Feb 26
Barnes & Noble will launch a new NOOK color tablet later in 2014, the company has confirmed, after losses from the division “narrowed significantly” in the last financial quarter thanks … Continue reading
Feb 10
Barnes & Noble has made further cuts to its NOOK engineering division, taking a scythe to the hardware team responsible for its ereader in the aftermath of slumping holiday sales. … Continue reading
Feb 06
Sony recently announced they would be selling off the VAIO brand, however it seems that is not the only change in the works. A more recent announcement deals with Sony’s … Continue reading
Dec 18
The second-generation Kindle Paperwhite is an iterative upgrade, but one that is still worth your attention.
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Dec 17
Dexter Industries makes a Raspberry Pi add-on called BrickPi, which connects the ultra cheap computer to LEGO’s NXT Mindstorms parts. To show off what you can do with its kit, they made a robot that reads eBooks aloud.
The BrickPi Reader was designed to read from the Kindle app on the Nexus 7 tablet. Aside from a Raspberry Pi and LEGO, the BrickPi Reader also has a Raspberry Pi camera. The camera takes a picture of an eReader’s screen. The Raspberry Pi then uses an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program to extract text from the picture. A Text-to-Speech engine reads the extracted text aloud. Finally, its Mindstorms arm taps on the Nexus 7′s screen to turn the eBook’s page. When you think about it, it’s basically a Rube Goldberg machine.
But don’t say goodbye to Audible just yet. Not only does it take the BrickPi Reader a few minutes to convert a single page, its “voice” is also horrible. Maybe it’s soothing to baby robots.
I love how they show a guy wanting to read an eBook while driving, as if their finished contraption could be used in a vehicle. Still, who would’ve thought LEGO could read?
[Dexter Industries via Make:]
Oct 31
Today the folks at the regulatory department for the air – the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) – have given the green light for all-flight-long mobile device use for passengers. This OK extends to airlines across the United States starting as soon as tomorrow. A note from the FAA gives few restrictions to this new allowance, […]
Oct 29
It was a bit over a year ago that Barnes and Noble introduced its Simple Touch with GlowLight ereader, something that has become old news as of today as the company announced the Nook GlowLight — no Simple Touch to be found. This ereader is said to be a complete redesign on all fronts, bringing […]
Oct 29
This morning the service known as Amazon Kindle MatchBook launched with a whopping 70,000 books in its employ. This service takes a listing of books you’ve purchased (through Amazon) in physical form and offers them up to you in digital format for relatively low prices. Originally suggested to be hitting the books with 10,000 copies, […]
Oct 01
Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7″ Review
Posted in: Today's ChiliYou could call Amazon’s Kindle Fire the anti-Nexus. While the new Kindle Fire HDX may be based on Android, it’s resolutely designed to cater for avid customers of Amazon’s store, tailoring just about every part of the experience to streamline your shopping (whether digital or physical). Amazon may be selling the Kindle Fire HDX 7″ […]
Sep 30
Restrictions on using electronic devices during takeoff and landing could be lifted, after a regulatory committee told the FAA to loosen its guidelines on when gadgets like iPads, Kindles, and other hardware can be turned on. The recommendation by the Aviation Rulemaking Committee, which comes after a year-long investigation into the potential safety issues, is […]
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