Barnes & Noble introduces glow-in-dark Nook

Reuters

4:31 p.m. CDT, April 12, 2012

U.S. book retailer Barnes & Noble Inc. debuted an e-reader on Thursday with a screen that can glow in the dark, a move aimed at improving its position against Amazon.com.

The 6-inch (15-cm) touch-screen device, which will hit stores in early May for $139, lands in a market whereApple Inc. and Amazon are battling with Barnes & Noble for customers who want to read books and magazines on small portable devices. Weighing just under 7 ounces (200 grams), it is Barnes & Noble's lightest Nook and is aimed at people who want to read in the dark without a light.

To read in the dark with other e-readers that use electronic ink, consumers had to buy an external light that attached to the device. While Apple's iPads have backlit screens, Barnes & Noble said its technology creates a better nighttime reading experience than an LCD screen because it throws off less light and will not disturb a reader's partner who is trying to sleep.

While Barnes & Noble is first to market with a glowing e-reader, Amazon may be hot on its heels. The Internet retailer is working on its own e-reader with a glowing screen, according to a report on April 6 from the blog TechCrunch. Amazon did not respond to calls for comment on the report.

"If Amazon isn't already working on one, they will immediately start working on one now after today's announcement," Forrester analyst James McQuivey said.

Fighting deep-pocketed Amazon has proved to be an expensive proposition for Barnes & Noble, as it has poured hundreds of millions into developing the Nook. In January, the retailer forecast a steeper net loss than expected for the fiscal year, as it continues to spend on the technology.

"We are investing a lot but we feel good that those investments will pay off," Barnes & Noble Chief Executive William Lynch said in an interview on Thursday.........

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-barnes-noble-introduces-glowindark-nook-20120412,0,1617461.story

Amazon strikes back at Apple with Kindle in-app purchasing

Amazon.com, still in bitter rivalry with Apple over their competing e-book and application store businesses, has struck back by today announcing an in-app purchasing service, allowing Amazon Appstore developers to offer digital subscriptions and content within apps and games on Android-running Kindle devices.

Millions of Kindle Fires and other Android devices will be able to buy content with Amazon's 1-Click service through many popular apps and games, including those from Adobe, Disney, Dow Jones, Gameloft, and the New York Post.

The two companies continue with an acrimonious and bitter battle over e-book pricing, and the approaches to their respective application stores.

Despite the retail giant having no direct involvement in the case, with it being seen as more of a victim than an instigator, Apple along with five major international publishers are being investigated by EU and U.S. antitrust authorities for conspiring to fix e-book prices.

The case revolves around Amazon's 'wholesale' pricing model, allowing e-book writers to sell their content at a loss, compared to Apple's 'agency' model which forces a 30 percent cut of all e-book sales.

Apple, the market leader in application providing, forced a change to its App Store, which has over half a million applications, disallowing in-app purchases.

In mid-July, Apple changed its policy to force major applications and content publishers to give the maker of shiny rectangles a 30 percent cut of the profits made. Ultimately, it meant iOS developers had to change their applications and issue an update removing in-app purchases, or risk being thrown out of the lucrative App Store, which could kill revenues.

It meant major players like Barnes & Noble with the Nook app, and ditto for Amazon with its Kindle app, had to remove such in-app buttons, requiring the two Apple rivals to give a cut of the profits back to Cupertino for the privilege of renting space on the App Store.

Apple infamously sued Amazon over the "App Store" trademark, claiming it owned the name. The iPad and iPhone maker, both devices of which have an application store pre-installed, sought a preliminary injunction against Amazon from using the term, but was ultimately denied in 2011.

Amazon prevailed, and brought out its own application store for Android in March 2011, which now has thousands of apps and games available.............

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/amazon-strikes-back-at-apple-with-kindle-in-app-purchasing/73634

Amazon Lights Up Your Screen With Next-Gen E-Ink Kindle

David Coldewey at TechCrunchcaught a glimpse of the future. The new e-Ink Kindle will apparently let you finally read in the dark without the help of extra lighting:

The device I saw was crudely camouflaged in a sort of cardboard enclosure, but the screen was clearly visible. With a tap, a slider popped up on the screen, and as it was dragged to the right, the screen lit up evenly with a rather cool light. In the dark, it was plainly noticeable as a glow, and in uneven light — say, shade or a shuttered room — the slight illumination made the screen much more readable. At full blast it was definitely projecting some light (technically speaking it was reflecting it), but it was still a soft glow and not the harsh flashlight of a backlit LCD.

I commented on the temperature of the light — it was that blue-white glow found in uncorrected white LEDs, not the warm light on off-white that most people associate with books by lamplight. But, of course, the e-ink screen is in fact grey and dark grey, not black on off-white, as paper is, so a cooler light may actually work better. At any rate, they are apparently sensitive to these issues and looking into it. I thought that the text looked better as well, but it's possible that this was the result of improved font rendering and aliasing reduction, or perhaps something to do with the light.

One of the advantages I've noticed reading off of my phone instead of a traditional Kindle has been the fact that I can do so in the dark. But reading off one's phone is irksome in many other ways, not the least of which is the lack of the far more readable e-ink Kindle screen – something Amazon's much-touted Kindle Fire is also missing........

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/07/amazon-lights-up-your-screen-with-next-gen-e-ink-kindle/