Hasta La Gadget!

Publishing is a scary industry to be in right now, a fact that few, if anyone, know better than the folks at Hearst Corp., the publishers of Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and the sickly San Francisco Chronicle. Looking to ride the next wave of periodical consumption, the company is planning to launch an e-book reader, in hopes of creating the Kindle of periodicals.

Sources told Fortune that the publishing house has created a large screen reader designed specifically for use with magazines and newspapers. “I can’t tell you the details of what we are doing, but I can say we are keenly interested in this, and expect these devices will be a big part of our future,” Hearst’s Kenneth Bronfin told the magazine.

Bronfin, incidentally, was behind Heart’s purchase of electronic ink supplier E Ink more than ten years ago.

Yeah, the new Kindle is neat and all, but you know what it doesn’t have (besides, you know, a color screen)? Officially licensed James Bond awesomeness, naturally. But the new Ian Fleming Special Edition Sony Reader has that in spades.

Available now from Sony, the specially Ian Fleming edition comes with two free Bond books–Casino Royale, the first in the series, and For Your Eyes Only, a collection of short stories featuring Quantum of Solace. The reader also has the familiar 007 logo on its cover. The official Sony-endorsed license to kill costs extra.

Tired of waiting for your Kindle reboot? Good news: Amazon just announced that it has begun shipping its eagerly awaited second-generation e-book reader today–a day ahead of schedule. Units will be sent out today for all customers who pre-ordered the device beginning on February 9th, when it was first announced.

“The response from customers to Kindle 2 has been tremendous,” wrote Amazon VP Ian Freed in a release issued today. “In order to ensure we ship Kindle 2 by the original ship day of Feb. 24, we started shipping one day early.”

The Kindle 2 is available now from Amazon.com for $359. And here’s video of the Kindle 2 in action.

When I was in high school back in the mid-70s, every kid (at least in the circles I traveled in) lusted after the hot gadget of the day, the Texas Instruments SR-50 or SR-51A handheld scientific calculator. These products might never have come into being if it weren’t for the efforts of Mark Shepherd, Jr., former chairman and CEO of TI who died last week at the age of 86. While at the company’s helm, he spearheaded TI’s push into consumer electronics, where it became a leading player.

In a 40-year career with Texas Instruments, Shepherd served as engineer (working his way up to chief engineer), chief operating officer, chief executive, and chairman of TI before his retirement in 1988.

Shepherd, who allegedly built his first vacuum tube at the age of 6, would help preside over the death of the vacuum tube-based electronics while ushering in the age of transistors and semiconductors. He joined Geophysical Services, TI’s predecessor company, in 1948. In 1952, he was one of several TI engineers invited to Bell Labs to learn about the company’s transistor, which it had invented 5 years earlier. TI went on to license it, and Shepherd headed a team that built one in short order. He oversaw the semiconductor team on which Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit in 1958. In the mid-60s, Kilby was part of the TI development team that invented the pocket calculator.

Did you know that 33 percent* of people said they would prefer to send an SMS when asking someone out for the first time? Yes, it’s a geeky, geeky world we live in, but thankfully, there are some geeky ladies out there just waiting for that text…

OK, so the text might be a bad idea, but these Valentine’s gifts will surely woo your tech-savvy babe. Check out Part Two of Gearlog’s Valentine’s Day gifts for geeky gals, but make sure to peruse Part One for ten other Valentine’s Day ideas.

Heart Meter Shirts (above)
So, you know how in video games, if your heart meter reaches zero, you die? Buy one of the 8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirts for you and one for your girlfriend. During regular activity, only two and a half pixelated hearts will light up, but when you’re in hugging distance of your honey and she’s wearing her shirt too, the hearts on both shirts will light up until you “have full health.” Yes, the shirt is extremely cheesy, but if your girl is a fan of Zelda, she’ll appreciate it. $24.99 from ThinkGeek.com.

More geeky gal gifts after the jump!