Hasta La Gadget!

Caroline Paul and her partner, the illustrator (and friend of Gizmodo) Wendy MacNaughton, were devastated when their beloved tabby cat Tibia disappeared from their San Francisco home. It was utterly out of character for the timid Tibby to venture far, especially for over a month’s time. Pet psychics were consulted. Fliers were drawn up, posted and passed around. Regular searches were conducted across the neighborhood. It was beginning to seem like Tibby was gone for good. Then, just as casually as he’d gone, Tibby returned. More »

Back in August of 2012, we first heard rumblings that technology giant Google was going to purchase the popular line of Frommer’s travel guides. It was no surprise that Google’s main intent was to use the content from these guides to bolster search results having to do with local places and attractions. Last month Google announced that it would stop publishing these guides as print editions.

That didn’t sit well with Arthur Frommer, the founder of the Frommer’s Travel Guide brand. Rather than see the print editions of the books he founded going extinct, the 83-year-old Frommer has now purchased the travel guide brand back from Google. Frommer says that the company will continue to publish its travel guides in e-book and print formats in addition to operating a travel site at Frommers.com.

Google has officially confirmed that it has returned the Frommer’s brand to its founder and is “licensing certain travel content to him.” There is no word on exactly how much money the purchase cost Frommer. Google is said to have paid $22 million when it purchased Frommer’s from publishing house John Wiley & Sons last year.

There have been over 300 books published in the Frommer’s travel series since the brand was founded in 1957. While many people see print media as old-fashioned and for technology fans at least printed books are falling out of grace, it’s nice to see the printed option will remain for those who prefer something they can carry in their hands that doesn’t rely on battery power during their travels.

[via Paid Content]

Arthur Frommer buys back namesake travel guides to keep print editions going is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Social reading website Goodreads has been providing book recommendations for quite some time now, but it seems that an even bigger force in the book industry is taking over. Amazon announced today that they have acquired Goodreads for an undisclosed amount of money, but the deal should close by the end of Q2 2013.

Goodreads launched in early 2007 and it raised almost $3 million in funding since then, so it’s definitely been a successful ride for the founders of the service. Goodreads currently has over 16 million members who have added over 230 million books to the Goodreads database, with more than 30,000 book clubs. The service allows you to find your friends and share book recommendations with one another.

This type of social integration will only strengthen Amazon’s lead in the book and e-book market, where Apple has also been trying to leverage the industry with its own iBooks offering. With the acquisition, Amazon could easily implement Goodreads’ features into its Kindle lineup to give Kindle users better recommendations, and to even let users find their friends on Amazon’s network.

However, Goodreads CEO and co-founder Otis Chandler assures users that the service will not be going away or changing. With that said, it’ll be interesting to see how Amazon will integrate itself into Goodreads, and how Goodreads will integrate into Amazon’s ecosystem. Details on that front are scarce, but I’m sure we’ll hear more about Amazon’s plans for the service in the near future.

Amazon acquires social reading site Goodreads is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Barnes & Noble may have saved most of the limelight today for in-app purchasing on Nook hardware, but it’s not leaving other platforms by the wayside. Its Nook 3.4 update for iOS focuses heavily on visuals, with new support for both Nook Comics as well as “HD” magazines on Retina display-equipped iPads. Likewise, there’s some spring cleaning afoot: the app offers better organization for periodicals, the option to expand book illustrations and newly animated page turns. Swing by the App Store if you’ve got enough of a toehold in Barnes & Noble’s ecosystem to use its software.

Filed under: Tablets, Software

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Source: App Store

There’s an unending list of things you can build with Lego, but that doesn’t always mean that you should. Case in point: a safe. As clever as this set of Lego bookends is, with a secret mechanism for popping the door on a hidden safe, it can pretty much be foiled with a three-foot fall to the floor. More »