iRiver E-Reader Has Google Books

It’s hard to make much of a splash in the dedicated e-reader market unless you’re Amazon or Barnes & Noble (or, maybe, Sony or Kobo). But iRiver has a new model that’s a noteworthy first: it’s the only e-reader that supports Google Books.

Windows 8 in April 2012? Could Be!

ZDnet’s Mary Jo Foley is reporting on a rumor: Microsoft may be trying to finish up work on Windows 8 by April of next year. She thinks it’s plausible–or at least not obviously crazy. Me, too. For one thing, the conventional wisdom that the OS is likely to show up for the holiday 2012 season is, as far as I know, based more on history than on anyone knowing anything specific about Windows 8. For another, Microsoft has a huge incentive to get this thing out the door–not so much for its PC business, but for tablets, where it’s not yet really in the game and won’t be until Windows 8 is available. And Steven Sinofksy, the Microsoft exec in charge of Windows, has a pretty good track record for exceeding expectations when it comes to shipping products in a timely fashion. (Enough so that I think that anyone who parrots the classic “Microsoft never gets anything out the door” meme hasn’t been paying attention over the past few years.)

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Color Loses Another Exec

I still think that there’s a good idea–or at least an interesting one–at the heart of Color, the iPhone app that had a catastrophic launch. So I’m hoping it successfully reboots. But the big news at the moment is that it’s lost its chief scientist.

Speaking of Big Numbers

WordPress–the platform that brings you Technologizer–now powers fifty million blogs.

Rhapsody’s Demi-Milestone

Rhapsody, the longest-lived subscription music service–it’s been around since 2001–is celebrating the fact that it now has 800,000 subscribers. Its president, Jon Irwin, says that “exceeds the lifetime total of all new U.S. competitors combined”–by which I presume it means other services such as MOG, Napster, Rdio, and Slacker. That would mean that fewer than 1.6 million people in the U.S. subscribe to any of these services. Which, given that the companies who offer them have had a decade to try and get the world interested, may mean that the concept simply isn’t all that appealing.  (I like it–I happily pay for Rdio–but at what point does the industry stop insisting that subscription music will be a huge hit once everyone understands how great it is?)

Philly Papers to Try Their Hand at Android Tablets

Adweek’s Lucia Moses is reporting that Philadelphia’s Inquirer and Daily News are planning to start selling a cheap Android tablet bundled with for-pay digital content from the newspapers. It’s unclear whether the plans involve an off-the-shelf tablet, but I assume that the papers’ owner isn’t planning to design a tablet from scratch on its own. Even hardware companies seem to be having a hard time pulling that off…

Donkey Kong: Thirty Strange Years!

What’s the most significant arcade game of all time? Pac-Man, probably. But you could also make the case for Donkey Kong–a game that celebrates its thirtieth anniversary this month. It was wildly popular in its day. It remains iconic. And it was the breakout hit that put both Nintendo and Mario on the map–a team-up of game company and character that’s as important today as ever.

And then there are all the weird little Donkey Kong footnotes. Such as the fact it was almost about Popeye and Bluto. And the odd spinoffs (Donkey Kong hockey?). Gaming historian Benj Edwards has rounded up a bunch of them for Donkey Kong Oddities, our tribute to video gaming’s greatest ape.

Donkey Kong Oddities

Thirty years ago this month, Nintendo released Donkey Kong to arcades across the United States. The game’s American version went on to sell tens of thousands of units, saving the then-struggling US branch of the company and paving the way for Nintendo’s future success on Western shores.

Without Donkey Kong, we would have no Mario, and without Mario, it’s hard to imagine what Nintendo would look like today. That makes Donkey Kong, above all others, the most pivotally important video game Nintendo has ever released.

So it’s time to celebrate–which I did by rounding up a bunch of weird, odd, and interesting stuff about this beloved game.

Tablet Sales: Bad. Nook Sales: Good

Research firm IDC says that tablet sales (the iPad excepted) are lower than expected–but that Barnes & Noble’s Nook is now outselling Amazon’s Kindle.

Maybe They’re Jealous of the Failwhale?

Are these whimsical Google error messages new, or am I just out of the loop?

Bungie Waves Goodbye to Halo

Bungie’s been finished making Halo games for nearly a year, but now the developer is cutting its final ties with the franchise and ceding control of multiplayer to another developer.

Although the changeover won’t actually happen until August 2, Bungie is saying its goodbyes now, having celebrated its 20th anniversary by playing Halo: Reach with fans. Soon, the developers will drop off the radar as they work in secrecy on a new project, as part of a 10-year publishing agreement with Activision, 1UP reports.

“Halo is yours now,” the company wrote. “In many ways, it always has been. Its new caretakers will strive, just as we did, to be worthy stewards but you have the package. Hold these characters and stories and worlds to the same unflinching standards you did while we were at the helm, but allow them all to blossom and change and grow in the ways that they must.”

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Apple Rumors: The More the Murkier!

Apple rumors, in case you hadn’t noticed, are everywhere. There are tons of them–especially on future iPhones and iPads. And if you don’t like a particular one, wait a day or two–another one will come along that confidently says that the first one was hogwash.

As I’ve mentioned here, perhaps too often, I don’t bother to report most Apple rumors here. (I do cover ones that seems utterly plausible or utterly implausible–they’re the two best kind.) I do read them on other sites, though. And I’ve decided to perform a public service by rounding up a bunch of them. I figure that the chances are virtually 100 percent that at least a handful of the “scoops” after the jump are spot on. Your job is to figure out which ones!

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Mozilla Gives Web Apps Some Purpose

Slowly but surely, Mozilla’s laid back approach to web apps is blossoming into something with a lot of potential.

The latest web apps update from Mozilla Labs, available as an add-on for Firefox, gives the experimental project a new look and helps individual apps communicate with one another.

Web apps now appear in a tray at the bottom of the browser window. Once opened, they become pinned tabs with no URL bar, giving them a more app-like feel. Mozilla also wants to aid app discovery by letting web developers notify visitors when an app is available — kind of like the App Store link that appears when you visit Yelp’s mobile website.

The bigger improvement in this release is “Web Activities.” This is basically a calling service for web apps to pass data back and forth. So for instance, if you’re using an online photo editor such as Pixlr and want to import an image from Dropbox, neither service would have to support the other specifically. The Web Activities calling service would handle the file transfer.

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Artist Takes Pictures of Mac Users in Apple Stores, Gets in Trouble

Good advice for artists: if your art project involves installing software on the demo Macs in Apple Stores and holding the exhibit in the Apple Store, you might want to reconsider.

iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad HD, Arrrrrrrgh!

I’ve sort of given up on keeping track of Apple rumors (which is why I cheerfully ignore most of ‘em and never write about them here). But here’s Josh Topolsky of This is My Next with a snapshot of the current thinking on the question “When will we see the next iPhone and iPad, and what will they look like?“

Hey, Off-Contract Smartphones Are Getting Cheaper!

As I looked over Verizon’s announcement of the Motorola Droid 3 today, one thing in particular caught my eye: Without a two-year contract, the phone costs $460.

That may look expensive next to the Droid 3′s two-year agreement price of $200, but it’s a lot cheaper than what high-end, off-contract smartphones used to cost. Last year, for example, the Droid 2 debuted for $599 without a contract. At the time, that was pretty much the standard price.

So I figured the Droid 3 was cracking the mold, until I looked around. Right now, Verizon’s Droid X2 sells for $450 without a contract, and the Droid Incredible 2 sells for $440. Over on AT&T, you can get a contract-free Motorola Atrix 4G for $450. These are all high-end phones, with dual-core processors and screens of 4 inches or higher, but you might not know it from their off-contract prices.

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