Archive for the ‘tablet news’ 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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Tablet & eReader News – 11/08/2010 no comments
iOS 4.2 is almost here for the iPad! We don’t know when for sure, but there are rumors that the new OS will be released to the general public this week. Some of the new features that iOS 4.2 will bring to the iPad: multitasking, folders to organize your apps into, direct printing to a Wi-Fi printer, a unified email inbox, additional international keyboard (over 30 new languages) and dictionary support and enhanced enterprise support.
The iPad will also receive some accessibility enhancements. These include the ability to output Braille to over 30 supported Bluetooth Braille displays in more than 25 languages. iOS 4.2 will also add the ability to control VoiceOver using a wireless keyboard.
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Qualcomm MEMS director of marketing Cheryl Goodman 
was interviewed about biomimicry and the Mirasol display by KPBS radio recently and you can listen to the podcast at the KPBS website. The podcast is about 20 minutes and, no, Ms Goodman does not spill the beans about which ereader will be the first to have a Mirasol display.
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Sony today announced that the Sony Daily Edition PRS-950 ereader is now available at Sony Style and other retailers. The Daily Edition features a 7-inch e-ink Pearl display and is the only one of the new Sony ereaders to feature a wireless connection.
Sony is also offering a $75 dollar credit when you trade in your old ereader.
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Blackboard has released Blackboard Mobile Central (BMC) for Android smartphones. BMC is custom built and branded for each educational institution, and the new Android app is making its debut at Northwestern University.
The new Android application will include Athletics, Courses, Directory, Library, Maps, News, Get Help and Links, with other features to be added soon. Developed as a native application exclusive to the Android platform, Blackboard Mobile Central for the Android leverages the device’s unique features to provide an engaging user experience, including:
- Widgets, an Android-specific feature that allows users to quickly and easily access important information from Blackboard Mobile Central at a glance from their home screen.
- Shortcuts, which let users create a direct shortcut to any one of the Blackboard Mobile Central modules directly on their phone’s home screen so that it can be accessed immediately without even opening the app.
For more information about Blackboard Mobile Central, please visit: http://www.blackboard.com/Mobile/Mobile-Central.aspx
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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.
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eReader & Tablet News – 10/19/2010 no comments
Liquavista will be talking at FPD/SEP 2010 next month in Japan about the scalability and versatility of its electrowetting displays.
“We’ve chosen FPD Japan to talk about the scalability of electrowetting technology because now that the technology is on the verge of becoming available we feel that it’s critical to describe what is possible and to share this with the industry.” Said Johan Feenstra, Liquavista’s CTO & Founder. “We’ve already proven in prototype production that we can develop a variety of displays ranging from 1.8” to 8.5” diagonal and believe there is no physical limitation to the size of screen that can be developed using electrowetting technology.”
“Demonstrating the ability to make electrowetting panels for all display applications regardless of their screen size shows the clear vision that Liquavista has of the future.” Added Guy Demuynck, Liquavista’s CEO. “Pairing this flexibility in size with the versatility of the technology brings a compelling proposition for any manufacturer of electronic devices, regardless of the application. We have the manufacturer and consumer at the heart of our roadmap. In support of the commercial delivery of our product next year, we believe it’s important to deliver screens which can be used in any device from small scale mobile displays through to large scale outdoor screens.”
It is likely to be late next year before we begin to see products utilizing a Liquavista display.
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Notion Ink is looking for a new logo and is having a design competition to find the right one. They are offering a $1000 prize and an Adam Pixel Qi tablet (when released) for the winning design. The contest will end soon; for details see the Notion Ink blog.
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Digitimes reports that Google has notified its partners that the Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) OS will soon be ready and that engineering samples including those pertaining to tablets should be going out in December. This means that hopefully in H1 of next year we will see Android-based tablets that can access the Android Market out of the box.
Phandroid has a blurry photo of a phone running Android 3.0 in the wild and reports on some of the new features of the next iteration of the OS. One of the biggest appears to be support for video chat.
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eReader & Tablet News – 9/25/2010 no comments
There have been rumors that Entourage has a smaller version of the Edge in the works. The Digital Reader was able to get
a few photos and some details of the new Pocket Edge.
The Pocket Edge will have a 6-inch Visplex (not the newer Pearl) e-ink display and a 7-inch LCD screen. The new model is said to weigh about a pound, and will come in both Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi plus 3G via Verizon. This looks quite promising.
Photo – The Digital Reader
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Samsung may be working on a 10-inch version of its Galaxy Tab. Gary Twohig, general manager of Samsung Mobile in Ireland, said in an interview with the Silicon Republic that the larger tablet would be launched in the first half of 2011. The reference to the 10-incher has since been edited out of the article.
(via TNW, where you can see what was edited out)
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Dell apparently has plans to introduce a 7-inch version of its Streak tablet. Michael Dell briefly showed off the new tablet onstage at an Oracle event this week.
(via WSJ)
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Today is the start of Banned Book Week, an annual celebration of the freedom to read that was started in 1982 by the American Library Association, American Booksellers Association and the Association of American Publishers.
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eReader & Tablet News 8/21/2010 no comments
Another busy week for ereaders and tablets and all things related. Some of the things I didn’t get to cover elsewhere:
The shipping date for new orders of the latest
generation Kindle 3 has been pushed back again. If you place an order now, your Kindle 3 will be shipping on September 17.
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Overheard at a Kobo company party (via eBooknewser) – the Kobo ereader is rumored to have another price cut coming by Christmas and will be reduced to $99.
Although Barnes & Noble is sometimes credited with starting the brief ebook reader price war that resulted in $139 Kindles and $149 NOOKs, Kobo actually lit the fuse when they released their eReader for $149 – as has been noted by Nate over at The Digital Reader and proudly proclaimed by Kobo itself.
So will this start a new round of price slashing? Not likely. At its current price of $149, the Kobo eReader is too high when compared to the wireless only versions of the Kindle and NOOK as it is a more basic ereader with less features and is based on older hardware. It should be priced at $99 now.
Kobo has also just announced a new way to win a free Kobo eReader. All you need to do for a chance to win one of three eReaders is to follow @Kobo on Twitter. This contest will end on August 30, 2010. All the details and fine print that you could possibly want can be had at Kobo.com.
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Digitimes is reporting that Qualcomm is going to set up a production facility for its Mirasol color displays at the Central Taiwan Science Park in Longtan, Taiwan. Digitimes says that volume production of the 5.7-inch screen that Mirasol has been sampling should begin in early 2012.
Excuse me, but what about the press release from Mirasol dated June 6, 2009, in which Mirasol said that a dedicated fabrication plant built in collaboration with Foxlink and at the same location had commenced operations.
I guess that earlier facility must have only been for making the samples.
If Mirasol is not going to have their color display ready until 2012 I think we can count them out of being used in the first color ereaders. Actually, isn’t the world supposed to end in 2012? We may none of us live long enough to see an actual Mirasol display in an actual product!
E Ink Holdings now appears likely to hold the distinction of being the first color epaper. Hanvon has already been reported as readying an ereader using a color E Ink display for release later this year. Amazon, are you really going to sit by and let Hanvon beat you to market with a color ereader?
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Velocity Micro has the Cruz Reader up for pre-order at its website with an expected shipping date of early September. The Cruz tablet is also available to pre-order and will ship in late September. The Storypad children’s ereader does not yet have a pre-order option, and is still shown as “coming soon.”
The Cruz Reader is available for pre-order at Fry’s, Neweggand Borders; the Cruz Tablet is available at Borders.
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While I’m not a particular fan of People Magazine, I am a fan of the way in which they are treating their subscribers. Readers who subscribe to the paper edition will now have free access to the digital version on the iPad.
This is something that I think all magazine publishers should offer, or at the very least you should be able to switch from the paper to the digital format if you wish. Apparently this is not only in the hands of the magazine publishers however.
The NYT reports that because Apple is supposed to get a cut of any app sold through iTunes, some rather long negotiations were required before Time Inc., publisher of People, was able to offer the free digital edition on the iPad. Print subscribers will now be able to enter a verification code to receive the People app at no charge. Time reportedly wants to offer the same type of deal for other magazines it publishes.
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At its latest earnings call yesterday, HP announced that it will be releasing both a Windows-based and a Palm WebOS-based tablet. There were rumors a few months ago that HP had killed its Windows 7 tablet.
(via FT Techblog)
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The Scott Pilgrim comic book series by Bryan O’Malley is now available as an iPad and iPhone app. This is actually a reading app for the comics which gives you some free sample content and from which you can purchase the six volumes in the series.
The first five volumes are $6.99 each and the sixth and final volume is $11.99. Volumes you purchase can also be accessed via the comiXology website on your PC or mobile device.
The Scott Pilgrim series became a NYT bestseller and was adapted into a favorably reviewed film starring Michael Cera and directed by Edgar Wright.
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Verizon has announced (via GigaOM) that it will be releasing an app early next year that will allow its FiOS subscribers to watch programming on their iPads. Initially the iPad app will only allow you to watch content within your own home. Verizon is also working on a video-on-demand application that should work across multiple devices.
Meanwhile, HBO has nixed any hopes that it would join the Netflix stable of streaming video partners. Instead it appears that HBO will probably create its own streaming service.
Besides a number of popular series of its own, HBO also owns the exclusive streaming rights to content from Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox and Universal. (via eCommerce Times)
