electronic books

With the introduction of the iPad, Apple's status as a cultural icon reached new heights. Based on an unscientific survey of newspapers archived by The Newseum, pictures of or stories about the tablet-style computer appeared on front pages in at least 47 states and the District of Columbia and no fewer than 24 countries on six continents -- in places as varied as Bulgaria, Uruguay, Turkey, and Portugal.

With Apple's new iPad acting as a big rock thrown into the e-book pond, Kindle maker Amazon.com has given in to the pricing demands of publisher Macmillan. The move could mean fewer under-$10 prices for new e-books.

Amazon, whose Kindle is currently the front-running e-book reader and which offers a large inventory of e-books, had been resisting Macmillan's requirement of a pricing hike. New e-books on Amazon have been priced at $9.99, but Apple is reportedly offering higher prices to publishers for iPad content.

'We Will Have To Capitulate'

We might have caught a glimpse of the future.

In San Francisco, a startup company called Fusion Garage is showing off the JooJoo, a touch-screen device that looks like the iPhone's big brother.

The JooJoo is one of the first of a new generation of tablet computers expected to hit store shelves in the coming year.

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.

Sony's new online service connecting the whole range of its gadgets to downloadable content like movies and games should help build brand loyalty, a top executive said Friday.

Executive Vice President Kazuo Hirai said the service, set for launch next year, highlights an advantage that Sony has over rivals like Samsung Electronics Co. and other manufacturers that don't produce their own content. Sony's business empire spans gaming, electronics, movies and music.

Amazon's Kindle can read books aloud, but if you're blind it can be difficult to turn that function on without help. Now two universities say they will shun the device until Amazon changes the setup.

The National Federation of the Blind planned to announce Wednesday that the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University won't consider big rollouts of the electronic reading device unless Amazon makes it more accessible to visually impaired students.

Book retailer Barnes & Noble is taking the spotlight away from online competitor Amazon.com. Photos and details of Barnes & Noble's electronic book reader, dubbed Nook, surfaced Tuesday, just one day after Amazon made the new international version of its Kindle e-reader available.

Google Inc. is launching a new online service for booksellers next year called Google Editions, which will let readers buy books and read them on gadgets ranging from cell phones to possibly e-book devices.

It's the first foray into charging for books for the Mountain View, California-based company, which began its Google Books program in 2004, and will put it in competition with Amazon.com Inc's Kindle reader.

Nearly two months after being sued for removing electronic books from Kindle owners' devices without their knowledge, Amazon has agreed to a settlement. The Internet retailer will pony up $150,000 to settle the class-action suit.

The first complaint filed against Amazon came from 17-year-old Justin Gawronski. The high-school student from Michigan sued after Amazon erased copies of author George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 along with notes on the book from his Kindle in July.

Have a gripe about Office? A couple of guys at Microsoft Corp. want to hear it directly.

"Make Office Better" is an unofficial project launched by an Office product planner and a Windows software tester at Microsoft.

Individuals submit ideas and weigh in on whether they like the ideas submitted by others. Topics that resonate most with the crowd should get the most "me, too" votes and rise to the top.

It's similar to the approach taken by the news aggregator site digg.com and the IdeaStorm product-suggestion site run by PC maker Dell Inc.