Amazon has been running a promotion with a new smartphone-based price-checking tool that lets users scan the barcodes of items in stores and compare the prices to items Amazon sells to earn 5% store store credit per item for up to three items (excluding books). Amazon has been coming in for a bit of criticism for the promotion, given that it is trying to pull even more dollars away from brick and mortar retailers at the time of year when they make the greatest amount of sales. Author Richard Russo has a fairly long opinion piece on this in...

Black Friday is almost upon us, and it bids fair to be an e-reader kind of holiday season. There’s no word yet from Amazon on any discounts on its Kindle products (though it seems to be discounting just about everything else), but Barnes & Noble has announced a special deal on a “Limited Edition” of its Nook Simple Touch e-reader—in stores only, it’s knocking $20 off the price. This brings it down to $79—on par with Amazon’s lowest-tier ad-supported Kindle price. Amusingly, one of its listed benefits is No Annoying Ads Reading...

If you're one of those people who loads up your iOS device with lots of apps, you've possibly already experienced the problem Martin Taylor is having this morning: When I try to download an ebook from the Kobo store using the Safari web browser on my iPad -- this is the new procedure users must follow now that Kobo's in-app store has been cut off from the iPhone and iPad -- the ebooks won't open in the Kobo reading app. Instead, what I was offered to open my Kobo ebook was a choice of Bluefire or OverDrive, two Adobe DRM-compliant reading...

While reading various articles today about the forthcoming Amazon tablet, it struck me that of all the giant media companies entering this space, only Amazon routinely and successfully sells physical goods across a vast array of product categories—not just consumer electronics or digital media, but houseware, printed books, clothing, tools, toys, lamps, those little pet sweaters, luggage, and so on. An Amazon tablet that ships pre-loaded with access to everything Amazon has to offer, including its no-brainer payment options like One-Click and Prime, means it can provide something no other competitor can: a portable, interactive, instant-gratification sales catalog, the 21st...

And speaking of Christmas gifts, Wired has a guide to what to look for when buying a tablet computer. The article notes that, even though Apple is still the frontrunner, enough tablets have emerged to offer credible alternatives, and offers a number of areas in which to compare each model to decide which one is best for you (or whoever the gift’s recipient will be). One important area of consideration is the type, size, resolution, and dot pitch of screen, which can be important for readability. You should also consider wireless connections, because for media-rich applications it is important...

Our sister blog Appletell spotted an Engadget story pointing out that select TJ Maxx stores are carrying the 16 GB wifi iPad for $399—$100 off the list price of $499. That’s not “carrying it on Black Friday,” that’s carrying it now. If you’re interested and want to snag one, probably best get there as soon as you see this story; at a price like that, it’s doubtful they’ll stick around long. Of course, given that it is probably only 4 months or so until the next generation of iPad comes out, it is possible you might rather wait for...

The New York Times suggests that this is going to be the “tipping point” holiday season for e-book readers. Though Kindles have been hot Christmas gifts over the last couple of years, this is the first season that e-readers are going to be widely available for under $150 (and indeed, under $100 in some cases). This means, in turn, that a lot more e-books are going to be sold to read on those e-readers. The NYT article has figures from various sources suggesting that over ten million e-book readers will be in circulation by the end of the year,...

AppleInsider reports that someone with knowledge of Apple’s future plans has leaked to them that a version of the iPad with a FaceTime camera is already in “advanced testing stages.” Further, AppleInsider expects that Apple will be releasing the device in time for the holiday season. While this would represent a considerable shortening of the traditional about-12-month product cycle for Apple devices—the iPad was only released back in April—it would give Apple FaceTime capability across all its mobile product lines, giving it the head start it needs to ward off compatible tablet competitors before opening the FaceTime standard...

Nieman Journalism blogger Martin Langeveld posts a whitepaper currently being presented at a journalism conference at the University of Missouri in Columbia. The whitepaper reflects on the ways that the iPad will change the face of publishing. Langeveld writes: iPad is not a linear, incremental development. It’s not a simple next step after everything that has preceded it (even iPhone); it’s a new direction that will have unpredictable impacts on digital behavior. He then proceeds to…predict these “unpredictable impacts”. They include a substantial increase in mobile shopping, as the iPad provides...