eReaders

Geoff Morrison’s “Undersea” Only .99 On Kindle!

I am always on the hunt for a good book, especially during the summertime. Once on a week’s vacation to the beach I blew through 12 books! Needless to say, I try to bargain hunt for new titles. So Geoffrey Morrison’s book “Undersea”, for only .99 on Kindle, has caught my eye! Here’s the description: In a world flooded and irradiated by a nearly forgotten cataclysm generations passed, all that remains of civilization clings to life in two war-torn, city-sized submarines. For fifty years, the only peace between them has come from separation. Now, young councilwoman Ralla Gattley has uncovered…

Reviews

ReAuthored for New iPad; from Dead Tree Book to iPad Case

We’ve seen a lot of cases for the iPad (and there are many more to come). Some follow a familiar theme, while others are more unique. The case we are looking at in this review is one of those “more unique” ones. It comes from a company called ReAuthored, and it gives new life to old books even as it protects the “book-killer” that is the iPad. The iPad cases they offer are approximately 11″ high, 8.5″ wide and .5″ deep. They weigh about a pound. Why are the dimensions and weight just “approximate”? Simple. ReAuthored cases are made from…

Reviews

Us+U Swivel Portfolio for Kindle Fire Review

Sarah has had a Kindle Fire since Christmas, and she loves it. She uses it for reading, watching movies, and playing games. For a while her primary case was one she found at Brookstone that was clearly a repurposed Blackberry Playbook case. So Sarah was very excited when we had the chance to check out the US+U Swivel Portfolio! US+U is not just a typical case maker though. They give 3% of the net revenue from each case to various charities, meaning purchasing this case does more than outfit your Fire, it does something good for the world at the…

eBooks

The Worst Solution Ever for “Show Rooming”

If you listen to traditional retailers, online websites like Amazon are hurting them through what’s called “showrooming”, where the retail store becomes a place for consumers to check out items, but buy them online instead. There’s a lot of debate over the solutions (Target pulled all their Kindles, for example) but Rich Adin at The Digital Reader has the worst suggestion I have ever seen: Of course, there is no practical way to prevent such comparison shopping by consumers. A b&m retailer can fight back by no longer carrying any Amazon-branded merchandise, which is the approach Target took, but that…

eBooks

Search and Replace Meets the Kindle, the NOOK, and Tolstoy

Public domain titles are a tricky area for ebooks. On the one hand, a bit of digging can get you a free copy of a title easily. But paying a nominal amount sometimes means a better quality copy, with typos and other issues properly corrected. Unless, of course, you bought “War and Peace” for your NOOK. According to Poynter, a company named “Superior Formatting Publishing” put out a copy of “War and Peace” for the Kindle. Then they made one for the NOOK. In a mind-boggling bit of sloppiness, they did an automatic search and replace every time “Kindle” appeared,…

eBooks, Reviews

Speck FitFolio Case for Kindle Fire Review

I love my Kindle Fire and use it regularly, nestled in the Oberon ‘Celtic Hounds’ design case. I am very happy with the feel and utility of that case, so anything else has a tough road against the incumbent. Speck recently sent us a FitFolio case to review for the Kindle Fire, so let’s have a look! The Hype: FitFolio is a Kindle Fire case that combines the fit of a precision-molded hard shell case, with the cover-to-cover protection in a book-style folio. The form-fit hard-shell cradle keeps your Kindle Fire securely in place, so it doesn’t slip or slide,…

News & Features, Travel

AViiQ Portable Charging Station with Cable Rack System Now Avaialable

We reviewed AViiQ’s portable travel station last August (read the review). It is a great way to charge and sync numerous devices from one wall outlet. It also is a convenient and “clean” way to carry a charge/sync hub in a compact accessory. It was not, however, without it’s faults. Primary among the issues I found was the fact that the cable management system, consisting of overlapping fabric slots, wasn’t the easiest way to keep everything neat and tidy. Now AViiQ is back with an updated version. It costs a bit more than the original (which appears to still be…

eBooks

Where Is the Future for Bookstores?

I was at a wedding over the weekend, and I tried making small talk with the gentleman seated next to me. As it turned out, he was from Chicago; we started chatting about the last time I was there for a work conference, which was held above a Barnes and Noble. He laughed and told me the Barnes and Noble is closed. In fact, between B&N tightening stores and Borders going bankrupt, Chicago is down to just two Barnes and Nobles to serve the large-scale bookstore needs for the city. This was quite a disappointment to my new buddy, as…

eBooks

Amazon to Offer the Entire Harry Potter Series Through PRIME Lending

Harry Potter arrived in ebook form earlier this year, which was exciting all by itself. At the same time, if you already purchased the HP series in book form, it can be hard to pony up again for the ebooks. Amazon has come up with a solution, by offering the entire series through their Kindle Prime Lending Library! From the press release: Read all of J.K. Rowling’s iconic Harry Potter series for free on your Kindle Kindle Owners’ Lending Library now includes more than 145,000 books, including over 100 current and former New York Times Best Sellers SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May. 10,…

Gear Bits

SNL Parodies Amazon and the Kindle (NSFW!)

Sarah and I started watching “Saturday Night Live” again recently because one of our favorite sketch comedians, Kate McKinnon, joined the cast. Thank goodness for DVR, as it lets us skip the less entertaining sketches easily. It also allows us to re-watch the truly hysterical ones, like their flat-out brilliant parody of Amazon and “50 Shades of Gray“.

eBooks

Barnes & Noble NOOK with Glowlight Breaks into Television

Now that it is May, and we are in the Mother’s Day/Father’s Day/Graduation season, Barnes and Noble is unleashing a huge ad campaign to promote the NOOK Simple Touch With Glowlight. They’ve put together a cute video that highlights the benefits of being able to read in bed with the lights off, but still have the benefits of an eInk device. The video is below, and B&N already has spots running in prime time. I know this because I sat down to read Barnes and Noble’s press release and clicked on the YouTube video roughly 2.5 seconds before the commercial…

eBooks

Target Ends Their Kindle Chapter

Amazon and Target used to be good buddies. Amazon helped run Target’s website, Target was the first place outside of Amazon.com to sell Kindles. It looks like that friendship is over, as Target has announced rather abruptly that mid-May they will be dropping the entire Kindle line from Target stores due to a “conflict of interest”. However, arch-rival NOOK will be still be carried by Target, making it clear this is specific to Amazon. So what changed? Target isn’t saying, and neither is Amazon, but it isn’t hard to read between the lines here. Amazon was the big winner…

eBooks, News & Features

Are eInk Holding’s Earnings a Sign of a Non-Tablet Reader Slowdown?

Here’s some news to file under the “maybe a concern” category. It looks like eInk Holdings, the company that makes those beautiful eInk screens for NOOKs and Kindles, had a bad quarter. According to DigiTimes, this was their first set of poor earnings in over two years, and the company is saying it was due to “inventory adjustments”, aka they had fewer orders for new screens. This isn’t good news, but I wouldn’t hold a funeral for eInk just yet. Yes, we are coming off a holiday season where the hot items were the NOOK Color and Tablet and the…

eBooks

Tor Goes DRM-Free, but Does It Change Anything for eBooks?

The big news in ebooks this week is that Tor, a division of Macmillan, is going DRM-free on their whole catalog (including books sold at Amazon and B&N). Needless to say, everyone who follows ebooks is very excited, and for good reason. This is a big step in chipping away at the “walled garden” style eBookstores we have now, where B&N books have different DRM than Kindle books, etc. But who really benefits here? Obviously, we as consumers win here. If this succeeds, ebook libraries will become portable. You won’t need to stress about picking a Kindle and missing out…

Reviews

DEEP BASS Active Control Headphone Amplifier for iOS Devices Review

Last week we took a look at the latest iOS app from SRS labs. The app takes the audio coming from the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and enhances it in remarkable ways. The main downside with the app is that in order to get the audio enhancement you need to use the app for your music. Try to listen to music from any other source, for example Spotify, and you are out of luck. There is, however, a way to enhance ANY audio coming from your iOS device and it comes in the form of a new audio adapter…

eBooks, Editorials

What’s Next for eBooks after the DoJ Settlement?

Today was a big, big day for eBook fans! The Department of Justice agreed with everyone who has been screaming for three years that the “agency model” was unfair, anti-competitive and anti-consumer. They settled with several publishers, though Apple and Macmillan are still fighting the DoJ in court. So, what did the settlement today do? And how will it impact the future of ebooks? Read on for my thoughts! The Settlement: I am going to defer to Wired here, as they quickly had an excellent breakdown of what the settlement states: Terminate its current contracts with Apple within seven days…

Game Diary, Reviews

Mahjongg Artifacts Chapter 2 for the Kindle Fire Review

Not long ago I reviewed the Kindle Fire version of Mahjongg Artifacts. Now we get a look at the sequel, which had found tremendous success as one of the most popular PSP Minis. Ironically the sequel was released before the original game on that platform, but on the Kindle Fire both were released together. The original game was excellent on the Fire, let’s see how the sequel plays! The Hype: Mahjongg Artifacts: Chapter 2 is highly addictive tile-matching game with millions of players on PC and other platforms. It takes tile-matching games in an exciting new direction! Pair up tiles…

Game Diary, Reviews

Youda Survivor Kindle Fire Game Review

Youda Survivor joins games like Civilization Revolution, Jack of All Tribes and Tiny Token Empires and other casual strategy games that have journeyed to handheld tablets. These games all work well with the touchscreen interface, present more than a trivial experience, and are still playable in small time increments. All of those games are available on the iPad … but Youda Survivor is the first one to venture to the Kindle Fire! Let’s take a look! The Hype: For all real fans of time management games – the most frenzied adventure yet! Can you survive on a mysterious island as…

eBooks

Amazon Kindle Newsstand Versus Zinio on iPad

I took the plunge recently and bought a new iPad! One of the first things I looked into was Zinio, based on the exuberant reviews of the other Gear Diary editors. Then I realized I hardly read magazines. So while I peeked at a few prices and poked around, I didn’t really give digital magazines much thought. Today I was doing my usual Amazon Kindle browsing to find some new reading materials, and I stumbled on the price for “Running Times”, one of the magazines I had considered on Zinio. The price was $20/year on Zinio, but only $0.83 an…

Game Diary, Reviews

Mahjongg Artifacts for the Kindle Fire Review

The Hype: Escape from the rush of modern life into the immersive ancient atmosphere of Mahjongg Artifacts®! The prequel to Mahjongg Artifacts: Chapter 2 and a new fan-favorite comes with three gameplay modes which take you through five exotic cultures. It also comes with innovative gameplay twists, like Special Tiles that allow you to use new strategies to clear layouts, Bonuses for skillful play and Trophies for special accomplishments. Story Mode features an epic quest for lost relics, Classic mode allows you to choose the layout you want to play, and Endless mode allows you to remove tiles from an…

Game Diary, Reviews

The Magician’s Handbook: Cursed Valley for Kindle Fire Review

Hidden object adventures continue to evolve on smartphones and tablets, with PC games being ported that are more complex, more interesting and have better stories. The success of games from folks like G5 Entertainment has resulted in an explosion in the category. The latest one to try to capture the Kindle Fire gamer’s interest is the Magician’s Handbook, which I already reviewed for the iPad. Let’s see how it does! The Hype: Remove the evil curse in this captivating adventure by finding hidden objects in the dark and mysterious Cursed Valley! The fabled “Magician’s Handbook” has fallen into your hands….

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