If you still love shopping for books by hand at your local Barnes & Noble, enjoy it while you can, because the company has announced that its cutting its store force by 30% within 10 years, lowering the total number of bookstores for the company down to 450 to 500 stores in the US. Right now, the company operates just under 700 locations, with a separate store chain of 675 college-focused stores.
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‘Books’ Stories
Google Play Books updates with “Read Aloud” and zoom capabilities
The Google Play Books app for Android received its biggest update since September, adding a new self-explanatory "Read Aloud" feature, different zooming options, and new note editing features. The Read Aloud features reads your books out loud to you. The voice is particularly robotic, but it's a free feature that comes with a free app.
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Kobo Arc now on sale in Canada, UK, and France
Kobo has announced that their newest device, the Arc tablet, is available for purchase in Canada and the United Kingdom, while France will have it stock starting on Monday. Kobo is an often forgotten brand, thanks to the dominance of Amazon's Kindle series of products, as well as Barnes & Noble's NOOK ereaders and tablets. However, it seems Kobo is looking to make an international dent in the market with its Arc tablet.
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Oxford Dictionaries names “GIF” as 2012 word of the year
The GIF has been around for over 25 years, and 2012 was a huge year for the file format, and probably its most popular year yet with animated GIFs showing up all over the place. With that said, it makes sense that Oxford Dictionaries has named "GIF" the 2012 word of the year in the US, with "omnishambles" claiming the title in the UK.
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txtr beagle announced as world’s smallest ereader
Amazon's Kindle series, as well as Barnes & Noble's own line of NOOK ereaders offer consumers a small and portable offering that makes it easy to read on the go. However, if you're still looking for something even smaller, a company called txtr thinks they can deliver that to you with their new beagle 5-inch ereader.
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Google vs American Publishers suit settles with digital goodness
After a court battle that's lasted just a couple weeks short of 7 years, Google and the Association of American Publishers are now announcing a settlement that will put their book-battle to rest. The situation was, back in 2005 that is, that Google was scanning books galore into their Google Library Project for sharing with the world - and five members of the AAP were not happy with that. The settlement that's been reached has cash amounts unannounced - and they'll likely remain unannounced as it's been done out of court - and the publishers now have the rights to take or leave their works in Google's care.
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Sony PRS-T2 eReader spotted at FCC
It’s been awhile since Sony released its last eReader, but a new arrival at the FCC may signal the company’s return to the family of devices. The PRS-T2 eReader appeared in the FCC database on Sunday night, although there isn’t anything terribly exciting to go off from the image as most of the information is restricted until September 29th. The design looks to be similar to the PRS-T1, however, and WiFi b/g/n is onboard.
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University of Minnesota reviewing open source textbooks
The University of Minnesota is hoping to pioneer a project that would see professors being paid in order to review open source textbooks. The university would offer $500 for each review in order to vet the books, and professors who adopt the books for teaching will also receive $500. Faculty members are welcome to submit their own reviews, but won’t be compensated for the effort.
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Tor Books’s Halo: The Thursday War revealed
The latest entry in the series of books that brings the Halo video game franchise into the world of novelization will be called Halo: The Thursday War. And in case you were wondering, yes, it will tie in directly with the story of Halo 4, as Microsoft continues to build what will surely be one of the biggest cross-product marketing efforts it has ever launched for a video game. There is already an online Web show that will help generate buzz for the game as well.
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NOOK Audio OE250 headphones make April Fool’s no joke
It appears that what first appeared on the first of this month in the Barnes & Noble store archives has suddenly become a whole lot more real: NOOK headphones! These phones at the moment only have an image and a code-name attached to them, but the details can be gleaned relatively easily. What we're almost certainly looking at here is the book store's first step into the music sales business in a way that's not just hard-backed CD cases and audio books.
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What the DoJ’s Apple antitrust means for ebook prices
The work the Department of Justice is doing to take out what they see as a collusion on ebook pricing between publishers and Apple is meant, first and foremost, to create a fair market for consumers. As the DoJ finds the way that business is appearing to be done now to be illegal - with publishers setting prices for ebooks while the retailer takes a cut of the profit, things may make a flip in the very near future. Instead what the DoJ hopes to do is to keep the system in which the retailer sets the prices wherever they so choose, paying the publishers then a flat rate.
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NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight leaked
There's a new device coming to the world of e-readers and it's being delivered on the good ship Barnes & Noble. A bit of signage has been leaked to the public introducing a GlowLight-toting NOOK Simple Touch e-book reader, this effectively bringing an integrated frontlight to the simple e-reader market before the competition has the chance. This is a bit different from what the average tablet-owner knows as backlit, but will certainly have you reading in the dark much longer than your eyes could have otherwise stood on their own.
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REVIEWS
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