Kindle 2.0?

It seems that pictures of the new Kindle 2.0 device, the one that Amazon is denying exists, are leaking out across the web. Here's the link on BoyGenuisReport.com.

Sony's New PRS-700 Reader

In case you haven't heard, Sony just introduced their new reader, the PRS-700. The big difference between it and the PRS-505, is a 6 inch touchscreen, faster processor, expanded memory, and a built in side-lighting. The biggest feature that is lacking: no wireless capability. That being said, the touchscreen should be an improvement as it allows for note taking and finger swipping for page turning. It is also still billed as an "open" reader that allows multiple formats. The price tag will be $400

The best news of all, Sony has redesigned their online store. For those of us who've used it, this is definitely good news.

Tracking Stolen Laptops

Recently there's been a lot in the news about people recovering their stolen laptops through remote tracking (i.e. NY victim uses remote to nab theft suspect). Several companies provide commercial products for tracking lost laptops including products like Computrace Lojack for Laptops and CyberAngel. There are also open source solutions such as Adeona, created by the University of Washington.

After reading about Adeona in Technology Review, I tested it and am impressed with the results. The software runs on Linux, Windows, and Macs. It uses a cryptographic key and password combination to access information. And, if you have a Macbook, Adeona can use the iSight camera to snap a picture of culprit. When connected to the web, Adeona periodically records information such as internal/external ip, the network access point, and router information. The software sends the encrypted results to the OpenDHT distributed storage service. You retreive the information by installing the Adeona retrieval software on another PC and using the cyrptographic key and password.

Adeona's setup is simple. I've been running it for a few days now and it's working beautifully. If you're looking for a simple solution and don't want to spend a lot of money, check out Adeona.