ebooks

Finally, it's possible to check out a book from your local library while blasting heavy metal music and avoiding the musty smell of the classics section.

Kindle book checkouts are now available from 11,000 libraries in the U.S.

The process is pretty simple: 1. Check with your local library's Web site to see if it offers the service. 2. Request the Kindle e-book you want with your library card. 3. You'll be redirected to sign in to your Amazon account so your e-book can be wirelessly delivered to your Kindle.

"This is a welcome … Read more

Books just kind of lay around, requiring your imagination to do all of the hard work. E-books add a little bit of gadget-y pizzazz to the process of reading. Or you can go completely nuts with Booktrack, an iOS app that adds soundtracks and sound effects to your reading material.

The first entry in a planned series of sound-enhanced books is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mystery "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." The most important point to note is that these are not audio books in the usual sense. There's no Hollywood star reading the text to you.

I'm a Holmes nut. My office is decorated like 221B Baker Street. I've read this story more times than I can remember. I was a little skeptical about what the Booktrack reading experience would be like.

The app keeps up with you as you read. You can train it to match your reading speed. Mood music plays in the background. A door creaks open. Footsteps cross the floor. A fire crackles. The sound effects are timed to events in the text. … Read more

When Kobo first partnered with Borders on the e-book front, things were a bit confusing. You had a Borders e-bookstore and e-readers powered by Kobo, while Kobo had its own e-bookstore and e-readers. You also had separate e-reading apps from Borders and Kobo.

Now Canada-based Kobo is doing its best to migrate Borders' e-book customers over to the Kobo platform as Borders goes out of business and closes all its stores. And as evidenced by the recent e-mail above (sent out this morning), Borders is also encouraging its own customers to make the move.

What adds some intrigue to the … Read more

Barnes & Noble Nook Color owners now have a new option that can turn their e-readers into full-fledged Android tablets.

Sold by a company called Nook2Android, a SanDisk microSD card preloaded with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and the Android Market essentially transforms Nook Color readers into Android tablets.

Available in three sizes and prices ($34.99 for 8 gigabytes, $49.99 for 16 GB, and $89.99 for 32GB), the SD card plugs directly into the Nook, letting the device boot into Android mode. A boot menu gives users the choice of loading Android or the Nook operating system, while removing the card will automatically transform the Nook back into its normal e-reader state.

In Android mode, Nook owners can use the built-in Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n to surf the Web and run various preinstalled apps, such as Gmail, Facebook, and Pandora, according to Nook2Android. Apps can be downloaded and installed directly from the Android Market. The company also promises that using the cards won't affect the Nook's internal memory or void the warranty from B&N.… Read more

Back at CES in January, we got an early look at Iriver's Story HD, a new e-ink-based product that the company was touting as the world's "highest-resolution 6-inch e-reader." Well now, that e-reader is set to launch July 17 with the Google eBookstore on board, making it the first Google eBooks e-reader.

The 7.3-ounce Story HD, which retails for $139.99 and sports an electronic paper display made by LG, offers XGA (768x1,024 pixels) resolution and has 63.8 percent more pixels and faster page turns, thanks to an advanced processor from Freescale Semiconductor … Read more

The percentage of American adults who own an e-book reader has doubled over the past six months, outpacing the growth of tablets, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.

E-reader ownership climbed to 12 percent in May from 6 percent last November, marking the first time that the adoption of these devices in the U.S. has reached the double digits. Over the same period, growth in tablet ownership slowed a bit following a previous surge. In May, 8 percent of the adults surveyed by Pew said they owned a tablet, compared with 7 percent in January … Read more

Touch is all the rage these days in the e-reader market, and just as Barnes & Noble has moved to a touch-screen interface for its latest Nook e-ink model, so, too, has Kobo with its 2011 eReader Touch Edition.

If you've run across any of Kobo's previous e-readers, the Touch Edition doesn't look so different from last year's Kobo Wireless, though it certainly has a more refined design. It's understated yet it looks sleek, with a quilted back, and is overall slightly smaller and lighter than the Nook Touch (and Kindle). It comes in a … Read more

Led by the iPad, the tablet market has taken off with a bang, but even with all the hoopla, less than 5 percent of U.S. consumers polled by Nielsen actually own one.

Tablets represent a huge potential money maker for the industry based on what consumers will pay not just for the device but all the content they need and want. Yet Nielsen's data, presented at the paidContent Mobile conference this week, shows that it's a market with considerable room to grow.

Adoption of tablets has risen over the past year to 4.8 percent in this … Read more

Some new data from Amazon.com this morning: it's now selling more Kindle e-books than print books.

This isn't exactly shocking as Amazon had previously announced that Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover sales and more recently had overtaken paperback book sales. In fact, we're not sure why the announcement didn't come earlier because you'd figure that if Kindle e-book sales had passed both hardcover and paperback sales, they would be ahead overall. But apparently not. Until now, anyway.

Here are the numbers Amazon is highlighting in its press release: