Microsoft and Barnes & Noble have put their differences aside and formed a strategic partnership in an effort to take on competitors like Amazon and Apple. Under the agreement, Microsoft will invest $300 million into the company taking a 17.6% stake in a newly spun-off subsidiary. In a presser, that subsidiary is referred to as [...]
Book lovers have many choices for reading eBooks on the iPad and iPhone — too many, really. The best eReading apps have comfortable, customizable reading experiences and an easy to use interfaces. There are two contenders for the top spot on iOS: Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Bluefire Reader.
Apple has been making the news at the start of 2012 with speculations of a late January media event that would be hosted in New York, NY. Though details are scarce, there are several potential options for the event, which will compete for attention with news from CES. According to TechCrunch, the event will be [...]
Google has finally made offline eBook reading available via their Chrome web app. Now users can save the books for offline reading right in the browser and not have to worry about having an Internet connection in order to access them. For some reason it’s taking Google a really long time to get their act [...]
While spending Thanksgiving with family, my wife’s aunt asked a question regarding something I took for granted having to do with the location of all of her old Kindle books on the new Kindle Fire. She, like many new Fire owners, collected dozens of eBooks on her old black and white Kindle. When she ordered [...]
The Amazon Kindle Touch improves upon the Kindle 4 in two very important ways, making it the best new e-Reader for a very attractive price (yes, even at $20 more than the Kindle 4). It has the best combination of features and price. Which makes it an even better e-ink e-reader than the Kindle 4, which I [...]
Last year Barnes & Noble set out to prove that a low cost tablet-like device didn’t have to be crappy in order come in at under $300, it just had to get rid of some extra baggage. Do you need cameras? GPS? Bluetooth? Nope. All you need is a good display, a well-designed operating system [...]
Thanks to the new Kindle Fire, eBooks on the Kindle platform are about to get a whole lot nicer to look at. Amazon has mostly focused on its e-Ink devices, which feature plain backgrounds and text-oriented user interfaces and presentation. As a result, the Kindle’s book format, Mobi, has been similarly text-focused. Amazon Kindle readers [...]
eBooks and eReaders are big deals these days and about to become a bigger deal with the Kindle Fire and the Nook Color 2 going head to head in mid-November. And don’t forget Amazon has a range of devices to offer. While we’ve been able to read eBooks on digital devices for quite some time [...]
iStoryTime, makers of three iOS children’s eBook apps for iOS, ported these books to the Nook Color and parents can purchase them for their kids now. The three books include How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Smurfs. Each of these app costs $2.99. The interactive apps feature images from the [...]
A public library in Wisconsin is embracing the tablet age (or at least trying to not get run over by it) by launching a program that makes iPads pre-loaded with eBooks available to borrow. Thanks to a grant, the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in Eau Claire, WI, will have a total of 44 iPads [...]
Today Amazon announced that Kindle owners will finally be able to read eBooks from their local libraries on the device. A similar service for eReaders compatible with ePUB books — Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, and more — has been available since 2009. Now that Amazon is getting into the game, millions more customers [...]
TechCrunch’s MG Seigler is reporting that a 7 inch Amazon Tablet is very real and is reporting on a version that he’s touched and toyed around with. It will be called the Amazon Kindle. According to his report the device looks a lot like RIMs Playbook. It is backlight and doesn’t use eInk on its [...]
For students heading off to school in the next few days and weeks, toting an iPad might make you the envy of the class. It also ensures that you have some great tools to make the Dean’s List. There are numerous free apps for those on a budget, as well as excellent paid apps that [...]
If you were paying attention awhile back, Apple made it pretty plain that they wanted a piece of your pie if you allowed purchases in your Application to link externally through a web page. At the time Apple served notice, many wondered what would happen for eBook reading Apps like the Kindle, Nook, Google Books, [...]
As I continue to check out the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the HP TouchPad, along with my ongoing usage of the iPad 2, I’m about to begin an interesting two week challenge. OK, that’s not being intellectually honest. This is one of those instances in my ongoing comparison testing when the the iPad 2 [...]
Concurrently with my experimenting to prepare Tablets to be used as my scripts in rehearsals for Southern Crossroads at Totem Pole Playhouse, I was eager to test out this new Automator feature in OS X Lion. Essentially the Automator action Text to ePUB File does exactly what its name says it does. It allows you [...]
Apple has made it very clear that, as rulers of the iOS kingdom, they are going to own the entire economy. As 9to5 Mac reported, Google Books has vanished from the iOS AppStore – and any old Muggle can figure out why. Google Books, incidentally, is set to become the sole platform for the upcoming [...]
Well, whadda ya know? HP in doing all of its spinning, dodging and weaving since they decided to call the July 1 launch of the HP TouchPad and claim that yesterday, July 17 was the real launch, let it be known that the missing Amazon Kindle App would appear shortly. Well, it appeared today, or [...]
There’s been chatter that Barnes & Noble is getting ready to introduce a second-generation e-ink-based Nook electronic reader to replace the original Nook. The new e-ink reader would be released help Barnes & Noble better compete against Amazon’s Kindle 3, which offers a newer, better electronic ink display that’s even easier on the eyes with [...]
News flash! “Service launched for publishers to evade Apple cut!” That was the headline as digital publishing service YUDU announced a way for publishers to sell subscriptions for content in iOS apps without paying Apple a 30% cut. Which is great news if you didn’t know that was already possible.
I hate paper! It is everywhere but thanks in part to my iPad I don’t want to use it anywhere, except maybe the bathroom and dining room. So I’m gonna show you a few ways that my iPad has made me hate paper while saving literally thousands of dollars. Speaker Notes As a preacher I [...]
Google has released an update to its iOS Google Books App . It is a universal App and the features mentioned in the update include landscape mode for the iPad, easier access to the Google eBooks Store, 3D page turning on the iPad with iOS 4.3 running, and speed improvements as well as other under [...]
Inkling is one of those companies that is working on bringing textbooks to Tablets, specifically the iPad. Textbooks on tablets just make sense in so many ways that you’d think it was a no brainer. But of course existing business models for publishers get in the way. Inkling just pulled down some major publisher support [...]
The Nook Color was launched as Barnes & Noble’s push into the color space with an Android-based e-reader touchscreen tablet, but the device has gained more versatile uses thanks to an enterprising developer community, including root access, Android 3.0 Honeycomb port, and the ability to run apps from Android Market, which was restricted by Barnes [...]
WSJ has updated an earlier report that Apple was forcing publishers to switch to their in-app payment system. Despite dire warnings, this is not a switch but an addition. Publishers that already conduct sales outside the app can continue to do so, but must also offer the option to make the purchase in-app, a policy [...]
Windows Phone 7 users can now enjoy reading Amazon Kindle books as Amazon has now made its Kindle App available for that platform. If you don’t know the drill on this, you’ve been hiding in some old library stacks somewhere during the last year or so. The Kindle App allows you to purchase books from [...]
The Kindle App for Android has been updated to version 2.0 adding quite a few enhancements including the ability to now purchase books within the App itself. Among the other enhancements are access to periodicals and newspapers, sharing your reading progress with social networks, and you can now use your smartphone’s volume keys to control [...]
Yesterday I got excited, as did quite a few others with news from Engadget that Barnes & Noble was going to update the Nook Color to Android 2.2 (Froyo) in January and add the Android Marketplace to the device. This would have in effect made the Nook Color a pretty decent Android Tablet/Slate, in fact [...]
Back in the days that I lived in Chicago it was a free fire zone in the Book Store wars. Downtown Chicago was certainly the centerpiece but in the area where I lived around Clark, Diversey and Halsted streets it was also full of action. Most of the book stores had a location in my [...]
This morning, Warner wrote that the Google eBooks digital bookstore is now open for business, but that the iOS app isn’t yet available. It looks like Android and iOS platforms now have native apps to access and synchronize with Google’s eBooks store, which will require a Google or Gmail account. Now, books purchased are stored [...]
The news isn’t really news anymore, but Google is bent on launching its Google eBookStore and soon from what we’re hearing. The Technologizer has gotten an early look at the Apps Google will make available for Android, the iPhone, and the iPad. That report also says that there won’t be dedicated Apps for desktops and [...]
Ah the eBook wars. The fight continues as everyone wants you to purchase books from their store and use their device. Amazon is the behemoth in this struggle due to its large catalog and the ubiquity of its Kindle App, and I would venture also its Kindle devices. But the others still compete, although you [...]
Well it took long enough. As an avid eBook reader one of my frustrations with Amazon, which is my eBook source of choice, was that you couldn’t gift an eBook purchase. Sure you could send someone an Amazon gift card or certificate and then they could purchase what they wanted, but what’s the point of [...]
Gizmodo has a report that says the newly announced Nook Color eBook Reader that is Android 2.1 at its core might actually have what it takes to be a Tablet/Slate. The key here is what you use a Tablet/Slate for. But then that’s the key for all of these iPad wannabes and the iPad itself. [...]
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