Archive for the ‘3g nook’ tag
eReader & Tablet News – 1/25/2011 no comments
Nook 3G ereader to be discontinued?
Engadget reported yesterday that Barnes & Noble may be planning to discontinue the 3G version of the Nook ereader. According to Engadget once the current stock of the 3G version is gone it will not be replenished. Well, the original Nook is getting a bit long in the tooth – time for a version with the Pearl display. For many users I suspect a Wi-Fi connection will be good enough, especially if it carries a lower price tag.
In an article on the same topic PC Mag.com says that it was told by a B&N spokesperson that, "3G sold out during the holiday season so there is plenty of demand for it."
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Notion Ink Adam unboxing photos & videos starting to appear
The few people who were able to successfully order the Notion Ink Adam Pixel Qi tablet at the brief and problem-plagued pre-order session have started to receive their tablets and are starting to post photos and videos. You can find some at Notion Ink Fan.com.
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A couple of new personal news services launched
A couple of new online personal news aggregating services have been announced. First is Ongo, which is designed to be accessible via the web browser on computers, smart phones and tablets.
Ongo charges a subscription of $6.99 per month, for which you have access via a single site to comprehensive coverage from the AP, all original Washington Post content from The Washington Post print edition, all content from USA Today, selected top stories from The New York Times and selected content from the Financial Times. You can also add a few additional publications – the first free and after that starting at an additional $0.99 per month.
Features include customized news arranged by title, section or keyword; the ability to clip articles for later reading; search function that lets you search by category, title, date or writer; and discussion groups.
Ongo is backed by Gannett, The New York Times and The Washington Post. You can get more info and try out a free trial subscription at Ongo.com.
Another similar newly hatched service is WorldProNews.com. This is also a one-stop site for global news from sources such as CNN, MSNBC, BBC World News, Financial Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Reuters and more.
Categories of news covered at WorldProNews.com include politics, business, health, internet, celebrities, lifestyle, science, technology, inventions, travel, art and crafts, design, movies, music, games, books, stock market, Forex trading, gadgets, sports, horoscopes and country specific news as well.
WorldProNews.com does not have the customization and search features of Ongo, but it is free and looks useful for checking the latest headlines of various news categories from one site.
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Scan your pbook library and turn it into ebooks
Ion Audio unveiled its Book Saver book scanning device at CES 2011. 
The Book Saver allows you to scan a paper book and save it to an SD card. As the book is held in a cradle so that the pages are at the right angle the Book Saver’s two cameras take separate photos of each page. A flash is built in to properly illuminate the pages if necessary. The Book Saver only takes one second to scan two pages.
The downside is that you need to manually flip pages, so this is not an automatic process that you can set and forget. The Book Saver is expected to be available in a few months at a price of under $200.
Or, you could just use your iPhone:
Helsinki-based Norfello Inc. has announced that it has developed a new algorithm to automatically correct page curvature from 2D images. This will enable non-destructive book scanning without the need for special hardware:
“We have been using consumer grade digital cameras and iPhone 4′s camera in our tests and we are happy with the results.”, said Jarno Ruokokoski, the lead developer of the new algorithm.
Norfello published images showcase how the algorithm
works. It takes one image of a spread of a book as an input and produces two images, one of each page. In the pages produced all the curvature of text lines is removed. These images are not modified by hand, so the text area detection, cropping and whitening are also native parts of the software.
“The algorithm searches two text areas (one for each page), and for each area left and right margins. Next it approximates from a blurred image the baselines of the lines of text. The algorithm computes the corrected baselines by using spline fitting iteratively. Finally, the algorithm creates triangulation on the image based on the baselines, and draws the triangles to a new image by using affine transformations such that every baseline is a straight line in the new image and both the margins are vertical.”, explained Jarno Ruokokoski.
“This algorithm will be included in our existing App, DocScanner Mac, but we will also create a new application that focuses solely on scanning books with a clutter free user interface that makes book scanning as productive as possible and integrates with Amazon Kindle via Whispersync and iBooks. Carrying lots of books just isn’t possible all the time, but people tend to always carry their Kindles and iPads with them.”, said Tuomas Rasila.
Norfello currently has a DocScanner iPhone app that is available in the iTunes App Store for $0.99. From the press release it sounds as though the new algorithm will be incorporated in a new app that will be optimized for book scanning.
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eBooks, eReader & iPad News – 7/18/2010 1 comment
A quick look at some of the recent ereader and iPad news that I didn’t get to cover elsewhere.
App Inventor for Android
So you have an idea for a most excellent app for your Android device but don’t know how to program it? Well, now there’s an app for that. Google will soon have a beta version of App Inventor that easily lets you create apps with no programming knowledge by using a visual interface. The visual interface is said to make building an app easy for those who don’t know how to program.
The App Inventor comes with most Android functions available as modular building blocks, ready to plug into your creation. There are blocks for everything from using the GPS-location sensor or the phone features of your Android phone to blocks that perform more programming-like things such as storing information, repeating actions or performing certain actions under certain conditions.
Google will be opening up access to the App Inventor over the coming weeks. To get started you will need to fill out the online form at the link above.
via NYT
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iPad Software Update
Apple has released software update iOS 3.2.1 for the iPad. In addition to various bug fixes and improvements the following are addressed:
- Improved Wi-Fi connectivity
- Fixed an issue that could prevent copy and paste of single-page PDF attachments in Mail
- Addressed an issue that could cause video playback to freeze
- Improved reliability of video-out when using iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter
- Added Bing as an option for Safari’s search field
Compatible for both the Wi-Fi and 3G models of the iPad. To download the update connect your iPad to your computer and iTunes should detect and install the new software. You may need to click on your iPad in the left pane to get to the Update button on the Summary tab.
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3G nook at FCC
Barnes & Noble has applied with the FCC for a 3G version of the nook ereader. B&N’s internal project names for the 3G nook are CR Nook 3G and Bravo Delta 3G. There is not a lot of other info – schematics, photos and antenna specs have been withheld at the request of B&N. Too bad – maybe Apple could have learned something to improve the antenna of the new iPhone. 
via Best eReaders
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Neonode Signs zForce License Agreement
Neonode is an interesting touchscreen maker of very responsive IR-based touchscreens. The company announced recently that it had “signed a technology license agreement with one of the leading e-publishing companies in China in partnership with one of the largest ODM companies in Taiwan. The zForce license includes Neonode’s patented touch screen technology supporting high resolution finger navigation with gestures and sweeps.”
The last time I wrote about Neonode was when the company’s zForce touchscreen was to be used in one of the Chinese ereaders. That was just before Amazon bought TouchCo, which was a touchscreen startup.
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eBooks Becoming Big in Japan?
At the moment, most of the ebooks available in the Japanese language seem to be either manga or shorter light romance and porn. That could change soon. The Mainichi Daily News reported recently that NTT Docomo will be entering the ebook market in the early part of next year.
NTT Docomo is Japan’s largest cell phone carrier, and is most interested in marketing ebooks to its mobile phone customers. In Japan dedicated ereaders have never really taken off; most Japanese who read ebooks do so on their phones, which probably explains why a lot of the available ebooks are shorts. The introduction of the iPad to Japan may help change this.
Sony also recently announced that it was partnering with Asahi Shimbun Company (one of Japan’s largest newspaper publishers), Toppan Printing Co (one of Japan’s leading publishers) and KDDI Corp (telecommunications operator) to form an ebook distribution company.
Sony seems to be aiming its ereader business in other directions besides the North American market where it faces very stiff competition from Amazon’s Kindle and the Barnes & Noble nook ereaders.
A few days ago the WSJ JapanRealTime blog wrote that Dai Nippon Printing Co., LTD, which is one of Japan’s larger printing houses, is now also planning to open an ebook store by this autumn. The new store will offer about 100,000 titles from various publishers.
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