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Nook Simple Touch gets USB host mode support via hack, plays nice with low-power devices (video)
Codemonkeys exhibiting the kindness of strangers? Why, yes, this is such a tale. When XDA Developers member verygreen came across the pleas of one user obsessed with attaching an external USB keyboard to an eReader, he did what any decent hacker would and created a workable solution. Using a loaned Nook Simple Touch, this self-styled Make-A-Wish Hack was able to patch Barnes & Noble's existing kernel, which already supported USB host mode, and send commands over ADB to enable the connection. It's not a foolproof workaround, though, as only low-power devices will function without additional juice and even so, at a great cost to the greyscale device's battery life. Sure, this may not excite you much, but it's certainly made for one very satisfied forum dweller out there in cyberland. After all, isn't that what haxxors are for?
Microsoft and Barnes & Noble agree to eliminate one patent and multiple claims from ITC infringement case
Patent lawsuits start out the same way: company X hurls a slew of infringement allegations at company Y, the court demands that the fat be trimmed, and the case's scope is distilled so that only the strongest claims remain. Microsoft's ITC patent case against Barnes & Noble is currently in the midst of this streamlining process, and the parties have agreed to drop claims from four of the patents at issue and eliminated one patent from the proceedings altogether. A full accounting of all the bits of IP that have been eliminated can be found at the source link below.
Barnes & Noble offers discounted Nooks with one-year subscription to The New York Times
In the market for an e-reader and a subscription to the digital edition of The New York Times? Then Barnes & Noble has a new promotion you might want to consider. From now through March 9th, it'll give you a Nook Simple Touch for free or a Nook Color for $99 if you also sign up for a one-year New York Times subscription at a rate of $19.99/month. That's a savings of $100 in both cases, and the subscription also includes access to the New York Times website in addition to the Nook version. Alternatively, you can get $50 off the Nook Tablet (bringing it down to $199) with a subscription to People, which will run you $9.99/month. Complete details are at the link below.
Barnes & Noble looks to sell publishing arm, keeps the other to hold a Nook Tablet
In a sign of ever shifting priorities in the ole book business, Nook's papa is reportedly looking to sell its publishing unit, Sterling Publishing. According to the Wall Street Journal, B&N acquired Sterling in 2003, ramping up its publishing efforts after more than 30 years in the business. News of a possible sale follows last month's Q2 earnings report that saw a $6.6 million net loss for the bookseller. That same quarter, the company's Nook business took an 85 percent leap forward, landing it a $220 million value. Barnes & Noble has yet to comment.
Plex media app: streaming soon to Nook Tablet and Color
Well, well, if it isn't the famed iOS and Android media jock (read: Plex) making its way to the Nook universe. The application's now gone through yet another good-to-go regime, and if all goes according to plan, it should be hitting Barnes & Noble's virtual stores in the coming days. For those of you out of the loop on Plex's offerings; the service acts as a media server ready to stream online and locally stored content, which are great features to have -- especially when someone limits how your internal storage can be used. We've got no info on how much cash you'll have to spend to start using the goods on your Nook slates, but we can imagine it'll be around the same ($4.99) as its other platform variants.
Nook Tablet update closes sideloading loophole, lacks holiday spirit
Remember all that extra functionality your Nook Tablet used to have? Well, that's what memories are there for. The recently-released Nook 1.4.1 firmware update apparently prevents the Nook Tablet from installing Android apps from non-Barnes & Noble sources. As a result, the unit is confined to the roughly 2,000 apps available through B&N's app store (many of which are priced higher than their Android Market equivalents). This lockdown has already been performed on the Nook Color and trying to sideload a new title will pop up a warning that only apps from the Nook store can be installed on the device. At least it appears that third-party apps already on the tablet will continue to run and there's always the hope of a custom ROM that could reenable the feature on Christmas morning.
Refresh Roundup: week of December 12, 2011
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging to get updated. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery from the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
Nook Color gets multimedia upgrade, further blurs the tablet battle lines
Barnes & Noble's Nook Color is getting a piece of that promised multimedia upgrade. This round features video content from the likes of Netflix and Flixster, access to comics from the true believers at Marvel and a few other tweaks, like the ability to read books in landscape mode, to fully take advantage of that seven-inch display. The update further blurs the lines between the Color, which began life as little more than a color screen e-reader and the recently introduced Nook Tablet, which features souped up internals but an otherwise similar design. The Color is currently priced at $199 -- $50 less than the Tablet -- and will be getting more software upgrades in the future, including access to music services like Pandora and Rhapsody. Press info after the break.
Barnes & Noble's Q2 earnings reveal Nook to be a $220 million business, Nook Tablet said to be fastest-selling yet
Barnes & Noble's second quarter earnings weren't all good news for the company -- it reported a net loss of $6.6 million and an ever-so-slight dip in total sales from $1.90 billion to $1.89 billion -- but it did have a fair bit to boast about on the technology side of things. Sales on its B&N.com website increased 17 percent year-over-year, totaling $206 million for the quarter, and the value of the company's Nook business (including devices and content) now stands at $220 million, up a full 85 percent. The company also revealed that its new Nook Tablet has been the fastest-selling Nook device to date, although it's not providing any specific sales numbers, noting only that it expects to sell "millions of devices" during its third quarter. Additional figures can be found at the source link below.
Engadget's holiday gift guide 2011: e-readers
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! We're well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties surrounding the seasonal shopping experience, so we're here to help you sort out this year's tech treasures. Below is today's bevy of curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. The e-reader space is really -- if you'll pardon the expression -- heating up just in time for the holiday season. Industry leader Amazon dropped the gauntlet yet again, with the introduction of three new devices, including the entry-level fourth generation Kindle (which starts at an enticing $79 for the ad-supported version) and the Kindle Fire, which is helping to further blur the lines between the e-reader and tablet worlds. Not to be outdone, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Sony are also offering up impressive new devices for the holiday season. All in all, there's never been a more exciting time to give the gift of reading.
Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet review
Back in April, the Nook Color underwent a magical change of sorts: a software update that transformed the device from a color screen e-reader into an honest to goodness Android tablet. It was the company's first swipe at the space -- a backdoor approach that beat out fellow e-reader manufacturers like Amazon and Kobo. Its follow-up, the Nook Tablet, marks the company's first out-of-the-box shot at the consumer tablet market. Not to mention, it also goes head to head with the Kindle Fire, a device that's sure to be one of the best-selling gadgets of the holiday season, thanks to its price and wide content selection. Does the Nook Tablet have what it takes to topple the Kindle Fire? Do the product's benefits justify its $50 premium over Amazon's device -- or the recently discounted and soon to be upgraded Nook Color for that matter? Find out the answers to these questions and so, so many more, after the break.%Gallery-139965%%Gallery-139473%
Nook Tablet gets torn down, mysteries of the carabiner unlocked
After last week's Kindle Fire teardown, Barnes & Noble's new slate must have been quaking in its boots. The Nook Tablet just had its moment under the knife, courtesy of screw driver-packing site iFixit. There's really not a whole heck of a lot of surprising things happening inside the $249 device, according to the site. There's a battery that's still emblazoned with a "NOOKCOLOR" under the model number, in spite of the new tablet's better battery life. And then there's 16GB of storage made by SanDisk and that 1GHz dual-core processor. Lots of shots of tablet guts in the source link below.
Switched On: Between a Nook and a hard place
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. In the 1988 comedy Coming to America, a blatant McDonald's rip-off named McDowell's draws the legal ire of the empire built by Ray Kroc. In explaining his pathetic defense that includes noting that McDowell's uses golden arcs instead of golden arches, the eatery's manager notes that while both the Big Mac and his Big Mick both include the 1970s jingle-immortalized ingredients of two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, the McDowell's flagship burger bun has, in fact, no sesame seeds. This state of differentiation isn't a far cry from what characterized some of the earliest 10-inch Honeycomb devices -- a few fractions of an inch of thickness, a higher-quality display, a full-sized USB port, an hour or two of running time and some bundled apps constituted how many of the tablets asserted their competitiveness. Of course, there was the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer with its keyboard add-on and its follow up, the Eee Pad Slider, which finally brought an integrated one. But whether it's been from a lack of options for manufacturers or disadvantages of the overall Honeycomb approach, larger Android tablets have made limited inroads versus the similarly sized iPad and are now going after it more aggressively on price.
Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet...fight!
There seems little doubt that the Kindle Fire will prove one of the holiday season's biggest hits. At $200, the budget tablet will no doubt prove too good a deal to pass up for many consumers not ready to make the price commitment to the industry-leading iPad or a top-tier Android tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Of course, the Fire wasn't the only budget Android tablet to launch this week -- heck, it wasn't even the only budget Android tablet launched by an e-reader producer. Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet also, conveniently, hit stores earlier this week. The company took what it got right with the Nook Color, souped it up a bit internally and wound up with a solid competitor to the Fire. So, which of these products should budget-friendly gadget shoppers pick up this holiday season? We take a look at their hits and misses after the break.
Nook Tablet forgets to use protection, lets outside apps in
In the annals of history, the scrappy fight betwixt the megaliths of e-reading and their respective tablet progeny will yield an underground victor. Much like the sleepy hacker hit that was the Nook Color, Barnes and Noble's big bro tab looks to be carrying on that legacy of unapproved use and this time there's a lot less microSD card swapping required. In fact, there's none needed at all, as the barrier for entry here is super low. All it takes to sidestep B&N's app store for a host of third party options (like Amazon's App Store shown above) is the tab's own browser. Yes, it's almost that simple and also kind of hit or miss. See, once you attempt to install an application via the web, a previously hidden settings menu should pop up asking for permission. Grant the slate access, find the app in your download queue, re-install it and, presto magico, it'll work and then... vanish from your homescreen. But don't fret, the app's still there, you'll just need to search for it using the "n" hardware button. Confused? Excited? Unsure of how to feel? Why not just give it a go and report back in the comments below.
Nook Tablet limits internal storage for non-B&N purchased content to 1GB
Well, this is definitely a bummer. Barnes & Noble has spent a fair amount of time talking up all of the Nook Tablet's internal advantages over the Kindle Fire, a list that includes 16GB of storage to the Fire's 8GB. That particular spec may not be quite as good as it looks on paper, however. It seems that Barnes & Noble is currently limiting internal storage on the Android slate to 1GB of content not downloaded directly from B&N. Bummer, right? Especially for those expecting to store their multimedia content on the device. It's not all bad, though. Keep in mind that, unlike the Fire, the Nook's got a not-so-secret weapon -- expandable memory via a microSD card slot located behind the tablet's distinctive loop. We've reached out to B&N for comment, and we're guessing a firmware update will remedy this PR nightmare in 3... 2... 1.... Update: Barnes & Noble confirmed that the above numbers are correct, but added that future multimedia download plans from third-party vendors will utilize the space currently devoted to B&N content only.
Nook Newsstand getting Condé Nast publications (except Vogue)
After all of our tablet stories, the first question people ask is "But will it run Vogue?" Fortunately for all of you who are desperate to strike a pose and let your bodies move to the music, it won't be long now. Condé Nast is bringing 17 of 18 titles to Nook Tablet, the only omission being Vogue; which is coming in early 2012. Until then, you'll be able to enjoy the rest of the publisher's stable including Glamour, GQ, Teen Vogue and The New Yorker from the end of November. You can purchase individual issues or an annual subscription, print subscribers will get the digital edition free of charge and anyone who does pay will get a fortnight's trial. The only downside to the trial is that it's significantly shorter than the three months offered by the same publisher on the Kindle Fire. There's plenty more details after the break, where we've got a press release all waiting for a closeup.
Nook Tablet comes off the shelves one day early for one lucky customer
Now, we can't promise you'll have the same luck as our fortunate tipster if you wander out to your local Barnes & Noble, but it does seem that at least one location is handing over Nook Tablets a little bit early. Not to be outdone by its bitter rival, the Kindle Fire, the slate with the brick-and-mortar bookstore roots also started moving 24-hours ahead of its scheduled November 16th release -- though, in slightly less official fashion than Amazon's device. If the image of the unboxed slab above isn't enough to convince you, check out the bonus receipt pic after the break.
Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet unboxing and hands-on (video)
Look what we got in our grubby hands -- it's the new Nook Tablet, Barnes & Noble's attempt to elbow in on this holiday season's crowded tablet landscape. At $249, the slate is being positioned as a direct competitor to Amazon's budget Kindle Fire. Thus far, the device has yet to capture the public's imagination in the same way Amazon's tablet has -- due, at least in part, to the many similarities between it and last year's Nook Color. Externally, the Tablet is virtually indistinguishable from the Nook Color. It's got the same dimensions (8.1 x 5.0 x 0.48 inches), making for a tall and narrow display. It also rocks that same distinctive bar looping out from its bottom lefthand corner. Barnes & Noble has opted for a lighter silver color scheme here, instead of the Nook Color's dark gray shell, and has managed to shave a bit of weight from the newest Nook -- so it comes in at 14.1 ounces, in spite of its souped-up internals. At 0.48 inches, the tablet is thicker than both the iPad 2 (0.35 inches) and the Kindle Fire (0.45 inches), if only just barely in the latter case.%Gallery-139473% %Gallery-139477% %Gallery-139478%
Comics on the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet hands-on (video)
Way back in 2000, cartoonist turned comics theorist Scott McCloud discussed infinite canvas in his book Reinventing Comics. The concept, simply put, is that electronic mediums afford artists an infinite space on which to create their work. Cartoonists should, therefore, take advantage of this new found freedom. Of course, old media companies don't operate that way, and for the past decade or so, the quest has revolved around finding the most ideal way to repurpose existing comics formats for new devices. The clunky interaction and relative lack of portability made PCs less than ideal methods for this consumption. On the flip side, smartphones are just too small for anything but a panel-by-panel reading. Devoted e-readers, meanwhile, didn't do much better, thanks to slow rendering grayscale e-ink screens. The iPad hit the sweet spot, with its portable form factor and large, vivid display. The charge was led by Comixology, through its devoted app and market and apps designed for the industry's largest publishers, Marvel and DC. Reading comics on a device was finally easy enough to convince many physical media devotees make the leap to the digital realm. There are still some roadblocks, however: for one thing, there's that whole $500 starting price. If your primary objective in picking up a tablet is reading comics, that's certainly enough to dissuade all but the richiest of riches.
