Hasta La Gadget!

Barnes & Noble has been making its Nook line of eReaders for a while now. Yesterday Barnes & Noble announced it was cutting prices on two of its most popular Nook products. Both the Nook Tablet and the Nook Color have had prices reduced to their lowest point since the launch of the devices. The new prices are good at all 700 nationwide stores and online.

The Nook Tablet is now available for $179 with the Nook Color going for $149. The Nook Tablet with 8 GB of storage is available for $179 with the 16 GB version going for $199. The Tablet offers access to more than 2.5 million digital book titles in addition to popular movies, TV shows, music, and more. The tablet has a seven-inch screen designed for reading books, magazines, and other content.

When the Nook Tablet launched back in February, the 8 GB version was $199. A $20 price cut could push consumers to buy the Nook Tablet rather than competing products such as the Kindle Fire and other cheap, under $200 Android tablets on the market today. Barnes & Noble last cut the price of the Nook Color in February when it moved to $169.

Other than price cuts, the hardware inside the Nook Tablet and Nook Color remain the same. The 8 GB version of the tablet has 512 MB RAM. Rumors continue to circulate that Apple is working on a smaller version of the iPad dubbed iPad mini. The launch of a cheaper and smaller iPad could have a significant impact on the budget tablet market, forcing prices even lower.

Barnes & Noble cuts prices on Nook Tablet and Nook Color is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook tablets are limited in their mapping abilities, currently relying on Google’s web interface to access any kind of maps. That’s set to change today, as the company has announced a partnership with skobbler that will see the Nook tablets gain the ability to natively search and view maps. It’s an interesting move from Barnes & Noble to avoid using Google’s services, although we imagine the advent of the Nexus 7 and its low price point has made the company’s options clearer.

skobbler’s ForeverMap 2 app will be available in the Nook app stores starting from today, allowing owners of the Nook Color and Nook Tablet to navigate and search maps natively. The basic version of the app is free, while a paid version offering downloadable maps will cost $4.99.

There is one major drawback, of course: the Nook range doesn’t have GPS capabilities, so the tablets will have to rely solely on WiFi for a best estimate of the current location. Still, Barnes & Noble has indicated that it will be opening up an API that will allow developers to make use of location-based data for their apps later on in the year.

Nook sales have been slumping as of late, with Barnes & Noble reporting that hardware sales were down 10% on last year in its most recent quarterly financial results. Sales may continue to slide now that the Nexus 7 has arrived on the scene, with Google’s pure Android experience enticing buyers for just $199. Barnes & Noble’s current Nook Tablet commands the same price, but is tied up in a custom version of Android 2.3 designed to promote Barnes & Noble’s content. Still, the company is looking to the future, with a recent report indicating that the company is working on a “revolutionary” new screen.

[via PaidContent]

Barnes & Noble adds maps to Nook with skobbler is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Amazon truly innovated the market when it launched the original Kindle ereader back in 2007. Sure, there were other players on the market, not the least of which was Sony’s Reader device that was a pioneer of ereaders (and now is merely a footnote in the market). But what really made the Kindle stand out was the ability to purchase new books seamlessly, no PC connection required.

It did this, of course, by offering an unlimited amount of 3G Internet access included in the purchase price. Of course, delivering hundreds of pages of text and authorizing credit card transactions eats up very little data, but it wasn’t long before users were able to hack the device and access full Internet capabilities, including unfiltered Web browsing. All of the sudden, that unlimited Internet wasn’t so cheap.

Amazon has always been opposed to this practice, but apparently it is now really cracking down. Based on user reports, it seems that Amazon is now limiting 3G access to users who tap into the Kindle’s online connectivity for unauthorized purposes. One user reported that he got a message on his device that he would have 24 hours left to use 3G access for Web browsing, but after that he “should” only use it for Amazon.com, Wikipedia, and the Kindle Store. Amazon has not made an official comment on this latest crackdown.

[via The Digital Reader]

Amazon stiffens Kindle unlimited Web access is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Amazon is readying as many as six new tablet variants according to retailer Staples, with a 10-inch model confirmed among the line-up. Five or six SKUs are in the pipeline, Retail president Demos Parneros at Staples told Reuters, with a range of sizes on offer as Amazon attempts to further milk the digital content market for music, video, ebook and app sales.

It’s worth noting that six new SKUs wouldn’t necessarily mean six completely different tablets. Each SKU would relate to a single configuration: so, if Amazon had 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions of a single Kindle Fire 10-inch model, for instance, each of those variants would have a different SKU code. Models that are WiFi-only or that include WiFi + 3G/4G would also bear different SKUs.

Currently, Amazon offers a single Kindle Fire variant, with 8GB of internal storage and no 3G/4G cellular data connection, and a 7-inch touchscreen. That model is expected to be updated in the face of Google’s own Nexus 7, while a larger 10-inch version is also much-rumored, more directly challenging Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad.

The boosted range is part of an overall strategy to “broaden its offering of devices beyond e-readers and the Kindle Fire tablet” insiders claim. That could well be related to a reported swelling of staff at Amazon’s Lab126, the same development center that developed the original Kindle Fire; recent job listings at Lab126 have sought engineers with experience working with carrier certification and smartphone technology.

Amazon declined to comment on Parneros’ comments, though it’s tricky to decide whether the retailer might be frustrated at having its plans outed early, or keen to steal attention from the Nexus 7. Google has been forced to freeze orders of the 16GB variant of the Nexus 7 because of greater-than-expected demand.

Amazon readying 5-6 new tablets says Staples exec is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Display quality is playing an increasingly important role for tablets, with manufacturers now moving towards higher resolution screens or adding other features that add to the overall experience. CNET has heard from a reliable source that Barnes & Noble is planning a shake up with its Nook tablets, saying that the company is aiming to introduce a new 7-inch tablet with “revolutionary screen technology.”

The technology has reportedly been developed in house with the aid of “another company.” Not only that, but it will be the first time the screen technology has made its debut in any product. Other details of the new tablet are minimal, with CNET’s source saying that the tablet will be lighter but continue to run a skinned version of Android.

As to what the screen technology could be, The Digital Reader has tried to break down the various possibilities. Pixel Qi has been working on a screen that matches the Retina resolution on the new iPad while consuming less power, but it hasn’t entered production yet. Mirasol is another option, which would add color to ereaders, but the factory that would produce the technology still needs to be built.

It’s possible that Barnes & Noble’s source is simply hyping up the technology and that it’s a relatively small step. Still, we won’t know until the next Nook tablet is released. Reports indicate that it’s due sometime in September or October, with a lower price point to match more affordable tablets that have cropped up at the $200 bracket.

New Nook will reportedly feature a “revolutionary” screen is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.