eReader & Tablet News – 10/29/2010 no comments
Just to catch up on a few happenings of the past couple of days:
Barnes & Noble has announced B&N Kid’s Club, a new loyalty program for parents and caregivers. On sign-up customers will receive a 30 percent off coupon good for use on children’s book purchases, educational toys and games as well as games and puzzles for adults. For every $100 spent on children’s books and toys customers will also receive a $5 coupon (limited to four times per year). There are also, of course, freebies from the Cafe involved.
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Free or cheaper ebooks sponsored by in-book ad placements? WOWIO has been issued a Notice of Allowance by the US Patent and Trademark Office for a broad patent application that covers a variety of methods allowing for the delivery of ads in ebooks, including contextual ads based on personal information or demographic criteria of the reader.
“The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has allowed 32 claims contained in of one of WOWIO, Inc.’s most important and broadest patent applications,” said Steve Hassid, Registered Patent and Trademark Attorney, Partner at Silicon Edge Law Group LLP, and intellectual property counsel for WOWIO. “WOWIO is the only company I know of that has been able to obtain a Notice of Allowance allowing claims in this evolving and expanding media space.”
“The patent will give WOWIO the right to exclude others from practicing any of the 32 allowed claims in the United States for a period of 20 years from the patent’s priority date,” added Hassid.
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Disney has released the Disney Epic Mickey App for viewing Disney comics on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The first comic to be available is Tales of Wasteland. Disney Epic Mickey is available at iTunes for $2.99.
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Amazon has announced that it is working on a Kindle app for Windows Phone 7 that should be ready before the end of the year.
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Kobo has begun offering newspapers and magazines. The new periodicals are available with a two-week free trial. Kobo has updated its iPad app to support reading of the magazines and newspapers. Kobo’s iPad app also now enables looking words up in the built-in dictionary, on Wikipedia or on Google.
The Kobo Store now offers the following digital publications across select Kobo devices and Apps: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Scientist, The Seattle Times, Wilson Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, American Scholar, China International Business, Columbus Dispatch , Guideposts, Harvard Business Review, National Review, New York Observer, PC Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Reason, The Christian Science Monitor Daily Briefing, The Nation, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Vancouver Province, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times-Colonist, and The Globe & Mail. Kobo will be continuing to expand its newspaper and magazine offering to ensure that we have all the publications that people want to read worldwide.
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Both T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular will be offering the Samsung Galaxy Tab. T-Mobile expects to have the Tab by Nov. 10, while US Cellular just says that it will be in time for the holidays. T-Mobile will be offering the Tab for as low as $399 with a 2-year contract.
