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Amazon Removes 5000 Books From Kindle Store Over Contract Dispute

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Amazon recently removed about 5,000 ebooks from the Kindle store as a result of not being able to forge an agreement with Independent Publishers Group about over a new contract. The 41 year old IPG was founded in Chicago and officially went into the ebook business in 2001. The group is the second largest independent book distributor in the United States.

Amazon began to remove IPG titles from the Kindle Store at the beginning of the week when the two entities could not agree on terms on a new contract. The pullout is only for the ebooks, the printed editions of the same titles are still available at Amazon. [Read more…]

Kobo Touch with Ads Will Retail for $99

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A week ago, we reported on the acquisition of Toronto-based ebook reader company Kobo by online retail giant Rakuten. The acquisition is seen as a beneficial move that will give Kobo the leverage to finally directly compete with the other two giant e-book reader brands being made by Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

The competition for your e-book reader money is really going to heat up this holiday season as Kobo joins the fray with its announcement of a more affordable new e-book reader. The new Kobo Touch is going to be sold by the company for only $99. [Read more…]

Rakuten Buys Kobo for $315M

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For people who are looking for alternative e-readers, Kobo is one company that people usually discover when searching online. Kobo, Toronto-based company, is both an e-reader and e-book publishing company. Kobo actually has more than 2.5 million books in its catalogue, which is quite a significant number that allows it to squarely compete with both Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. Kobo’s potential has not been left unnoticed, Rakuten, one of the top e-commerce businesses worldwide has bought Kobo to the tune of $315 million. [Read more…]

Barnes and Noble Gives Nook More Features, and Games!

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Whether we like it or not, we have to give Apple some credit for releasing its magical iPad tablet. Despite its shortcomings and minor flaws the iPad has managed to stir up the otherwise sleeping tablet computer industry and the e-reader market. Several brands are now in a rush to come up with something better than than the iPad.

For Barnes and Noble it’s much easier to do this because Nook is already out even before the iPad hit the market. So, what B&N can do right now is update Nook’s features and make it a better e-reader than the iPad. And it is doing this right now as it announces some new features for Nook such as Read In Store and the addition of some games that Nook owners can play on their device. These were made possible via a software update to v1.3.

The beta Read in Store feature allows Nook owners you to read ebooks while your inside a Barnes & Noble store. You Nook will automatically connect to the Nook online bookstore and let you read titles from the B&N online bookstore even if the books are physically out of stock. While inside the store, you can read ebooks up an hour per day. B&N also plans to make some current edition newspapers and magazines available for in-store reading soon.

“Our digital customers will feel at home in our stores with Read In Store, which puts a digital spin on the popular Barnes & Noble bookstore experience that millions of our customers enjoy each day. At no cost, NOOK customers can browse through our robust collection of digital content while enjoying their favorite beverage in our café,” said Tony Astarita, Vice President, Digital Products, Barnes & Noble.com.

In addition to these, Barnes & Noble has also included new games and other entertainment features to Nook including Chess and Soduku.

While the Nook v1.3 software update includes the following new features and enhancements:

  • improved page turn speed, enhanced color touch screen navigation, faster access to previously opened eBooks  and more
  • high-speed connectivity to more hotspots
  • built-in web browser
  • updated homescreen

Nook v1.3 is available to download from www.nook.com/update or you may want to wait for automatic update in the coming weeks.

Tell Your Kids “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” via a Cool iPhone App

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Aside from being a very useful all-around mobile phone for business professionals, students and your average joe’s, the iPhone is also very child-friendly.  My 5 year old daughter loves using her mother’s iPhone 3G to listen to music, play kiddie games and even take photos.

I’m pretty sure  my daughter as well as the million of kids who are allowed by their parents to use their iPhones would love this new iPhone app – “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Yes folks, it’s the classic Christmas tale from Dr. Seuss getting a fresh treatment by way of a cool iPhone app.

The good thing is, it’s not only just your ordinary kiddie iPhone game because it is sort of an interactive ebook as well. Your kids could learn about this classic tale by letting the app read the story to them or they can read them on their own.

The app is also an educational tool for kids. They can tap on an item on the screen and listen to how it’s name is pronounced as well as see the word itself. The app also allows panning and zooming on the content of the ebook through touch gesture – hence the interactivity part.

When you’re kid choose to let the app read the ebook, each of the words are highlighted – an effective way of teaching kids some language lessons.

Ok before this post starts to sound like an iPhone app review, let me end here.

If you’ve got kids whom you think will enjoy this app, you can grab it from the iTunes Apps Store for $3.99.  A bit higher than your usual $0.99 iPhone app, but is definitely much cheaper than standard ebooks you find at Amazon.