online stores

Internet retailer Amazon.com had all the luck in getting its family of proprietary Kindle e-book readers into the hands of consumers while its rivals were faced with delays, but its luck may have turned. The Kindle's copyright protection has been hacked.

An Israeli hacker who goes by the name Labba says he has been able to break the Kindle's digital-rights management protection, allowing its electronic books to be viewed on non-Kindle devices.

Fountain Valley [Calif.]'s Kingston Technology Co. is looking to spur sales of a new type of data storage drive with a low-cost version that is targeted at niche users.

Kingston, the largest maker of computer memory products, is selling a drive that stores 40 gigabytes of data in flash memory chips. The drive is going for less than $100 after promotions at some online stores.

Similar but smaller drives sell for about $120. Intel Corp. sells one that's nearly $400.

Apple's upcoming tablet computer is real, according to an unnamed analyst in a report in Monday's Barron's.

The publication said the analyst has "actually held a prototype" in his or her own hands, and that the final design will be completed within the next six weeks. The report said the tablet will be announced in September and launched in November at a price ranging from $699 to $799.

High-Definition Video

AT&T said it racked up 2.4 million new iPhone activations in the second quarter, with the bulk of the additions coming from the wireless carrier's launch of Apple's iPhone 3GS on June 19.

The first day of the iPhone 3GS launch was "the best sales day ever" for AT&T's retail and online stores, noted Chief Financial Officer Richard Lindner. Moreover, 35 percent of all iPhone buyers in the quarter "were customers new to AT&T," he said.

iPhone Trade-Offs

Barnes & Noble is entering the e-book market through its launch of an online store, a partnership with e-reader maker Plastic Logic, and software for downloading books onto PCs and portable devices such as BlackBerry smartphones, the iPhone, and the iPod touch.

Barnes & Noble's e-book store already offers more than 700,000 titles -- including 500,000 free books courtesy of Google's digitization of works no longer covered by copyright restrictions. The company also said it expects to be offering more than one million e-book titles within the next year.

Giant online retailer Amazon.com may be plotting a broader foray into software for smartphones.

The company already offers a handful of mobile applications. One lets users of Apple's iPhone read electronic books on their screens. Another lets BlackBerry users snap photos of products in stores, then find similar items on Amazon. Those may be just the start of Amazon's mobile efforts.

Amazon may want to keep an eye over its shoulder -- Google is readying a deeper push into e-commerce. In the coming months, Google plans to begin selling online access to electronic versions of books. The titles will be available for viewing on any Web-enabled device, be it a cell phone or a laptop. "By end of this year we hope to give publisher partners an additional way to sell their books," Google said in a statement on June 1.

EU antitrust regulators told the music industry Tuesday to move quickly and change licenses that currently restrict online music stores such as iTunes from offering the same songs for sale across Europe.

Internet music downloads in Europe lag behind those in the United States, pulling in just a fraction of revenues the record industry is losing from falling CD sales.

To spite the lack luster economy, I’ve been seeing stories in WWD, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal that suggest consumers are shopping.  Perhaps not as much and not for the same things they used to, but they are out there shopping.  BIGresearch reports 4o percent of women said that shopping for themselves is at the top of their priority list.  The key to consumer spending today is value, according to Yanklovich and Ropers recent consumer studies.  Consumers want to know when they make a purchase they can feel good about the money they spent becaus

To spite the lack luster economy, I’ve been seeing stories in WWD, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal that suggest consumers are shopping.  Perhaps not as much and not for the same things they used to, but they are out there shopping.  BIGresearch reports 4o percent of women said that shopping for themselves is at the top of their priority list.  The key to consumer spending today is value, according to Yanklovich and Ropers recent consumer studies.  Consumers want to know when they make a purchase they can feel good about the money they spent becaus