Looking to purchase a Nook? Soon customers will be able to start checking out Pinterest on the tablets, as Pinterest looks to expand its business and external partnerships. Read more »
Christian Family Stores’ new e-reader, the color-screen edifi, is a low-end version of Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color — and $10 cheaper, at $149.99. Can features like safe-search web browsing and Christian apps entice shoppers to buy the edifi over more mainstream devices? Read more at paidContent »
Fittingly for a company that is now owned by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, Kobo is officially launching its e-reader and digital bookstore in Japan in July. The Kobo Touch e-reader will be available for pre-order July 2, and a full digital bookstore opens July 19. Read more at paidContent »
According to the latest U.S.circulation numbers, more than 14% of U..S. newspaper circulation is digital — up 63% over last year. How did the top 25 papers fare? Read more at paidContent »
Before Barnes & Noble debuted the Nook with GlowLight last week, I had already bought a Kindle Touch even though it didn’t work in the dark. Now it does, thanks to the Amazon Kindle Touch lighted case. Does this solution work for e-ink? See for yourself. Read more »
The Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, now available for $139, has one key update over prior models: With built in LED lighting, you can read your e-Ink content in the dark. Here’s a review roundup along with a lighting suggesting for Kindle Touch owners. Read more »
Look for e-reader sales to jump in Argentina now that the government has declared paper books a public safety hazard and impounded millions of titles. Read more at paidContent »
Chegg, a Santa Clara, Calif.–based startup that made its name in textbook rentals, has made its first piece of software that it says will aid the transition to digital learning for students by offering e-textbooks that act an awful lot like physical textbooks. Read more »
Digital recipes and cookbooks need to emulate the world of digital music. By creating a standard recipe format similar to the MP3, we could overcome the artificial barriers between cooking Websites, apps and our bookshelves. Only then could we be build truly comprehensive digital cooking libraries. Read more »
Amazon updated its Kindle software for the iPad and iPhone/iPod touch on Tuesday, introducing new features that ensure its app stays on the top of the e-reader pile, even now that it has its own tablet platform available in the Kindle Fire. Read more »
Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) made sure Discovery won’t ruin its hopes for the best Christmas ever by settling a lawsuit that accused the Kindle and K… Read more at paidContent »
Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
An upstart e-reader firm picked the wrong fight when it decided to use boxing legend Muhammad Ali’s slogan without permission in a full-page… Read more at paidContent »
Sony’s new Wi-Fi Reader is the only e-reader it introduced this year. It’s good that Sony is streamlining what was an unnecessarily complicated product line, but now that all the eggs are in one basket, how does the device stand up to the competition? Read more »
Amazon’s Kindle has lit a fire under the e-book market, but don’t count out the smaller players. Bookeen, an e-book company since 1998, has a new high-speed E-Ink technology that supports scrolling menus and web pages. Is the e-book market ready for more innovation? Bring it! Read more »
Amazon unveiled its new Kindle lineup Wednesday, and the first one available, the basic, simply named “Kindle,” reached my doorstep Thursday morning. Here’s what I think about Amazon’s latest reader, and how it stacks up so far to previous Kindles and other similar devices. Read more »
As much as I’m tied into Apple’s ecosystem for hardware and apps, my e-book loyalty lies with Amazon. Luckily, Amazon’s design choices and pricing strategies, as revealed Wednesday with its latest Kindle line, mean I can have my cake and eat it, too. Read more »
After years of development, mountains of cash and a false start or two, Plastic Logic says its first e-reader is ready for the market. But even if you want one, your chances are slim: It’s only going to be sold to Russian schoolchildren. Read more »
New Nielsen data suggests that e-readers are more popular with women while guys prefer their tablets. Smartphones are now equally popular between the sexes. According to Nielsen’s second-quarter survey, 61 percent of e-reader owners are women while men make up 57 percent of tablet owners. Read more »
Apple no longer allows e-book sellers to link out to their stores, which is likely why Amazon introduced a new web-based app that works outside of Apple’s official software distribution channel on Wednesday. Here’s a look at the new Kindle Cloud Reader, and its integrated store. Read more »
Steve Jobs first showed off the iPad on stage using a chair and crossing one leg across the other to provide a decent platform from which to use it. Surely we can do better. So says the PadPivot, a new stand with all the right moves. Read more »
In just the past few weeks, Amazon has launched two new book imprints, hired the former CEO of Time Warner books to launch more, making clear their intentions to grow publishing’s Big Six by one. Can the publishing industry withstand the Amazon onslaught? Read more »
I returned my Nook Color within the 14-day window and later saw this video of the device running Android 2.3, or Gingerbread. The custom software turns the $249 e-reader into a useful tablet provided you don’t mind using software to work around some hardware button issues. Read more »
Barnes & Noble released software for its Nook Color e-reader, bringing Android 2.2 and third-party software to the $249 device. At this price, consumers may opt for a multipurpose e-reader over a tablet. Why not, when you can play Angry Birds, YouTube vids and check email? Read more »
Many people use the iPad to replace a physical library of paper books, mostly because it’s very convenient to do so. But is it also better for the environment? A recent report considers the ecological effects of e-books in general, and specifically addresses the iPad’s impact. Read more »
E-book device makers are increasingly looking to get into the tablet market for a few reasons: more control over the experience and revenues from apps are two big reasons. Ironically, this is move back to where e-books all started more than 10 years ago. Read more »
Barnes & Noble VP Marc Parrish addresses the evolution of books. Authors have always been trying to publish as universally as possible. Now with electronic publishing, the idea is to try to get your media out to the greatest number of people as quickly as possible. Read more »
More exciting than examining the previous quarter is looking forward into the next 12 months and using the trends of 2010 to predict the realities that will surface in 2011. Throughout this past December, GigaOM Pro’s curators did just that, making trend predictions, pointing out companies to watch and even telling us what not to expect. Connected Consumer curator Michael Wolf’s thoughts, analyses and predictions are compiled here in a single report. Companies mentioned in this report include Netflix, Hulu, Facebook, Apple and Boxee. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A new study has found that 75 percent of college students prefer print textbooks over electronic versions. For researchers and web workers alike, printed books still provide significant advantages that go far beyond “new book smell” or intelligent margin notes made by a previous owner. Read more »
According to a ChangeWave survey, the iPad is about to surpass the Kindle as the favorite among consumers buying e-readers, and the just-announced Google Editions bookstore may help accelerate that trend. Regardless of the outcome of the Amazon/Google battle, Apple looks to reap the rewards. Read more »
I really like the new (third-generation) Amazon Kindle as an e-book reader. It’s by far the best reading device that I’ve tried. But because it’s focused on being such a great e-reader, its usefulness for web working may be limited. Read more »
Kno, a California-based startup that plans to launch a two-screen “digital textbook” later this year, today announced that it has raised a $46-million financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Silicon Valley Bank and TriplePoint Capital also participating in the debt and equity funding. Read more »
ARM, whose architecture is the basis of the processors inside most cell phones, plans to tour the country sharing the future of mobile computing in the coming weeks. Before that effort got underway I asked for a sneak peak which is shared in the following video. Read more »
Despite all of the attention they have gotten recently, there isn’t a universal e-book format, and we must contend with the many different types of e-books that are available. Here’s a rundown of the ebook formats that are available today and how to use them all. Read more »
It’s been teased for a fairly long time now, but Amazon finally released its Kindle companion software for Mac, as of yesterday. To date, the Kindle application has only been available for Windows machines, which has made it slightly harder for Mac users to organize and […] Read more »
Like a lot of web workers, I spend a fair amount of time traveling. I like to read books and catch up on the news while I’m away, so it seemed like a good idea to try reading electronically. Read more »
Faced with aggressive competition from Apple, Amazon is stepping up its hardware game. According to the New York Times, it has bought a small pre-product startup called Touchco and plans to merge it with its Kindle hardware division, Lab126. Two words: touchscreen Kindles. Read more »
Over at our sister site GigaOM, Om takes a look at the rising trend of e-book sales on the iPhone/iPod touch platform. According to a survey by San Francisco mobile tech analytics firm Flurry, one in five apps launched during the month of October on the […] Read more »
With print circulation and ad pages falling rapidly, magazine and newspaper publishers are anxious to find and count every single reader. And they’re turning to an old stand-by, the Audit Bureau of Circulation, for help. Yesterday, the ABC announced the addition of five new members in […] Read more »
Earlier this month, I slammed Sony for offering “affordable” e-book readers but not including a wireless option — something I consider to be the e-reader killer app (GigaOM Pro subscription required). At the time, the electronics giant promised to tell us more about its wireless readers […] Read more »
