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The abrupt resignation this week of William Lynch, the 43-year-old Barnes & Noble chief executive, was only the latest in a catalogue of troubles at one of the US's biggest book chains. If this were a business whodunnit, nobody could fail to spot the culprit: Amazon. Still, with bookshops everywhere in retreat as the internet takes an ever greater slice of their trade, it seemed to many that a chain with its own dedicated e-reader – the Nook – could have the answer. But with Barnes & Noble's device struggling to make any headway against Amazon's Kindle, that strategy, and...

New Kindles start shipping to customers today--two days ahead of previously announced release date SEATTLE, Aug 25, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- (NASDAQ: AMZN)--Amazon.com today announced that more new generation Kindles were ordered in the first four weeks of availability than in the same timeframe following any other Kindle launch, making the new Kindles the fastest-selling ever. In addition, in the four weeks since the introduction of the new Kindle and Kindle 3G, customers ordered more Kindles on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined than any other product, continuing Kindle's over two-year run as the bestselling product across all the products sold on...

If you believe the buzz around the Web today, the Amazon Kindle Wi-Fi – a sleek, graphite-colored e-reader priced at $139 – is the best electronic reading device ever. Over at PC World, for instance, Jared Newman declares that "Amazon's new Kindle spells doom for other e-readers." His logic is simple: The Kindle Wi-Fi undercuts the price on devices such as the Borders Kobo and brings the fully-featured e-reader to a reasonable price-point.

I noticed there was a significant price cuts in the eReader market. The Kindle is now $189 while the WiFi only version of the Nook is $149. I am leaning towards the Nook because of it takes SD memory cards while the from what I understand Kindle does not. Of course, I could just keep waiting until the price drops even further. Some claim the price will go to $100 or less. Any opinions?

BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- A new round of pad computers with various features all missing from Apple Inc.'s iPad is coming. Curiously, the most interesting one appears to be coming out of India using the hottest new Nvidia Corp. chip to power it.Already previewed at various international trade shows, a look at the specifications tells me that unless the thing simply does not work as advertised this could be the hottest and most usable pad computer on the market.From a company called Notion Ink, it's called the Adam. Compared to an iPad it has a bigger screen, twice the battery...

We saw impressive renders of Notion Ink's Adam last week, along with some speculation, but today we're getting what's probably the best look yet at this ambitious play into the tablet space. The following specs, to be unveiled officially at MWC, are listed as "final" by the folks at Notion Ink. Take some of it with a grain of salt, as they are grossly incorrect about items like accelerometer and touchscreen (chart provided by Notion Ink):

Amazon's Kindle Reader cuts book shipping Book sales in the United States surged during the holiday season, but in a dramatic shift for the shipping world, retailer Amazon.com said this week sales of e-books for the first time surpassed sales of physical books.    Amazon’s peak in e-book sales occurred on Christmas day as gift recipients used their new Kindle reading devices to make purchases from among the 390,000 books available in Amazon’s Kindle Store. The Kindle electronic reader, which allows users to download books and other media from a variety of sources, was “the most gifted item ever in...