In contrast Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle app is already available to be downloaded free. The online retailer said in a release that “customers around the world can now download this free app and enjoy Amazon’s selection of over 1.5 million books at the best prices, including over 200,000 exclusive titles.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

In a statement issued Tuesday evening, the nation’s largest bookstore chain said that in September it detected a problem with a PIN pad device used by customers to swipe their credit cards in one of its stores.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Today, the company is showing off the products it hopes you’ll be watching that video on: New Nook tablets, called the Nook HD and Nook HD+.

The Nook HD is a seven-inch tablet, while the Nook HD+ is a larger, nine-inch device. Both are lightweight, have high-resolution displays and are running on “forked,” or modified, versions of Google Android’s 4.0 operating system.

The tablets are available for preorder today, and are expected to hit stores in early November. They’ll range in price from $199 to $299, depending on size and storage.

If you’re getting a sense of deja vu reading this, it might be because you followed the Amazon event in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, at which the company unveiled its own new seven- and nine-inch tablets with HD displays.

What do you mean, you can’t keep all these HD tablets straight?

In truth, as the tablet market gets increasingly crowded, it gets more difficult to set some of these devices apart, aside from the obvious branding. So AllThingsD went ahead and made a couple of charts that show how these two compare with the Kindle Fire HD, Google’s Nexus 7 tablet and the new iPad.

(More after the charts …)

A few things worth noting: These comparison charts leave out some other features, like microSD, HDMI and USB ports, NFC capabilities, and speaker and camera specs. Also, as manufacturers boast better and brighter displays, you might see more references to PPI (pixel density) and IPS (In-Plane Switching display technology), said to support better viewing angles and richer colors.

And, these are battery life claims from the companies, not the results of our own tests. Battery life tests can vary quite a bit, and in Walt Mossberg’s reviews of the iPad 3 and seven-inch Kindle Fire HD, he wrote that the Kindle Fire lasted for nine hours and 28 minutes, about half an hour less than the iPad, and more than an hour less than the Nexus. The battery claims for the new Nooks are based on tests in which the display brightness is dimmed to around 50 percent, for what it’s worth.

The biggest differentiating factor between these devices has nothing to do with hardware, though; it’s the app ecosystem.

Barnes & Noble, which has seen growth in its digital content business despite disappointing device sales, says there are currently 10,000 Nook-specific apps available. This is a fraction of the apps available in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store, though Barnes & Noble points out that the key apps you’d expect to see — popular social, media, music, productivity and gaming apps — are all there.

The Kindle Fire HD, as Walt noted in his column, also offers only a fraction of the third-party apps available on either the iPad, the Nexus 7 and other standard Android tablets.

Is the Nook app store on a new, attractive, competitively-priced tablet enough to lure consumers? Barnes & Noble Nook sure hopes so.

Update: A previous version of the charts contained an error, which showed the seven-inch Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7 displays with a 1280 by 1800 resolution, instead of the correct 1280 by 800.

This morning, the bookseller offered a skeleton picture of the service, with more details to come later this fall. For a little background, Barnes & Noble said in April it was spinning off its Nook unit into a new Microsoft-backed venture, though Nook is currently still a Barnes & Noble subsidiary.

Here’s what you need to know about the company’s latest digital initiative:

• It will be called Nook Video, and it will be a part of the online Nook Store. Barnes & Noble says the video service will run on Nook devices, tablets, smartphones and “smart” TVs, though it has declined to say which specific operating systems it will be available on.
• The video streaming service is not a subscription service. It will offer HD and SD movies and TV shows. As with Google Play and Amazon’s Instant Video service, assets will be available both as rentals and as downloads (most 24-hour movie rentals I’ve seen on Google and Amazon range from $2.99 to $3.99). The content will be stored in the user’s Nook Cloud, which the company introduced a couple months ago.
• How many movies and TV shows can I access, you ask? Barnes & Noble didn’t give numbers, but says it will be offering classics, popular movies and TV shows from studios like Disney, HBO, Sony, Starz and Warner Bros. Entertainment. These include Disney-Pixar’s “Brave,” “Toy Story 3,” “The Hangover,” the “Harry Potter” movies, “The Dark Knight,” “The Daily Show,” “Dora the Explorer,” “The Walking Dead,” “True Blood” and more. Also: “Breaking Bad.” Because if you can’t get your Hogwarts and Hangover with a twist of Walter White, I don’t know if this could even be considered a streaming media service. Now, what it really needs to get started is Shades of Gray: The Movie ….
• Nook Video will also create and store digital copies of the DVDs that you normally play on UltraViolet and Blu-ray players. So if you purchase a Blu-ray or UV DVD and sync your console with your Nook Video account, it will create a digital copy in your Nook Cloud. You could then, theoretically, watch it on another gadget, via the Nook app.
• We don’t know when exactly this is launching, except for “this fall” in the U.S. It will hit the U.K. this holiday season, though, again, it’s unclear whether the full features of the service will be available abroad. On Google Play, for example, rentals are available in the U.K., Australia, France, Spain and Japan, among other places, but the ability to purchase movies is only available in the U.S.

Whether Nook finds a niche as a legitimate video service for consumers, amid stiff competition, remains to be seen. But it’s worth noting that Nook Video, tied to the Nook Cloud service, sounds like the first practical way for Nook hardware owners to grab and store video on the device. It’s not that Nooks don’t have storage capabilities; the problem was, prior to this, users had to “sideload” media onto the Nook from their PCs or tablets, as AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka explains well here.

Walmart has stopped selling all of Amazon’s hardware, a move it chalks up to its “merchandising strategy.”

Reuters first reported the news. Here’s the statement from Walmart PR (no comment from Amazon):

Recently, Walmart Stores, Inc. made a business decision to not carry current Amazon products beyond our purchase commitments and existing inventory.

Our customers trust us to provide a broad assortment of products at everyday low prices, and we approach every merchandising decision through this lens.

We will continue to offer our customers a broad assortment of tablets, eReaders and accessories at a variety of great price points. This decision is consistent with our overall merchandising strategy.

So what does that really mean?

Here are two potential theories, which aren’t mutually exclusive:

This is about price: Walmart can’t get the margins it wants from Amazon.

This is about more than price: Walmart sells a lot of books, music and video from its stores, and that may lead to a conflict with Amazon, which has made no bones about the fact that it views its hardware as retail outlets for everything else it sells, like books, music and video.

The only problem with both of those theories is that you could apply some or all of them to all of Walmart’s other hardware suppliers. The retailer continues to sell tablets from Apple, Google and Barnes & Noble, all of which drive hard bargains themselves, and all of which compete with Walmart for media sales, too.

Some of that bump occurred because B&N’s onetime rival, Borders, went out of business last year.

The rest of it? “Strong sales of the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ series,” the company says. See? It’s not just you — everyone’s reading this stuff.

Meanwhile, B&N says its Nook business posted flat sales for the quarter, but saw losses increase from $51 million to $57 million. It still plans to create a new Nook subsidiary with $300 million in funding from Microsoft.

Beginning this week, the price of the eight gigabyte Nook Tablet drops to $179 from $199; the price of the 16GB Nook Tablet slips to $199 from $249. B&N has taken a scalpel to the Nook Color’s price as well, lowering it to $149 from $169.

The reductions make the 16GB Nook Tablet price competitive with the 8GB Kindle Fire and Nexus 7. More to the point, they allow the Nook Color and 8GB Nook Tablet to undercut both on price. A decent enough competitive strategy. And certainly B&N needs to do something to maintain its e-book business in the face of these emerging new threats. By some estimates, B&N has managed to capture 27 percent of the e-book market, second only to Amazon, which holds about 60 percent.

Nook for Web launches today, allowing you to browse and read free samples of books from almost any Web browser, including Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari.

You don’t need to download any software, sign in or have a Barnes & Noble Nook account to use the service. You will, however, need the latter if want to buy a title; once purchased, you can read it on the Nook or from your computer’s browser.

Barnes & Noble is not the first to offer such a service, as Amazon and Google have had similar Web-based services for some time now.

To entice new customers, Nook for Web is offering free downloads of six bestsellers, including “Map of Bones” by James Rollins, “Sex and the City” by Candace Bushnell and “The Vow” by Kim Carpenter, through July 26.

Barnes & Noble says support for Internet-enabled tablets and smartphones is coming this fall.

Ten years ago this Sunday, the record labels thought they had turned the tide against piracy when the wildly popular Napster—a service that allowed anyone to find and download recordings online—declared bankruptcy.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The folks in Redmond are certainly hoping that is the case. Microsoft has reached deals with many others in the Android landscape, including Samsung, HTC and Barnes and Noble, as well as many contract manufacturers.

And Microsoft would certainly like to add Motorola to that list. Sources familiar with the company’s thinking tell AllThingsD that the company would be very open to meeting with Motorola’s new owners to discuss some sort of arrangement.

Right now, a great deal of uncertainty exists, not to mention mounting legal bills. Both sides have claimed particular victories in individual cases, with current battles looming over cellular standards, whether the Xbox infringes on Motorola know-how and with regard to Microsoft patents on synchronization technology, among other issues.

Beyond monetary concerns, the high-stakes legal battle currently under way means that both sides risk injunctions on shipping their products should the other be successful in a particular patent injunction.

The two sides were said to have been reasonably close to a deal last year, with one source saying things reached a “very advanced stage” last summer. However, things fell apart and there has been little progress in recent months as the Google deal wound its way through the approval process.

Google is believed to also be open to a deal, but the two sides appear very far apart in the kind of deal they envision. Sources close to Microsoft say the company is interested only in the kind of deal that would see the balance of licensing revenue headed in its direction.

Microsoft takes heart from several recent rulings in its many cases, including a ruling in Seattle preventing an injunction against it from taking effect as well as the finding that Motorola Android products infringe on Microsoft technology.

Even in one where the ruling went against it–the International Trade Commission case involving the Xbox, Microsoft said it was heartened by some of the language used by the administrative law judge in the case.

There a judge ruled that Microsoft did infringe on four of five patents, but also scolded Motorola for some of its practices regarding standard-essential patents. The European Union has also said it will investigate Motorola’s conduct with regards to patents that are part of technology standards, following complaints from Apple and Microsoft.

For its part, Google is said to be looking for more of an even cross-licensing deal where both companies basically just agree to stop suing each other.

And while Microsoft has reached royalty-bearing deals with some Android phone makers, those close to Google note that many of those are companies that also sell Windows Phones, such as HTC and Samsung, or firms otherwise partnered with the software maker, such as Barnes & Noble.

Motorola and Microsoft haven’t always been at legal loggerheads. Motorola, in fact, had a license to Microsoft patents but let the deal lapse several years ago. The two were also onetime partners for Windows Phone, though the company has been Android-only for several years and seems to be even more solidly in that camp now that Google is signing its checks.

That is apparently about to change, according to Amazon.com, which has posted two different images hinting that “Wizardry is on the way.”

In one of the images, there is a picture of an owl, similar to Hedwig, Harry Potter’s loyal companion and courier. In another — found at the top of the Kindle eBook store — it restates that “Wizardry is on the way.”

An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment, saying, “We’ll have to ask you to stay tuned for an upcoming announcement.”

Update: Amazon has officially announced that starting June 19, all seven Harry Potter books (in five languages) will be added to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Members of Amazon Prime will be able to borrow the books for free.

Presumably, there is still pent-up demand for the electronic copies since the bestsellers have not yet been for sale directly on Amazon or the Kindle.

In March, Amazon announced that all seven of the books would become available, but that consumers would have to buy them directly from J.K. Rowling’s online bookstore called Pottermore and then download them to their e-reader. Despite the inconvenience, Pottermore sold more than £1 million worth  (roughly $1.6 million) of e-books in three days.

Because they were being distributed directly from Pottermore to customers, the Harry Potter series has never appeared on the Muggle bestseller list — I mean, Kindle.

Nick DiCarlo, VP of product planning for Samsung Mobile, noted that the market has shown that, despite Apple’s pronouncements, there is a demand for a range of tablets, including smaller, 7-inch models. DiCarlo also noted that the company knows how to quickly come from behind. It wasn’t that long ago that his company had only a tiny part of the phone market and it is now a serious player. He said he sees the same thing happening in the tablet space.

“I think it is very, very early days,” DiCarlo said in a CTIA panel moderated by AllThingsD co-Executive Editor Walt Mossberg.

Taking aim at his main rival, Jamie Iannone, president of digital products for Barnes & Noble, said that the Nook Tablet clearly outshines the Kindle Fire in a head-to-head comparison.

Iannone noted that its color tablet is a second-generation product designed specifically for reading, while Amazon used another manufacturer’s design.

“As you know, the Fire was built off a reference-design product to get it out quickly,” Iannone said, adding that the product suffered as a result.

As for Apple, Iannone noted that many iPad owners also have one of its E-Ink Nook devices because the iPad isn’t ideal for long-form reading.

RELATED POSTS:

• With No Apple or Amazon at CTIA, iPad Rivals Free to Sling Arrows
• Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile CEOs Square Off in New Orleans
• Remember Carrier IQ? Well, It’s Still Around and Kicking.
• Sprint Product Exec: Launching LTE Devices Before Network Just Makes Sense
• FCC Chairman: Rejection of AT&T’s T-Mobile Deal Isn’t Causing Higher Prices
• Boingo Adds VPN and Crowdsource Hotspot Data to Its Wi-Fi Software
• T-Mobile CTO: Network Should be Ready for iPhone Users by Q4
• Interview: AT&T’s Glenn Lurie on Being the New Sheriff in Town
• Another Day, Another PayPal-esque Digital Wallet: Here’s MasterCard’s High-Tech Billfold
• CTIA Gets Down to Business in the Big Easy
• AT&T Aims to Break Into the Home-Security Business
• Interview: CTIA Boss Steve Largent Aims To Keep Conference From Being Lost in the Shuffle

The global payments provider is making the announcement tonight at a special event tied to CTIA, the wireless industry’s annual conference in New Orleans.

MasterCard is the latest — but probably not the last — to unveil its plans for the future of credit card transactions.

To date, a host of other competitors, spanning Visa, American Express, PayPal, Google and the U.S. wireless carriers, have also made announcements.

While all of the payment companies are approaching the digital wallet space with a slightly different product, from the consumer’s perspective they all end up looking somewhat the same — like PayPal.

In the case of MasterCard, PayPass Wallet will allow consumers to buy things online without having to memorize a 16-digit card number or in person by tapping a payment terminal with their phone. The solution is similar to Visa’s V.me digital wallet and American Express’s Serve-branded wallet.

For example, when checking out online with retailers that support PayPass, consumers can choose to enter a username and password to access their wallet. The PayPass Wallet will support multiple accounts, including competing payment providers.

“We spent a lot of time on the underlying technology,” said Ed McLaughlin, MasterCard’s chief emerging payments officer, in an interview. “It is designed for our partners to make sure consumers have a great experience online or in-store on your app. The ability to use any device you have and any account you’d want to invoke is a different approach to the closed-loop accounts.”

MasterCard will allow consumers to sign up for the wallet on its site, but it is primarily relying on banks to get users interested. This summer, it will be going live with the help of a dozen or so banks worldwide, including Citibank. Other major merchants are committing to adding PayPass to their online checkout systems, including American Airlines, Barnes & Noble and Newegg.

Mark Hung, a research director at Gartner, said it’s natural for MasterCard, American Express and Visa to move from the physical world of payments to online because consumers are already entering their credit card number online to check out. “They would like to see the same user experience, whether they are transacting online or offline,” he said.

With banks and retailers on board, Rick Oglesby, a senior analyst with Aite Group, said the focus for MasterCard will have to be on getting consumers interested in signing up.

“There’s definitely going to be some risk of consumer confusion,” Oglesby said, given the dozen of digital wallet options. “They are going to have to invest quite a lot in branding. … Even though the traditional payment companies are entering the space, the brands are relatively unknown. There will be confusion for consumers and merchants alike, and therefore, will require a signficant investment in terms of investing in new brands.”

RELATED POSTS:

• With No Apple or Amazon at CTIA, iPad Rivals Free to Sling Arrows
• Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile CEOs Square Off in New Orleans
• Remember Carrier IQ? Well, It’s Still Around and Kicking.
• Sprint Product Exec: Launching LTE Devices Before Network Just Makes Sense
• FCC Chairman: Rejection of AT&T’s T-Mobile Deal Isn’t Causing Higher Prices
• Boingo Adds VPN and Crowdsource Hotspot Data to Its Wi-Fi Software
• T-Mobile CTO: Network Should be Ready for iPhone Users by Q4
• Interview: AT&T’s Glenn Lurie on Being the New Sheriff in Town
• Another Day, Another PayPal-esque Digital Wallet: Here’s MasterCard’s High-Tech Billfold
• CTIA Gets Down to Business in the Big Easy
• AT&T Aims to Break Into the Home-Security Business
• Interview: CTIA Boss Steve Largent Aims To Keep Conference From Being Lost in the Shuffle