Hasta La Gadget!

Gadget mavens ThinkGeek have worked together with TEC by Scottevest, and their collaboration has resulted in what they call the Tropiformer Jacket. This is no ordinary jacket, and any techie worth his or her salt would obviously know that Scottevest has come up with some snazzy clothing in the past which are extremely tech-friendly and travel-focused. The Tropiformer Jacket will arrive in a quartet of color options, where you have a grand total of 22 integrated pockets which were specially designed to distribute the weight your gadgets equally, so that you will not suffer from too many aching shoulders and the like once the adrenaline rush wears off.

Not only that, the Tropiformer will also come with magnetically attached sleeves that help transform this particular jacket into a vest in just a matter of seconds. Some of the other features include a dedicated tablet pocket, a Quick Draw Pocket, a Locking Pocket, and a Patented Personal Area Network (PAN) for internal cable (headphone and charger) management. The asking price? $149.99 a pop.

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Nook Press was announced earlier today by Nook Media, a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble. It is an entirely new self publishing platform for e-books. It replaces Pubit, a similar platform that was launched almost two years ago by Barnes & Noble. If you consider yourself a writer, you can make use of Nook Press by writing or editing your manuscripts on its website and them selling your completed work as an e-book for any price between $0.99 and $199.99.

Nook Press is currently only available to B&N approved authors based in the US. The e-books that get published are sold in UK and US via Barnes & Noble’s website, Nook Book Store and Nook’s mobile apps. Authors will have to give B&N a 35% cut of the list price for any title priced between $2.99 and $9.99. A 60% cut of all other prices will be given for published e-book titles that are sold. They’ve not said when Nook Press will be opened up to authors that are based in other countries, or when authors will have another way of using the service apart from its desktop website.

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Microsoft has released a new firmware update for its Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets. The updates come as part of Patch Tuesday, a tradition that started with Windows 98, it is the second Tuesday of each month on which Microsoft regularly releases software updates. The latest update resolves a number of issues, including one related to the Wi-Fi driver on Surface tablets.

In the past few months, Surface RT users have been complaining about issues they’re facing when trying to connect to Wi-Fi networks. This month’s cumulative update for Surface RT tablet was focused mainly on Wi-Fi. The update fixes certain limited connectivity issues, resolves system crashes caused by certain Wi-Fi issues and improves Wi-Fi to handle a diverse range of access points. The cumulative update for Surface Pro tablet comes with a host of bug fixes and driver upgrades. it fixes Surface Type and Touch cover connectivity issues, resolves on screen touch navigation issue in the UEFI boot menu, supports 106/109 keyboards on North American Surface tablets and resolves an issue in which toggling airplane mode would automatically disable the Wi-Fi driver on the Surface Pro.

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It was rumored last week that Google was going to expand Google Fiber to Austin. The early reports were confirmed via a number of sources and sure enough, the official announcement of the Fiber expansion in to Austin was made. A crucial question remained unanswered, when exactly would Austin be connected to Google Fiber? In a blog post today the company has announced that it plans to connect Austin to Google Fiber by mid-2014. The choice of products available will be similar to what is offered in Kansas City, this includes Gigabit Internet or Google Fiber TV with over 200 HD channels and Gigabit Internet. The company says that it is still working out pricing details.

Google says that pricing for Fiber in Austin would be roughly similar to Kansas City, and as it does in Kansas City, customers in Austin will be offered a free 5 mbps Internet connection for 7 years if they pay a one time construction fee. Google also has plans to connect many public institutions of Austin to fiber, including schools, community centers and hospitals at a gigabit for no charge.

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Microsoft is going to build an innovation center in South China’s Hainan province, this according to a new report today from China’s Xinhua news agency. The Redmond based company and Hainan provincial government have reached an agreement to build an innovation center, the first of its kind in China. It will be based on Microsoft’s “leading technology platform” and is expected to attract software enterprises in the tourism and agricultural niche to Hainan province, said Li Guoliang who is the deputy Governor of this province. Microsoft’s Group Vice President Orlanda Ayala said that this new initiative will aid Hainan in becoming a major international tourist destination as well.

Apart from this innovation center the company will also build a “Microsoft IT Academy” in the province, where training of IT experts will be done. As per the memorandum of understanding reached, Microsoft will strategically cooperate wtih the province for software training, technological devlopment and preotection of intellectual property rights. This is just the first one of its kind, perhaps Microsoft will see it fit to establish more innovation centers in mainland China.

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