Microsoft and Barnes & Noble are teaming up to take on Amazon and Apple. The $300 million investment in the Nook subsidiary of Barnes & Noble gives Microsoft about 17.6% ownership of this business unit and values it at about about $1.7 billion, more than Barnes & Noble itself. Read more »
Amazon is now offering free, two-day shipping on all Kindles including the Touch and Fire. To take advantage of this offer, customers simply add a Kindle to their cart and select two-day shipping when they check out. Amazon has seen a huge surge in demand for its Kindle devices, […] Read more »
Verizon Wireless customers can expect data plans supporting multiple devices on a single account in 2012. It’s about time, as kids are getting smartphones and more connected devices are finding their way into our lives. One plan for all devices is a good fit for families. Read more »
I’ve spent nearly a week using the latest 7-inch tablets (or are they e-readers?): the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire. In this video, I share an overview of both devices and I offer a purchase recommendation: The device choice depends on what you want to do. Read more »
This week’s audio podcast is all about the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet: our likes, dislikes, tweaks and who should (or shouldn’t buy) one of the two new low-priced e-reading tablets. Plus: a secret on how Amazon built their interface atop Google Android! Read more »
If Kindle Fire is a disappointment as a tablet, then Kindle Touch is the epitome of e-book reading experience It’s simple, elegant, easy, lightweight and just great at what it’s supposed to do: offer up reading pleasure. I was impressed in the first couple of hours. Read more »
The forces that are driving the disruption in traditional book publishing are the same as those affecting other media as well, whether it’s newspapers and magazines or virtually any other publishing-based business. So what can publishers and content companies learn from what is happening to books? Read more »
The crowded e-book market has just squeezed in room for one more contender, as iriver has created an eInk reader that works with the Google Books store. Priced at $139.99 and available from Target, the iriver Story HD can access 3 million free titles plus various paid content. Read more »
Qualcomm, the San Diego-based chip maker is going to finally see its much vaunted Mirasol color displays come to market in early 2011. The displays were supposed to launch in 2010. Read more »
Did you hear that Barnes & Noble is up for sale? The sale is a watershed event in the history of modern publishing. It foretells a future where the book of yesterday and today will look very different from book of tomorrow. And I love it. Read more »
Despite the threat of competing e-readers such as the Nook, an impending price war and the omnipresent threat of iPad, Amazon’s Kindle will be the winner of the e-book war. All Amazon has to do is stay true to its technology roots and focus on users. Read more »
Kno, a device maker, wants to reinvent the college textbook experience by marrying books, services, micro-content and apps to a dual-screen networked device and an e-platform for higher education. In doing so, Kno is taking on Apple and Amazon. Good news: It has deep-pocketed backers. Read more »
The iPad, some say will kill Amazon’s Kindle Reader and setback its e-book efforts. Analysts at JP Morgan think otherwise. They believe that despite increased competition from not only iPad but other devices, Amazon can still make a $1 billion from its e-books business. Read more »
Of all the books I’ve read in my life, a shockingly small percentage have been read in the past several years. The big threat to Amazon’s Kindle isn’t people reading e-books on the iPad or the Nook. It’s that books are becoming fringe media. Read more »
Amazon is going to start selling a global version of Kindle DX for about $489 starting Jan. 19. The device will sell in over 100 countries. It uses GSM technologies — GPRS, EDGE & 3G — to power Amazon’s global WhisperNet for free downloads. Read more »
Amazon.com’s chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, in talking about the future of Kindle says he thinks it won’t be long before Amazon is “selling more electronic books than we are physical books.” He shares his Kindle ambitions with The New York Times. Here is a summary. Read more »
Amazon has released a series of software upgrades that make its Kindle eReader even more useful. The new software upgrades allow for more efficient management of wireless connectivity as it boosts the total battery charge to about seven days from four days, even with the wireless […] Read more »
Yesterday at the urging of a friend, I ordered “Your Brain at Work” by David Rock on my iPod touch via the Amazon Kindle app. In doing so, I became one of many people who are helping the iPhone become more than just a phone. It’s […] Read more »
The blogosphere is abuzz with the news that Amazon is cutting the price of the Kindle by $40, to $259. Being an early adopter, I paid $399 for the device, which most of the time sits gathering dust, but is a constant companion when I am […] Read more »