Nate Hoffelder

I just got an email from a pr contact with Barnes and Noble. They know what Amazon did today and they’re not taking it lying down.

I was sent the following quote:

With up to two months on a single charge, the All-New NOOK has the longest-battery life in the industry and superior battery performance to Kindle 3. In our side-by-side tests, under the exact same conditions, continuous use of the device resulted in more than two times Kindle’s battery life. While reading at one page a minute, the All-New NOOK battery lasts for 150 hours where the Kindle battery, using the same page-turn rate, lasts for only 56 hours (both with Wi-Fi off). We’ve also done a continuous page turn test and at one page turn per second, the All-New NOOK offers more than 25,000 continuous page turns on a single charge.

-Jamie Iannone, President of Barnes & Noble Digital Products

According to B&N, the new Nook has 3 times the practical battery life of the K3. B&N pretty much called Amazon a liar for manipulating the battery life claims.

Oh, this promises to be so much fun!

I’ve just added a new netbook to my collection. The 100CT is a 10 year old, 2.5lbs brick, but mine isn’t in nearly as good cosmetic condition as the one above.

It’s running Windows 2000 on a 166MHz CPU with 64MB RAM, 4GB hard disk, and a 7.1” screen. It also has 2 PC card slots, a small speaker, and mike and headphone jacks. Mine came with an external floppy drive and a docking station (which provided access to a VGA, a serial, a parallel, and a PS2 port). The screen is 7”, which should give you an idea of the general dimensions.

If you look at the photo you’ll see a small circle to the right of the screen. It’s a trackmouse. There are also a pair of mouse buttons on the backside for the screen. If you put your thumb on the trackmouse and grip the screen then the mouse buttons should be right under your fingers.

It is surprisingly zippy for such an old system. I’m not going to try to install anything new, but it’s a little surprising how much WinXP software will work on such a limited CPU. So far I’ve installed Mobipocket Desktop, MSReader, and a few other basics. Lucky for me it came with a lot of the usual apps you’d expect to see on a laptop (Opera even), which saved me from having to go looking for them.

I got it because I didn’t have a Win2k system nor did I have one of the old Librettos. I wanted to get it so I can use it as proof of how bloated modern OSes are. I’ve got a full desktop OS running on a 166MHz CPU and it’s only slightly more out of date than WinXP. Can you imagine what would happen if I tried to run Win7 or Android on this? *snicker*

Edit: I’m looking at some of the kobo people’s twitter feeds and they’ve already announced the new Kobo Touch. Folks, if you’re going to break your own embargo then there’s no reason for me to follow it.

Kobo has just announced their new ereader, and it’s a doozy. It’s based on a 6″ Pearl E-ink screen and it uses the new touchscreen tech from Neonode (like on the new Sony Readers). It has Wifi, 1GB Flash, and a microSD card slot.

Do you see that button below the screen? That’s the Home button, and it’s only one on the front of the device. Kobo have gotten rid of the 4 buttons on the edge as well as the d-pad that was on the front. Everything’s done on the touchscreen now. This new ereader was developed in partnership with Freescale and IDEO. Like the Kobo Wifi, the Kobo Touch is running on a Freescall CPU.

BTW, they’re not killing the old model. It’s staying around with a suggested retail of $99.

I was a little disappointed that this wasn’t a tablet style device, but in retrospect it makes sense. Anyone who wants a tablet style Kobo ereader can get an Android tablet (or the iPad). The new Kobo Touch moves into a niche that Kobo hadn’t occupied before.

The new ereader should show up for pre-order at Best Buy (Canada), Walmart (Canada), Indigo, and Borders (US) some time today. It’s also going to show up with Kobo’s Australian partners, but they don’t have a date on that.

If you’re in the market for a NookColor then you might want to keep an eye out for the latest production run. According to Engadget, Barnes & Noble have screwed around with the internal storage. If you find a NC with a little blue dot on the box, it means that you’re holding a  buggered tablet. B&N have cut the user accessible storage to only 1GB. They’ve decided to reserve the other 4GB for content you bought from them.

I suppose it doesn’t matter much; if you hack it and install CM7 (or some other firmware) that restriction won’t mean diddly. But it’s the principle of the thing that bothers me. Barnes & Noble think that they should have more control over your property than you.

via Engadget

Boy Genius Report had another hot scoop last night, only this one is about Apple. They’re reporting that Apple are in the middle of a big push to get training materials out to Apple Stores as part of some event for the 10th anniversary of Apple’s retail operation. Said anniversary happens on 19 May 2011.

BGR think this is a sign of a new product launch. I agree, but only because I know something no one else knows (at least it hasn’t hit the tech blogs yet). Apple will be at BEA 2011 next week as an exhibitor.

I hope you were sitting down for that; it’s that important.

I don’t know the last time that Apple exhibited at a trade show; they don’t even go to CES. In fact, I seem to recall that they’ve even skipped some of their own development conferences (correct me if I’m wrong, please).

My best guess is that Apple will be there as a surprise. I don’t know what it is yet, but this is trade show/conference related to ebooks, so that might give us a clue.

An Apple rep just emailed me and pointed out the corrections given to PaidContent, the first blog to pick up the story. The BEA listing for Apple has changed and no longer suggests that Apple are an exhibitor. Now the listing says that Apple will only be meeting with publishers privately.

I’d like to point out that Laura of PaidContent was told that Apple were a first time exhibitor, which she confirmed with the listing. It’s not my mistake, nor hers.

I’m just back from the CES On The Hill event this evening and I have good news, bad news, and fan-fricking-tastic news about about Mirasol. I think I’ll lead with the good news.

How do you light a reflective screen?  I’d go with a clip on light, myself, but the only real way to integrate a light source would be to embed a front light. That’s what Qualcomm did with their new Mirasol demo. And this is indeed their new demo; it’s the first time it’s been shown off.

I wish I were going to SID Display Week next week; they promised to have one with an ambient light sensor. This one had a pair of buttons on the back to increase and decrease the brightness.

The bad news is that the finished products won’t hit the market until fall. Yep, it’s delayed again, darnit.

And the really great news is that Qualcomm offered to fly me to Taiwan next time that they have a sponsored trip. (I can feel the waves of  jealousy from here.) I’m definitely going to take them up on it; there’s no way I could afford it otherwise.

Last week’s story about Yudu and their payment service dredged up some rather interesting details about Apple, ITunes, and the rules that app makers are forced to live with.  I kept waiting for someone to notice but it seems to have slipped by most (edit: but not Mike Cane).

The old rule was that if you sold ebooks outside the app you had to sell them inside the app, too.  Apple lately added a loophole to this rule: don’t sell ebooks outside the app and you won’t have to inside.

I’m sure you know that (for example) the Kindle iOS app uses an ebookstore that’s in a browser, not the app. The app only contains a link to the ebookstore, not the store itself.

As I understand it, if you remove the links leading from the app to the website then the app will be perfectly fine under Apple’s current rules.

Edit: My source pointed out that I neglected to mention a important detail. You can still sync the app with the ebookstore which means you could buy a Kindle ebook on the website and download to your iPad from inside the app. I had assumed everyone would figure that out, but perhaps it’s better to state it.

This is newsworthy because Apple created this loophole only in the last couple months. It marks Apple’s third shift in policy since this started 6 months ago, and this is the rule that will let the ebook apps stay in iTunes.

But don’t take my word for it; go download the bol.com reading app. It was approved on 15 March and it’s missing the link to the Bol.com ebookstore. I’m told they had to remove it in order to get Apple’s approval.

I’m a little surprised that hardly anyone noticed (aside from my source and a Dutch ereader blog). And I really mean it when I say that this was largely unknown; I ran this by a couple app developers and it was new to them.

Barnes & Noble have just told investors that they plan to announce a new ereader later this month. They even filed paperwork with the SEC, which is how I know it happened.

Here’s the total sum of the announcement:

In a meeting with investor analysts on May 4, 2011, Barnes & Noble, Inc. (the “Company”) indicated it expects to make an announcement on May 24, 2011 regarding the launch of a new eReader device.

That’s it. Let the speculation commence!

May 24 is right in the middle of BEA 2011, which would be an excellent time to announce their latest gadget. They announced the Pandigital Novel at about the same time last year.

My guess is that this could be the Mirasol ereader. I have no proof, but it fits with the "before summer" release date promised by Qualcomm.

P.S. This could be why the original Nook kept going on sale this past month. They’re clearing out the stock.

Update: Mike Cane reminded me about the trademarks. B&N have filed for a couple different names that could be used for this new device:  “Nook2? and “Nook 2?, as well as “The Simple Touch Reader.” I’m leaning towards Nook2, but who knows.

via B&N

There’s a story that’s going around today that E-ink’s next ereader screen is delayed until 2012. That’s not accurate, nor is it true. E-ink has been working on a bunch of different uses of their screen tech.

A few weeks ago I caught a presentation  given by Sriram Peruvemba, the head of marketing and business development at E-ink, and I manged to talk him out of the following demo videos. All of these examples could be produced now; all they require is someone to pay the production costs.

The first video shows a SIRF display printed on cloth.  (Think digital billboard.) A SIRF display can’t be used as an ereader screen because it only has a limited number of segments, but you can use it as a sign that flashes on and off. Think of it as functioning like a neon sign, not an ereader screen.

This second video shows an E-ink screen on Tyvex cloth. This cloth is used is difficult to cut or tear and is used as insulation on houses and is also used for shipping envelopes.

And the last video shows video on a color E-ink screen.

Do you recall the obituary I wrote for the Ebookwise-1150? The ereader  above next to the K3 is the Rocket eBook and it’s the grandaddy of the 1150. I thought it would be interesting to show you the oldest best ereader.

It was released in 1999 by a small company called Nuvomedia and sold through Barnes & Noble, and ebooks were only sold on the B&N website. It has a 5.4″ screen (320×240), which was huge for those days. You could load content over a serial (not USB) cable onto the 4MB or 16 MB of Flash storage. It did not have a card slot.

The Rocket eBook shipped in an odd shaped retail box, which I’m sure was a marketing decision (it appealed to my mother, an engineer/geek). The box came with a docking station, serial cable, power supply, stylus, screen cloth, and a very nice zipper case. it also had a driver CD and it referenced a support website (now defunct).

It read its own RB format, and in terms of features it was quite capable for the time. You could underline, bookmark, change font size, and add notes. A properly crafted TOC usually worked, too. The Rocket eBook could be oriented to all 4 directions and you could even calibrate the screen.

This ereader never amounted to much, but it did spawn the EBW-1150, which managed to hold on for 6 years.

P.S. Nuvomedia and another company called Softbook were bought in early 2000 by Gemstar. Gemstar used the design of the Rocket eBook to develop 2 of its ereaders, the GEB-1100 and the REB-1150 (later rebranded as the eBookwise 1150). The 1100 and 1150 look largely identical, and they bear a distinct family resemblance to the Rocket eBook. Softbook was acquired by Gemstar in 2000 so that its ereader, the SoftBook Reader, could be developed into a couple new ereader models.

So the Amazon Appstore has been up and running for a few weeks now, and I’ve managed to break something no less than 3 times.  Yes, I am embarrassed; I should have achieved a score of at least 6.

But I inadvertently learned some fascinating details about the Amazon Appstore, so it’s not a complete loss.

No refunds for apps

I accidentally bought an app while trying it on my PC last week. I’m still not sure how, exactly, but I do know that I didn’t click any buttons. The bad news is Amazon have a policy against refunding apps. Luckily for me, they made an exception.

But I think they only made the exception because I called in with other technical problems. The Appstore client kept insisting that the 3GB of space I had on my SD card wasn’t enough. (I had to reinstall the client.)

Did you know Amazon can remotely disable apps?

More out of curiosity that anything, I downloaded the refunded app. I wanted to see what Amazon would do. Today I tried to run it, and I got a message  saying that I didn’t own it and did I want more details. Yes, Amazon remotely killed the app.

Apps phone home

I left my Viewsonic gTablet sitting at home while I was at a conference last week. The battery died while I was gone, and when I charged again I noticed 2 interesting details. The first is that all the apps wanted to check with Amazon before I could open them. What’s truly curious is that I only have free apps. Some, like the Kindle app, have always been free and always will be free. But even the free Kindle app insisted on contacting Amazon before I could do anything with it.  (BTW, it seems like the apps want to do this on a weekly basis, but I’m not sure.)

Let me put it a different way. If you get the same app from the Android Market, it won’t be quite so crippled by DRM. For example, I’ve had an illicit copy of the Kindle app since forever, and I’ve never encountered this kind of block before.  This strikes me as a pretty damn good reason to abandon the Amazon Appstore.

I also discovered that if you don’t set the date, the apps can’t phone home. I know that that is a common Android design flaw, but it’s irritating nonetheless. It’s also laughable that it still exists in 2011.

—

So those are some of the quirks I’ve noticed with the Amazon Appstore. I haven’t seen any mention of problems elsewhere, so I thought this post was worthwhile. Have you had any trouble?

Fictionwise quietly retired the world’s longest running ereader some time in the last couple months. You can still buy ebooks, but the hardware is no longer listed. It’s a pity that they didn’t announce it because it truly deserved an obituary.

I was about to pull my EBW-1150 out of the  closet and do a post, but I guess it’s too late.

Ebookwise, a subsidiary of Fictionwise, launched the EBW-1150 back in November 2004 (retail was $99.95), and continued to sell it until the end of 2010. It had a 5.5″ (320×480) grayscale LCD touchscreen, 64MB Flash storage, a Smart Media card slot, a USB port, and a modem.

What’s even more amazing is that the EBW-1150 was originally released in 2002 as the GEB-1150 (I have one), so this 8 year old hardware was still being sold in 2010. Impressive, no?

It is a little surprising that it lasted so long, but until Kobo started the price war last spring, the 1150 was a relatively cheap ereader. For much of its life it had the distinction of being the only bargain ereader on the US market.

This was a fun little gadget with a couple of surprises built in. Back in 2008, a couple hackers discovered that the 1150 had a (very basic) web browser.  With the help of an app running on your PC, you could actually use the 1150 to surf the web. It didn’t work very well, but it did work.  You know, with the growth of sites designed to work on the Kindle, the browser would probably work better today than it did 2 years ago.

It also was fairly capable as an ereader. It shipped with a dictionary and it supported bookmarks, typed notes, and scribbled notes.

Now that I look back, I have to say that I’m surprised it didn’t dominate the market in its early years. It was a decent value well into 2009. I know people who looked at the Kindle and then bought the 1150.

I wanted to share an elaborate April Fool’s day joke with you.

The folks at Android Police spent much of last week putting together a truly impressive practical joke. the combined plausible pictures, detailed tech specs, and even a faked handout from Amazon.

I nearly fell for it, it’s that good. i also know a bunch of people who should have known better. They fell for it.

The Blaze (Kindle-Blaze, get it?)  is an Android smartphone with a new 4.3″ Mirasol screen. It’s running v2.3 on a dual core CPU, and it has 32GB Flash, an 8GB microSD card, 2 cameras, Bluetooth, and it even has a solar panel on the battery cover.

That last bit was supposed to be the giveaway, but I thought the 32GB Flash was fishy. That seemed a little much if you also get an 8GB card, too.

Here’s the handout they faked. I swear it looks real.

Well done,guys.

via Android Police

Cartoonist Aaron Renier created a wonderful homage to Roald Dahl’s Matilda for the web comic Unshelved. Matilda’s evil, plaid suit sporting father gives the literature-loving Matilda an “iSwindle” and chastises her for wanting to use anything as low-tech as her imagination.

In this cartoon he cleverly skewers the idea of most of the enhanced ebook apps.  I don’t have permission yet to embed it here, and TBH it wouldn’t look very good at 80% of the width. I clipped the 2 most important scenes, and they’re after the break.

via Unshelved

If you’ve been using ebooks for any length of time then you’ve probably encountered DRM.

DRM is why you can’t convert an Epub ebook so you can read it on the Kindle. DRM is why you don’t actually own the ebooks you bought. DRM can restricts your access to movies, music, literature and software, indeed all forms of digital data. It is simply a prison in which users can be put to deprive them of the rights that the law would otherwise allow them.

Naturally, a lot of us aren’t happy about that.

The recent HarperCollins decision to restrict library ebooks has given new strength to the anti-DRM movement, and it inspired Nina Paley to draw these icons. They’re CC licensed, so feel free to use them wherever. You can find several other versions at readersbillofrights.info.