This Week’s Top Posts

Augen The Book e-Reader Video Review, First Impressions – The new Augen ebook reader/multimedia gadget has arrived in an unlikely place and is selling for just $89. It doesn’t exactly do anything great, but it does do some things well enough to consider for the price.

Hands-on Kindle DX Video Review in Direct Sunlight – This video is a general review of the new Graphite Kindle DX outside on a bright sunny day. The review covers everything about ebooks, text-to-speech, newspapers, internet, and the menu interface.

How to Get Kindle, Nook, Sony e-Subscriptions for Free – This post is a must read for anyone buying or planning to buy a newspaper or magazine subscription for the Kindle, Sony, or Nook ebook readers (other ereaders to; those are just the ones that have dedicated stores selling e-periodicals).

How to Create eBooks from Articles Online – Ever want to be able to make ebooks from Wikipedia articles? This post will show you how have new Wikipedia ebooks made from any articles you choose in about 2 minutes.

Kindle Font Hacks and Screensaver Hacks – Hacks, hacks, and more hacks. That’s what can be found within.

Another eBook Reader Company Bites the Dust – A small ebook reader company based in the UK, Interead, has been put into liquidation. They made the Cool-er ereaders that were released just last year.

New eBook Readers Added This Week

Cruz Reader, Cruz StoryPad, and Cruz Tablet from Velocity Micro – The new devices from Velocity Cruz look to make an impact starting next month. The Cruz Reader is another multipurpose color ereader—the new fad, it seems.

New Pixelar MReader Available for Pre Order – The MReader is a UK ebook reader that is expected to be released toward the end of July. It is now up for pre-order for £189.

The Humane Reader – Read eBooks on TV – At $20 a unit this is anything but your traditional ebook reader. It is designed for those without internet connections to have access to information in the form of ebooks for viewing on a TV set.

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This Week’s Top Posts

Graphite Kindle DX PDF Review and Video Review – A review of how the new Graphite Kindle DX handles various types of PDF files, including single and double column layouts, regular text documents, complex graphical PDFs, and some comics and graphic novels too.

Graphite Kindle DX First Impressions, E Ink Pearl Mini Review – The new Graphite Kindle DX is the first ebook reader to have the new higher contrast screens from E Ink, and the contrast is considerably better.

Kindle Format Conversion Guide – A blog post that explains the process of converting EPUB ebooks and other types of files into a format compatible with a Kindle using Amazon’s conversion service and Calibre ebook software.

New iRiver Story With WiFi Coming to the UK – An iRiver Story with Wi-Fi will be released in the UK shortly that will connect to the WHSmith ebook store for direct downloads.

Samsung E-6 Removed From JR.com, US Release Doubtful – While Samsung’s ebook reader expands to other markets in Europe, it doesn’t look like it will be reaching the United States any time soon.

An Interesting Twist in the Amazon vs Barnes and Noble Saga – This week Amazon was granted a patent that was filed way back in 2006 for ereaders that have a secondary LCD display. The wording in the patent is fairly broad, and basically states that Amazon holds the patent on devices with an E Ink display next to a smaller LCD display.

Borders Opens eBook Store and is Giving Away 5 Top-Selling eBooks – Borders is giving people reason to download one of their new apps for the new Borders ebook store by giving away $40 worth of ebooks.

Some News About the New Kobo Reader Firmware Update – Kobo started rolling out the firmware update for the Kobo Reader this week that improves some bugs and new features, as well as causing some unwanted side-effects.

New eBook Readers Added This Week

7″ Elonex 710EB Color eReader Coming to the UK – Elonex’s color ereader should arrive later this month; it is up for pre order in the UK for £139, but was supposed to be the “first ereader under £100″. What happened, Elonex?

DreamBook Color eBook Reader W95 – The DreamBook ebook reader is out of Australia and has a color LCD screen for viewing videos and photos in addition to ebooks.

Sovos 5-inch Color eBook Reader SVEBK5B – The Savos ebook reader is another ereader with a color LCD display. It went up for pre-order this week in the UK for just £99.

Free eBooks and Audiobooks

This week there were a number of posts offering free ebooks and audiobooks. Check the free ebooks category for the complete list.

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This Week’s Top Posts

New Kindle DX with Better Contrast and Lower Price – Amazon continued to dominate the news this week by introducing the new graphite Kindle DX for $379 that will be released on Wednesday. What’s more, the new Kindle DX is the first ebook reader to use new higher-contrast screens just announced by E Ink (below). I’ll post some first impressions of the graphite Kindle DX and the new screen technology when it arrives on Friday.

E Ink Announces New Screen Technology: Pearl – The same day that Amazon announced the new Kindle DX, E Ink revealed the technology behind the DX’s new 50% improved contrast screen.

More Kindle News From This Past Week – In other Kindle news this week, Amazon released the new Kindle for Android app, are now offering a 70% royalty option for Kindle ebooks, added new Kindle Books with Audio and Video, and are working on an ebook previewer that works in web browsers.

Annual World eBook Fair: 3.5 Million Free eBooks – Today marks the beginning of the 5th annual World eBook Fair. Don’t forget to download all the free ebooks you can handle.

The Kobo Reader Gets a Firmware Update – Kobo will be rolling out the update for the new Kobo Reader this week, fixing some issues with EPUB font sizing and other bugs and improvements.

Augen “The Book” eBook Reader – This new device showed up for pre-order on JR this week and looks to have a lot going for it feature-wise, especially considering the low price of $129. But will “The Book” be able to live up to its own hype?

The New Toshiba eBook Store Powered by Blio – Toshiba looks to enter the ebook market with their soon-to-launch ebook store powered by Blio software. This will also the first appearance of the Blio platform.

The Apple iBookstore Comes to Canada – Residents of Canada can finally pay too much for ebooks that are locked into Apple’s iBookstore. Welcome. Now where’s your credit card?

Books-A-Million Giving Away Sony Readers Every Day in July – If you desperately want a new Sony PRS-505, this just might be your lucky day.

More eReader Price Drops

Sony Readers On Sale – New eReader on the Way? – Despite main-stream-media not noticing it, Sony has recently dropped all three of their ebook readers to new low prices. In fact, I’m not so sure Sony has even noticed their new low prices yet. I saw an ad for Sony Style in the Sunday paper, as well as Best Buy, and both advertised the PRS-600 at $199 when both websites currently show $169. Idiots.

PocketBook Lowers Prices of eReaders – PocketBook followed suit and dropped the prices of all three of their ebook readers this week to keep competitive with everyone else.

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This past week we saw some of the biggest changes ever in e-book reading history, with record low prices set by Amazon and Barnes and Noble for the two most popular ereaders on the market.

It’ll be interesting to see how all the smaller players will respond to stay competitive in the coming days and weeks.

This Week’s Top Posts

Nook WiFi Now Selling From Best Buy and B&N – The biggest news of the week was by far Barnes and Noble suddenly announcing the Nook Wi-Fi and lowering the price on the original Nook to $199. This caught everyone off guard, even Amazon, since they didn’t pre-empt the release with an announcement of their own like usual. Instead, they scrambled and ended up lowering the price on the Kindle 2 to $189 just a few hours after B&N announced the new Nook, desperate to deflect some of the limelight off B&N. Which brings us to the second biggest story of the week . . .

Kindle 2 Now $189: Amazon’s Retaliation – Given the drastic price cut of the Kindle 2, it’s fairy likely to assume that Amazon is clearing out inventory in anticipation of releasing a new Kindle in July or August.

$189 Kindle 2 vs Nook 3G and Nook WiFi – Pros and Cons – This post weighs the pros and cons of each device compared to the others with a detailed break-down of all the different features and selling points.

Getting Started with Calibre eBook Management – If you aren’t using Calibre to manage your ebook library, this post will show you how to get Calibre installed on your computer and how to use it to organize your entire ebook collection. It will also teach you how to use Calibre to fetch RSS news feeds off the internet from popular news sources to read on your ereader, PC, or phone.

iBooks App Update: iPhone, iPod, and PDF Support – With the release of the new iPhone and the new iOS 4, Apple now offers iBooks on the iPhone and iPod touch running the new OS. They also updated iBooks to work with PDF files and added some nifty new features like note-taking, changing background color, and more.

Video Interview with E Ink Vice President of Marketing – The vice president of marketing at E Ink, Sriram Peruvemba, gives a 17 minute interview with Charbax from ARMdevices.net. A lot of good information regarding the future of E Ink is addressed in the interview.

Borders New eBook Apps for iPad, iPhone, PC, Mac – Borders finally released their new iPad and iPhone app this week. It’s powered by Kobo and thus is very similar to the Kobo app. Borders also made available their desktop app for PC and Mac which I tried out and thought it was extremely basic with no features to speak of.

eBook Reader Review

Review and Video: PocketBook 301-Plus eBook Reader – Last week we posted an in-depth review of PocketBook’s first ebook reader, the PocketBook 301. The device has a surprisingly advanced and polished user interface, but with the recent price-drop of the Kindle and Nook it’ll be interesting to see if its price gets lowered to stay competitive.

New eReaders Explored This Week

Interesting Results on a Notion Ink Adam Poll – As it turns out, a lot of people want to get a Notion Ink Adam tablet for e-reading. The post also covers updates regarding the Adam.

Libretto W100: Toshiba’s Dual Screen eReader? – Toshiba has a new concept device they are about to release that has ebook reading in mind.

Intel Reader: A Reader for the Blind and Dyslexic – The Intel Reader is a specialty device marketed in the health care industry as an aid for the vision impaired and for reading-based learning disabilities. It converts printed text into digital text and reads the content aloud in a computer generated voice.

Energy Book eBook Readers – Energy Book 3050 and 4050 Touch – The Energy Sistem ebook readers are an obscure brand based in Spain. They look like 5-inch versions of the Kindle 2 with mini QWERTY keyboards and are rebranded versions of Chinese ereaders manufactured by Hanvon.

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