Hasta La Gadget!

Unless you happen to be using the right phone on the right carrier, you might not know that Google Wallet is even a reality: the close association with NFC-based mobile payments on one network has largely kept it out of the public eye. Many more are about to see Wallet in action now that Google has quietly introduced it to the web. No, you won’t tap your phone against your computer screen; the web version is mostly targeted at microtransactions and gives readers more than a few ways to buy without getting burned, such as long and blurred-out previews, a narrow price range between 25 to 99 cents and an Instant Refund option that gives no-questions-asked credit within half an hour. Only Oxford University Press as well as Pearson’s DK and Peachpit publishing wings are known to be testing Wallet at this stage, but Google is already soliciting new partners for the e-commerce service before the customary blog post is active — a sign that Mountain View is eager to get Wallet on the web rolling a little faster than its slow-moving mobile counterpart.

Filed under: Internet, Google

Google Wallet reaches the web, reminds most of us that it exists originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 07:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wikimedia has announced that you can now create free, custom encyclopaedias from Wikipedia articles by rolling them all up into a single ebook that you carry with you wherever you go. More »

Amazon isn’t content to limit its attention to hardware today. It just introduced Kindle Serials, a way of consuming a steady stream of content: buy once and you get all future issues of a text, with new segments appended to the old as they arrive. Only eight titles are available to start, but Amazon is promising a modern take on history by offering Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers for free, serialized the way they were many decades ago. Episodes will cost $1.99 a pop, which makes them tempting for readers who just want a small literary snack — and authors that want to start seeing income in weeks rather than months or years.

Follow the Amazon liveblog here!

Filed under: Software

Amazon intros Kindle Serials: buy once, get them all originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kno’s post-hardware textbook platform has called the iPad its only tablet home for more than a year; it’s about to spread its wings. Starting with a bundled presence on the Galaxy Note 10.1, Kno is an option for K-12 and college students who’d rather go the Android route. While all the 3D, note-taking and navigation features remain the same, there’s an obvious selling point in supporting the S Pen (and hopefully other pens) to more directly put thoughts to virtual paper — or, let’s admit it, doodle in the margins. All of us, Android and otherwise, get a new Social Sharing component that lets us crib each other’s notes before the big exam. We’re still waiting on Kno for other Android devices as well as the already-promised Windows 7 support, but it’s hard not to appreciate at least a little more variety in our digital learning.

Continue reading Kno textbooks arrive on Android with the Galaxy Note 10.1, take on a social side

Filed under: Tablet PCs, Software

Kno textbooks arrive on Android with the Galaxy Note 10.1, take on a social side originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Aug 2012 00:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Strangely, the Austrian city of Klagenfurt doesn’t have a public library, even though it hosts the Festival of German-Language Literature. However, an initiative dubbed Project Ingeborg is turning the municipality into a book repository of sorts with 70 QR code and NFC chip-equipped stickers. Plastered throughout town, they direct users to web pages where they can download public domain works, largely from Project Gutenberg. Oftentimes, e-books will be located in relevant locations — so you’ll be sure to find Arthur Schnitzler’s The Killer near the police station, for example. Come August, the team behind the effort will partner with local talent to distribute books, music and other digital content too. In an effort to build a stronger bond to the location, the organizers have prevented search engines from indexing the links, so you’ll have to visit Klagenfurt to access the curated goods. If you’d like to turn your city into a library, the group hopes to release instructions for replicating their system soon.

[Thanks, Michael]

Filed under: Cellphones

Austrian city builds public library with nothing but QR codes, NFC and stickers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Jul 2012 06:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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