E-Books

An upcoming update will bring a web browser, email and update store app to Barnes & Noble’s super affordable Nook Simple Touch line of e-readers, which will begin rolling out June 1 according to a source close to the matter who wishes to remain anonymous. The 1.5.0 update was created in response to the positive Continue Reading →

Google has updated its Play Books e-reader apps for iOS and Android to include support for EPUB and PDF files from outside the Play Store. The new feature has been enabled as part of Google’s strategy to unite its cloud services, allowing users to either upload their ebooks via its website, or import them from Continue Reading →

Microsoft is offering to pay $1 billion to buy the digital assets of Nook Media LLC, the digital book and college book joint venture with Barnes & Noble and other investors, according to internal documents.  In this plan, Microsoft would redeem preferred units in Nook Media, which also includes a college textbook division, leaving it Continue Reading →

Put away that Kindle Paperwhite – there’s a new e-reader in town with an even clearer screen. Kobo, the go-to e-reader for bookstores looking to distance themselves from Amazon, recently unveiled its Aura HD, the world’s first HD e-reader. With 25 percent more pixels per inch than the Paperwhite, the Aura has the highest resolution Continue Reading →

Barnes & Noble’s refusal to open its ecosystem has long been one of our primary complaints about the company’s tablet offerings. The Nook HD and HD+ are extremely nice pieces of hardware that have been held back by their own walled software offerings — having a fast device with a nice screen only gets you Continue Reading →

Well, this process seems a bit counterintuitive, eh? This morning, Barnes & Noble introduced a new scheme for getting Nook customers to visit the company’s retail stores. The promotion nets you one free e-book when you purchase another, but — and this is where the offer tripped us up a bit — you can only Continue Reading →

Amazon announced a number of new features for its Kindle for iOS app that aim to make it easier to use for blind and visually impaired users. Wednesday’s update, Amazon says, will make it easier for these users to use features like “X-Ray, End Actions, sharing, highlighting and bookmarking.” Amazon says these new features are Continue Reading →

On Wednesday, Amazon released its annual list of the “most well-read cities in America.” The ranking is established using the total sales of books, magazines and newspapers, both in print and in Kindle formats, since June 2012. The list works on a per-capita basis in cities that count more than 10,000 residents. Just as last Continue Reading →

High-def finally has come to e-readers. Kobo’s new Aura HD features a stunning 6.8-inch 265 PPI (pixels per inch, for the techno-illiterate), the highest resolution screen of any of the major e-readers on the market. Our favorite e-reader, the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, sports a “mere” 212 PPI. The higher resolution should ease eyestrain while burning Continue Reading →

It’s well off the triple year-over-year growth that e-books saw a few years ago, but the latest report from the Association of American Publishers shows that e-books did inch up even further in 2012 to account for a sizeable chunk of overall book sales. According to its figures, e-books now represent 22.55 percent of US Continue Reading →