Liberty Media, the conglomerate controlled by John Malone, made a $1 billion bid Thursday to buy Barnes & Noble. The bricks-and-mortar bookstore business is declining everywhere, so for Malone's gamble is to pay off, the Nook will have to gain some ground against Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle.
AT&T says its retail stores will start selling Amazon.com's Kindle electronic book readers Sunday. The e-readers will cost $189, the same price as they currently sell for on Amazon.com, and buyers won't have to sign up for AT&T data plans to get the popular gadget.
It has been a tumultuous year for Barnes & Noble, the country's largest bookseller, and its quarterly earnings report reflects that. Total sales for the quarter were $1.9 billion, a bit less of a gain than analysts had predicted, while earnings were a net loss of $12.6 million, also worse than expected.
Borders, the nation's second-largest bookstore chain, has struggled for years due to competition from both fellow bricks-and-mortar outlets and online booksellers. It's latest move to combat that is an offer to match the competition's prices -- but the program's limits doom it failure.
iPhone and e-Book users may be feeling a bit more liberated, following an announcement Monday that loosens the Digital Millennium Copyright Act provisions. Basically, the ruling means folks can legally disable the restrictive software controls on devices like Apple's iPhone or Amazon's Kindle.
The latest frenzy about online copyright issues has arisen over Flipboard, a remarkable iPad app that takes feeds from Facebook and Twitter and pulls the content from their links into an easy-to-read and eye-poppingly attractive magazine format. It could revolutionize the online news business, and not a moment to soon.
FusionOne, a top provider of backup and synchronization software for mobile devices, is being purchased by Synchronoss Technologies for $40 million. It's a great deal for Synchronoss -- not so good for the venture capital investors who poured $140 million into FusionOne.
Sony sells plenty of Readers worldwide, but it years ago gave up trying to market them in Japan. Now, just as Apple is about to launch its iPad there, Sony is defending its home turf with a new joint venture designed to solve the problem that stymied its previous e-book attempts: lack of content.
