book

Barnes & Noble's 'Free Fridays' adds apps

When it comes to free stuff for your tablet or e-reader, Amazon rules the roost.

The Amazon Appstore is home to a kajillion freebies for Kindle Fires, while the Kindle Store offers literally thousands of free Kindle e-books.

Barnes & Noble, on the other hand, offers a comparatively limited selection of free apps in its curated store, and I couldn't even find a "free books" section in the Nook Book Store.

At least there's Free Fridays, which gives you a free e-book every week. Today, for example, you can get the Nook edition of David Rhodes' "Driftless," … Read more

Facebook apps can now broadcast your fitness, entertainment habits

Facebook is letting the third-party apps that track some of your lifestyle habits -- exercising, reading, and movie or TV-watching -- post more of your activities to the Timeline.

"We want people who use your apps to be excited about how their stories are presented in News Feed -- whether they're sharing a major life moment, like their first marathon, or something smaller, like finishing a book they were reading," Facebook engineer Dan Giambalvo wrote in a blog post to app developers.

This means if you use apps like Runkeeper, Goodreads, or Hulu, the apps can post … Read more

Chat, share, and connect with your Facebook friends using ChatBook Pro for Mac

In most situations, chatting with friends on Facebook requires viewing the full site. For those willing to pay a small price, ChatBook Pro for Mac provides a minimalistic interface to participate in chats without being on the Facebook page.

While there is no free version of the program available, the full, unlimited program costs only $2.99 through the App store. Since Apple hosts the app, downloading and installation were seamless. ChatBook Pro for Mac immediately opened and prompted the user to sign in using a Facebook account. Once the user is signed in, the program opens on the left … Read more

Warning: Your iPad may put your MacBook to sleep

If you have an iPad and one of Apple's laptops (a not too uncommon pairing), then be aware that, depending on how you arrange them, your iPad may put your Mac to sleep.

Apple has made some creative use of magnets in its systems over the years, with lid latches, MagSafe power connections, and other accessory attachments for its systems.

One notable area where Apple has made use of this technology is in its MacBook laptops, where magnets and magnetic sensors in the chassis and lid bezel activate when in close contact, so the system will automatically go to … Read more

Apple rolls out iBookstore in Japan

Japan is the newest country to get Apple's iBookstore. The tech giant announced today that it is rolling out a diverse array of books for Japanese readers in its iTunes bookstore.

"We're excited to launch the iBookstore in Japan with a wide selection of Japanese publishers and authors," Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue said in a statement today. "We think customers are going to love how engaging and interactive the books are to read, and how beautiful they look on iPad."

The books range from novels to … Read more

E-book porn flourishes on Amazon's Kindle

Amazon has a problem with pornography.

The company created technology to filter smut from its library of video and print offerings and it also pays humans to do the same thing. In spite of that, Kindle users can still download e-books with the same sort of raunchy images and titles normally seen in nudie mags sold at liquor store newsstands.

That's because these salacious e-books are self-published, spawned from sources with names like Camera Erotica Publications and ErotiPics. Some of the milder titles include "The Dirty Blonde 2," which comes with a self-prescribed adults-only warning, a weak … Read more

Mac sales should recover after December drop, analyst says

Sales of Apple's Mac should bounce back this month following a dismal December, according to Needham analyst Charlie Wolf.

For 26 quarters in a row, Mac shipments grew faster than those of PCs. But that record came to an end in December when Mac shipments fell by 22 percent compared with an overall industry drop of just 6.6 percent.

Wolf said in an investors note released today:

What we can only describe as astonishing, given that Mac shipments fell below PC shipment growth in all geographic regions and segments in December, is that there was absolutely not one … Read more

Name your own price for fantasy e-book bundle

Read any good books lately? I know, e-book prices can make it tough to indulge your love of the printed word. That's why I'm jazzed to see that the folks at StoryBundle have cobbled together another great batch of books for whatever price you want to pay.

It's true! The Indie Fantasy Bundle includes six full-length novels (actually, eight, as two of the selections include the first two books in their respective series), and you get to decide how much you want to pay.

As you might suspect from the "indie" designation, these aren't … Read more

Analyst: Google's Chromebook Pixel succeeds on image

Google had already achieved a measure of success with the Chromebook Pixel, according to an analyst at Gap Intelligence.

"[It's] a fantastic ploy to get people to think about Chrome differently," said Deron Kershaw, an analyst Gap Intelligence who follows retail sales of laptops.

The Pixel is now being sold by Best Buy at a starting price of $1,299.

Kershaw continued. "In addition to drawing a line in the sand with Apple on touch, they're trying to craft the sense that premium hardware and a web-centric OS aren't incompatible with each other. And … Read more