(Image: Amazon)

Online retailer Amazon is planning to open a physical store located in the Seattle area later this year, according to recent reports.

A source “close to the situation” says Amazon.com will focus on selling Kindle e-readers, tablets, books exclusive to Amazon, and other “high margin” items at the Amazon store, which will be modeled after the Apple store.

Amazon apparently plans to open the boutique store early enough to capitalize on the lucrative holiday season.

But will a brand whose success has been rooted in low overhead, exclusivity, and convenience flourish in the physical form? Sound off in the comments below.
Read more at Mashable…

(Image: ThinkStock)

If there’s a company that can reinvent education I would put Apple at the top of the list. During the Apple Education event on January 19, 2012 in NYC, they launched the all-new iTunes U, iBooks Author and iBooks 2. In doing so they have created an engaging learning ecosystem that enables educators to create a real-time, interactive learning experience.

The new iTunes U store has expanded to include grades K-12 and community college courses to go along with the colleges and universities courses they already offer. There are free courses from some of the most prestigious higher education institutions in the world, including Duke, Harvard, Standard and Yale, among others. The updated iTunes U store already has over 100 courses on it already. Below are three more major upgrades:

iBooks Author Tool: Specifically designed for the higher education market, this custom-authoring tool gives instructors/authors the ability to create interactive textbooks. There’s also a free desktop version that can be downloaded. Not limited to people who are creating textbooks, the tool is open to anyone who wants to create a beautiful book with a multi-media experience.

iBooks 2: The updated app focuses on creating a digital bookstore for interactive textbooks. Apple is working with textbook manufacturers McGraw Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which produce 90% of the American textbook market. The reinvented eTextbooks integrates videos, 3D models and allows students to take in-line notes that can be saved to an Apple Cloud document while reading the textbook, creating a richer learning experience that utilizes the full capabilities of Apple iOS5 devices.

iTunes U App: This is an update to the iTunes store app that has been in existence, which launched with more than 500,000 free lectures.

Some of the Major New Features

• Users can access full course material online: syllabus, office hours, notes, and posted assignments.
• The new app allows you to read books and view presentations from a single app.
• Users are allowed to leave feedback online for the courses.

Access requires an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch with iOS5 or later. If Apple is trying to change the entire education landscape, one of the downfalls of the iTunes U is that it cuts out Window and Android users. The harsh reality, though, is this is part of Apple’s business model. Like it or not, it has worked well for them and don’t be surprised if you continue to see universities and K-12 educational systems adopting the iPads and iPod Touches in the future.

Still, the question remains: What exactly is iCloud? According to Apple, “iCloud stores your music, photos, documents, and more and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices.” If that’s still not clear enough for you, here are a few of the features of iCloud to help you better understand what it is and how it can benefit you.

• It Pushes Content to All Your iOS5 Devices Wirelessly: This makes it easier to access content seamlessly, but more importantly, for Apple, it encourages you to purchase multiple Apple devices for full integration.
• Wireless Synchronization: You no longer have to worry about syncing your devices as all your books, apps, or music are updated on all your devices wirelessly. iCloud allows you to cut the wires to mobile devices altogether.
• Viewing Documents in the Cloud: Allows you to view and edit your documents from any device you have that are running iOS5. They can be connected so that you can have the latest version of your documents regardless of what device you’re currently using.
• Device Specific Usage for Meetings: You can now take only the appropriate device to the meeting you’re attending. For example, with the use of iCloud you can create a document on your Macbook Pro laptop and grab your iPad to present your content at your meeting.
• Data Backup: It not only stores your data it backs it up.

iCloud service is a powerful tool for entrepreneurs, but there are still challenges for enterprise use. Here are a few drawbacks to take note of: (1) Accounts are created for individuals not multiple users, (2) Accounts are created with just an email address and password, which presents security concerns and (3) The content moves with the account owner, leaving the company without access if the employee leaves the company.

Despite the aforementioned issues, in the end, iCloud is going to innovate cloud computing.

(Image: File)

Steve Jobs and President Barack Obama are two of the most iconic and important figures of our time. The late founder of Apple, Jobs was a creative genius and captain of industry and Barack Obama is, of course, the dynamic politician who captivated the nation with a messages of hope and change in one of its darker hours.

Today the release of Walter Isaacson‘s book Steve Jobs: A Biography is giving the world a glimpse of what happened when these great minds connected. Representing the private sector and big business, it seems that Jobs had a few choice words of advice for the POTUS leading a country in the midst of economic crisis.

According to the Huffington Post Jobs offered to create political ads for Obama’s 2012 re-election bid despite his distaste for some of the Obama administrations economic  policies.

Click here to read more about Jobs and Obama’s meeting at BlackEnterprise.com/BENext

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Anyone who reads this blog with any frequency knows that I am no tech-geek. To the contrary, I have dragged myself, with great reluctance and way too much whining, into the digital age. It took me months to actually use the cell phone I was given as a gift, to adopt email as a daily routine, become a Facebook fan, and tweet—not just think—my thoughts.

My orientation to technology is perhaps best illustrated by this: My laptop, iPod, and headphones are all hand-me-downs from my children! They have to have the newest/latest/greatest while their castoffs are just fine for me. So, I was surprised by how deeply the passing of Steve Jobs has impacted me. Honestly, I’m right there with the millions tweeting #iSad.

Jobs’ passing is devastating because he was so young, brilliant, creative, and innovative, presumably, he had so much more to give the world. But my sense of loss is more personal than that because, like so many, I came to feel that I sort of knew Jobs, the way we feel we know people who appear on television a lot as themselves. That familiar image of him in his unselfconsciously casual uniform of jeans, sneakers and black mockneck, standing in front of a giant screen, delivering the latest sales pitch for the latest Apple product, that would translate into the latest windfall for a company whose products we came to know and love is indelible—and more powerful now that he’s gone.

The second most commonly viewed image of Jobs is of him wearing a cap and gown, standing at a podium, the sun on his face, delivering one of the most candid and eloquent commencement addresses of our generation at Stanford University in 2005. He had recently recovered from his first surgery for pancreatic cancer and he believed himself cured. (The disease is what ultimately claimed his life.)

Famously private, Jobs offered several glimpses into the forces that shaped him into the extraordinary person he was that day. He talked about being given up by an unwed graduate student and how the couple slated to adopt him reneged because he was a boy and they wanted a girl. He spoke of dropping out of college because he had no idea where it was leading and he didn’t want to exhaust his hardworking parents’ life savings on an aimless pursuit. He shared how he pieced his life and career together by truly pursuing what he loved, rather than being moved along by the expectations of others. Jobs shared a lot of advice that beautiful day that is worth remembering and spreading around. So, here goes:

You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

Sometimes life hits you with a brick. Don’t lose faith.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

These little tidbits are not the most original. They resonate with a familiarity found in time-tested wisdom from many sources. But Jobs delivered them from the heart, perhaps more like apple pie than chicken soup for the soul. He changed the world and the way we each function on a daily basis. For that, as one young man wrote on a sign posted outside the Apple store in mid-Manhattan, we can only say, “iThankYou.”

(Image: File)

The world is reacting with reflection, sadness and thoughts on the future of an empire after the passing of technology innovator Steve Jobs. From insights into the genius that spearheaded a movement in technology that changed the lives of the everyday consumer as well as the landscape of business, mention of the technological genius permeates media outlets, social media and conversations alike.

The folks over at Huff Post Black Voices bring a particularly interesting perspective on how Jobs stood for innovation and living one’s passion, even until his last days and despite many challenges, and how all of us can go beyond ‘just having a job’ to take the lead in living full purposeful lives that contribute to the advancement of our communities.

Read more at Huff Post Black Voices …

The upgraded iPhone 4S will be available Friday, October 14 and will feature the same A5 dual-core processor as the iPad and graphics that are 7x faster. Camera functions get an upgrade with an 8 megapixel sensor that’s 60% more from the current iPhone 4 and it now features 1080p video quality. There’ll also be 4g data speeds and better battery life.

Physically, the phone will look pretty much the same but the 4S has a few new features, namely Siri, which introduces an intuitive voice recognition technology. Billed as an “intelligent assistant,” the feature allows users to talk to their phones, which will respond with answers ranging from the weather, NASDAQ quotes, and the location of your nearest Starbucks or restaurant. You can even set verbal commands for alarms and appointment reminders. Your wish literally is the iPhone 4S’s command.

Available in both white and black, the 4S will be available for preorder this Friday (Oct. 7) and available in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Japan on October 14, and retail for $199. (The current iPhone 4 will drop down in price to $99). There will be a Sprint version in the US, alongside AT&T and Verizon ones. Seventy additional countries will have the 4S by year’s end.

Is O, the Oprah magazine, in financial trouble? (Image: File)

• Oprah’s Magazine in Financial Trouble

O, the Oprah magazine, is suffering from a steep decline in ad sales for the months of August and September. The New York Post reports that O has suffered a 31.4% drop in ad pages for August, compared with an overall industry decline of 7%. Ouch. Even worse — September’s outlook is more grim with another 18.2% loss.

Read more at The Atlanta Post…

• iPad To Dominate Tablet Market Until 2015

The iPad will continue to dominate the growing tablet market until Android tablets take over in 2015, according to forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media.

The study estimates that Apple currently owns about 75% of the tablet market, which is expected to expand from less than 20 million units in 2010 to more than 230 million in 2015. By that time, Apple’s share of the market will drop to just 38%, due largely to the proliferation of cheaper and more advanced Android tablets. Still, it will take another year — until 2016 — for Android tablets to outsell Apple ones.

Read more at Mashable…

• Colleges Join Plan for Faster Computer Networks

A coalition of 29 American universities is throwing its weight behind a plan to build ultra-high-speed computer networks — with Internet service several hundred times faster than what is now commercially available — in the communities surrounding the participating colleges.

The project, which is named Gig.U and will be announced on Wednesday, is meant to draw high-tech startups in fields like health care, energy and telecommunications to the areas near the universities, many of which are in the Midwest or outside of major cities. These zones would ideally function as hubs for building a new generation of faster computer networks, which could make the United States more competitive internationally.

Read more at the New York Times…

• Jazz Saxophonist Frank Foster Dies

(Associated Press) Frank Foster, a jazz saxophonist who played with the Count Basie Orchestra and composed the band’s hit, “Shiny Stockings,” died Tuesday. He was 82.

Read more at Black America Web…