Hasta La Gadget!

Remember when hotels used to slip in a copy of USA Today or the Wall Street Journal under the door every morning?

Now, some are going digital and offering e-readers to their guests. Ten Fairmont hotels in the U.S. and Canada will give guests a Kobo e-reader when they check-in, for use during their stay.

The Kobo will be pre-loaded with a selection of fiction and non-fiction books from Random House. Guests who check-out a Kobo will also be able to access free books from the Kobo bookstore.

“Travelers do not want to carry heavy books in their luggage and vacations provide the perfect time to relax and catch up on reading,” says Michael Serbinis, CEO of Kobo in a statement. “This partnership allows Kobo to expand our reach and offer our service to an important segment of our customer base.”

The $150 Kobo e-reader has a 6-inch black-and-white E Ink display and launched in March. It is currently available at Borders book stores in the U.S. When Kobo made its debut, it gathered attention because it was much cheaper than the Kindle. But since then, Amazon has cut price on the Kindle with a Wi-Fi only version of the Kindle for $140.

Giving hotel guests a Kobo to play with is an experiment worth watching. Newspapers such as USA Today tapped into hotels successfully to increase their reach and circulation. The same could happen for digital books and e-readers. Those consumers who haven’t had a chance to try e-readers could play with one at a hotel and see if they are comfortable with digital books. And if they do like the experience, they are likely to want the same device they tried, which should be good news for Kobo.

The downside is that the Kobo e-reader at the hotel may not have the books you want.

And as with the bathrobe and the alarm clock in the room, your credit card will be billed if you walk away with the device.

See Also:

• Foxit eSlick E-Reader Nears its End
• 5 Things That Will Make E-Readers Better in 2010
• E-Readers Will Survive the Onslaught of Tablets
• Plastic Logic Que E-Reader Turns Into Vaporware
• Gallery: E-Readers Push Boundaries of Books

Photo: Kobo (jivedanson/Flickr)

And just like that, with the swing of a virtual axe, she’s all dead and buried. Plastic Logic has been stuck in a world of perpetual delays ever since wowing the universe with its QUE ProReader at CES, and rather than delaying it again, the company is simply cutting its losses and moving on. To quote CEO Richard Archuleta: “We recognize the market has dramatically changed, and with the product delays we have experienced, it no longer make sense for us to move forward with our first generation electronic reading product.” To that end, the company plans to “shift its focus to bring to market a second-generation ProReader plastic electronics-based product,” but absolutely no details regarding form factor, pricing or an estimated ship date are given. Wilder still, those rumors about a company sale have coincidentally (or not?) flared up again, with the Financial Times stating this go ’round that Plastic Logic could sell a “significant stake” of itself to Rusnano, a Russian state-owned nanotechnology corporation. We’re told that the two are currently “in discussions,” and that if a deal is reached, Plastic Logic’s production facility for this elusive next-gen product would have to be based in Russia. We can’t say we’re completely shocked at the outcome here, but we’re man enough to shed a tear at our loss. Rest easy, QUE — at least we had our times.

Continue reading Plastic Logic kills QUE, ‘shifts focus’ to second-generation ProReader

Plastic Logic kills QUE, ‘shifts focus’ to second-generation ProReader originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Aug 2010 17:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just over a year ago, we reviewed Amazon’s jumbo-sized Kindle, the Kindle DX. And just a few weeks ago, Amazon outed a new, $379 Graphite gray version of the DX. This time, it’s got the new Pearl display from E Ink, which supposedly boasts a much higher contrast ratio and a faster page refresh rate over its predecessor. Other than that, you’re looking at pretty much the same unit as before, and if you like a large e-reader, that’s probably a good thing. Read on for our full impressions of the device.

Continue reading Amazon Kindle DX Graphite review

Amazon Kindle DX Graphite review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unless ASUS means “$400 under $599,” we’ve got a feeling this e-reading device might as well not try its luck on the market. Nevertheless, word from Taiwan is that the company is indeed preparing an 8-inch LCD-based ebook reader — with 64 levels of gray, no backlight, and fast refresh times — to take on the E Ink-powered incumbents this October. Sounds very much like the Eee Tablet to us, but the headline feature of handwriting recognition isn’t mentioned, so this could be the same or a slightly different device. A saving grace for this spendy slate may be ASUS’ current negotiations for mobile carrier subsidies, which may prevent users from ever having to (directly) clash with that exorbitant price. That also suggests this 8-incher will have 3G connectivity on board, which might make it an appealing straddler of categories if it manages to accessorize itself with a robust web browser and healthy battery life. Let’s wait and see, eh?

ASUS planning an 8-inch grayscale LCD e-reader for October, pricing expected ‘under $599’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Take heart, freshmen — six months from now, you’ll be kickin’ it on holiday break, while the rest of us working folk glare angrily and curse the wasted chances that haunt us still today. Positive thinking goes a long way, right? At any rate, Barnes & Noble has made sure that its newly announced Nook Study is live prior to the start of most fall semesters and as of today, both Windows and OS X users can head to the source link to get those bits a-flowin’. We’ll be interested to see just how many students take advantage of the portal — not everyone’s keen on digital textbooks, you know — but hopefully it’ll have a better go at things than did the Kindle DX.

Barnes & Noble Nook Study now available to download, just in time for fall semester originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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