Samsung might have already started rolling out the third generation of Galaxy Tabs with the Tab 3 7.0, but that doesn’t mean it has forgotten all about the aging members of the family introduced back in 2011 and 2012. In fact, one of those, the Galaxy Tab 7.7, is reported to be receiving some much awaited and at one point highly unlikely love in the form of beans. Jelly Beans, to be somewhat specific. Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, to be fully specific. The 4.1.2 update is slowly but surely making its way through Asia, being expected in Europe and North America in the...

StoryBundle Launches Video Game-Themed E-Book Campaign (Good e-Reader) Is Nigeria Ready for the E-Book Revolution? (This Day Live) How I overcame snobbery to self-publish an e-book (The Telegraph) Samsung filed for e-book page-turning patent (Slash Gear) The Progressive Opens E-Book Line (GalleyCat) E-Book Deal: Self-Improvement E-Book Bundle...

Here's why American Airlines chose Samsung over Apple when it bought 17,000 tablets (Business Insider) Top novelists look to e-books to challenge the rules of fiction (The Guardian) Beware Random House's E-Book Imprints (Forbes) Mythical Hydra Beast: Pros and Cons (Digital Book World) Kindle Daily Deals: The Chronicles of Narnia books for $1.99/ea. (and others) ...

February 2013 had a cornucopia of Apple lawsuits in all parts of the world, from Australia to Texas to a woman in bed. ♦ The Australian government thinks Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe are charging too much for their products. Now they’ve been summoned to an Australian government inquiry and threatened with legal consequences if they don’t show up. Although Apple did testify in private, they refused to do so in public hearings and that wasn’t good enough. ♦ Although I was irritated when the iPad got updated much faster than expected, suing Apple didn’t cross my mind. That’s not the case in Brazil where the Brazilian Institute...

When looking for a new tablet, it seems consumers have Apple on the brain. The Yankee Group recently disclosed the results of a December survey in which it asked, "What brand of tablet do you intend to buy [next]?" For Apple, it was good news as nearly half of the 506 questioned picked the iconic brand. Apple Insider contends this is bad news for the rest of the tablet market, as 47 percent of surveyed consumers mentioned their intention to purchase an iPad. That left 26 percent of respondents going for an Android-based tablet, and 23 percent saying they were unsure, or didn’t know. Just one percent...

  By David Wogahn There seemed to be a sigh of relief the last few months of 2012 as the trade publishing establishment trumpeted the slowing growth of e-book sales. It may indeed be slowing, but the pain of adjusting to new economies of scale, changing consumer habits, technology adoption and lack of business model options are even bigger threats to the independence of large traditional publishers. The digital revolution has had an undeniable impact on how businesses operate. Costly technology and complex analog media production (music, publishing, film) are no longer the purview of large organizations. With lower technology costs and easy...

From the Never-Ending Rumor Mill Department this afternoon comes the story of an anonymously-sourced article that appeared in last Thursday's edition of the San Jose Mercury-News. The story, which also ran in the Guardian and numerous other print and online publications, suggests that Google CEO Larry Page and Apple CEO Tim Cook "had a phone conversation last week," following Apple's $1.05 billion win over Samsung. Reuters reporters Alexei Oreskovic and Poornima Gupta appear to have been the team that broke the story; the following quote, regarding the possible subject of Page and Cook's discussion, comes from their report: "One possible scenario under consideration could be a truce involving disputes over basic...

The number of ereaders may go down by one.  As a legal matter, this granting of a preliminary injunction is quite unusual.  Such an injunction is only granted if the court thinks that it is likely that a permanent injunction will be granted after a full hearing.  From the Reuters report: ... U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, had previously denied Apple's bid for an injunction on the tablet and multiple Galaxy smartphones. However, a federal appeals court instructed Koh to reconsider Apple's request on the tablet. "Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right...

Bonnie Cha, of All Things Digital, takes a look at Samsung's latest 7" tablet and compares it with the Kindle Fire: An e-book or tablet is travel-friendly and capable of holding multiple books; in the case of tablets, they also allow you to surf the Web, play games, watch videos and more. There is no shortage of devices to choose from, with the likes of the Amazon Kindle Fire, the iPad and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. But this week, I took a look at Samsung’s latest Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. [ See post to watch video ] The...

For those interested in reading ebooks on an Android tablet (other than the Kindle Fire) Samsung is the obvious choice.  Their tablet lineup, however, is very confusing.  GottaBeMobile has an excellent round-up of the current Samsung offerings, along with comparison tables and recomendations.  Here's the beginning: Samsung’s newest tablet, the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, goes on sale this weekend for $249. It will be the fourth 7-inch Galaxy Tab the company has released in the past couple of years and is very close in design and hardware to the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, which came out at the end of last...

Another ruling from a European court on the Apple vs. Samsung lawsuits over the Galaxy Tab’s design has come in, and it doesn’t bode well for Apple. An appeals court in The Hague, Netherlands dismissed Apple’s patent-infringement attempt to get the Galaxy Tab banned from sale in the country, following up on Apple’s appeal after a lower court’s similar decision in August. The court made its decision based on at least two pieces of prior art for each of Apple’s claims, determining that Apple’s claims were therefore narrow enough that they had not been infringed. Next week, a German...

Our sister blog Gadgetell reports that Samsung has started to sell the Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0 directly through its website, for $229.99 and $269.99 respectively. Both devices have similar specs: 800 x 480 resolution on 4” or 5” screens (just a bit less than the current iPod Touch’s 960 x 640 at 3.5”, but certainly better than its prior 480 x 320), 8 GB internal memory with a microSD card slot for expansion, front-facing camera and 3.2 megapixel rear camera (compare that to the iPod Touch’s 1 MP camera), Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11 b/g/n wifi, and Android Market access. They...