare one that just plugs in and the RAM when supplied was a pitiful 1GB could be expanded to a more workable 2 which was the maximum the Atom processor can accept which proved adequate for most things even using the iTunes store.

On the other hand its keyboard was very responsive with plenty of feel while typing, the trackball while being small is accurate, an issue I had with the previous HP Compaq laptop and it had a built in SD card reader too

The small size is a boon for working from anywhere and after a few issues trying to install iTunes (I could write a book on the issues with its interfaces for Windows uses and unhelpful help sections) it is going well.

Perhaps you'd like to join me in pouring some cream on the treacle pudding and celebrating Treacle's permanent replacement!

Unexpected pauses

Unfortunately my much anticipated post for this week will not be happening due to a big technical hitch that occurred originally on Tuesday and after a resumption for a brief period has continued for a few days.
You might recall I bought a laptop around June 2012 and had been using that for much of the work as the desktop computer I have is currently 8 years old and probably was at least 2 years older than that before I bought it used but professionally refurbished around October 2006.
That's a very very long time ago, like  but a few months after I started this here blog and it's fair to say it's fallen well behind what is needed to use modern websites and social media was rather more someone shouting "Isn't that amazing" as they heard an Mp3 or video playing from the internet than the likes of Tumblr, Twitter, Google Plus or Facebook so a miserly 256MB of RAM isn't much use today apart from the sad fact that older computers just get slower as the years go by.
The short no technical bits of it are it won't come on and recognize what it is (a Compaq) and then load up Windows 7 preferring to flash every tw seconds  with a black screen instead. I hope a in a few days to be able to return to normal service but in the meantime to please bear with me as that ancient computer is very poor at media heavy sites like Google Plus and Tumblr and even stalls  on regular sites from time to time.

Pause for thought

While around the intrawebs last week I spotted this meme that held my attention for a good while probably because I recognize the universality of the experience. It sure matches my own because in the strive for perfection it's easy to forget how we get there, that in order to build say a house from a box of Lego, you need to find what best fits where but you learn from that. And other people are on the same trip, maybe playing catch up to you so it can be tempting to either do things for them or worse still berate them for not having learnt from an experience they never had.
The last line gets to me -I'll be honest here - because I've come from situations where people have put you on  a God like level and yet although it may true to say I'm relatively wise, I remain Human, imperfect in every single action but above all Thankful for my being alive and that of others.

Internet child safety Summit Meeting

Today government demanded representatives from internet service providers and search engines were to attend a meeting by the Culture and Media Minister to discuss 'child abuse images' online.
This has come about as it was suggested in two high profile child abuse trials the persons concerned had such images on their computers and smart phones.
None of us wants images of child abuse to be freely circulating by it because we find it disturbing  and mainly is a record of actual abuse (or taken in the context of) but already there appear to be some limits leading to a BBC technology expect predicting a "Dialogue of the deaf".
The first is an many politicians do not  appear to be able distinguish between what an Internet Service Provider  is - a provider of internet connection - and what a search engine is - a means of locating often using tags in posts specific data on the web - such as websites.
The significance is that a search engine merely lists what is out there and may have 'safe search' options excluding certain terms, however of itself it doesn't restrict access. An internet provider may apply,  if ordered, a block to its users of sites  such as Pirate Bay that host copyright material sites plus sites deemed illegal, or possibly harmful.
One problem with the latter category is deciding what in fact IS harmful and a few years back the following image was blocked from wikipedia and is not allowed on ebay although it is legal in the UK and several hundred  thousand people own it.

That is the cover of the 1970 album Blind Faith, the model (pre teen) was permitted by her parents to pose (they were present) and it has been legal ever since then but the Internet Watch Foundation and CEOP disagreed and had it blocked from UK ISP's for a period but available in the rest of the World.
See the problem?
The other thing is, if any blocks are applied are applied at the ISP end, it is quite easy to install a 'Proxy' to tell it you aren't in the UK (and NOT on your isp) defeating it. One level above this would be to install the US navy browser TOR that effectively uses encryption bouncing  internet traffic through relays hiding your location and what you're looking at.
This is available for Windows.
Tor project
At the supply end there are many encryption packages for text and images used often in countries where internet censorship is common place yet information and pictures need to be gotten out. There's no reason to suppose those who spread such images  aren't already using such techniques (it usually only the most naive who don't).
I seriously doubt anything of great significance will be achieved today although automatic tagging on images may assist removal from the most accessible sites by aiding identification of duplicates and that I'd welcome.
When it comes to 'adult porn' I really think the .xxx mandated approach would work if you had to set your browser to accept that domain so you could lock them off children's smartphones or laptops.
I also feel the only really safe option is for parents to use safety settings on browsers setting limits to suit their children's age and to talk about keeping safe online. It's your responsibility.

Eviction time

Further to this post of 2012 (NEO: an end of an era ), Uncooked Media and NEO magazine announced with just 7 days notice it was to close the magazines old Forum on Friday February 22nd where some of us had accounts for quite a period, saying they hadn't anyone to look after it.
So not for the first time some us are forum hopping again and can be found found at UK Anime news's forum as most of us have agreed to move other there for now at least and nearly everyone bar me is keeping their old user names.
For posterity here's a picture of the forum for duoinchains, Shadowcat, max, demonix and the gang.

So long NEO Forums and raised glasses to our new home.

The end of high street photo retail

I guess it had to happen really and was more question of when rather than if but the UK photography chain Jessops went into receivership as of today brought about by an inability in the part of directors, creditors and suppliers to extend credit to this long established but ailing concern that goes back many decades.
It's my understanding some suppliers had during last year offered credit to them to enable their products to be sold as it was the #1 high street outlet for their goods.
Jessops was the first chain in the UK I established a relationship with as a consumer, a place where at the time you could get all manner of advice connected with photography, the virtues of different lenses, filters, film ect over the sales counter. My local branch would root out stuff for me to try instore without obligation. They also run a photography residential school with industry experts providing tuition.
Two things probably did for this type of retailing, the first being digital photography has  less repeat custom after buying a camera and maybe a spare memory card and for Dslr users an additional lens or two. You sure wouldn't be buying a new memory card each week in the way you bought film and although they'd invested in instore printing, a lot of casual users either print at home or don't even print their images so you wouldn't be getting much of an income stream from that!
As a traditional film slr user I saw reductions traditional products in stock to the point while on vacation I couldn't get medium speed print film and ended up visiting a well known drugstore that had better stocks off the shelf!
Also many users use smartphones as cameras leading to a drop in demand for digital compacts that come on contracts while professionals users would use online stores that held larger 'to go' supplies with rapid delivery

Review time

I don't know what the next line of this entry is likely to be but as we're coming toward the end of the year I normally write a little review bit and I think I shall tonight.
I'll start of talking about the sites I joined or belong to where a number of you readers belong, where we talk about all manner of things such as current affairs, music, fashion and anime. Well I'll take my hat off to you  all as even with the Presidential Election we didn't have much drama and certainly at Google Plus we had some interesting conversations as well as people sharing their talents in photography and digital art.
We had the Olympics and Paralympics, held in London which went extremely well showing just what people really are capable of, those amazing volunteers who helped everyone out.
When it comes to music, I was really impressed with the Roxy Music studio albums cd collection and deserved moans about manufacturing quality control of the American made copies aside, the new Beatles stereo lps that offer some real advantages over previous editions that had been out of print for good period of time.
I'm enjoying having a fibre to the cabinet broadband connection that is reliable and jolly fast for downloading files and watching video content which seems to be altering my habits as regards using the internet goes.
This blog gained some new followers and a big increase in readers over the year so I guess I must be doing something right.
I'd love to see the back of the rain we've had for most of the year flooding people out, damaging crops and leaving me soaking wet when goings.
Thank you, angelic types, bones, Google plusers, weird people of CR for being around
Happy New Year

An end of an era

This isn't a a post I personally felt like making earlier on but actually with some some redacts I shall.
As many of you are aware I enjoy anime and manga reading much about it, buying magazines and spending money on it.
Here in the UK there is a very good 4 weekly magazine, NEO, published by Uncooked Media that has played a big role in popularizing anime and it's subcultures such as cosplaying as well as Asian culture.
Well from the moment I first saw it, I bought every issue and one of the things it had was  a website that offered more up to the minute news and a lively forum where people talked about things, contributed to threads that influenced the magazine covering  suggestions for content, reviews.
Coming from a close involvement with a forum with more drama than Shakespeare could come up, with it was a forum where I felt everyone gelled well together sharing their mutual interests even if complaints about a prominent magazine advertiser stocking counterfeit goods tended to be ignored time after time and anything critical regarding this disappearing.
Then at the beginning of this year, there was a bombshell as the Magazine and by extension its owner ditched the forum for a Facebook page as its sole means of communicating with it's readership with not even an announcement to forum members, dropping of any mention of it in side the magazine.
Because it relied as some forums do on manual authorizing of accounts for a period new members couldn't use it and because no one with administrator privileges was dealing with this, it was ripe for spamming.
Somewhat belatedly a person was given responsibility for looking after it but without making any personal comments the impression one forms is it isn't really their priority and attempts to allow involvement by long standing responsible members stalled for reasons I'm not going into.
The problem as anyone who knows about these things are, your core members drift off  - and many have - and with the problem around authorizing, moderating and banning spammers not really solved and looking very much that it won't be  is simple: Over time the forum dies off.
Now I have no issue with using differing media to interact with readers but a forum is a very different beast than a Facebook page with 'likes' and entries to just reply to and treating a community you created like that comes over as very shabby.
I shall be at Anime UK news under a new username. If you're at CR too you can message me there for it.

Rod The Mod

If you were around in the 70's you could not of escaped Rod Stewart, the UK singer-songwriter responsible for many of decades top selling records but where do you start if you're not a rabid fan of his given many compilations have been issued in the passing decades most of which had cd re-issues?
I did have the 2004 Changing Faces set but it was mastered rather loud and my copy wasn't playing to well for some reason so a while back I did some investigations on what to replace it with.
At the risk of sounding like a boring old fart, I feel his best solo material was recorded for Mercury between 1969 and 1974 taking in such gems as You Wear it Well, Gasoline Alley, Reason To Believe and unforgettably, Maggie Mae.
While some of these albums have been re-issued by specialty labels such as Audio Fidelity and Mobile Fidelity, these discs will be dear to track down regardless of sonic merit  so I'd suggest most would be better of getting new a 3 cd set called "Reason To Believe -The complete Mercury studio recordings " having all the albums and some bonus tracks in a single inexpensive set.

For an overview of his career from the mid 60's to 1990 I feel there's one which is a complete no-brainer  and that's "Storyteller" as it does just that telling the story of Rod's music career over 4 cds that originally came out in 1990 costing a small fortune.
It was recently repackaged but keeping the notes and can be got from Amazon UK for £7.99 shipped. Although a few tracks from the mid 60's were sourced from records, most of this set sounds really good.
I would put this now above "The Story So Far - the best of" a 2 cd set issued by Warners in the UK in 2003 as Storyteller has more 'classic' Rod while all The Story So Far adds is some remakes and less essential tracks he did with Helicopter Girl even though I bought "Story So Far" on release.

Finally, Rod was an essential part of the Faces who emerged from the Small Faces and you simply have to have a selection of their rootsy bar music that included tracks like Stay With Me and Cindy Incidentally. Although there's a new double cd set due out in October which I hope to get, One that can be got cheaply and is very good is The Best of the Faces (Good boys ...while they're asleep).

Currently available on Rhino and priced at £2.99 on Amazon UK you really cannot go wrong with this single cd retrospective..

Tv or not tv as we know it?

Isn't modern life surprising,eh?
Take Tv for instance in the UK we had four followed by Five free to air tv channels available by an antenna in the 1990's.
If you wanted more channels you'd either get cable which Cranford Central sure isn't an option or you'd subscribe to Sky TV a subscription based satellite service that provides packages which I had for several years changing from analogue to digital over that time.
The service wasn't bad, but it was expensive and you have to take all the subscription regular channels to get either sports or film channels. I wasn't in much to take full use of it.
I tried ONdigital which reception issues aside (believe you me I had to have the biggest most sensitive antenna fixed in the whole neighbourhood to get this part subscription digital tv via the antenna service with reasonable reception out here) wasn't bad as it gave most of the stuff I wanted at a reasonable price only to have it go in administration.
When the digital tv over the antenna service was reconfigured in 2002 to a very wide choice of free to watch channels from the likes of the BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and five, I stuck with that, just keeping the old sky box for a select few satellite only free channels I  watch downstairs.
Imagine my surprise then to find it was possible to subscribe to the sports channel British Eurosport which I missed entirely online in HD widescreen for a mere £2.99 per month and having now gotten decent fibre broadband I had a fast clean connection to make it work.
Plus connection permitting I can use it on a tablet PC via Wifi anywhere!
With that I updated the M$Silverlight to the latest version on the laptop having deleted the old one and immediately set up an account paying via PayPal cos I don't like handing my card details out if I can help it.
It really works so with a combination of two British Europsport channels (with extra one offs) streamed HD anime from CR and my free to air tv channels I'm getting just the kind of tv I like at a price I feel is reasonable.

400 entries!

Did anyone notice something last week?
Actually peoples that was the 400th post of this blog of mine that has been running for just over 6 years and in it's current form for about three when I woke up around 4AM with this amazingly amazing idea of what I wanted by way of content and critically how I wanted the whole look to be including its new title. Good job I had a note pad and pen by my bed don't you think to write it all down, eh?
And if you haven't sussed it out, I talk here about anything really from furry creatures to the state of the Euro taking in the odd thing about music so it's very eclectic.
When I first started it, it was only a few weeks after getting a broadband internet connection which for the benefit of younger readers meant not only didn't you hear no funny dialling up tones every time you wanted to connect and no more missing phone calls cos the computer was using the line, it now was permanently on. It made using websites and writing a blog a lot easier.
Well kinda as those of you who know me know how goddam awful my current providers service is not helped for good measure by being over 2 miles from the telephone exchange so soon I'll be switching provider and upgrading to Fibre to the cabinet as at long last the major telecoms provider here has fibre connected the area up.
I've been spending part of the week tidying up  some of my account details as back in 2008 I switched most of my email to  professional web based  services in part to enable easier email access form places like work and also to reduce any issues if I moved home or changed provider as many people back then had their email provided by whoever their  internet. provider was whereas today most of use don't (hands up you GMail users!) and check our emails on smartphones, tablets as well as laptop or desktop computers. Otherwise it would be change your provider, lose your emails unless you backed them up and even then you'd have to change all your details up again which is a pain for internet shopping and that.
I set a number of old accounts just to redirect to my web mail for speed but only discovered a few I still use a lot  hadn't be properly changed on the sites so I changed my details at Serif and Bestuff amongst others ready for when this internet provider gets turned off. Equally I got a Type N 150 USB wifi adaptor for this old desktop although I plan to get a laptop with built in wifi soonish, as there's quite a distance from where my phone master sockets is  where the engineers will install their stuff and where the desktop is situated and I'll be using both through the transition no doubt.
Until the next entry folks, bye and thanks for reading the blog all those years.

Grey day

Greetings on a recovering from a bad migraine Friday here which is why the blog update is kind of late as put quite simply I've been in bed for two days and have been struggling to make coherent sentences earlier today which is what I was off work with. I may just get around  next week to writing the entry I had thought out earlier this week
I've had these lousy migraines from early childhood that without giving away my age is quite some time really and while I know the whole drill, it's still yukky.
I went out for a walk earlier and on my second walk this afternoon I got back soaked to the skin as it rained  really really hard and I couldn't find a place to shelter. This meant drying my coat that was 'showerproof', trainers and tracksuit followed by myself with a  thick towel like you do with dogs!
Woof!!!
Anyway so far in I've lost 11 pounds and can run a bit too.

It's a bright May afternoon

I had a totally different idea for this entry yesterday but my ISP for the 700th time went down for several hours so I thought better of it. As soon as BT Fibre up this area I'll switch to them even if it needs a wifi add on for this PC  and some work in the hallway to fit the gear. I've had enough of my current provider. (rant)
I think I last mentioned Boccherini late in 2006 in connection with his Cello Concertos but recently I picked up this set of two cds of his String Quartets which Naxos put out in 2002.

I love chamber music but Boccherini tends to be somewhat neglected when it comes to commercial recordings so it's a delight to have these performances  which are excellent at budget price so well recorded. 

As well I picked up a copy of the 1997 budget 'Duo' reissue of the classic 1967 Opus 12 Symphonies cycle originally issue as three lp box set by Raymond Leppard and the New Philharmonia Orchestra now slotted in two gorgeously filled cds very well digitally re-mastered.

I've also been walking rather a lot  not just cos the weather's been better but also I felt a bit stiff getting into a vicious circle of to hard to move so don't move, so even harder to move.

I'm purposely not setting targets, creating schedules or anything that may make it seem like a chore or worse still, remind of you school PT instructors barking instead I'm incorporating walks into everyday activities by extend the stroll to the corner store or just taking off any old how  for a mile or two whenever  I get a 'wanna be outside running around' feeling.

So far in I've lost five pounds without making any diet changes and more importantly can do a mile without feeling tired. That's some achievement 

Staying connected

For as long as I recall staying connected especially in cyber life has always been a tricky business as I'm sure many of you recall early cellphones were just that phones for use on the move and texting was seen as a near miraculous thing you could use to set up social meets with a written record of who was going where to met with who.
The modern smartphone does more such as offering the ability to view and listen to media and well as messaging or even Email.
As good as they are the one disadvantage is the small screen size an area Apple tackled with it's iPad silly name but essentially a biggish tablet that makes reading online media such as newspapers easier using touch screen technology and 'apps'.
These have been generally quite expensive for the facilities compared with a notebook or budget lap tops which are also kind of portable but overnight Amazon the world online supplier of books and so much more announced an number of new products such as it's latest Kindle Ebook reader.
The one 'wow' product was however the Amazon Fire a tablet a little smaller than Apple's but with a much much lower cost - $199 (UK £130) offering much of the functionality you would expect of a more expensive model.
With a 7 inch two touch screen set in charcoal grey case it's big enough to read websites clearly at normal distances and allow easy following of chatroom sessions - something that can be hard going on a smartphone - and takes many Android apps.
Featured apps for Amazon’s Android Appstore such as Pandora, Twitter, Facebook, and, most notably, Netflix Kindle store, Amazon MP3, and Prime Instant Video. Nearly all of Amazon’s recent news, Amazon Cloud Player, Amazon Cloud Drive, Kindle Cloud Reader, the streaming deals with Fox and NBCUniversal in the states , were in preparation for the Fire.
It seems obvious Amazon are gunning for the iPad's experience although it lakes camera, mic and 3G although frankly most users would be likely to use the built in wifi for series streaming.
Personally I'm very interested having a use to read certain web sites and follow 2 hour chat sessions without wishing to fire up my main energy hungry PC and that price is a killer.