Kobo Arc now on sale in Canada, UK, and France

Kobo has announced that their newest device, the Arc tablet, is available for purchase in Canada and the United Kingdom, while France will have it stock starting on Monday. Kobo is an often forgotten brand, thanks to the dominance of Amazon’s Kindle series of products, as well as Barnes & Noble’s NOOK ereaders and tablets. However, it seems Kobo is looking to make an international dent in the market with its Arc tablet.

The Arc tablet will be available at Indigo-Chapters, Best Buy, and Future Shop stores in Canada, while the UK will have the tablet in stock at WHSmith, and at Fnac Booksellers in France. Pricing will start at $199.99 for the 16GB model, while $249.99 will get you a 32GB version and $299.99 for the 64GB variant.

The Kobo Arc is Google-certified, and features a 7-inch 1280×800 HD display (215ppi), with a 1.5GHz OMAP 4470 dual-core processor running the show. It comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but surprisingly, Kobo says that they’re already working to roll out an upgrade to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

With access to Google Play, as well as the company’s own content, Kobo Arc users have access to a wide range of Android apps, games, music, movies, TV shows, and of course, books (and lots of them). While the Kobo Arc looks to be a real competitor in the 7-inch tablet market, the bigger companies currently have a hold on it, especially Google, who recently launched an updated Nexus 7 tablet, as well as their new Nexus 10.

[via Android Community]


Kobo Arc now on sale in Canada, UK, and France is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Booksi Recycled Book iPhone Docks: Don’t Read While Docked

I’ve never though of recycling books, since I’m a bibliophile, but there’s something marvelous about these docks that are made from old books. Rich Neeley custom makes them for the discerning gadgeteer.

booksi dock etsy ios

Booksi docks by RichNeeleyDesigns look great – especially on a bookshelf. The charging dock is integrated into the book’s cover, and twisted around through the book so that there is actually minimal damage to the book. You could probably read it – assuming you undock your phone.

booksi dock etsy ios close

He’s even got some docks for the iPhone 5 and its new 8-pin Lightning connector.

booksi iphone 5 dock

Most of the docks work with a number of 30-pin iOS devices, like iPods, iPhones and some even work with iPads. Prices start at around $49(USD) and go up depending on the book or books used. Rich offers a wide variety of popular books in his shop which are ready to go, but he also accepts custom book requests.

booksi dock etsy ios top

[via BonjourLife]


Open Source Book Scanner Uses a Household Vacuum To Turn the Page

In an effort to streamline the process of scanning hundreds of millions of titles, Google Books engineer Dany Qumsiyeh has designed a $1,500 automated scanner from sheet metal, dissected electronics, and a household vacuum. It can chew through a 1,000 page odyssey in about 90 minutes, and you’re welcome to build your own since Qumsiyeh has made his Linear Book Scanner open source. More »

Oxford Dictionaries names “GIF” as 2012 word of the year

The GIF has been around for over 25 years, and 2012 was a huge year for the file format, and probably its most popular year yet with animated GIFs showing up all over the place. With that said, it makes sense that Oxford Dictionaries has named “GIF” the 2012 word of the year in the US, with “omnishambles” claiming the title in the UK.

GIF beat out words like YOLO, second-screening, and superstorm for this year’s crown. In the Oxford English Dictionary, GIF is an acronym for Graphics Interchange Format and is defined as “a lossless format for compressing image files,” while the verb usage is “to create a GIF file of (an image or video sequence, especially relating to an event).”

The UK’s word of the year, omnishambles, is a term that was coined by the writers of the British comedy show The Thick of It, and it’s defined as “a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations.” You may remember when the word was playfully changed to “Romneyshambles” when 2012 US presidential candidate Mitt Romney questioned England’s preparations for the London Olympics, which obviously upset a lot of UK residents and officials.

Oxford’s head of the US dictionaries program, Katherine Martin, said that “GIF celebrated a lexical milestone in 2012, gaining traction as a verb, not just a noun.” She also noted that the GIF is “a tool with serious applications including research and journalism, and its lexical identity is transforming to keep pace.”

[via Oxford University Press]


Oxford Dictionaries names “GIF” as 2012 word of the year is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Barnes & Noble cut the price of Nook Tablet, Nook Color once more, really wants to be on your Christmas list

Barnes & Noble cut the price of Nook Tablet, Nook Color once more, really wants to be in your Christmas list

Barnes & Noble recently took the wraps of two new tablets, updating its range (along with everyone else it seems) in preparation for next year. That doesn’t mean it’s washed its hands with the OG Nook tablet and Nook Color — in fact, both just got another price cut. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be able to pick up the original 8GB tablet for $159, the 16GB version for $179 and the Nook Color for $139. With two price cuts in three months, anyone would think it was trying to get rid of stock. This still puts last year’s lower capacity model shoulder to shoulder with Amazon’s 2012 Kindle Fire (with ad subsidies), but with Christmas just around the corner, we’re not complaining about more choice for less dollars.

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Barnes & Noble cut the price of Nook Tablet, Nook Color once more, really wants to be on your Christmas list originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Nov 2012 14:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This Bookend Is So Minimalist You Can’t Even See It

If you hate extraneous clutter but need to organize your books, here’s just the thing: Paul Cocksedge‘s Invisible Bookend is an exercise in function over form. Largely because you can’t see the damn thing. More »

iBookstore lines its shelves with paid content in New Zealand, 17 Latin American countries

iBookstore lines its shelves with paid content in New Zealand, 17 Latin American countries

iDevice owners in New Zealand and 17 Latin American countries are no longer restricted to a diet composed of free content when it comes to their respective iBookstores. A quick search of the storefronts will reveal virtual shelves stocked with paid-content that haven’t yet found their way to the shops’ homepages. Reside in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru or Venezuela? Head on over to the appropriate store and books with price tags will be available for purchase. If this is any sign of what Apple has up its sleeve for tomorrow, we suspect that “a little more” will involve a bit of reading.

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iBookstore lines its shelves with paid content in New Zealand, 17 Latin American countries originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Oct 2012 21:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Geniuses Squeeze Hamlet on a Bookmark in Case Your Book Is Awful [Printing]

Like hiding a comic book inside the textbook you’re supposed to be studying, this handy bookmark ensures you’ve always got something interesting to read when your book takes a boring turn. It features Shakespeare’s complete Hamlet, so reading it can’t be considered slacking off since you’re still getting a dose of culture. More »

Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite coming to the UK on October 25th, starting at £109

Kindle Paperwhite coming to the UK on October 25th, starting at 109

Amazon has found a relatively clear day in the calendar on which to launch its excellent Kindle Paperwhite e-reader in the British Isles. The ad-supported basic model will knock you back £109, while an extra £60 will get you the 3G version. Amazon’s Lending Library service will roll-out at the same time, offering Prime members free loans from a collection of 200,000 books as part of the £49 per year subscription (which also has other perks). If you’re shopping around, don’t forget that Barnes & Noble’s equally glowing alternative is also available in the UK these days, wearing a pretty much identical price tag.

Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite coming to the UK on October 25th, starting at £109 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Oct 2012 05:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This E-Book Subscription Service Could Be Great for Amazon-Hating Avid Readers [Ebooks]

Bibliophiles on a budget may have some bright news on the way: a burgeoning startup is getting ready to hit the literary world with the Spotify-style book service, Oyster. A yet-to-be-determined monthly fee will give the voracious readers of the world unlimited access to Oyster’s library. And while the launch date remains a mystery, we do know that its first rendition is coming in the form of an iPhone app—though an Android version will likely follow. More »