NBCU Shows Coming to Amazon Instant Video

More good news with regard to streaming video for members of Amazon's $79/year Prime service: a deal announced today with NBC Universal is bringing back-episodes of NBCU-owned shows like Battlestar Galactica, Parks and Recreation, Heroes and Friday Night Lights to Prime Instant Videos.

Prime Instant, Amazon's streaming video service, has been free for Amazon Prime members since it was introduced in February, 2011, and its library of available content has grown steadily in that time. "We continue to invest heavily in our content selection," said a spokesman for Amazon.

Amazon designed Prime Instant Video to compete directly with Netflix Instant, so while none of the content Amazon acquired today is exclusive (compared with several shows it recently optioned from Warner), playing catch-up with Netflix is a logical step for the service.

Prime members can check out all the new content here. Let us know what you're most excited about in the comments.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.

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Amazon To Announce Its New Tablets On September 6?

We reported a month ago on the "five or six" new tablets Amazon is rumored to release this year. The company has invited press to a media event in Santa Monica, CA, scheduled less than a week before Apple is expected to announce its next iPhone. A clear effort to keep us guessing, the press invitations simply state, "Please join us for an Amazon Press Conference."

Amazon announced the Kindle Fire at a similarly furtive press event last fall, so while it's not 100% certain this will be a tablet announcement, it probably is. And not a moment too soon: with Google's vastly superior Nexus 7 now on the market and the iPad's market share still basically unchallenged, Amazon has some catching up to do.

Everything's speculation for now; so what do you think? Will Amazon announce a 10" iPad killer? - just an updated seven-incher? - an out-of-left-field smartphone? Cast your bet in the comments.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.

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Wikipad Gaming Tablet Reveals Impressive Hardware Specs

When the startup Wikipad debuted its namesake product at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, it was a 7″ tablet reminiscent of Amazon's Kindle Fire - except for the attachable gamepad case. Today they revealed finalized specifications for the device in an interview with VentureBeat.

The screen has grown three inches to 10.1", with a resolution of 1280 x 800. The company is holding off for now on the no-glasses 3D display it showcased at CES, but it's hard to believe many game developers would have gotten behind that feature anyway. The specifications announced today should pretty well guarantee support for existing and near-future Android games.

The Wikipad will run Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) on an NVIDIA Tegra 3 T30 with 1 GB of DDR2 RAM. The 1.4 GHz T30 is a bit faster than the T30L (1.2 GHz) in Google's Nexus 7, and not quite as powerful as the T33 in the forthcoming Ouya (1.6 GHz). The Wikipad's full-featured controller attachment (along with its standard multi-touch display) should make it a bridge between these more common Android gaming platforms, with full support for each control scheme.

The designers have promised at least 16GB of built in storage, though local storage hasn’t been finalized. As Fraser Townley, Wikipad's President of Sales, said, “we will not go down, we will only go up.”

At 560 grams the Wikipad is obviously much larger than a PS Vita or Nintendo 3DS, though it's only slightly thicker and actually lighter than an iPad 2.The 23.46Wh battery will purportedly last six hours gaming or eight hours playing video. And just in case you want to video-chat or take pictures with your new gaming tablet, the Wikipad will have front- and rear-facing cameras.

No word yet on pricing or release timeline - though Wikipad says the tablet will ship this year. What's a gaming-focused Android tablet worth to you? Let us know in the comments.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN. 

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com