Rupert Murdoch has confirmed that the Wall Street Journal will be on the iPad. Meanwhile, the Washington Post just launched a paid subscription mobile news app for the iPhone/iPod Touch. The price isn’t bad—$1.99 for 12 months—but this could go up after the first year.
From Nate’s Ebook News comes word that Opera has updated its e-book reader widget. Only reads DRM-free EPUB, but Nate seemed to find it a decent reading experience.
The EFF has updated “Unintended Consequences”, its annual “__ years under the DMCA” whitepaper. The time count now stands at 12, and the paper piles up ever more cases of abuses of process’s chilling effects on free speech, scientific research, competition, and innovation. (Found via BoingBoing.)
MacRumors has found an Apple job posting for a manager for an “Asia Pacific & Canada” iBooks division. A number of other jobs postings are mentioned, too, including account managers.
Wired’s “Gadget Lab” blog reports that the iPhone news-reading app Instapaper Pro has updated to version 2.2, with a number of new features including an option for page-turning rather than scrolling, dictionary lookup, and an in-app browser. I use Instapaper quite a lot and find it really handy; the new features are great!
Engadget has a couple of posts about some new Internet tablets coming out from Archos. The Archos Home Slates are 7” and 8” LCD tablets that are meant for home/family use. With only 2 GB of on-board storage, they seem to be pretty clearly meant for surfing and viewing on-line movies while connected to the Internet. However, depending on what apps are available, they could also make decent e-readers; after all, you could still fit quite a number of e-books into 2 gigabytes.
Here’s a hilarious review of the Nook, “The Real Man’s Electronic Reader,” from The Faster Times. Don’t miss it.
I visited the Nook counter with my boyfriend, John, who, most decidedly, is not a wimpy hipster. He does not own any packaged action figures or keep books about post-modern tree houses on his coffee table. He’s a man. He likes man things. Things like fire and loving deeply. His job includes math, blueprints, and a welder’s helmet. I say all this to explain that John – who has very little need to bring a Nook on his morning commute – thought the Nook was cool. If I got him a Nook, he would use it. That way, he could carry around his whole library:Rebuilding Engines Up Your Asshole, Hammer Fight Sex Lumberjack, and I Will Kill Bad Guys To Save This Kitten. Then he’d find a way to drag race with it
