If you had the foresight to order your Nook early in the game, you’re fine. Your device will still ship on November 30th as planned.

But from this point on, if you pre-order a Nook, your device won’t ship until at least the first week of December. It’s good news that the Nook is already so popular, but you have to wonder how many of the devices B&N intended to be available in time for Christmas this year. And you also have to wonder if those lovely in-store displays will be affected by the hard-to-come-by devices. If you venture out to your neighborhood Barnes & Noble, will you get to touch and/or buy a Nook of your very own? Probably not before Christmas.

Image: Barnes & Noble.

Post from: EveryJoe

Nook ereader delayed until December

Creative calls it the MediaBook, and though what details we have are low on specs, we know that it has an SD card for storage, and it runs on Creative’s “Zii” technology (which sounds an accessory for Nintendo’s Wii, but in reality is a subsidiary technology based on a “StemCell Computer” nano-sized processor). No word yet on what wireless network will be involved or what ebook formats it will support. Those who’ve seen the prototype device in person report that it has a surprisingly large screen, which sounds like it could be close to the Kindle DX in size.

epiZENter.net reports that Creative has been talking to Singapore Press Holdings as one of ten publishers expected to provide content for the MediaBook. When Creative announces pricing, a release date, and other details, we’ll bring them to you.

Image: Creative.

Post from: EveryJoe

Creative MediaBook ereader (& more?)

In the meantime, Amazon has taken the first step in addressing one of Kindle’s deficiencies, today announcing Kindle for PC, a free PC program that will let you read Kindle ebooks on your computer. (No word yet on a Mac version, but I’m working on finding out.) Barnes & Noble has offered a free computer app for letting users read the titles in its ebook store for months, long before the Nook was even announced, but until now, Amazon’s ebooks have only been readable on the Kindle or the iPhone/iPod Touch.

When it becomes available, Kindle for PC will let you synchronize your ebook reading between devices, so you can read some on your Kindle device, and then switch over to the same ebook on your PC and pick up right where you left off. Windows 7 users will get even more out of Kindle for PC, thanks to Win7’s touchscreen gesture technology. The combination of Windows 7 and Kindle for PC effectively turns any PC into a full color Kindle device, enabling you to use gestures like pinching and swiping to zoom and turn pages.

Kindle for PC will be a free download when it’s released in November (placing it up cozy next to the release of the Nook). If you’d like to be notified when it’s available, sign up at amazon.com/KindleforPC.

Image: Amazon.com, Inc.

Post from: EveryJoe

Amazon fires back at Nook with PC Kindle

Alex is an Android-based ereader, with black & white e-ink on the main screen, and a secondary, full-color screen at the bottom where you can surf the Net and peruse books for downloading. The color screen is also a touchscreen, and Spring Design even describes it as “an integrated Android mobile device,” which means you can use it for all of the same apps and capabilities you get from Google’s Android mobile platform, including surfing the web.

The device will have an SD card slot, a 6″ e-ink display for book reading, a 3.5″ color LCD display, earphones, and speakers. Spring Design is working with content partners and plans to release the Alex device by the end of this year.

The device has a certain cool factor, but if Barnes & Nobles’ device is as sleek and cool as rumors indicate, Alex could quickly be overshadowed. Stay tuned tomorrow for a full breakdown of what B&N announces.

Image: Spring Design.

Post from: EveryJoe

New ebook reader shows real innovation

The Solar Cell eBook’s solar cell fits the 6″ display of LG’s existing ebook reader as a side-by-side panel. The cell, which was developed in-house at LG, is thinner than a credit card and weighs less than a writing pen.

Users can get a whole extra day of use out of their ereader if the solar cell is exposed to sunlight for four to five hours. LG Display hopes to raise the energy conversion efficiency over the next few years so that that full day of use might come out of fewer hours of solar charging.

The Solar Cell is still in the prototype stage, so it’s unknown exactly how LG Display plans to deploy this technology — as a built-in technology for future ereaders or an add-on for existing ones. LG Display will showcase the technology at KINTEX in Korea from October 10-15.

Image: LG Display.

Post from: EveryJoe

LG Display adds solar cell to ebook reader

Does Barnes & Noble have what it takes to take down the Kindle? If anyone can, it’s B&N, because they’ve definitely got the library of titles to supply an ereader device with the ebooks it needs to stay relevant. What will it take to really challenge the Kindle’s dominance? A superior device that’s touchscreen-capable, and a killer price point. And throwing in some sweet extras — like the ability to surf the Net, perhaps — would be serious gravy.

WSJ claims that at least one of those requisites is sure to be met: they have insider info claiming that the B&N reader definitely has a touchscreen, with its own virtual keyboard. What else do they reveal? How about a planned pre-holiday release this year, a 6″ screen, and the same wireless ebook download capability that the Kindle offers (though there’s no intel yet on who the 3G carrier will be)? Barnes & Noble just relaunched its ebook store in July of this year, and they’re already offering an app for reading their ebooks on PC, Mac, iPhone, or Blackberry as a free download.

Sweetening the deal is an exclusive over at Gizmodo reporting that the device just might run on Google’s mobile OS, Android. Which would be flat-out awesome, because it would surely trump the OS of every ereader that’s been released to date. It would make surfing the Net a definite possibility, and… hey, are those downloadable apps I smell?

Oh, and let’s not forget that Barnes & Noble now offers free wireless in all of its stores. Could there be freebies and exclusives in the works, available for download only if you bring your B&N ereader into your local store? Seems like a no-brainer.

So it looks like we already know quite a lot about B&N’s hush-hush device. The only major question remaining is the price. I’m hoping that that on-the-small-side 6″ screen translates to a desire on B&N’s part to keep the price tag as low as possible. If they go for the jugular with an Android-based tablet that’s touchscreen controlled and priced under the Kindle 2’s current going rate ($259)…

Then it is so on.

Image: Robin Parrish.

Post from: EveryJoe

Barnes & Noble prepping Kindle challenger?

Gizmodo is reporting insider information that the iPad will do a lot more than surf the web and run iPhone apps. Apple is looking to take on Amazon’s Kindle, too — and redefine what an ebook is. A big push of the iPad will be into the arena of college textbooks, where Apple believes it can present a more appealing opportunity to textbook publishers by cutting out bookstores, who re-sell the expensive tomes yearly without the publishers seeing a dime. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The rumor is that Apple has been talking to major newspapers, magazines, and book publishers about creating a new format of ebook that upgrades the entire format to something more interactive. This could take the form of some kind of hybrid multimedia book, where audio, video, and imagery are used to make the typically static formats of traditional books into something truly next-gen.

Image: Robin Parrish.

Post from: EveryJoe

Apple Tablet Hopes to Redefine Print

The ePub format was created by a consortium of major publishers, including Random House and HarperCollins. Sony will adopt the ePub format for all of its ebook readers — existing and new. The format is an attempt by publishers to create a single ebook format that will work across any number of reading devices, unlike Amazon’s Kindle format, which plays only on the Kindle hardware or Amazon’s iPhone app.

Sony is also planning to release a new ebook device in its Reader series that will let users buy ebooks wirelessly, just like the Kindle. Sony’s also dropping its prices for digital books to a standard $9.99 price point — just like Amazon.

At least they’re being subtle about that whole “competition” thing.

Image: Sony Electronics, Inc.

Post from: EveryJoe

Sony adopts ePub to challenge Amazon Kindle