CrunchGear reports that an Amazon insider leaked the news that two new Amazon Kindle models will be ready for the holiday season, possibly as early as October.

One model is expected to be an updated version of the current Kindle, but with a vastly improved interface.  According to the source, the interface improvement leaps ahead 3 or 4 generations.

The second new Kindle is considerably bigger than the current one, more along the size of an 8 1/2″ X 11″ piece of paper.  Expect both models to come in a choice of colors.  No word on price.  Amazon fairly recently reduced the cost to $359.

Hott Notes: Sticky Notes for Desktop and USB
Hott Notes is a free, Windows-only, sticky notes tool you can easily add to your arsenal on both desktop and usb drive.

It allows sticky notes, check lists, alarms, and supports hot-keys to quickly create a new note or bring all notes to the front.

After you download Hott Notes, you can select colors and transparency settings.  You can even attach an alarm to your notes to get a reminder.  [via Technology Bites]

Gmail Superstars
Flag your email messages with a variety of icons.  In your gmail account, choose “settings” from the upper right corner, then enable Superstars.  Save your settings then complete your icon list.  Mouse over the icons to see their names and move them to and from “in use” as you wish.

Experimenting with how this works for you is the best way to learn.  For instance, you can open a message and click on the star; type “s” to go through your selected icons to find the one you want to use.  [via Google Operating System blog]

Idee Multicolor Search Lab has a color matching search engine for 3 million “interesting” Flickr images, as well as a front end for Alamy Stock Photography if you are in need of royalty-free images.

Check out the FAQ for more information.  [via Lifehacker]

In a Seattle P-I technology briefing, I saw a blurb (scroll down) about Comcast teaming with Vonage Holdings Corp., the leading independent in the Internet telephony business, to ensure smooth Internet calling.  It attracted my eye because I just decided to switch from my regular phone company to Comcast Digital Voice service.

Apparently Internet telephone traffic is particularly sensitive to delays, making it vulnerable to both congestion and traffic management, and the collaboration with Vonage will ensure that its new network management techniques balance congestion-fighting with the need to ensure that Internet calling services like Vonage function.

I’ll be interested to see how well it works.  It certainly offers many features and functions I don’t have at the moment — one of which is the ability to access my voice mail via the Internet.  And I can keep my current phone number and phones.

I was very interested in this article, Electronic Papyrus: The Digital Book, Unfurled, in the New York Times about the Readius, a new type of digital reader anticipated for an early 2009 availability in the U.S.

The mobile device is being designed for reading books, magazines, newspapers and email, and is the size of a standard cellphone. “Flip it open, though, and a screen tucked within the housing opens to a 5-inch diagonal display.  The screen looks just like a liquid crystal display, but can bend so flexibly that it can wrap around a finger.”

The Readius is pocket-sized, but has a generous, supple screen, and “people with five minutes to spare in a taxi, bus or subway can use the dead time to open it, read a page or two of a book and then return the device to a shirt pocket,” said Karl McGoldrick, the chief executive of Polymer Vision, the company in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, that created the device.  The Readius will be introduced in England, Italy and Germany this fall.

Anyone who has used the Amazon Kindle will recognize the same easy to read E Ink technology on the Readius.  It will display about 22 lines of a book page, depending on the font, and changes from page to page in half a second at the touch of a thumb.  The rechargeable battery provides 30 hours of reading.

The new flexible screen technology of the Readius is anticipated in other products, as well.  “It’s an exciting example, but there are going to be a slew of other devices coming soon, too,” said Shawn O’Rourke, director of engineering at the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University at Tempe, which focuses on the technology’s future commercialization.

Mr. O’Rourke says flexible displays are unlike today’s cell phones and laptops with their traditional glass backings.  “These displays are thin, lightweight and rugged — and they bend,” he said. The underlying substrates that support the display are typically either plastic or metal foil.

Flexible displays will mean “easy, relatively inexpensive and safe shipping and handling, compared with conventional rigid screens, and are expected to spawn a new generation of portable devices that are mobile, but also have compelling user interfaces,” said Jennifer Colegrove, an analyst at the iSuppli Corporation, a market research firm in El Segundo, Calif.

Check out the interesting array of Readius features, including Global wireless connectivity, with the greatest coverage of any eReader (Tri Band/3.5G HSDPA), supporting ActiveSync and USB mass storage (USB FS),and allowing communication with accessories and other devices (Bluetooth 2.0).

The Readius weblog  says the device is the portal through which readers can select and manage content — some free, some subscription, some one-time purchases.  Content partners will be listed this fall and content can be downloaded to a PC, or transferred over-air, not requiring a computer.

Pricing has not been announced, but is expected to be more than the Kindle’s $359.

If you are in the market for some personal technology but are feeling the current pinch during this economic downturn, you’ll be interested in PC Magazine’s picks for the 20 best products (rating 3 or better) under $100.

Categories include:

• Mobile Phones and PDAs,
• interesting computer peripherals such as mice, flash drives, and video cams,
• digital photo and video equipment
• MP3 players and headphones,
• and printers.
  

Google Calendar redesign
This redesign by Globex Designs (get it here) of Google Calendar looks great and it’s easy to make the change.  Found on Lifehacker.

Firefox 3 reaches Guiness World Record download day
Mozilla announced the record-setting 8,002,530 downloads for Firefox 3’s first day.

“As the arbiter and recorder of the world’s amazing facts, Guinness World Records is pleased to add Mozilla’s achievement to our archives,” said Gareth Deaves, Records Manager for Guinness World Records. “Mobilizing over 8 million internet users within 24 hours is an extremely impressive accomplishment and we would like to congratulate the Mozilla community for their hard work and dedication.”

Mapstraction for Map Mashups
If you’re a developer who loves to build map mashups, then you have to check out the library provided by Mapstraction, advises Read/WriteWeb.

Mapstraction provides a common API for various existing mapping APIs which allows developers to build a mashup that supports nine of the major mapping providers including Google Maps, Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, Yahoo Maps, and more.  See the demos at the RWW site.

Senator Hatch:  “How many times have we heard claims that the Protect America Act would permit the government to spy on innocent American families overseas, on their vacations? Or innocent American soldiers overseas serving their country? Or innocent American students who are simply studying abroad?

“Painting this type of picture only feeds the delusions of those who wear tinfoil hats around their house and think that Nine-Eleven was an inside job”.

That’s a strong statement, notes the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  Who exactly is Senator Hatch referring to, they ask?

EFF goes on to quote from articles published in USA Today, the New York Times, and even the Wall Street Journal which said in March of this year, “According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches … The haul can include records of phone calls, email headers and destinations, data on financial transactions and records of Internet browsing.”

The Protect American Act lets telecom companies off the hook for illegally sending “millions of Americans’ private domestic communications to the NSA for at least five years,” states EFF.  They say that Hatch has devolved to name calling since the case with actual evidence and substance is a lost cause.  You can watch a video of this portion of Hatch’s testimony on the EFF site.

Photo by Paradigm.  Creative Commons license.

California fires map
Google Lat Long Blog has a map of the many fires currently plaguing California.  More thunderstorms (with potential lightning strikes) are in the forecast.  Find the danger zones here.

Web2book for offline viewing of web pages, RSS feeds
Free Windows-only Web2book helps you read web pages, Wikipedia articles and RSS feeds offline.  You can download and convert RSS feeds, Web sites, Project Gutenberg books, Wikipedia entries, Crossword Compiler crossword, Microsoft Reader .Lit files, and other sources into other formats such as  HTML, RTF, LRF or PDF files.  [via Digital Inspiration]

30+ updated Firefox 3 extensions
Mashable lists the most useful updated Firefox 3 extensions for you.  Covers social bookmarking and many more.

At a hearing yesterday, advocacy groups and legal experts told Congress that it was unreasonable for federal officials to search the laptops of United States citizens when they re-enter the country from traveling abroad, reports the New York Times.

The federal government says the searches are necessary for national security.  In April, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Customs and Border Protection agency could conduct searches without reasonable suspicion.

“If you asked most Americans whether the government has the right to look through their luggage for contraband when they are returning from an overseas trip, they would tell you ‘yes, the government has that right,’ ” Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said at the hearing of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

“But,” Mr. Feingold continued, “if you asked them whether the government has a right to open their laptops, read their documents and e-mails, look at their photographs and examine the Web sites they have visited, all without any suspicion of wrongdoing, I think those same Americans would say that the government absolutely has no right to do that.”

There is particular concern among civil rights advocates that believe certain ethnic groups are being targeted, especially Muslims, but there is also concern among companies with employees who regularly travel abroad.

“In today’s wired, networked and borderless world, one’s office no longer sits within four walls or a cubicle; rather, one’s office consists of a collection of mobile electronic devices such as a laptop, a BlackBerry, PDA, and a cellphone,” said Susan K. Gurley, executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives.  She said the seizures and searches meant that “you may find yourself effectively locked out of your office indefinitely.”

Read more at the Center for American Progress site.  Photo by lonelysandwich. Creative Commons license.