books

You asked, we answered. It turns out that the iPod Touch is the product a surprising number of you wanted to see unboxed and tortured on our show -- so here you go! In addition to the regular gauntlet of tests, it seemed pretty obvious that the Wild Card for the iPod Touch pretty much had to involve children. So we rounded up four kids, ages 2 to 5, and gave them pizza, chips, candy, fruit, and juice, and let them go crazy with the iPods. Let me be honest: I could watch this video all day long, and not … Read more

Another merger might be hitting the publishing industry.

News Corp., which owns HarperCollins Publishers, is considering acquiring Simon & Schuster, The Wall Street Journal is reporting today, citing people who claim to have knowledge of the companies' discussions. Simon & Schuster is owned by CBS, the same company that publishes CNET.

At this point, News Corp. hasn't made an offer and a deal "isn't imminent," according to the Journal's sources. However, the move appears to be a response to the recent announcement of a merger between Random House and Penguin Group, two of the larger … Read more

Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch has a big hand in shaping the sales of books, both physical and digital. He also has a confession to make.

"I don't really read physical books that much anymore," Lynch told Bloomberg's Nicole Lapin. Lynch was dishing on what he's reading on his Nook right now, including Food & Wine and Field & Stream magazines. Fortunately for physical books, Lynch's wife is still a big fan of paper.

The migration away from physical media isn't new, but it still feels a bit strange to hear the CEO of a massive physical bookstore chain fess up about his preference for e-books. He also admitted to not being able to finish "Fifty Shades of Grey," for what that's worth.… Read more

Maybe it's that Black Friday shopping time of year or maybe Apple is trying an experiment, but it appears that the company now may be selling its refurbished products on eBay.

According to 9to5Mac, which noticed the site a few weeks ago, the eBay store has been up for about a month, and many aspects of it exactly mimic Apple's Web store. For example, the refurbished products are the exact same price and come with the same perks as the Apple Store, like a one-year warranty, original OS, and "final quality inspection by Apple."

As we progress further into the Digital Age, many believe it's important to preserve our printed past.

Dai Nippon Printing announced today an astounding machine that can scan books at a blazing rate of 250 pages per minute. The Japanese company co-developed the book scanner -- which it claims is the world's fastest -- with University of Tokyo Professors Masatoshi Ishikawa and Yoshihiro Watanabe. … Read more

Penguin Publishing is loosening its grip a bit in the e-book-lending market.

The company will announce today that it is expanding its e-book lending program to Los Angeles and Cleveland, The New York Times reported. Penguin launched an e-book-lending service to New York public libraries in September. The success of that program has prompted it to expand elsewhere.

Penguin is still keeping a tight hold on its e-books. According to the Times, Penguin sells e-books to public libraries six months after their launch. The e-books can only be lent to one person at a time. At the end of a … Read more

Bob Kohn, the founder of eMusic and apparently an amateur cartoonist, has had his laughs but he has no standing in an antitrust case involving five top publishers and Apple, the U.S. Department of Justice argued this week.

Kohn is trying to stop the settlement agreement between the DOJ and three of the five publishers accused earlier this year of conspiring with Apple to raise e-book prices. A U.S. District Court denied Kohn's motion to intervene in the case, and he filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

On Tuesday, … Read more

Flipboard, the mobile app that lets users see all of their desired news in one place, now supports books.

The company announced today that when iOS users download its latest update, they'll find that they can comb through 25 book genres, including fiction, nonfiction, and cookbooks. In order to deliver that functionality, Flipboard has incorporated Apple's iBookstore into its app and essentially acts as a conduit to help users find out about the iPhone maker's iBooks.

When sifting through Apple's library of titles, Flipboard users will be able to read a publisher's write-up, find author … Read more

For those of you who own one of Apple's new MacBook Air or MacBook Pro systems that were released in June, Apple has made a software update available. The update is around 127MB in size and includes bug fixes and performance enhancements for the systems' graphics, and their ability to communicate with some USB devices.

While Apple didn't reveal the specific problems addressed by this update, recently a few owners of the new MacBooks have reported noticing flashing displays when waking the system, washed-out or high-contrast colors when using external displays, and odd graphical artifacts when using some … Read more