books

It's not wrong for retailers to discount books, and losing market share to a competitor is no excuse to fix prices or cheat consumers.

That's the message U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote sent yesterday to Apple and the country's top book publishers, as well as e-book retailers.

In April, the Department of Justice filed suit and accused five of the country's largest book publishers of conspiring with Apple to raise e-book prices. Soon after, the DOJ reached a settlement agreement with three of the accused publishers. For months, the book industry attacked the settlement, … Read more

A federal court has approved a settlement agreement reached between the U.S. Department of Justice and three book publishers accused of conspiring with Apple to fix e-book prices.

The DOJ filed suit against Apple and five of the country's largest book publishers in April and accused the group of antitrust violations. Immediately after filing the complaint, the government announced that it had reached a settlement with three of the five accused publishers: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, and Simon & Schuster (owned by CBS, parent company of CNET).

As part of that settlement, the three e-book publishers agreed … Read more

When you've sold millions of books and won awards for your writing, the pressure is off.

You can saunter from one party to another. You can perform readings to packed auditoriums. You can, just occasionally, wander into bookstores (if you can find one) and simply enjoy yourself while counting the number of times you see your name on the shelves.

Then you come home, pour yourself a substantial snifter, log on to Amazon and write a gushing review of one of your own works. Just as a nightcap, you add a scathing anonymous review of one of your rivals'. … Read more

Barnes & Noble has fixed a library syncing issue with new Nook Simple Touch devices after customers took to support forums to complain for at least two weeks.

Barnes & Nobles spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said the issue, which according to the company affected less than 0.3 percent of Nook customers, was resolved overnight.

"We had a temporary and minor glitch as a result of recent internal maintenance," she wrote in an e-mail to CNET today. "All customers should be able to register and sync their devices. We apologize to those few customers affected by this … Read more

Those of you eyeing a Retina Display MacBook Pro can now pick up one online with virtually no delay.

The laptops are now officially designated "in stock" at Apple's online store. So you can order one and receive it within five business days via standard free shipping or within two to three business days via $15 expedited shipping.

The Retina Display laptop has teased consumers with a variety of wait times since its debut in June.

Apple initially promised a delay of two to three weeks following the launch of the new MacBook Pro. That quickly rose … Read more

Consumers in the market for a MacBook Air can now save a fair amount of cash on a refurbished unit.

Apple has cut its prices on several factory-refurbished MacBook Air editions. A tour of the company's Refurbished product page reveals an 11.6-inch, 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 model selling for $749, 16 percent off the normal price. This flavor offers 2GB of memory and 64GB of flash storage.

A similar version but with 4GB of memory and 128GB of flash storage is selling for $829, a 17 percent cut off the usual price. And a 13.3-inch … Read more

Microsoft and its partners have found an opening against Apple. That's rare these days.

The Windows 8 touch screen is the first real change that has come to Windows laptops in a long time.

I would put it right up there with the trackpad and, more recently, the MacBook Pro Retina display.

And it's made more significant by the fact that Apple has rejected the idea of a hybrid device via Tim Cook's refrigerator-toaster analogy. Which gives Apple's less-nimble Silicon Valley neighbor, Hewlett-Packard, a rare leg up.

Just check out HP's Spectre XT TouchSmart Ultrabook. … Read more

Apple has come up with a deal that may get the company out of an European antitrust investigation and avoid possible fines by letting its competitors sell e-books at a discount, Reuters reported today.

The agreement, proposed by Apple and four major publishers, would let e-book retailers like Amazon sell books at a lower price for two years, an unnamed source told Reuters.

In fear of Apple squashing competition in Europe, the European Union's commission overseeing antitrust violations began investigating Apple's e-book prices in December.

The four publishers -- Simon & Schuster (which is owned by CBS, the … Read more

Think you've got a handle on what Windows 8 means for laptops and tablets? Based on Asus' announcement of a bevy of new products at IFA, you're not even close.

Asus has been a champion of aggressive design ideas for years, and to the company's credit, a lot of these products seem like clever ways to explore the touch potential of Windows 8. There are no fewer than three detachable tablet-cum-hybrid laptop products, two touch-screen laptops -- one of which has a two-sided screen -- and a large, standard but very stylish ultrathin 15-incher. Let's take a walk through the magical Windows 8 zoo, shall we?… Read more