The books are grouped in three genres: romance, sci-fi and fantasy, and mysteries and thrillers. Plus, there’s a fourth blended category called “more to explore” that features a handful of books mixed from the different categories. Of course, this isn’t the first time that Apple is highlighting indie works, but it’s the first time they’re putting them in the limelight like this.

Avid readers will also find that many of the books featured in this section are fairly inexpensive, with even some that are free of charge, meaning that there are a lot of great books that you can read without investing a lot of money. While the landing page for Breakout Books isn’t completely filled with recommended content, Apple says they’ll add more to the section once it takes off.

Since the beginning of the ebook craze, digital publishing has become easier and easier. It gives indie authors a chance to show their stuff to millions of people without spending tons of money for printing. Just like apps, games, and music, authors are taking advantage of the digital age, and are trying to get the word out about their books. This new section in the iBookstore will definitely help with that.

[via paidContent]

The patent’s illustration shows three different images of a virtual page being turned. One with the corner of a page being turned slightly, the next image with the page halfway turned, and the third showing the page almost entirely turned over. A swipe of the finger will activate the page turn, while a vertical finger swipe will flip the page just enough to reveal what’s on the next page.

The patent, which is for “Display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface,” represents only one of 38 different patents that have been granted to Apple this week. The New York Times notes that this isn’t the first “seemingly obvious” patent that Apple has been awarded. The company was granted a patent for the musical note icon for iTunes, as well as the infamous glass staircase design Apple uses in their stores.

iBooks isn’t the only application that Apple uses its page-turning animation in. With iOS 6, Apple uses the animation in several of their own apps, including Maps and the Calendar app for iPad. Another notable patent that Apple won this week was for the iPad Smart Case, which acts much like a Smart Cover but gives the iPad a little added protection all around.

[via AppleInsider]

Starting today, you’ll be able to get your comic fix through the official stores of your respective devices. DC also reported that for the year to date, its digital comic sales are up 197% year-over-year. Hank Kanalz, DC’s senior vice president of digital, says that the addition of more digital content won’t detract attention from physical comic book stores, but will expand the audience instead.

Previously, DC Comics sold its content through apps from Comixology including its own DC Comics app in Google Play and iTunes. However, those were the only two places that users could buy DC-owned comics. Now, users can go through the official bookstores on various devices without having to download additional apps in order to buy comic books.

Today will see 70 titles available in iBooks, the Kindle store, and the NOOK store, including the week’s New 52 superhero books, several Vertigo issues, select “digital-first” titles that publish online before print, as well as some back issues. A combination of same-day new titles and backlist titles will be added in the coming months.

Reuters is reporting that the European Union is about to accept the offer from Apple and four major book publishers: HarperCollins, Hachette Livre, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, and Simon & Schuster. The proposal by these five companies was made back in September, and the EU is said to make a decision soon.

However, it probably won’t be until next month until we hear from the EU about their decision, but one source says that they will “likely accept the offer” from Apple and the publishers. The EU antitrust authority was investigating Apple’s ebook pricing, which some said prevented Amazon and other retailers from undercutting Apple’s prices.

However, this agreement is good news for Amazon, as well as consumers. Apple originally made a backroom deal with book publishers that would force Amazon to raise prices so that they wouldn’t hold a price advantage over Apple’s iBooks. However, this new deal with the EU will see Amazon ebook prices most likely going back down soon.

[via Reuters]

Apple has also made it easier to insert mathematical expressions into textbooks, whether those are graphs or equations or charts. Expanding on that, publishers can also put multi-touch widgets into their books, putting even more information at users’ fingertips. While all of this is cool, there’s one new feature that outshines the rest: iBooks Author publishers can now directly edit their books, so they can make changes on the fly and update information as needed. The rest of the features will definitely come in handy, but we’re thinking that the ability to edit books will prove to be invaluable.

This new version of iBooks Author is available today, and you can nab it for free. We’re sure that publishers are going to go crazy over this new edition of iBooks Author, so Apple may find itself with a lot of praise after this release. Keep it tuned here to SlashGear for more, and be sure to have a look at our Apple hub to make sure you didn’t miss any news from today’s event!

Facebook and Twitter have been integrated into iBooks here with this newest version of iBooks, as are several new languages. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese have been added to the iBooks family of books, all of them working in a free download available in the App Store right this minute. This is a pre-cursor to the iPad mini, we must expect, as its perfect book-sized shape will lend itself to the new version.

If you’re ready to take on the new version of iBooks, you can head to the iTunes app store right this minute and download away. The full update includes a new wave of books added in several countries – noted earlier this week – and we’re expecting the line to expand through the week. Stay tuned to this big Apple event throughout the day for more updates to the whole Apple family!

But long before there were books powered by high-end semiconductors and advanced software, publishing pioneers were introducing the idea of interactive tomes decades and decades ago. They were called “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, and if you’re too young to know what that means, then good news – the classic text-based adventures are coming to the iBookstore.

Now of course, it will be impossible to get the same experience as flipping through dozens of pages to find the next chapter in your adventure. Nevertheless, the dynamic nature of the story will be fully replicated, with readers able to click on the path they want to choose and be directed right to the correct page. It’s really cool to see these old-school dynamic adventures being remade in the digital age.

[via Wired]

HarperCollins and Hachette Book Group, for instance, could settle as early as today, according to two insiders with knowledge of the situation. Their aim is to avoid what would likely become a costly legal fight with the Justice Department.

However, others – including Penguin – are supposedly preparing for a fight, according to other sources. Neither any of the targets of the lawsuit, or indeed the US Justice Department, would comment on the case publicly.

At the root of the case – which was rumored to be in the pipeline earlier - is the so-called Agency Model, where publishers can set their own minimum prices for ebooks that retailers must abide by. Instead, the government wants a return to the wholesale model, where retailers can choose to set their own pricing; Apple had opted for the agency model when it launched its iBooks platform, as a way of quickly getting the big names in publishing onboard.

What remains to be seen is what impact the lawsuit could actually have on the different models, with legal experts saying that a win for the Department of Justice might not actually mean the wholesale model is forced upon publishers.

Update: According to Bloomberg‘s sources, Simon & Schuster, Hachette and HarperCollins have all agreed to settle with the Justice Department. No terms have been revealed.

Meanwhile, the full documentation for the suit has been released by the DoJ; it’s embedded below:

Featured: Check out our review of the ms01 Monitor Series to see what we thought of it. Also, our Chris Davies takes a hands-on look at RBS 6 Nations Live Challenge app. The sports app is available for iPad, iPhone, Android, and Facebook.

Apple: We’ve got some news regarding Apple’s newest digital books platform: Apple updates iBooks author EULA terms to address content ownership concerns. And on the Apple-branded TV front – Apple iTV pushed back as IGZO panels unready for shipment.

Miscellaneous: Hey, here’s a fun stat – Smartphones outpace PCs for the first time in Q4 2011. And for the “how could that happen?” files, we heard about refurbished Xoom tablets, sold on Woot.com, that contain previous owner data. Talk about a train wreck. And on that subject, some Yahoo news – the once formidable search giant has launched new search tools for iOS and Android, making it easier to find apps. Well, that’s all for tonight. Have a good weekend!

“If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a ‘Work’), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple,” read the original iBooks Author EULA terms.

Apple has changed those terms in today’s update, saying that only the iBooks Author files in the .ibooks format are restricted to distribution through Apple. The restriction does not apply when the content created with iBooks Author is distributed in other forms. This means that creators retain the rights to their content and can distribute it in other formats, such as PDF.

[via TNW]

The free ebook creation tool, which is Mac-only and requires OS X Lion, was apparently downloaded 90,000 times since it was released on Thursday. The app allows digital books to be created by dragging-&-dropping Word files, photos, video clips and Keynote presentations, though the resulting interactive titles can only be distributed via Apple’s own iBookstore.

That limitation may not dissuade many publishers, however, given the potential savings on offer. The research firm reckons production using iBooks Author is around 80-percent less than for a print textbook, and highlights that the sales model – selling to students each year, rather than to schools every five years on average – also presents more of an opportunity for profit, even if individual digital textbooks are cheaper than their paper counterparts.

You can find more in our iBooks 2 hands-on report.

Apple has already been including “x2″ extra-detailed icons for the iPhone 4 and 4S, catering to the smartphone’s higher-resolution Retina Displays as opposed to the smaller graphics required for the older model handsets. Until now, though, a single iPad icon size has been included, but iBooks 2 apparently marks the beginning of a new, oversized version to suit more pixel-dense tablet panels.

The new icons were short-lived, Apple releasing a second, mildly-tweaked iteration of iBooks 2 to remove the fourth size. However, that wasn’t quick enough to avoid images of it being saved, along with evidence of a more detailed, larger wood-effect background tile as well.

Although Apple’s lips are, as ever, tightly sealed on the new iPad, that hasn’t stopped the perpetual rumor machine from crunching through any tidbits it can find. Most recently, it’s been suggested that Apple’s new tablet will be the iPad 2S, in effect a more incremental upgrade with the new, extra-detailed display, a quadcore processor and LTE support. The true iPad 3, so the speculation goes, will follow on later, a more significant update all round.

The event was the second prime appearance for Phil Schiller, senior VP of marketing at Apple, and marked a more enthusiastic and upbeat performance than the iPhone 4S launch that came just days after Apple founder Steve Jobs died in late 2011. As for the apps and services themselves, Apple is obviously trying to do for textbooks what has already done for digital music, offering publishers an easy way to get their interactive content into ebook form and on sale.

You can find out hands-on with iBooks 2 here, our first-impressions of iBooks Author here, and the results of our fondle with iTunes U here. All three apps are available to download now, so give them a try and let us know what you think in the comments.

Starting today students will be able to easily access digital textbooks from their iPads, the star device of Apple’s education revolution. Apple unveiled the iBooks 2 app that now includes a section for textbooks and an overall improved user experience. Be sure to check out our hands-on with the new iBooks.

The textbooks to be offered in the iBookstore will cost only $14.99 or less. These digital textbooks will always be up to date and can be easily purchase with one click. Publishing partners include Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and McGraw Hill, which make up about 90 percent of all textbooks in the US. The first to be available will be high school textbooks.

And to create the interactive digital textbooks, Apple is offering a new tool called iBooks Author, which was rumored to be like a “GarageBand for eBooks.” Well, from our hands-on with the app, it seems even more intuitive, letting you easily create interactive e-books through templates and a drag-and-drop interface. And perhaps most amazing of all is that the app is free and is available starting today from the Mac App Store.

Additionally, Apple revealed a new iTunes U app, which lets teachers create custom classroom experiences, give assignments, and interact with students. The app works with iBooks 2, for notes, full courses with videos, documents, apps, and textbooks from the iBookstore. The app made for iPads is available to download for free. Check out our hands-on with iTunes U.

If you still want to know more, Apple has posted the full event video here.

You get a lot for a free app, especially one in its first iteration. Early leaks described the rumored tool as “GarageBand for eBooks” but in fact we found it even easy to dig into: load the app, pick one of the basic templates, and then begin dropping in content. Pages are easily managed in a column down the side, similar to Keynote.

Text can be typed in directly, with the usual choice of fonts and styles, or imported wholesale by dropping a Word document into the editor. Similarly videos and images can be dragged in, and Keynote presentations automatically covert into interactive clipboards. What stands out the most is the speed at which content renders and is ready; Apple was demonstrating iBooks Author on some high-spec iMacs, which will give it an edge of course, but there’s little in the way of sitting round waiting for video to import or graphics to be crunched.

Those readers using VoiceOver on their iPad are catered for as well, with optional accessibility descriptions, and pagination, captions and footnotes are handled automatically. Apple’s event today was focused on textbooks, but any type of ebook can be created, with the complexity entirely up to the user: you can go for basic text and a few photos, or the whole way with multimedia, animations and more.

The downside will be exactly how you can export ebooks created with the tool: PDF and TXT are options, along with Apple’s own IBOOKS format, but interactive books exported as .ibooks – which they’ll need to be for all the multimedia support – will only open on the iPad. Even iPhone users are currently left out in the cold.

Our guess is that Apple is looking to change that – after all, iTunes U supports cross-device sync using iCloud, and textbooks are going to be a big part of that – but for the moment the iPad is where it’s at. We can’t particularly fault them on an eye-candy level, as the output iBooks Author is capable of looks its best on the iPad’s bigger screen.

iBooks Author is obviously a far deeper app than our brief hands-on post-keynote gave us time to get to grips with, but the good news is that not only is it available to download now, but it’s free. You’ll need OS X 10.7.2 Lion and, obviously, a Mac in order to use iBooks Author.

A free update for the iPad, iBook 2 adds a new section for Textbooks in among the existing categories. The download process is the usual couple of taps, and then navigating interactive textbooks uses all the gestures and multitouch we’re familiar with from other apps on iOS devices.

Something you notice from the start is how smooth the iBooks textbooks experience is. The opening video plays instantly, galleries slide and swoop with no lag, and the transitions between text and full-screen animation is pause-free. Apple is, unsurprisingly, demonstrating them on the iPad 2, so we’ll have to wait and see how the first-generation – and single core – iPad handles multimedia-heavy texts.

Individual books are anything from a CD’s worth to as much as 3GB, though that does mean that you don’t need a data connection while reading. Everything is stored locally, which increases speed and usability; after all, there’s no point having a digital textbook if you can’t access it from a non-wirelessly-enabled classroom.

In short, iBooks 2 is amazing, and I wish I was back in school. You can download it yourself from the App Store now.

Instead, Apple expects various industries to be interested in creating their own interactive titles. That could include technology, children’s books, design books and more; until now, creating a truly interactive ebook for the iPad has required some serious investment of time, not to mention money, but Apple’s new app significantly streamlines both.

Rather than complex coding and messing with page layouts, you can simply drag content into a template and have it automatically format to suit. Videos, audio and images are supported, along with Word documents – that are instantly split into chapters with headings and formatting – and you can drop Keynote presentations in and have them change into interactive slideshows.

Those with HTML and JavaScript skills can add their own content through homegrown widgets, though you needn’t be a code genius in order to get something halfway decent ready. Once it’s done, you can instantly push it to the iBookstore. More details from today’s launch here.

iBooks Author is a free download [iTunes link], though you’ll need a Mac running OS X 10.7.2 Lion in order to use it.

Apple’s iPad sits at the head of students minds in every level of education, said Schiller, students from k-8 all the way up to highschool, college, and more. But education is still “in the dark ages.” A video shown with teachers from across the United States shows teachers and professors speaking about how the technology they need is not what they have, classrooms are too large, students are not graduating. Schiller returned to the stage and said what we knew was coming: “these teachers need help, and we try to figure out what we can do at Apple to help.”

This year during the holidays, the iPad, says Schiller, was the number one most wanted item on teen’s lists. This can be tied to the thin and light nature of the device, how its powerful and has an all-day battery life, and is affordable on top of that. The iPad also has 20k education apps built specifically for it, including iBookstore which will be working, we’re sure into the rest of the announcements Apple has for this week – Reinventing Textbooks. Stick with us the rest of the week (especially today) to see what Apple has in store for students through the iPad.

Continue to follow along today with http://live.slashgear.com/ as well for up to the second updates on this event!

That fits in with talk at the top end of the month that there would be no hardware announcements at the event, with Apple instead unveiling a mixture of software, content or services – or indeed all three. The company already has an ebooks store in the shape of iBooks, as well as PDF support, but so far has not waded into the digital textbook arena.

That’s all set to change, it seems, and with students spending big money every semester on education-related titles it’s potentially going to be quite the money-spinner for Apple. We’ll know more on January 19 when the event kicks off in NYC.

According to the writers, attempts to have Apple abide by Chinese laws for copyright certification have been rebuked, and some of the copied texts have been downloaded several million times. 37 works in particular are named in the case, with authors including Han Han, Li Chengpeng and Murong Xuecun, all well-known in China.

It’s not the first time Apple has faced controversy over its ebooks strategy. Late last year, the European Commission announced it was undertaking an investigation into allegations of potential antitrust behavior around ebooks, with Apple and publishers accused of price fixing and/or anti-competitive deals.

Although Apple will likely protest that it has procedures for copyright holders to complain about illegal uploads, the company may have to take a more proactive stance in future. Back in March 2011, the Chinese Baidu search engine was forced to carry out a search-and-destroy of illegal ebooks, amounting to around 2.8m entries in total. Apple is yet to comment publicly on the Chinese suit.

[via TNW]

The new leak also douses hopes that Apple could be preparing a new Mac Pro for unveil by the end of January. Shipping times on the current Mac Pro began slipping recently, with delays of 1-3 weeks on new orders, suggesting that the company is paring down its stocks in readiness for a new launch.

A non-hardware focused event would fit in with Apple’s previous NYC press gatherings; for instance, it was the venue for News Corp.’s and Apple’s launch of The Daily back in February 2011. The new iPad 3 was also another potential topic, it being roughly a year since Apple revealed the second-gen tablet.

Whatever is on the schedule, it’s described by the new source as not something “major” and more focused on Apple’s latest tweaks to the iBooks platform. Although invites haven’t been distributed yet, as far as we’re aware, likely candidates will be those in the publishing industry rather than those working in consumer tech.

While below you’ll see the video we’re speaking about here, lower than that you’ll find another brand new Beatles-related bit that’s popped up on iTunes this month: The Beatles Yellow Submarine book for kids. This book is completely free on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch at the moment, and is certainly meant to push for a greater adoption of the iBooks application on the iOS platform for you to hold all your non-magazine reading material purchased from the iTunes store. This Yellow Submarine book is the only digital version of the perfectly classic little adventure based on the movie and can be read aloud by whatever iDevice you run it on.

As for the ad, once more, please take note that we’ve jumped into the record album covers, the vinyl covers that were (and are) oh so massive and beautiful. Here right out in the open you’ll find that Apple is re-invigorating (or just invigorating, depending on how old you are) your love for embracing the album cover rather than tossing it aside the moment you toss your CD into your expanded wallet of CDs. What digital music displayed on your mobile device (here in an iPhone or an iPad) has done is to bring the idea that the cover matters back to the forefront – and what better way to declare it than with some of the most masterfully crafted examples in the history of vinyl than this?

You can pick up the Yellow Submarine book as well as check out the extended Beatles collection on iTunes – and turn the crank on classics all holiday season long!

Patently Apple looked in depth at the patent application and highlighted some of the new gesture introduced. One of the gestures lets you tap on a word to bring up an associated picture, animation, or video. For instance, a child learning to read could tap on the word “apple” and bring up a picture of an apple. Or, if a person is learning a new language, they could tap on the word “apple” and bring up the text in their native language.

This gesture can also be applied to magazine articles where tapping on a word could bring up a pertinent widget. For example, if you tapped on the NASDAQ symbol of a company you’re reading about in a financial magazine, a financial widget could pop up with the company’s current stock price.

Other gestures mentioned in the patent app include finger wipes across text that could invoke audio playback of the text, single or double finger swiping to call-up an image, and two-finger press and hold to select phrases that then invoke pertinent information or media.

Other interesting Apple patent applications as of late include the physical metaphor gestures for file transferring, the selectively transparent augmented reality iPad displays, and the iPhone and iPad stylus.

[via Patently Apple]

Users of the app have found that with the new version, books seem to download 75% faster. Downloaded books also appear to open faster with almost no lag time when swiping through pages.

Several other enhancements listed in this update such as the inclusion of illustrated books, ability to organize books into personal collections, and printing PDF notes written in iBooks were included in version 1.2. The app is available only on iOS 4.2 or later and can be downloaded now from the App Store.

[Via TUAW]

As for AirPrint, unsurprisingly that won’t allow you to print ebooks themselves, only PDF files you’ve loaded or annotations you’ve made to titles. The usual sharing icon has been extended in both cases to include “Print”, and then the normal AirPrint dialog in iOS 4.2 is available. Finally, there’s support for new, fully-illustrated books as well as automatic hyphenation to split words across sentences as appropriate. iBooks is a free download in the App Store.

[via MacLife]

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Although not detailed by reports coming out of Japan, it seems likely that the furor has been caused by self-published iBooks content. Apple opened up the iBookstore to self-publishing authors back in May 2010 via iTunes Connect, and – as Amazon has discovered with its Kindle ebook store – it makes a tempting target for unofficial copies of electronic texts.

In a statement, Apple said “We fully understand the importance of intellectual property including copyright” and promised to “promptly and appropriately respond to complaints about violation of copyright.”

Meanwhile a new support document from the company details best practice for ePUB files, complete with sample documents that can be used as templates.  The update follows on from Apple opening up the iBook Store to self-publishing authors, back in late May, where one of the main criteria for inclusion was that the ebook must be in ePUB format.

[via CNET]

There are also improvements in how iBooks deals with zooming – double tapping the iPad’s display now automatically zooms into an image – and performance is boosted when working with PDFs.  The Amazon option may still be the first port of call for purist readers, but Apple look to be making a significant play for everyone else.

According to the description, Microsoft were trying to replicate the real paper experience: the lifted page would have increased transparency, showing signs of the text on its reverse, while flipping repeatedly would quickly whip through two or more pages.  It’s speculated that the project was part of Microsoft’s Courier research, and could’ve been used as part of their digital notebook.

“One or more pages are displayed on a touch display. A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display. The virtual page turn actively follows the page-turning gesture. The virtual page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page. A lifted portion of the page is given an increased transparency that allows the back side of the page to be viewed through the front side of the page. A page-flipping gesture quickly flips two or more pages.”

Meanwhile there are also refinements such as two- or three-finger scrolling, which could move the on-screen page rather than step through individual pages.  Microsoft will likely have their work cut out for them proving that this hasn’t all been done before.

[via GoRumors]

Titles have to be in ePub format and validate against epubcheck 1.0.5; that’s pretty standard stuff.  They’ll also need to already have a 13-digit ISBN, which is where some home-authors might fall short; you can find out more about that at the US ISBN Agency.

As for the submissions process, you’ll need an iTunes account – with a credit card on file – and a US Tax ID.  Once your ebook is submitted you can choose which iBookstore to make it available through; when iPhone OS 4.0 arrives it’ll also be available on the iPhone, too.  More information at http://itunes.com/sellyourbooks

[via MacLife]

That’s great if you’re looking for a free read, and it actually bests Amazon’s out-of-US Kindle offerings which, despite the classic ebooks themselves being free, still charges you for the international Whispernet delivery (even if you buy through your computer and transfer the titles via USB).  Of course you can also load ebooks into iBooks via iTunes, but Apple will have to bolster their store if they want to see the kind of download stats they’re experiencing in the US.

Still, things could well change by the time the iPad officially launches in the UK and elsewhere internationally at the end of this week, and new owners of the Apple table might find new content as the Cupertino company finalises deals.

[Thanks Adam!]

The Best of R3 Media

Orange Calls its First Android Phone Boston, We Approve: Android is an open source mobile Operating System, and it’s specifically designed for anyone who wants to take a crack at it, to, well, take a crack at it. And with that in mind, take the Orange-branded Boston for what it’s worth. It’s not necessarily a low-end device, as it features a 3.2-inch 480×320 touchscreen, 600MHz processor, 5MP camera on the back, and it has 802.11 b/g WiFI. However, the real appalling feature is the fact that it’s going to ship with Android 1.6. That just doesn’t cut it in our books. [via Android Community]

Citrix Receiver Brings a Virtual Windows Desktop to Your iPad: While we brought you a different kind of way to multitask last night, this method may be a far safer, and much more rational way to go about bringing multitasking to your iPad. With the Citrix Receiver iPad application, you connect that with the XenDesktop application you download to your Mac or PC, and have at it with the virtual goodness. You’ll be able to utilize multiple applications running in the virtual PC, and what makes it all worth it, is the fact that the company created an iPad-like User Interface, so you still get that ease of use you’re accustomed to, even if you are running Windows 7. [via Everything iPad]

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Gets Reviewed: Even if you can’t go pick up your very own X10, with its Rachael User Interface, at least you can head over to SlashPhone and check out their in depth review of the handset. Much like every other cell phone (or gadget, for that matter), it’s not going to be for everyone, but we know that someone out there will like the X10. With its Timescape and Mediascape applications, and the fact that the Rachael UI brings a whole new level of custom skinning to a mobile Operating System, the X10 certainly stands out. But, does it do it in a good way? Go read and find out. [via SlashPhone]

The Dredge Net

Intel Suggests Dual-Core Atom Chip is Coming to Netbooks: As it stands right now, most netbooks out there are running a single core Atom chip (if they’re running an Atom chip at all, mind you), but it looks like Intel wants to change that, and soon. By the second quarter, Intel CEO Paul Otellini wants to have a dual-core Atom chip running in netbooks and other small form factors. And while the Atom chip may not be anything to write home about, at least not in its single core iteration, we’re pretty confident that a dual-core chip could definitely be something to get excited about. [via CNET]

Iron Man 2 Saves Your Data: Who better to store your data than Iron Man, right? That whole JARVIS system should do wonders for your spreadsheets and word documents. If you’re a fan of the Iron Man movie franchise, and you want to see the new movie, maybe you should show your excitement by picking up this USB drive. It comes in a 4GB capacity, and it will cost you $39.50, so we’re assuming you’re paying a little bit of overhead due to the fact it’s Iron Man related. But hey, it’s cute, right? [via Chip Chick]

The Skôn is a Hoodie With a Light: Skôn means nice, in Swedish and Dutch, and we’re pretty sure that title fits this piece of tech really well. You have what looks to be a normal hoodie, but then bam, there’s a light that outlines the hood. There’s a knitted variable resistor within the fabric of the hood, so the more you play with it, the brighter the light will become. So, if you find yourself in a dark tunnel, the more you nervously knead the rim of your hood, the brighter your path will be lit. [via Yanko Design]

Alice eBook Makes All Other eBooks Want to be More: While the iBooks application brings a sense of realism to reading your electronic book, with that whole slow page turning and what not, just watching this video demonstration of this Alice in Wonderland eBook blows our minds. It’s so interactive, with its pop-up 2.0 features, that we can’t wait to get our hands on it. And, in point of fact, we really can’t wait to see what comes next. Just watch the video and see how you can literally interact with the story, and make certain set pieces within each page move, or shake, or tumble around. We can see how this will make millions of kids out there want to read. [via The Daily What]

The tutorials cover pretty much ever native iPad application, from Safari to Videos, along with several applications you’ll have to download from the iPad App Store. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers make an appearance as well, with some great exploration happening within the tutorial. They’re not as detailed as some may like, but they do a good job of covering all the major bases, as well as throwing in a few extras. Most of all, it looks like the videos are meant to show how one would navigate through the iPad, especially in the applications, as they are different from their iPhone and iPod Touch compatriots.

The iBookstore, which you’ll have to download from the App Store as well, also makes an appearance. It shows you how to download a book, flip through pages, as well as change the font and backlighting. It even shows off a dictionary application within the eReader, which will probably be pretty helpful to a lot of people out there. It shows how easy it is to navigate from one page to another in any iBook, along with how to download a novel from the digital storefront. All in all, the videos will either tide you over until Saturday, or make the wait increasingly more difficult. Hopefully, it’s the former.

[via Apple]

There’s no doubt that the iBookstore is going to be a hit. Much like the iPad itself. But, that’s not stopping news from breaking on the subject at large. From free books being directly available from the digital bookstore, to the pricing getting changed all willy-nilly, it’s looking more and more like we’re not going to know what’s the final word until Apple delivers it. Which, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) means until we get the iPad in our hands.

A couple days ago, the pricing for iBooks broke cover in the form of an unofficial screenshot. Now, through another unofficial screenshot, we can see that some of those same iBooks have received a price increase. We’ve been hearing that the scope of prices will be anywhere between $9.99 and $14.99, so seeing the majority of iBooks have taken the middle-ground and landed at $12.99, we’re not all that surprised.

As we mentioned in the opener, this isn’t the final word. It’s in no way the determining factor in regards to how much these digital books, sold out of Apple’s iBookstore, are going to go for. We won’t know that until the final release, and all we can hope for is some kind of official verdict from the Cupertino-based company. We can keep our fingers crossed, but that will probably hold until April 3rd, when customers get their hands on their own.

[via Everything iPad]

While the iPad supporting the free ePub format for its iBooks is great, a lot of users wouldn’t want to go through the hassle of installing them onto their device. Yes, all you have to do is download the novel of your choice, drag and drop it into your iTunes library and you’re off to the races, but not everyone is planning on having easy access to iTunes while they’re using their iPad. So, if the Gutenberg Project is indeed being supported, and in fact part of the iBookstore, that’s very good news. It just means that over 30,000 free books are going to be available for your perusal and easy download onto your iPad.

We’re hoping this bit of undercover work from AppAdvice will pay off. While we’re fond of purchasing our books, especially in the digital format, having the option to pick from one of our many favorite classics for free is too good to pass up. And, if it’s part of the iBookstore, then the Gutenberg Project Catalog should also benefit from the User Experience that all other iBooks will share, with slow page turns and the like. Of course, Apple probably won’t comment on any of this; but why should they? Their tablet is launching in just over a week. We can be patient, right?

[via AppAdvice]