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Miniot’s wooden iPad 2 cover mixes old style and new tech

Some said that Apple’s Smart Cover would kill the third-party case market. When I first saw the neat magnetic cover, I thought the opposite — that case-makers would go crazy with cool ways to use the magnets inside the iPad 2. And here’s the first really clever take I have seen: a wooden cover from Dutch company Miniot.

The picture above is awful, so I recommend watching the video. The cover is a thin sheet of cherrywood scored with grooves so that it can roll. On the inside face is a plush, soft layer to cushion the screen, and there are magnets to hold the cover to the iPad’s spine, and also to activate the screen-lock.

The clever part is its hingeless design, making it even more minimal than Apple’s own cover. Magnets are in the edge of the cover itself. To use it as a stand, you first roll (not fold) the cover back, and then swing it around to the iPad’s rear. Thus positioned, it can hold the iPad up for movie-watching, or down almost flat for typing.

Best of all, the case is cheap. At just €50, it is €20 less than Apple’s leather cover. If you’re importing into the U.S, it’s not quite so good, translating to 71 of your U.S dollars. Available, apparently, from today.

Wooden iPad 2 cover [Miniot via Mac Stories]

See Also:

• Smart Cover
• Speck PixelSkin HD Apes Smart Cover Design
• IFixit Smart Cover Teardown: Contains Magnets. Lots of Magnets …
• Hack Puts Smart Cover on Old, Fat iPads

CBS News correspondent Dr. Debbye Turner Bell shows off a high-tech pooper scooper, a doggie treadmill, spill-proof bowls, a microwavable cat cake, and more.

Remember the second-gen Apple Peel 520 we saw back in January? Yep, Yosion has now confirmed that this familiar-looking adapter will be available in China on March 28th, which happens to be this coming Monday. Like its predecessor, this new sleeve lets you send texts and make regular phone calls on a jailbroken iPod touch (including the latest FaceTime-loving model), but now Yosion’s also thrown in GPRS data connectivity along with some extra battery juice, all for the price of just ¥520 ($79) for pre-orderers and possibly around ¥598 ($90) when it’s out. Frankly, this isn’t a bad value proposition for those already clinging onto an iPod touch — just make sure El Jobs doesn’t catch you holding this Peel.

Yosion’s second-gen Apple Peel 520 arriving on March 28th, ready to cellularize your iPod touch originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Kindle 3 can now download Audible books over Wi-Fi. Photo Charlie Sorrel

Kindle users can now browse, buy and download Audible audio books, direct from their device. You’ll need to be connected to Wi-Fi to actually download anything thanks to the large chunks of data involved, but this simple addition makes the Kindle a whole lot more useful.

To try it, just head to the Kindle Store from your Kindle, and you’ll see a new link to browse audiobooks. You can browse 50,000 titles by genre, or you can search. And just like regular e-books, you can download and listen to a sample. The audiobooks show up in your main book list, and you open them just by clicking, as you’d expect. The page then shows a cover thumbnail, a summary of the book and a set of on-screen audio controls for playing, navigating and skipping tracks.

I have had a Kindle 3 for a few months now and I have never tried out the speakers. They’re surprisingly good. Speech is loud and clear, and easily good enough to listen to a book while you cook. And of course, you can plug in headphones.

If you are already an Audible subscriber, you can sign in from the Kindle and then spend your Audible credits instead of charging your Amazon account. I can’t yet find a way to download previously purchased Audible content, but I’m working on it. Plus, you can always just download the files and transfer them to the Kindle via USB.

I’m also running tests on how playback affects the Kindle’s battery life. More on that as I get it. Given that I have only charged the thing twice since I got it, that may take some time.

The Latest Kindle Offers Wireless Delivery of Audible Audiobooks via Wi-Fi [Kindle Daily Post. Thanks, Kinley!]

See Also:

• Amazon Adds Real Page Numbers to Kindle
• Read (Some of) Your Own Books on Kindle for iPad
• Kindle Singles Will Bring Novellas, Chapbooks and Pamphlets to E …

Google promised us the ability to buy stuff while inside Android apps, and sure enough, it’s now just about ready to deliver it. Eric Chu, responsible for the company’s Android Developer Ecosystem, has announced app submissions are now being accepted from those wanting to offer up purchasable items within their software. He also points out there’ll be about a week’s worth of internal testing before the whole system opens up to the public, likely before the end of the month so that Google may stick to its word of rolling out the service in the first quarter of this year. Once that’s done, you’ll finally be able to buy your way to in-game glory instead of having to grind away at it like some unenlightened schmo.

Android in-app billing coming next week, starts developer testing today originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 06:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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