Steve Jobs said last year about Amazon’s Kindle that “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore.”

Thus it is no surprise that Apple is laying low while Amazon releases a Kindle app for the iPhone. Apple has no interest in e-readers because, as Jobs claims, there’s no money in it.

For me personally, the web will always be about text. While I probably read fewer books that I used to, with everything I consume on the web, I probably read more volume than ever before. While web reading is fine and dandy on a 24″ screen while sitting down at a table, it’s a bit more difficult to do portably.
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Valleywag does still exist, as a subsidiary of Gawker, and their Owen Thomas has uncovered one of the funnier Silicon Valley stories for a long time.

Tesla Motors, the electric car manufacturing outfit in San Carlos, CA, has had a few struggles lately. Leaks have not helped. CEO Elon Musk completed a thorough investigation of one leak that revealed Tesla’s minuscule $9 million cash on hand, firing employee Peng Zhou in the process.

Musk’s paranoia has come back to bite him in the end, however, as he created a somewhat incendiary company-wide email that he fingerprinted by using different words in each email sent to each employee.
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I got an LG BD300 for my birthday, and so far, I absolutely love this device. By the far the most used feature is Netflix streaming.

Fortunately form me, my router is right next to my TV, so connecting the machine was very simple: just run an ethernet cord out from my Apple Airport into the BD300. Volia, I’m connected.

The quality is quite good, and network problems are rare. I can’t get the highest quality, but it is still very good.
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Some actual good news for the American economy as Intel has announced they will spend $7 billion building and revamping plants to build its new 32 nanometer chips here in the United States.

The plan will create an estimated 7,000 new high-wage jobs in places like my home state of Oregon, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Intel has managed to weather the financial crisis fairly well by holding $15 billion in liquid assets, so while most companies are scraping by, Intel is able to announce large scale investing. Interestingly, Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini made the announcement in Washington as the economic stimulus is being debated.
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One of the big reveals from Apple’s Macworld 2009 presentation was the introduction of a new 17″ MacBook Pro that features a battery that can go 8 hours without a charge.

That is very impressive. However, for some reason, Apple has closed up the notebook so users are not allowed to purchase replacement batteries and plug them in when it runs out of juice. But who do you know that would go 8 hours on a notebook without being near a power source?
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Gawker Media tech rag Gizmodo ran a piece on Dec. 30th titled “Rumor: Steve Jobs’ Health Rapidly Declining, Reason for Macworld Cancellation.” The story, written by Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz, was widely panned not only as being dangerous speculation (although the title is prefaced by the word “Rumor”), but also as _untrue_.

Word has emerged today that indeed, Steve Jobs is sick with what he’s calling a “hormonal imbalance” that, while not being a return to cancer, has led him to lose copious amounts of weight and is at least partially responsible for him skipping MacWorld.
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Windows Vista has an approval rating somewhat near Dick Cheney’s. Microsoft has had to launch a couple of dubious ad campaigns in an attempt to stem the tide and keep people thinking positively about the Windows brand. While Microsoft is certainly seeing some problems in their browser battles, they have yet to see any serious challenge from the likes of Apple and Linux.

But, with little big news on the horizon, it is important that Microsoft’s big new project, Windows 7, create some positive buzz for the operating system.
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My girlfriend has the T-Mobile/Google G1, and after a few months using it, it’s obvious there is something very screwed up about the battery life. The thing dies all the time on her.

But T-Mobile is working on a solution to this, as they may shipping all G1 users new and improved batteries soon.

That said: a small improvement in battery life isn’t going to do very much. This will work best as a free backup battery solution to frustrated G1 users.
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Having not been an iPhone user, getting the iPod touch 32GB for Christmas was a serious exposure to what the iPhone can offer.

The question almost has to be asked: is the iPod Touch merely a toned-down iPhone, sold without a contract, at higher hardware fees?
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I am the last tech geek on Earth without an iPhone. I bought the Nokia E71 this summer after the iPhone 3G came out and the Internets were littered with complaints about Apple’s new marvel. I don’t regret buying the E71 one bit, however. Opera Mini is by far my favorite mobile web browser on the market, the phone is an email dynamo, and the battery life and call quality are superior.

But the iPhone is the coolest thing in the world. I know it is. I’m not a hater. It even has e-books, and now ScrollMotion has released a very attractive e-reader app that takes iPhone ebooks to a whole new level. Some new titles are also being released. But will the iPhone ever be a viable e-reader?
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