Borders has filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and opted to liquidate assets. In September, Barnes & Noble’s proposed acquisition of Borders’ intellectual property was approved by a bankruptcy judge, and B&N is now free to use Borders’ online properties, including its website, Facebook account, Twitter account and user list.

Visitors accessing Borders.com will now be redirected to Barnes & Noble’s website. Visitors coming from the Borders.com redirect also get a coupon for a 10% discount on any item bought from barnesandnoble.com. Users also get a limited two-month membership to the site, which includes free express shipping, as well as in-store discounts. Meanwhile, users who opt to upgrade to a paid $25 per year membership also get a $25 discount off the Nook Color, as well as other free coupons and offers.

As the world’s largest bookstore, Barnes & Noble uniquely appreciates the importance bookstores play in local communities & we’re very sorry that Borders has closed. We welcome you to join the B&N Facebook community to continue your love of reading with recommendations, deals & more. We’ll be here for a few weeks to help you discover all that B&N offers but hope you’ll join our B&N Facebook page to see for yourself.

Some visitors have expressed confusion, though, not being aware of Borders’ liquidation. Barnes & Noble has also taken control of Borders’ Twitter and Facebook accounts, and is updating these with messages about visiting B&N web properties.

As for the customer records, Borders.com users can still opt out of the customer list acquisition. Users can access www.bn.com/borders, enter their email address, and follow the ensuing instructions to get themselves excluded from being part of the B&N customer list.

The ThinkPad specs that they will be enjoying will include:

• Multitouch 10.1 inch screen
• WiFi and 3G connectivity
• 1GB of memory
• 64GB of internal storage

They will also include 25,000 apps from the Android Market which should all be malware-free. Stephan Landry, Seton Hall’s chief operating officer, is quoted:

This new technology represents the next evolution in Seton Hall University’s Mobile Computing Program to use technology effectively to support teaching, learning and institutional effectiveness while keeping pace with technology that appeals to our students

Seton Hall’s acceptance of Android should help to even the educational tablet playing field a bit. Androids for education is the word for the day.

One of the first projects for the learning center to work on will be Google’s App Inventor which is currently being open-sourced. MIT would like to extend and integrate the project into their research in educational technology. Google seems excited that, even though they are ending the project and open-sourcing it, App Inventor is living on to make a difference in a field such as education.

Google is in the process of open-sourcing this work because of projects like MIT’s.

Microsoft launched its Reader system back in the early 2000′s, in a push to promote its ClearType technology for devices with LCD screens. This was also when Microsoft first marketed its Windows operating system for tablet computers. But this isn’t the same kind of tablet as, say, the iPad or the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, but rather notebook computers with swiveling screens running tablet-editions of Windows XP.

Now, Microsoft says it will be pulling out support from the Reader platform, and its .LIT format will simply live on in other devices that support this particular format. Not that Microsoft has been active in supporting Reader, mind you. The last desktop edition was released in 2007 and the latest mobile version came out with Windows Mobile 6.1 — not exactly a very aggressive update cycle. But with Windows 8 just around the corner, and with ebooks, e-readers and tablets being a big market today, as compared to the early 2000′s, will Microsoft have another attempt at ebooks and ebook readers?

The MacBook Air was the laptop of choice for the program because its solid-state drive technology requires low level of maintenance. Plus, the MacBook Air units (particularly the 11-inch ones, assuming those are what the kids are getting) are small enough to be used and carried around comfortably by children. As the recipients are kids, the Owensboro Public Schools School Board already approve a set of policies that ban visit to illegal web sites and gambling on the laptops over the internet.

The new MacBook Air models were released recently, with the cheapest 11-inch one priced at $999.

OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte has announced that the foundation is currently developing its next-generation tablet meant for the developing world. The tablet will feature an ARM-based processor, Pixel Qi display (for optimal viewing even when outdoors), camera, USB port and audio jacks. The OLPC XO-3 tablet wil run either Android or another Linux variant especially customized for the OLPC’s needs.

Now the good news doesn’t stop there. The XO-3 will also come with a couple of features that users from emerging economies will appreciate: solar charging and satellite internet connectivity. When you’re out there in place without a reliable power source and where Broadband is the least of a family’s concerns, having a tablet is probably the last thing in your mind. But OLPC believes in the education opportunities that tablet computers can provide.

Of course, these features will also come in handy when trekking, as any gadget-loving outdoorsman would find useful. Getting power and internet connectivity in the middle of nowhere would be a great deal for a $100 device.

Negroponte says the OLPC XO-3 tablet will be available by early 2012, although OLPC has been known to miss launch and pricing targets in the past.

College administrations are aware of the rising costs of textbooks, where in some cases, single textbooks would go for no less than $250 each. Some are even going as far as saying there’s something wrong with the system if the cost of textbooks is bigger than the tuition fee itself.

Some students are creative with saving money on books–they borrow, buy secondhand, or simply make do without books at all, but some colleges discourage this practice. Book publishers are also on the losing end, as they only earn from every new book purchased. With a new system being adopted by colleges like Virginia State and Daytona State College, it could be a win-win situation.

Colleges are now able to negotiate for lower per-unit costs for e-versions of textbooks, bringing down the prices to as low as $20 each. Some books can even be accessed in their online versions for free.

E-books are cheaper to produce than physical books. They also have a lighter carbon footprint. No trees are cut down to make paper, and no ink is used for printing. Of course, there are disadvantages, such as the inability to make marginal notes, and the difficulty in reading in some scenarios (like when lying down in bed). But when you consider the cost-savings, e-textbooks might be the best way to both save money and the environment.

Image source: flickr

ACME is aware that a lot of pens end up in the trash bin after they’ve run out of ink. Tons of plastic ball point pens end up in landfills across the country, and will take thousands of years before they disintegrate. With this in mind, the company has designed and developed the Eco Pen.

Eco Pens are made of cornstarch-derived material, and are 100% biodegradable. With proper disposal, the pen will disintegrate in about a year. Note, though, that the ink cartridge itself is not biodegradable, so you will have to dispose of these separately. Each Eco Pen also has an ergonomic grip, so you’re not just helping save the Earth. You’re also saving yourself from potential repetitive-stress related injury.

Additional features include a porthole for checking the ink level and 12 colors to suit your mood. A pack of 12 Eco Pens will cost you about $25.

However, in many cases, bringing out a device’s true potential involves breaking at least a few security precautions set forth by the manufacturer. This can be made evident with the iPhone which has many features supressed by Apple but brought out by the hacking community working in conjunction with the various jailbreaks.

Although, comparing a device like an iPhone to say, a Kindle, isn’t exactly fair as they are both quite different devices. However, seeing how they both feature a screen, Internet connectivity and a keyboard (be it virtual or physical) they are at least somewhat similar, right?

One of the biggest selling points of the iPhone is its App Store which amasses well over 250,000 mobile applications for download. The Kindle, on the other hand has no such thing besides a few hidden games preinstalled on the device. However, some have theorized that the device would fair quite well if educational applications were released for the platform.

Well today, it was announced that Scrabble has made its way out for the Kindle and marks the device’s first premium application. Priced at $4.99, Kindle Scrabble is made by video game publishing giant Electronic Arts and is available for the third generation Kindle along with both versions of the Kindle DX.

Currently, the game sits at number 4 on the Kindle’s best seller list which is quite promising considering it’s the first premium application available for the platform. It will be interesting to see how many other developers create applications for the Kindle and what succcess they will see.

If you have a Kindle, will you buy Scrabble?

Though this eReader may be of a lesser-known origin, it does come with a modest array of features.

This include a 5″ TFT display and a total weight of only 5.8 ounces. It features an “all-way reading” which provides users a lot of flexibility as far as viewing angles are concerned.

It even comes with a multi-language interface, a built-in clock, adjustable line-spacing and the freedom to change the font-size and line breaks as well.

The battery for the Ectaco Jetbook Mini eReader is good for up to 90 hours of use and also comes with a microSD card that is expandable up to 2GB.

It supports most formats that include ePub, HTML, PRC, PDF and MOBI.

Luckily, there is hope, as it was just announced that the University of Florida will be launching a course focusing solely on StarCraft. But wait, how could one learn anything from playing a video game? Well, according to Nate Poling Ph. D, the experiences found within StarCraft mimic the problem solving skills that one would utilize in the real world.

If you’re not familiar with StarCraft, it is a Real Time Strategy PC game that tasks a player with controlling various groups of units, managing a healthy economy and staging strategic attacks. With such a high paced nature, players are forced to multitask with cut throat precision in an effort to ensure victory.

Due to these unique game play elements, StarCraft will be utilized at the University of Florida to flex the creative ability of student’s brains hopefully making them more capable of creating unique and innovative business practices.

What exactly the curriculum entails, I couldn’t tell you, but it is called EME2040: 21st Century Skills in StarCraft. Unfortunately, for those looking to become a professional gamer, this class it not for you as it will apparently be focused on the business building aspects of StarCraft. However, the course requires prospective students to have “basic knowledge of and experience playing StarCraft” so chances are you’ll walk away from the class with some uber micro skills.

If this trial proves itself to be successful, we foresee universities across the country incorporating strategic video games into their curriculum.

However, while the idea of writing a book isn’t so bad, the thought of al the work that goes into actually getting a book published may be quite overwhelming. Not only is there the writing but there is proof reading, editing and of course, physically publishing – not to mention all of the marketing associated with successful book launches.

Once you get all of that out of the way, you’ll be lucky to even score a spot in brick and mortar retailers, if at all. However, technology is quickly making this entire process easier especially thanks to the emergence of eBooks. eBooks are digital copies of books that can be viewed on a computer, some mobile phones and most importantly eBook readers with the Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad being just two examples.

The technology isn’t necessarily brand new, but the ecosystems created by such above mentioned devices are quite new. With Apple’s iPad, for instance, came the iBooks Store giving consumers easy access to a large digital library.

Thanks to this new technology, it is getting much easier for writers to self publish their content digitally. In fact, Apple has recently updated their iWork productivity suite to version 4.0.4 which includes the ability to export a Pages document in the ePUB format. the same format that Apple uses with their iBooks application found on the iPad.

If you’ll remember, Apple introduced an iBook Store application process for independent writers with one of the credentials being the ePUB format not too long ago. Now that iWork has the exporting feature added, it will be must easier for writers to get their content out of their head and into the store.

Expect loads of hard hitting independently published titles in the future.

The Chirpy Dolch Sight Words Series app boasts of rich colorful graphics and professional recorded US and UK voice overs which should help child learning easier and meaningful.

The app is ideal for pre-primer to 3rd grade kids.

With the said app, children will now be able to learn how to read by recognizing the most frequently used words in the English language on an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad with the aid of Chirpy.

Chirpy is a friendly cheeky, fun loving chicken who has been specially developed from valuable feedback from parents, educators and children all around the world.

If you are looking for a neat app to help you out in teaching your child, choose from among the apps that Chirpy Dolch Sight Words Series over at the App Store.

The Epson Powerlite 1220 boasts of a XGA resolution and will cost about $649. The Epson Powerlite 1260 comes with a WXGA resolution as well as a wide aspect ratio of 16:10.

Among the common features of the two projectors include an automatic keystone correction, 1.2X optical zoom, direct power on and off with a wall switch for installed users, and 3LCD tech.

The new Epson projectors will come with a carry cases and can be easily set up inside five seconds.

With the help of a USB plug and play feature, users can work with a single USB connection to a notebook while the 1260 has HDMI output to show off.

Curiously, there is no word on how much the Epson Powerlite 1260 projector would cost.

With access to a wide variety of books, a developing nation could potentially curb their poverty levels, increase overall literacy and much more. However, what is a country to do when the large portions of its population cannot access books? Put them in the cloud, of course. Thanks to modern day technology you no longer need to be close to a book store to actually read a book – all you need is an eBook reader of sorts and an Internet connection (hell, a laptop will even do).

India, for example, is far from being in the worst shape, but it does have a high level of poverty and a low level of literacy largely due to its densely packed population. However, with a slew of extremely low priced devices aimed at the educational market just over the horizon, India could very well see itself jettisoned to the forefront of world intelligence levels within the next decade or so.

One such device is the Wink e-reader from EC Media. As you can see from the above picture this device bares a resemblance to a Kindle 2 in the sense that it features a 6-inch e-ink display with an 800 x 600 resolution, 802.11 b/g WiFI, GPRS, 2GB of built-in storage, a 3.5mm headset jack, a USB 2.0 port and a battery worth 10,000 page turns or 10 hours of music playback.

Unfortunately we do not have a price for the EC Media Wind but India says the device will have access to 15 languages and 200,000+ books at launch from publishers like Penguin, Oxford University, Roli, Harper Collins and Permanent Black.

Without a low price, this device may be deemed just another luxury for the rich of India. However, if EC Media teams with the guys behind that fabled $35 tablet computer we may be on to something.

What I’m talking about here is the price war between Amazon and Barnes & Noble who just recently cut the price tags of their Kindle and Nook eBook readers respectively. However, these companies are able to compete in such a war due to their massive sizes and ability to eat costs while attempting to recoup them elsewhere. Without a massively sized company, it will be hard for competing e-Reader manufacturers to keep up.

One such manufacturer that comes to mind is iRex. If you’ll remember, way back in September of 2009 we showed you the iREX DR800SG eBook reader. This device features an 8.1-inch touchscreen display and the ability to get buddy buddy with Barnes & Noble’s expansive eBook store. Unfortunately, the device was priced at quite the premium with consumers flocking towards the lower priced Kindle and Nook, as mentioned above.

Due to the underwhelming success of their debut eBook reader, iRex was forced to file bankruptcy sometime after with their CEO, Hans Brons, stating that expectations were still positive. Well, it looks like those expectations were looking towards the right direction as it was made known today that the company has survived in one form or another and will be reborn as IRX Innovations.

There’s no telling if the company plans to repackage their previous eBook reader or go a new route but we do know that they will be targeting enterprise users this time around instead of the highly competitive consumer market.

Books aren’t the only medium these devices are capable of displaying as they are touted highly for being able to deliver newspapers and magazines to consumers. But it doesn’t stop there, thanks to built-in web browsers, users are able to access their favorite blogs and read up on the latest happenings all from the same device. Sure, the E-Ink displays aren’t exactly the best devices for doing such things considering they feature a black and white screen coupled with slow refresh rates, but its definitely a step in the right direction and an example of things to come.

Gaming, however, is one thing that eBook readers have never been known to do well. Although, if you’re a die hard Kindle user, you may already know that Amazon has hidden a few simple games on the device not accessible to those who don’t know what they are doing. But what about games that doesn’t require high definition graphics or fast refresh rates that would be sure to shine on such a device?

Well, it seems that Amazon’s taken note of this and has gone ahead and released two new games for the Kindle DX. First up is Every Word which has gamers creating as many words as possible from a given set of letters within a time limit and the second is Shuffled Row which bares an uncanny resemblance to Scrabble.

Now sure, these games may be lackluster but it leads the question, will Amazon expand on this idea? And better yet, will they open the Kindle platform up and let third party developers create games for the platform? Only time will tell.

However, one eBook marketplace that essentially remains untapped revolves around students. Students, as you’re all sure to know, consume a great deal of books while conducting their studies especially when reaching the higher levels of college and graduate school. This means that they are forced to walk around (sometimes for miles) extremely heavy books posing an obvious health risk.

Luckily, eBook readers have made strides to remedy this problem but there has not been a huge push towards eTextbooks due to there being so many versions of the various textbooks used around the country.

Barnes & Noble evidently is not pleased with the poor adoption rates announcing back in July that they would soon be launching a service called NOOKstudy that would give students a one stop shop for text prep materials, eTextbooks, study aids and much more.

Today, that service has gone live and is now available for Windows XP, Vista, 7 and Mac OS X users. What’s really great about this service is its ability to let students try out an eTextbook for 7 days, completely free of charge. This gives us an ability to get a glimpse into the world of eTextbooks without making the full jump.

And then the rampant speculation started.

Seriously, what is an ebook reader doing with a microphone? It would seem that an ebook reader like the Kindle is geared more toward output than input, but there are a host of possibilities that emerge with this revelation.

Some have suggested that it might be connected to the wireless 3G access, allowing you to use your Kindle as a huge cell phone with no service plan via Skype. Others suggest that it’ll provide a service for voice annotations and other memos while you read, letting you make notes about the books you’re reading. And still others cackle with glee, rubbing their hands together and contemplating what the hacker community could do with this capability.

Right now, admittedly, it’s all speculation as the new Kindle’s microphone isn’t even activated…yet…but it’s left there for “future development”. What future developments there are remain to be seen but for the time being, it’s there.

Anyways, when eBooks first were brought to the fore front quite some time ago they were generally brushed off as unnecessary. However, as of late thanks to e-ink devices like the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook coupled with other eBook reading devices like the iPad, the medium has really seen some media attention. But just how far will these electronic books go? Will they ever surpass their physical counterparts in terms of market adoption and sales?

If you’ll remember, last week we let you know that Amazon had reported higher sales of eBooks than hardcover books for that particular quarter. This was quite the amazing feat as never before had such a phenomenon happened. However, physical sales overall are still ousting their electronic counterparts but if Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is to be believed, that won’t be the case for very long.

According to Bezos, Kindle eBook sales will surpass paperback sales sometime within the next 9 to 12 months. Additionally, he has also said that some time after that we will see eBooks surpass both paper back and hardcover sales combined.

This may have been ridiculous just a few years ago but considering all of the eBook readers coming out today for affordable prices (like Amazon’s new Kindle at $139) more and more people will make the shift to digital reading.

I have, and probably still will debate pro tablet in the tablet vs eReader war since the former would offer me a lot more perks than a simple E-Ink Kindle-like reader. I anticipated the iPad to be a better fit for most customers even since before Apple announced the device and all that happened. Recently we’ve seen eReader manufacturers lower prices for their devices to make them more appealing to the customer and now we see Amazon come up with a reinvented, smaller, lighter, cheaper Kindle.

Is it a better choice than the iPad? Probably not, especially if you look for a device that will offer you access to the web and plenty of apps in full colors. But this new Kindle seems to be just right for reading. And, again, priced accordingly.

Amazon is relying on the same E-Ink technology it has used in the past and when asked about a color Kindle (not referring to the color of the device here but to the colored E-Ink) Amazon representatives somewhat admitted they are testing such technologies but won’t use them as long as colored E-Ink could “compromise the reading experience.”

That certainly means that new Kindle models will still be based on the same electronic ink we’ve been used to see in such products. Amazon will be testing colored Kindle models behind closed doors but won’t say anything on record about any color Kindle launch plans.

The rumor that still circles the web is that a full color Kindle is coming by Christmas, so we’re definitely interested to hear more about it. Got any tips on the matter? Let us know!

Among the features of “The Book” ereader include strong indoor LCD performance, runs on Linux 2.6.4, a 400 MHz ARM CPU and comes with the usual connectivity options like WiFi, a 2GB of flash memory and SD slot content for support of cards up to 8GB.

Other features include a web browser, a text-to-speech engine and a media player for various media files (audio, image and videos). The Book can apparently display TXT, PDF, HTML, CHM, RTF, FB2, EPUB, PRC and MOBI files.

The Book was originally priced at about $99.99 and it seems that with a $10 off, this should be a bargain of sorts.

However this early, some folks are saying that renders poor display for some PDF files. It is not touch screen capable and comes with a QWERTY keyboard.

The NOOKStudy Online Reading Platform gives students the ability to read multiple books at once. This also includes lecture notes and slides as well as the ability to create notes.

This online reading program is available for both MAC and PC and is actually in used at select research institutions.

The NOOKStudy Online Reading Platform provides Barnes & Noble another dimension as far as marketability from other eBook devices available in the market. Would it be an edge?

Unless of course other eBook manufacturing companies come up with a program of their own, this is one program that should be useful for sure.

Considering that end users are looking for means to make eBook readers more flexible, the NOOKStudy online reading platform definitely provides just that.

People have probably wondered why would a flexible display ever be useful but when it comes to eBook readers, the benefits are bountiful. Not only will the device (theoretically) be extremely thin and more true to an actual reading experience but they will be able to withstand the ever changing lifestyles of technology enthusiasts. Everyone knows that throwing an iPad or even a Kindle or Nook into a travel bag is nothing short of a terrible idea due to their displays being extremely prone to damage.

With a flexible display, however, the device can be dropped into a bag and then, in theory, withstand all sorts of turbulence.

While the technology seems great and is definitely something many consumers wold love to get their hands on, like I mentioned above, hardware manufacturers haven’t been pursuing flexible displays sa much as they have alternative technologies.

However, it seems that HP and Palm have something cooking over in their labs as HP’s Phil McKinney recently took center stage at this years MobileBeat to let us know that they have been experimenting with flexible displays. Apparently, these magical flexible displays will be able to do things like display video and full color content all while being able to retain an image without sucking any power – just as eInk has been doing for quite some time.

There’s no telling if HP/Palm really plan to push out a flexible display touting device or when, if ever but I’m curious, would this be something you guys would take an interest in? Let us know in the comments.

The eBook reader was an impressive device, which was supported by Amazon’s growing eBooks collection. You’re probably noticing how I refer to the Kindle in past tense as, in the mean time, some hotter reading concept has emerged. Following the groundwork performed by Amazon came Apple and reinvented the tablet, a device that acts as an eReader too.

That’s why announcing that the latest Amazon Kindle DX version, the Graphite, is shipping is not as interesting as it once was to announce such matters. Sure the Kindle DX Graphite looks better, has plenty of hot features and offers instant access to a ton of eBooks to download and read, but it’s not capable to fight well against the iPad. If you want just an eBook reading device then maybe you’d like to look at some similar machineries coming from Amazon’s competitors as they are much cheaper than the current Graphite model.

Amazon is charging $379 for the new model, and that might just be a price too high to pay for a device that’s basically just an eBook reader. You may contradict me now, and I’ll gladly hear your point, but if I were to choose between this Kindle version and the iPad, I’d go for the later one, even if I have plenty of reasons not to buy Apple’s tablet just yet.

Kindle fans will surely give this Kindle DX Graphite a chance and, if you happen to be willing to fork the cash for it, the device can be delivered to customers outside the U.S. too.

Kindle DX Graphite owners, drop us a line and tell us how you feel about your new toy!

10. The Spyder III Hand Laser. George Lucas hates this thing. Actual scientists are terrified by it. It’s missing several key safety features and could blind a human being–permanently–from several feet away. But for the evil genius out there, nothing says “doom” quite like a Class IV laser for under three hundred dollars. Burn matches at both ends! Set trash on fire from across the room! It’s all possible now.

9. A copy of Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius. Currently available on ThinkGeek, this book gives you access to a whole host of projects that can help any evil genius in the making–a body heat detector, a lightning bolt generator, and plenty of others are available.

8. Craigslist. If you’re going to be an evil genius, you’re going to need minions. Fortunately for the evil geniuses out there, unemployment is at an all time high, thus the pool of folks available to carry out your schemes is higher than ever, if you’re willing to pay for it. Plus it’s also a great place to find old electronics you can scrap out to build your diabolical hardware. But for the cash-strapped (or non-people-person) out there, you might want to consider number 7 instead.

7. A copy of 123 PIC Microcontroller Experiments For the Evil Genius. See? Says so right in the title. But if you’re a little cash-poor, and you don’t want to kick off your evil genius career solo, you’ll need minions that need no sleep or food or pay hikes. You’ll need robots, and this book is a good place to start learning how to build and assemble your own, with a host of step-by-step instructions.

6. A Tron lightcycle. There are only five of these ever produced, but between the Tron Lightcycle (which we talked about earlier this week)’s mix of neon accents, two-wheeled high acceleration and sheer recognizability, nothing says “getaway vehicle” quite like the thing that looks like a streak of light in the night.

5. A giant LCD monitor. It both impresses anyone who sees it in your lair and allows you to see the fear in the eyes of the world leaders you contact on it. Sharp happens to offer a massive LCD monitor that weighs in at 108 inches, and that’s more than big enough to see the terror you inflict on anyone by dint of your mere existence.

4. A case of Ammo. No, not for your weapons! Ammo happens to rank number one in the world in terms of caffeine levels. By comparison, Red Bull boasts 33 milligrams of caffeine per 100 milliliters. Ammo, meanwhile, puts up 570, or nearly twenty times that. Imagine drinking twenty Red Bulls in rapid succession. Now imagine the havoc you can wreak. You’re welcome.

3. Blue Waters. It’s not a toilet cleaning solution, but rather, a highly advanced supercomputer that operates on a scale of billions of operations per second. And the best part? As of April, it was currently located in Iowa. You’ll need that kind of processing speed to automate your lair, keep track of your minions, and of course, get that amazing transmission speed for your ransom demands when you hold the world hostage to your newest device.

2. An iPhone. What, you didn’t think this was going to be just wild and esoteric devices, did you? No! Every good evil genius needs rapid communications with loads of applications, and the iPhone goes a long way toward being the electronic / communications “Swiss army knife” that every good evil genius needs! Plus, considering the way Apple’s been working lately, you’ll be able to learn a thing or two about evil as you tell people who just waited days on line for your product that they should just hold it differently and that’ll fix the problems.

1. A proper lair. Look, you can’t be an evil genius operating out of your mom’s basement or a two-bedroom split-level in the suburbs. It just doesn’t work. But for sheer panache, not to mention incredible security, take a gander at this little beauty–an old United States missile base. For instance, down in Pulaski, Indiana, there’s an old communications center that’s been specifically hardened against nuclear war. It comes on 5.5 acres of ground, with both above and below ground buildings, electric hoist, AND a diesel generator. Plus, it’s yours for just $275,000…unless you just take it over now, seeing that it’s up for sale.

And with these devices in mind, you too will be well on your way toward absolute evil genius dominance. Despicable Me, meanwhile, hits theaters July 9th.

all pics copyright their owners.

The Epson UI-01 module will come with two pens (with rechargeable batteries) that will allow user interaction within the screen itself. Users will be able to open and close programs and files and even write on the screen when needed.

The Epson whiteboard module will offer an active area of up to 96″ diagonal (WXGA) and 102″ diagonal (XGA). It is compatible with most projector models, making them interactive without having to buy a totally new and advanced projector at that. This is perhaps one of the cost-friendly alternatives that business or educational institutions can resort to.

The Epson UI-01 module will be released sometime in October and will retail for about $599.

If you’re looking for a great eBook reader today, and only an eBook reader, then you’ll have to choose from either a new Wi-Fi nook, the old, but cheaper 3G nook or the cheaper Amazon Kindle. Of course, if you purchased a nook or Kindle yesterday then we’d hate to be in your shoes today.

The official Amazon press release tells it how it is from the start. The Kindle will cost you $189 only, starting today, and it will offer you free 3G wireless with “no monthly fees or annual contracts.”

Amazon is also telling us that the Kindle is “the best eReader on the market,” and while we won’t refute that claim we’ll also remind them that the iPad is also a very good eBook reader and Apple is currently selling around 1.2 million iPad units every month. Steve Jobs took special interest in the ebook reading capabilities of the iPad at WWDC 2010 and he also introduced iBooks for iPhone and iPod touch at the same event. Coincidentally or not, Apple released today iBooks 1.1 for iPhone and iPod touch which is available for free on every iOS 4-running device.

Getting back to the Kindle, we’ll remind you that the Kindle Store offers you no less than 600,000 books, 109 of 112 New York Times bestsellers and over 1.8 million free titles. The Kindle is definitely a great bargain for those of you that want a dependable eBook reader especially now when it’s available for $70 less than what it used to cost yesterday. And it’s $10 less than the 3G nook, just in case you’re wondering what device to get.

The Acer LumiRead L600 has a QWERTY keypad, a joystick and other controls that make it look very similar to the Kindle. But grey bezel, the Acer logo, the different UI and the barcode scanner differentiate from the Kindle. Yes, it has a barcode scanner for reading ISBP barcodes and remembering the books for later purchase. It has a resolution of 800×600, a 532MHz Freescale iMX357 processor and 128MB RAM.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron has somehow managed to convince the folks at NASA to install a high-resolution 3-D camera on Curiosity, the next generation Mars rover set to launch in 2011.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory that’s creating the rover Curiosity initially wasn’t open to Cameron’s idea. The Mars project is already over-budget and behind schedule.

Cameron lobbied hard for the idea directly to NASA administrator Charles Bolden in a meeting held earlier this year in January. Cameron expressed that Bolden was “really open to the idea” and that the first meeting “went very well.”

The meeting went so well that NASA purchased a 3-D camera for Curiosity, although a mast camera without 3-D capabilities had already been delivered to JPL this month. The team isn’t sure if the new 3-D camera will be ready in time, which is currently being built by San Diego-based Malin Space Science Systems. Nevertheless, the crew at JPL are all excited about the possibilities.

Joy Crisp, JPL deputy project scientist on the project claims that the camera could film at 10 frames per second. She states that, “You could take a movie and image clouds moving in the sky or a dust devil moving.”

Cameron’s successful sci-fi movie Avatar is highly regarded for its panoramic and realistic 3-D effects. It has amazed millions of movie-watchers worldwide and has earned more than 2.7 billion dollars.

No specific details are given on the purpose of this NASA 3-D project. Rumor has it that it might be a 3-D documentary on the planet Mars as Cameron states the scientists are “going to answer a lot of really important questions about the previous and potential future habitability of Mars.”

Cameron is considered a co-investigator for the 3-D mast camera and announces that, “It’s a thrill to be on even a tiny part of the mission. It’s a very ambitious mission. It’s a very exciting mission.”

Several American universities are not that fond of the device either. The iPad has been banned at Cornell University, Princeton University and George Washington University. Students won’t be able to use the iPad in any of these three campuses to surf the Internet which is definitely not good news for all those students that purchased the Wi-Fi version of the iPad already.

The reason? Security issues and bandwidth consumption. Cornell is concerned with the fact that iPad usage will clog their wireless network while the Princeton and George Washington see the iPad as a security threat.

Now that’s definitely not what Apple wanted, is it? Especially since Cupertino has tried to pitch this tablet to students as a great device ready to offer them fast access to eBooks and other educational materials.

One other important matter to consider is that these universities might not have the proper infrastructure yet to support as many wireless devices as we tend to carry around with us. iPad owners surely happen to use a smartphone and a laptop that offer wireless connectivity. Add to that an iPod touch or a portable gaming device and you’ll understand why IT departments in various universities will see the iPad as a threat to the integrity of their Wi-Fi network.

Sure in the future the same universities will probably have to invest more in the equipment needed to deliver wireless Internet to more and more iPad-like hot devices but it might take a while until you’ll be able to freely use your iPad on those particular campuses.

In case you happen to be a student at Cornell, Princeton or George Washington you could always consider getting an iPad 3G and thus avoid the local wireless network while the iPad ban lasts. Of course this isn’t the perfect solution as it involves being ready to spend an extra $130 on that 3G capabilities.

So let’s hear it from iPad owners that happen to be students. Are you affected by any iPad ban?

Just like Barnes & Noble, Amazon is getting ready for a new eBook environment one that will be heavily populated by more and more eReaders and tablets. We’ve seen Barnes & Noble commit to deliver an iPad application last week and now we here that a Kindle app is en route for the iPad too.

As you can expect, the Kindle app will be totally free of charge but the content it will offer will cost you extra cash. If, for whatever reason, you end up not liking any of the titles Apple will have listed in the iBook store then having a Kindle and/or Barnes & Noble app around will surely help you find your favorite books in digital format.

The Kindle app for the iPad has apparently been totally redesigned in order to adjust to the new gadget and I would only assume that other tablets will also get similar Kindle apps in the months to come. Therefore Amazon should still make a large chunk of money off its eBooks even if it won’t sell as many Kindles as it did in the years before.

Now that we know both Amazon and Barnes & Noble are getting their iPad related-affairs in order we will expect other eBook manufacturers to make such free apps for Apple’s tablet and any other similar machine from the competition.

Not to mention that the screenshots of the Kindle app for iPad we have today seem to reveal what the next Kindle will look like. And the future Kindle is filled with colors from where I am sitting.

But Barnes & Noble has already launched its nook reader but the device is now threatened by the iPad arrival. So what did Barnes & Noble think of in order to put up a good fight against Apple’s eBook reader? The giant company is thinking about making a new application for the iPad through which B&N could sell various titles to iPad consumers.

While the initiative is definitely admirable, the only question here is whether Cupertino will actually agree with such a move and ultimately approve the app for the App Store? Apple could simply ban the app and thus consumers would have to jailbreak their iPads to get it.

Or Apple could simply allow the eBook reading app into the App Store and charge B&N for it. In such a case almost everyone would be happy. First of all you have Apple which could brag with the fact that its iPad is giving access to B&N’s more than one million eBooks, magazines and newspapers and getting a serious chunk of cash for it in return. Then you have B&N which will deliver content to more consumers even if they don’t actually choose the nook and even if it has to pay a fee to Apple for every downloaded title. And last, but not least you have us, the consumers who basically don’t care where our favorite books come from as long as they are easy to obtain and fairly cheap.

The eReader software from B&N should be available free of charge by the time the iPad hits stores provided that Apple will let it arrive to the App Store. It’s the eBook downloads that you will have to pay for later on, but you already know that, don’t you?

As we already know March is going to be the month when Apple starts selling the iPad. As flawed as it might be, the tablet is still a great device for both browsing the web and reading eBooks. More importantly the Wi-Fi iPad versions are pretty affordable too with pricing starting at just $499. Isn’t that something you would be interested in? The device is so affordable that you can simply try it out and then, in case you won’t like it, sell it to someone who will appreciate it more. Sure you’ll lose some money but not that much.

Now the Alex reader will cost you $359 which seems like a lot to pay for the device. Sure it has a more than interesting design that offers you both a regular 6-inch e-Reader and a 3.5-inch color touchscreen but the dual-reader seems just a little too expensive when compared to the Kindles or the nook.

The Alex eReader was supposed to be available on February 22 already but that didn’t happen. Customers are not able to order it yet and the official website reads:

Thanks for your patience. We’re almost ready with our Alex store.
Keep checking in and by the first week of March you’ll be able to order your Alex online.
–The Spring Design Team

That’s pretty annoying especially for the folks that were impressed by the Alex reader and wanted to get one ASAP. We’ll be following this one closely as it will be interesting to see how the Alex reader will compete against the iPad next month. Which one are you buying?

Barnes & Noble is certainly going to put up a good fight and while it’s too early to talk about a second-generation nook or even compare the content that’s going to be available for the nook and iPad, we do have some good news for you. The nook is getting ready to receive a firmware update and you should be able to get v1.2 installed on your nook soon.

All nooks sold starting today will come with the new firmware version pre-installed and current nook users will be able to upgrade their readers starting today.

Here’s a list of features that version 1.2 brings to the table:

• Enhanced in-store seamless connectivity to enjoy free Wi-Fi, with More In Store content promotions exclusively for Nook owners
• Improved opening of eBooks and ePeriodicals
• Improved response to Reading Now and Settings buttons
• Current reading page and bookmarks on all eBooks are properly saved when you power your Nook off
• Eligible LendMe eBooks in your library have LendMe flags
• Easier navigation of daily subscriptions with issues rolled into one folder
• Improved “back” button functionality for navigating eBooks and ePeriodicals
• Personal files downloaded and displayed in My Documents can be sorted by author and title
• Overall system improvements and battery optimization.

As you can see there’s nothing really spectacular going on here but it’s good to see that Barnes & Noble is working on offering us an even better nook experience. Go ahead and upgrade your nook and tell us how it all works out for you. And in case you don’t have one yet, it’s decision time again: iPad or nook?

Therefore you’d expect Amazon to try to protect its business as much as possible and convince people interested in reading digital versions of their favorite books to go for a Kindle instead of an iPad.

And what better way of advertising one’s business than by simply throwing official numbers to the public? Apple has mastered this particular quality and virtually any official keynote starts with numbers and stats that impress the audience. Before the iPad was launched Steve Jobs told everyone how Apple is a $50 billion company. Later during the keynote he said that $75 million people already know how to use the iPad since they already own an iPhone or an iPod touch. Now that’s the way to advertise your success and convince others to purchase one of your products.

So what does Amazon do about its Kindle-related business? Well the giant will tell you that it has sold millions of Kindles. But how many Kindles did it really sell? How many Kindle 2 and how many Kindle DX? How many units were shipped in the U.S. and how many were sent abroad? How many eBooks have been downloaded so far?

Here’s what Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s famous CEO did say about Amazon’s Q4 2009 financial numbers:

Millions of people now own Kindles. And Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It’s been an exciting 27 months.

So how many million Kindles did you sell Amazon?

CES 2010 has finally come to a halt and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to draw some very clear conclusions about the whole show. If you followed TFTS this week, and I am sure you did, then you have probably noticed yourself a few very interesting trends. CES 2010 has brought us a lot of tablet concepts, eReaders, and 3D television ideas. Add to that the Android flavour that floats in the air these days and you’ll get an impression of what CES meant this year.

I don’t have to tell you again about Apple’s tablet, do I? But that’s not the only player in this new reborn business. Microsoft has the Courier which it still conveniently hides, HP has its own slate line and traditional manufacturers like Dell and Archos are also going to be offering us tablets of different sizes. Expect even more tablets by the end of the year.

If you won’t want to choose a tablet at any time soon, then you’ll probably sign up for a new eReader. And we’ve seen our fair share of new eReaders over at CES 2010. Plastic Logic, Spring Design, the Skiff, the Entourage Edge or Jinke are some new names that are ready to fight against the Amazon’s Kindle and the Kindle DX. Other manufacturers are also interested in launching their own eBook reader so get ready to see even models later this year.

3D represents the future of television. The first 3D-dedicated TV network has been announced and every television manufacturer out there is planning 3D HDTV sets ready to deliver us some great 3D movies and show and also please our 3D-gaming needs. Other 3D-capable devices are also going to be available this year which should enhance our whole 3D experience. I am personally waiting for glasses-free 3D but that’s also going to be supported soon enough.

CES 2010 has revealed a bunch of interesting gadgets and it remains to be seen which ones will confirm later this year. The next big event in the tech world is MWC 2010 which is taking place in Spain this February between 15-18 February. Naturally we will cover all the hot phones that are going to be launched at and around the Mobile World Congress in our never-ending quest of discovering the true iPhone competitor.

Everywhere I turn these days it’s either a new eBook reader or a tablet to look at. I’ve said it before and I will say it again that I’ll take a tablet over an eReader any day but that doesn’t mean I don’t give these gadgets a chance.

In a world undisputedly dominated by Amazon’s Kindle, other manufacturers are trying to come up with new, innovative eBook readers that could steal clients from the Amazon giant. Such a company is Jinke which has not one but two new eReaders, the 6-inch A6 and the 9-inch A9, both sporting SiPix panels.

The two readers are available at CES and we could see them in stores later this year. But let’s look briefly at both models!

The Jinke A6 Series will have this to offer you:

• Dimensions: 185.2mm (L) × 124.6mm (W) × 10.9mm (H)
• Weight: 260g (Including battery)
• CPU: Samsung Arm9 400MHz
• Display: ePaper, 6 inches, 600×800 Resolution, 16 Grayscale
• Touchscreen: Capacitive Touchscreen with Multi-Touch
• Keyboard: QWERTY keyboard
• DRAM: Mobile SDRAM 128MB
• NORFLASH: 2MB
• NANDFLASH: 2GB MLC
• Storage: SD/SDHC/MMC Card, 16GB max
• Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g
• 3G: EV-DO, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA (Optional)
• I/O: USB2.0
• Battery: Li-Polymer 1500 mAh
• SIM Card
• Accessories: Charger, USB Cable, Earphone, User Manual, SD Card

The A9 Series will sport similar features:

• Dimensions: 262mm (L) × 170mm (W) × 11.9mm (H)
• Weight: 430g (including battery)
• CPU: Samsung Arm9 400MHz
• Display: ePaper, 9 inches, 768×1,024 Resolution, 16 Grayscale
• Touchscreen: Capacitive Touchscreen withMulti-Touch
• Keyboard: QWERTY keyboard
• DRAM: Mobile SDRAM 128MB
• NORFLASH: 2MB
• NANDFLASH: 2GB MLC
• Storage: SD/SDHC/MMC Card up to 16GB
• Wi-Fi : 802.11b/g
• 3G: EVDO, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA (Optional)
• I/O: USB2.0
• Battery: Li-Polymer 2300 mAh
• SIM Card
• Accessories: Charger, USB Cable, Earphone, User Manual, SD Card

Both eReaders should be available in March with the A6 going for $275 while the A9 will be priced at around $330. What do you think? Could any of them replace your Kindle?

The Entourage Edge is a dual-screen eBook reader which we talked about last year. The company making it, Entourage Systems, has decided to officially announce the device at CES 2010 and we have more details about the Edge for you today.

The entourage eDGe, that’s how they spell it, is the world’s first “dualbook that combines the functionalities of an e-reader, tablet netbook, note pad and audio/video player and recorder into one, sleek solution.” You know how this Edge reader looks to me after reading those lines? Like a Courier tablet, or the device that could exist if Microsoft acknowledged it yesterday at CES.

The device will be available at some point next month and it will cost you $490. Too expensive for an e-reader you say? Well you could be right especially since the Edge is not really a computer, is it? And I’d definitely choose the upcoming Apple tablet over the Edge in case I’d want a device capable of helping me do other things than just reading.

The Edge employs two different screens. The left side is a 9.7-inch e-paper display for reading various files while the right side is a 10.1-inch LCD screen that will help you surf the web, send emails or chat with friends. That sounds pretty interesting especially since the displays are meant to work together. You can pull pages from the left panel to the right one in order to enjoy images in color on the LCD. Other features include a built-in noise concealing microphone, a 1.3 megapixel camera and support for video and audio recording and playback.

Once you purchase the device you will have access to over “200,000 trade books and more than one million free public domain books digitized by Google.” So what do you say folks? Are you ready to replace your Kindles with an Entourage Edge dualbook reader?

It’s not all good news for those of you that have already ordered up a nook thinking it will arrive just in time to neatly place it under the Christmas tree. In fact it looks like some people won’t get the nook even if they were supposed to receive it by December 24.

The nook seems to be a great eReader and it will definitely fight well against the Kindle but I’m sure people will not appreciate all these shipping delays coming from Barnes & Noble. Fortunately for everyone that pre-ordered the nook as a gift, Barnes & Noble thought of a way to reward their patience.

Everyone waiting for a nook by December 24 and not getting one will receive a $100 gift card from Barnes & Noble. That’s not a bad way to say “I’m sorry!”, isn’t it? At this point I bet there are a few people hoping to have their nook delayed for a few days in order to receive the complimentary $100 gift card.

On top of that $100 gift card you will also have your nook shipped overnight which means you will receive it by December 29 at the latest. And in case your nook is coming late this Christmas then you’ll end up buying it for around $159 which makes it one of the cheapest readers in town.

Those of you that haven’t been able to order a nook yet and are relying on Amazon for their last minute eReader gifts should know that the Kindle DX is out of stock. The Kindle DX now has an estimated shipping date of 4 to 6 weeks according to Amazon so you’re really out of luck. Maybe the regular Kindle should be still available, but who wants that reader nowadays when other alternatives are available?