Picks Barack Obama published a few pre-election reading recommendations. They include How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt and The Broken Ladder by Keith Payne, in addition to magazine pieces by Matthew Desmond and Yoni Appelbaum. BuzzFeed has finally launched the monthly book club, they have been talking about for a while. Family Trust by Kathy Wang is the inaugural November pick. Enrolled members will receive two newsletters a month with “exclusive content from the authors, highlights from the Facebook group, blurbs from future selections, giveaways, and more.” Unfortunately, like Oprah, there is at least some kind of awkward Amazon promotional arrangement involved. Though it’s […]
eReaders
New Kindle Oasis Is Waterproof
Amazon announced its new ereader, the Kindle Oasis, on Wednesday morning after a banner ad for the Amazon Android app leaked some of the details. The new device is waterproof: “it’s designed to withstand getting splashed at the beach or dropped in the bath tub, hot tub, or pool.” It also has a fast-charging battery that enables it to charge in two hours, plus the longer-than-before battery life. It’s priced at $249.99 for the 8 GB model and $279.99 for the 32 GB model, as ever, with ads. Other features include a 7-inch screen, the highest-resolution yet, and the “fastest page turns of any Kindle e-reader.” […]
Barnes & Noble Officially Recalls 147,000 Nook Tablet 7-Inch Chargers
Working the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Barnes & Noble has formally recalled the power adapter sold with their recently-introduced Nook Tablet 7-inch model. The bookseller stopped selling the tablet in early January after a few (now four) reports of “the adapter casing breaking apart while still in the socket” and recommended informally that customers stop using the charger while they investigated further. Under the recall, BN will replace the potentially fault units and provide customers with a $5 BN gift certificate (along with a prepaid shipping label to return the chargers). The company says the recall affects “about 147,000” units — the first […]
Barnes & Noble Tells New Nook Tablet Owners to Stop Using Adapter, Pending Replacement and Possible Recall
An internal Barnes & Noble memo posted on 9to5 Google and cited by a store employee on Reddit on Friday showed a January 9 advisory telling store managers to return all the recently-released $50 Nook Tablets to the company’s distribution center. At the same time, the tablets are listed as “not available” on the company’s web site. Shortly thereafter, the company said in a brief statement that they are investigating three cases involving “the adapter casing breaking apart while still in the socket.” They say that “out of an abundance of caution, we recommend that customers stop using the adapter until we […]
Nook and Samsung Agree to A New, Much Smaller Device Commitment
For the second time, Barnes & Noble has restructured their agreement to purchase and resell Nook-branded Samsung tablets — with the parties finally admitting the market is much smaller than planned and agreeing to a far more modest goal of selling $10 million worth of units. We had reported discussions on the renegotiation that were mentioned in the bookseller’s March SEC filing. When the partnership was first brokered in 2014, BN agreed to buy at least 1 million devices within a year. An extension gave them until June 30 of this year, but device sales for the bookseller had continued to […]
New Kindle Is A $290 Oasis
Exactly as previewed by Amazon’s Canadian and Chinese sites, on Wednesday morning the company officially unveiled their new Kindle Oasis ereader — premium priced, starting at $290 with ads. (Removing ads costs another $20; adding 3G is another $70.) Per our report yesterday, the new model is thinner and lighter than ever, as long as you are not counting the charging cover, which almost doubles the weight. That self-charging cover is actually “a new dual-battery system” that charges the reader once it is connected to the cover. “The battery in the cover uses a custom cell architecture that optimizes power and energy […]