ereader
Borders’ Kobo-powered eBook Store now live with 1.5 million titles, Android and BlackBerry apps coming soon
Exactly how many eBook stores do we need? Depends.
Amazon Kindle dual-screen e-reader patent granted, Barnes & Noble Nook potentially in trouble
Looks like the battle for e-reader dominance between Amazon and Barnes & Noble could soon expand beyond the recent spate of price drops and into the courtroom as well: the USPTO just granted a 2006 Amazon patent on e-readers with secondary LCD displays (like the original Kindle’s scroller-navigation panel ), and several of the claims are potentially broad enough to cover the Nook and many other devices with both electronic paper and LCD displays. What’s more, Amazon agreed not to file for any corresponding foreign patents during the four-year approval process and thus wasn’t required to publish the patent application — meaning this is likely a complete surprise to the entire industry
Pandigital Novel preview
Sure, Pandigital’s Novel may be delayed until next month because of some firmware issues — and we haven’t heard the most positive things about the 7-inch LCD based e-reader / tablet — but we had to check it out for ourselves. At $149, the all-plastic reader isn’t going to win any build quality awards (it’s also rather heavy for what it is), but the Android 2.1-powered gadget does have a pretty attractive user interface.
Nintendo 3DS game cart pictured, wireless ebook reader on tap?
It was easy to get lost amidst all the attention surrounding the 3DS itself, but Nintendo also had an actual 3DS game cart on hand at E3 and, well, it looks pretty much like a regular DS cart (probably a good thing, since the two are compatible). About the only difference, it seems, is that small extra tab on the corner, and a slightly slimmer case that they’ll come packaged in. In other overshadowed-by-E3 news, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has apparently told Nikkei that the 3DS’ wireless connection could be used to automatically download newspaper and magazine articles (and books, presumably) which, when combined with the 3DS’ ability to actively seek out and connect to any open WiFi network, could potentially turn into a Whispernet -like service from Nintendo — something that Iwata has, incidentally, publicly mused about in the past.
LG Display and iriver enter joint venture to make e-book readers pretty, affordable
Well what do you know, turns out the LB4400 was a harbinger of things to come. LG Display and iriver just announced a $5M joint venture to manufacture e-book readers. The new China-based company, L&I Electronic Technology (Dongguan) Ltd, sees iriver doing the platform development and product design (thank gawd) while LG provides the EPD displays
Kohl’s pulls Pandigital Novel eReader for a firmware fix?
It seems Pandigital read a bit too far ahead in the story of its Novel eReader. The Digital Readers , which has been covering the device extensively, reports that Kohl’s is currently going through something of a recall so that Pandigital can install an updated firmware
