Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader has noticed that Augen—the cheap-Chinese-junk e-reader, tablet, and netbook company that placed some rock-bottom-priced units in Kmart last year—has apparently bitten the dust. Hoffelder heard from a woman whose warranty-serviced Augen unit was never returned. When she tried to find out had happened to it, the woman discovered that Augen’s website was down (and has been for over a month), and neither she nor Hoffelder got any responses to emails sent to company reps. While this is not necessarily conclusive proof, it certainly looks bad for the company. From what I...

MobileRead forum poster RadioMan52 says that “a few ‘in the know’ mass marketing individuals” have told him that cheap-Chinese electronics importer Augen is going to be ditching its $99 “The Book” e-book reader. Similar in form factor to the Literati that I just received for review, “The Book” is being sold through K-mart stores, and on kmart.com (where it is currently listed as out of stock). RadioMan52’s sources tell him that $100-price-range Android tablets are going to be available for the Christmas season. These devices will have resistive touchscreens, like the Pandigital Novel, and be capable of...

Even though iPads and other tablets have largely usurped the limelight, netbooks are not going gently into that good night. And with good reason. The netbook is still a perfectly functional form factor for when you need a miniature alternative to a laptop, and could be great for e-reading if you’re willing to overlook the awkwardness of the mini-laptop form factor (or simply turn it on its side to use it like a tablet with a large sideways keyboard hanging off of it). Here are a few interesting netbook-related stories that have surfaced recently. Augen, More Often ...

Important news from Google. The say that the current version of Android is not designed for tablets. This means that only a few of the new tablets coming to market will be able to access the Android market. Be careful of what you buy right now! Here's the info from Liliputing: The problem is that Google hasn’t officially given these devices its blessing yet — and Google mobile director Hugo Barra tells Tech Radar that the company probably won’t until a future version of Android that’s optimized for tablets is available. In other words, that shiny new...

Yesterday we mentioned that Google had stated that the $150 Augen tablet and $100 smartbook included a number of unauthorized closed-source applications (Market, Gmail, etc.). Now Engadget reports that Augen has issued a press release stating the apps were installed on the devices for “testing purposes” during development, and were accidentally left in the production version of the operating system. Augen says that it and Google have come to an understanding that, though it can’t do anything about the products that have already shipped, it will remove the controversial apps from future production runs of its...

Following up to my post about Augen devices last night, I just called the Kmart in Branson and spoke to them, and what they had in stock was the e-book reader, and one remaining unit of an Augen netbook different from the one Engadget found. Engadget’s find was an Android “smartbook” with a 400 MHz processor and 128 megabytes of RAM, but Branson has one clearanced unit of what appears to be this model listed for $75 (currently out of stock) on Geeks.com, or $67.99 + $9.99 shipping at NewEgg (apparently in stock), a Windows CE “smartbook” with...

In a related matter to Paul’s last post, I’ve just gotten off the phone again with my three local Kmart stores inquiring after the Augen devices. At the one where I used to work, it seems that they’ve gotten so many calls about it that as soon as I said nothing more than, “Electronics, please,” the customer service rep who first answered my call said, “If this is about that computer thing in the circular, we’re out of stock…” When I spoke to the electronics department anyway, the electronics associate said they had gotten maybe two of them...

TechCrunch has a piece looking at the new low-cost tablet and e-reader devices planned by Copia (as well as a Copia iPad app). We’ve covered Copia before; the readers’ “gimmick” is supposed to be a unique social-networking component to the devices, allowing readers to exchange reviews and recommendations about books. They recently announced new pricing on their devices. Another TechCrunch writer uses the opportunity to suggest that we are seeing a repeat of the pricing race to the bottom that happened with netbooks: everyone is coming out with cheap devices, and most of them will be junk. John...

The Augen 7” Android tablet that Paul mentioned yesterday is proving to be hard to find. I called all three of the Kmart stores in the Springfield area, and none of them had received either it, or the 7” “smartbook” I mentioned Engadget reviewing yesterday. (The tablet was the only device featured in the sales circular—the smartbook was nowhere to be found, and the electronics associate didn’t know about it.) I was able to get a rain check for the tablet, though that does not necessarily mean the store will actually carry it. I probably won’t buy...