Technologizer

Thinking About a Nook? The Wait is Getting Longer

Friday, November 13, 2009

[NOTE: As a commenter noted, I mangled this news: The December 18th ship date is just for new orders. Corrected...] Want Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader? You’ll need to wait a bit longer than originally expected. B&N had been saying that the gadget would ship in late November, but now is reporting that the new orders [...]

Kindle for PC: A Rough Draft at Best

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

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[UPDATE: I tried again, and Kindle for PC is now downloading all my books swiftly and reliably. Not sure why it wasn't before...] I’ve been playing with Amazon.com’s new Kindle for PC application over the past 24 hours, and while the idea of having access to my Kindle books on my PC remains mighty appealing, the [...]

Kindle for PC Now Available

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

5 Comments

[UPDATE: I tried again, and Kindle for PC is now downloading all my books swiftly and reliably. Not sure why it wasn't before...] Last month, one of the few new pieces of news at the Windows 7 rollout was the fact that Amazon was releasing a piece of Windows software for reading Kindle e-books. The software [...]

E-Ink Gets More Appealing

Monday, November 2, 2009

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I’ve been writing about e-readers from the moment that Amazon released its first Kindle. And when I do, I usually express my reservations about the E-Ink screens used by the Kindle and all of its direct competitors. Yes, they’re glare-free and run for days on a charge. But the technology’s monochrome-only, the displays are slow, and [...]

E-Reader vs. E-Reader: Spring Design Sues Barnes & Noble

Monday, November 2, 2009

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Back on October 19th, a company called Spring Design introduced an e-reader called Alex. It had two significant features in common with Barnes & Noble’s Nook, which was introduced a day later: Both sport a large monochrome e-ink screen and a smaller touch-sensitive color display below, and both run Google’s Android OS. Spring Design is now [...]

Plastic Logic E-Reader @ Barnes and Noble

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

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Back before Barnes & Noble announced its Nook e-reader, some folks wondered whether the rumored B&N e-book device would simply be the one from Plastic Logic. It wasn’t. But today, Barnes & Noble and Plastic Logic announced that B&N would be selling Plastic Logic’s QUE in stores and online. I was startled by the news at [...]

E-Readers or Swiss Army Knives?

Monday, October 26, 2009

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Quick follow-up to our E-Reader Cheat Sheet: One of the most interesting questions about e-readers isn’t “Which one is best?” but “Is the whole category toast?” And one of the things that makes the question interesting is that there are savvy folks who think that e-readers will give way to general-purpose devices, and savvy folks [...]

The E-Reader Explosion: A Cheat Sheet

Monday, October 26, 2009

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By almost any imaginable definition, last week was the newsiest ever in the still-new world of e-book readers. We witnessed the unveiling of Barnes & Noble’s ambitious Nook. We got more details about Plastic Logic’s long-awaited device. We learned of an underdog known as the Spring Design Alex. We were informed that Amazon was killing [...]

Barnes & Noble Unveils Digital Lending

Friday, October 23, 2009

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While most folks have fixated on the Nook’s ($259) secondary color screen, compared to the pedestrian and now antiquated Amazon Kindle, the most significant feature of Barnes & Noble’s upcoming Android-based eReader is digital lending. From the Nook FAQ: With our new LendMe technology, you can now share from nook to nook. [...]

Kindle Coming to PCs

Thursday, October 22, 2009

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Today’s Windows 7 launch mostly involved stuff we already knew about, but there was a “just one more thing”: Amazon is going to release a Kindle e-book reading application for Windows. It runs on XP, Vista, and Windows 7, and takes advantage of the new touch features in Win 7 to allow gestures for actions [...]

One World, One Kindle

Thursday, October 22, 2009

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That was fast! Two weeks ago, Amazon.com introduced a Kindle e-book reader with AT&T 3G wireless and the ability to download books in a hundred countries. It priced it at $279 and knocked the cost for the U.S.-only version down to $259. It seemed odd to keep the old version around at such a modest [...]

Hey, Nook! Barnes & Noble’s E-Book Reader is Official

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

8 Comments

The salient details had all leaked out already, but now they’re real: Barnes & Noble has unveiled its e-book reader. It’s called the Nook, it packs both a 6″ e-ink screen and a color touch one below, and comes both 3G and WiFi, 2GB of memory, and an SD slot. The Nook will offer both [...]

Spring Design Springs into the E-Reader Game

Monday, October 19, 2009

6 Comments

Those rumors about the imminent announcement of an Android-based e-book reader with both a black-and-white e-ink screen and a color touchscreen below it? They were true–except for the part about it being announced by Barnes & Noble. A company called Spring Design has announced an e-reader called Alex, and conceptually, at least, the hardware sounds [...]

Plastic Logic’s E-Reader Gets a Little More Real

Sunday, October 18, 2009

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E-reader maker Plastic Logic has been giving its gadget a fascinating slow-motion rollout. It first showed it to reporters more than a year ago at the DEMO show. Then showed it at the Consumer Electronics Show last January. Then it re-revealed it at the D conference. And now it’s saying it’ll “unveil” it at next [...]

Best Buy to Lump E-Readers With Other Random Stuff

Friday, October 9, 2009

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Clearly, Best Buy doesn’t know what to do with all those e-readers that it plans to stock, because they’ll soon be thrown into a section that contains electronic Rubik’s Cubes, digital pens and — wait for it — Sharper Image products. Dealerscope reports that Best Buy’s creating a new retail section called “Gadgets and eReaders,” located [...]

Best Buy, Verizon Team on New E-Book Reader

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

5 Comments

Move over, Amazon Kindle. Best Buy and Verizon have unveiled a new e-book reader Wednesday that will sell for $399 and is built by iRex Technologies. The reader like the Kindle would be able to purchase content over the 3G network, and will be sold in about 100 of Best Buy’s locations by October. Barnes and [...]