Hasta La Gadget!

Amazon’s Appstore has been doing brisk business stateside, and is now ready to sell its wares to Europeans in Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Spain. If you sign up, you’ll be able to create reviews and make one-click payments, and will have access to a huge library of apps from top-tier brands, as well as localized content. The company said purchases can be used “across a customer’s Android devices,” which will let you buy an app once, and use it on any of your tablets or smartphones that support the OS. If you’d like to check it out, or get one of Amazon’s Free Apps of the Day, check the PR for all the details.

Continue reading Amazon Appstore arrives in Europe, won’t be late for school

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets

Amazon Appstore arrives in Europe, won’t be late for school originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Aug 2012 05:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The official Google Play store for digital media such as apps, music, and books, has been given a collection of real-life gift cards. This set of gift cards appears in $10, $25, and $50 denominations, and is able to be used on digital media only – no hardware or accessory purchases here! These gift cards will be available immediately if not soon at RadioShack, Target, and GameStop.

The gift cards you’re seeing here are made available by Google for those of you looking to grab your kid, sibling, friend, or associate something simple and relatively free of commitment. Just like the iTunes gift cards that’ve been appearing in holiday gift cards for years now, the Google Play gift card line is set to be a giant force in holiday gift giving. In other words, Apple will be making a double-effort from now on to make sure they’ve got rack space above Google’s new offering.

These gift cards are able to purchase songs, movies, and TV shows instantly from the Google Play store online or through your Android-toting device. You can also purchase Android apps as well as eBooks galore from Google’s vast library of titles. These cards work to not only rent movies and TV shows, but to buy them as well – but purchases of TV shows and movies only work on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean devices so far – so watch out for that!

These cards are set to appear at the three retailers listed soon – they may already be in stores if you’re lucky! Google adds, once again, that “Google Play gift cards cannot be redeemed for Android app subscriptions, magazine subscriptions, or hardware and accessory purchases. Refer to the Google Play Gift Card Terms and Conditions for more details. Content subject to availability by country.” Remember that bit!

[via Google]

Google Play gift cards hit Target, GameStop, and RadioShack is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Just last month we saw details pop up Sony’s PRS-T2 eReader pop up at the FCC, and now the elusive device has cropped up on the J&R website for pre-order. Those hoping for a radical overhaul will be disappointing to learn that the PRS-T2 is very similar to its predecessor, with a very minor tweaks. The eReader features the same pearl e-ink touchscreen with a 800×600 resolution, WiFi, microSD, and two months of battery life.

Sony has tweaked the dimensions of the eReader, however, with the PRS-T2 coming in a 0.38-inches thick and weighing 5.9 ounces. The navigation buttons at the bottom of the device have been modified too: they now appear to be either touch sensitive or smaller physical buttons. Customers will still get access to Sony’s Reader Store, but the company will be bundling a free copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

New software functionality has made it to the eReader as well, with Sony bundling in support for Facebook and Evernote Clearly. We’ll have to wait and see what the Facebook side of things does, but Evernote Clearly will let you save articles to the reader for later viewing, not unlike Pocket or Instapaper.

J&R doesn’t list a release date for the PRS-T2, but you’ll be paying $129.99 when it does eventually ship. That’s a bit more expensive than Amazon’s current Kindle model (even without ads), but if you missed out on the PRS-T1, the PRS-T2 might not be a bad choice.

[via The Digital Reader]

[Thanks, Nate]

Sony PRS-T2 eReader appears on J&R for $129.99 is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s becoming a habit of Amazon’s to report on the rise of the e-book at the expense of physical texts, and their latest announcement is no different. Sales figures show that in the UK, 114 Kindle purchases have been made for every 100 printed copies so far in 2012. A similar statistic was achieved in the US last year, but whether these are true indications of e-book supremacy is up for discussion. Free downloads were excluded from the tally, but those released via Kindle Direct Publishing without a paper twin were counted. The Guardian also notes that these are unaudited figures, so there may be a digit awry here or there. And with a few physical stores still around, there’s no need to panic-buy that Kindle just yet.

Continue reading Hold the presses! Amazon UK selling more e-books than printed ones

Filed under: Tablet PCs

Hold the presses! Amazon UK selling more e-books than printed ones originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 08:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There is no lack of creative ideas waiting to receiving funding through Kickstarter, but this one is just plain cool: a company called Out of Print has come up with the idea of sticking your tablet inside a jacket that looks just like a classic book. That way, when you’re reading eBooks, you can make it look like you’re reading an actual book instead of staring at your tablet. Sure it’s an idea that doesn’t add any new functionality to your tablet, but to the book-obsessed, it will likely be an idea worth some money nonetheless.

The Kickstarter campaign for the eBook jackets has already hit its funding goal – $15,000 – which means that for the next 23 days, Out of Print has the chance to raise additional funds that will help ensure this project becomes a reality. At the start, Out of Print will only be offering 14 different designs: 10 of them feature original book cover art licensed by Out of Print (all of which you can see in the picture below), while the other four will simply be solid colors – charcoal, evergreen, indigo, and red.

For the moment, Out of Print is only offering covers that fit the Kindle Fire, Nexus 7, iPad 2, and the new iPad. It’s unclear if Out of Print will eventually offer additional cover designs beyond this initial set of 14, but the company does say on its Kickstarter page that it’s open to producing more jackets that fit other devices. Out of Print hopes to have the first batch of jackets finished and on the way to backers sometime in September, so backers of the project will be getting their products shortly after the Kickstarter wraps up on August 9. If you’d like to pledge money to the project, follow the link above, otherwise check out our story timeline below for more information on Kickstarter!

Out of Print tablet jackets hit Kickstarter goal is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.