May 9th, 2009

New Amazon Kindle digital book reader, called the Kindle DX, the new device is geared toward readers of personal and professional documents, newpapers and magazines incude textbooks, potentially a huge target market.

The device measures one-third of an inch thick. Its 9.7-inch screen offers 1200 x 824 pixels at 150 dpi, and 16 levels of gray. he screen is held within a plastic housing that measures 10.4? tall by 7.2? wide; the unit weighs about 1 pound 3 ounces. Well, it’s going to be useful to convince you on the kindle DX. This timing is good to us. See more kindle DX on video below.

The US Department of Defense said numbers in its Fiscal Year 2010 budget request are not astonishing as the Pentagon wants to take away all funding for the Multiple Kill Vehicle program, cancel funding for a second Airborne Laser, a Boeing 747 equipped with a missile-destryoing chemical laser and bound the total number of ballistic missile interceptors stationed in Alaska and California.

Yet, this is not exactly the beginning of the inclining years for missile defense, compared to the previous administration when the Missile Defense Agency was flourishing as it had plentiful budget so it could afford to invest in a wide range of technology.

Even today the top line proposal for the Missile Defense Agency budget is high at US$9.1 billion, which is also high for Pentagon. The government plans to disburse extra funds into the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Air Defense System, the Navy’s Standard Missile-3 and Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense.

Maybe the only unanswered question is the future of European-based missile shield. The Bush administration insisted on having interceptors stationed in Poland together with an X-band radar in the Czech Republic, but it is not clear yet about the Obama administration’s plans in this case. Pentagon said that the budget covers US$50 million for a European interceptor site, added with fund carried over from Fiscal Year 2009.

Photo by Wikimedia.

Market research company NPD Group said Blu-ray Disc (BD) video technology recorded sales volume of more than 400,000 units in the first quarter of 2009, rising by 72% compared to the same period of 2008, while the dollar sales rose 14% at US$107.2 million.

NPD’s data shows that revealed that consumer awareness of the BD format in the United States has reached 90%, as  consumer interest in buying Blu-ray set-top boxes also climbed slightly. The data shows that 6% of respondents said they would be very likely to buy in the next six months, compared with 5% who responded similarly in the August data.

Although the awareness level is high, more than half of adults (58%) continue to report that they remained not very familiar with BD.

Consumers who bought BD players when they came to market for the first time were mainly concerned with having the latest technology, and not much concerned about the higher price.

But a report on BD players recently showed that buyers are influenced most often by pricing, promotions, and sales. The result is, actual prices and consumer expectations are increasingly in alignment.

When asked about the reasons for not buying BD, respondents said that their current DVD player is good enough, and they feel the cost of hardware or software is an important consideration, or they are not interested in the product.