books

UPDATE: We just learned that the escaped Eddie Davidson, the "spam king," was found dead after having apparently murdered his family. Obviously, we did not know this at the time we recorded our podcast, and we apologize for any insensitivity that could be inferred from our remarks. We will definitely address this horrible turn of events in tomorrow's show.

The recently imprisoned "Spam King" goes straight-up mint jelly and escapes from federal prison (check your barns and garages, Coloradoans), Yahoo Music makes the MSN Music mistake with the benefit of hindsight, and Walt Mossberg slams … Read more

Sony announced on Thursday that its Reader Digital Book will be able to read electronic books published using the .epub format that many of the largest book publishers are using.

Until now, Sony's e-book reader could only read books available from the Sony e-book store, PDF documents, and DRM-free text. Starting next month, the new PRS-505 Sony Reader model will be able to access secure DRM- and non-DRM-protected content in the .epub format, formerly called the Open eBook format. (Here's a review of the device.)

The Sony Reader Digital Book is the first e-book reading device to support … Read more

The world of car audio can be a tricky place for beginners. With so much information to absorb and so many different products available, the novice (and sometimes even the seasoned) car audio enthusiast could find himself quickly overwhelmed--or worse, misinformed. With this in mind, we looked at Car Audio for Dummies (one in a long line of "...For Dummies" books) to see how helpful the book could be.

As it turns out, author Doug Newcomb has just stuffed this book full of good advice and thorough explanations. Divided into 5 major sections and 25 chapters, the book guides the reader through all of the major steps to creating an audio installation that is satisfactory, from deciding what sort of car audio system to get to installing, tuning, and securing the system. … Read more

You're on stage, in the middle of your first song. The band's tight. The sound's dialed in. The audience is grooving. But you--idiot guitarist--forgot to do the Stevie Ray Vaughan trick of tucking your cable up through your strap, so instead it's running straight down to the floor, next to your feet. Excited, you take a step forward to pose for your friends in the front row and step right on your cord. It comes out with an ear-splitting pop and buzz. The bass player rolls his eyes as you get down on the stage, pick … Read more

A friend of mine told me recently about Tor.com, a new site managed by Tor Books, part of the Macmillan publishing group.

There's something cool going on there for just the next few days. And if you've bought an Amazon Kindle or a Sony Reader--or just like to read e-books on your laptop, cell phone, or other system--you'll want to scoot right over to the "Freebies Bonanza" page. [Update-- this content is no longer available.]

… Read more

Let the guessing begin.

Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer's decision to warn financial analysts Monday that Apple's fourth-quarter gross margins will be negatively impacted by a "product transition" should be enough to get the rumor wheels turning: of course, it doesn't take all that much. The remark came within yet another Apple's earnings report that produced stellar numbers for the previous quarter but an outlook below what Wall Street had been expecting.

Oppenheimer deftly avoided several questions from analysts who tried to get a little more information on just what that "product … Read more

With the iPhone 3G launch out of the way, it's time to turn to what appears to be the next big thing on Apple's road map for the year: new notebooks.

The Commercial Times reported (in Chinese, but translated by Digitimes) that Apple has increased its orders of printed-circuit boards for notebooks by 20 percent, compared to last quarter.

Macs are selling pretty well lately, but that's a stronger boost than would be expected from the usual seasonal patterns, and it's unlikely that Apple would be planning for that kind of boost unless it planned to … Read more

To help kick off its new MP3 audiobook download service, Borders is offering Jon Krakauer's spellbinding Into the Wild free of charge through July 19. You do need to sign up for a Borders Digital Audiobooks account, but it's free to do so, and that's the only catch.

Well, actually, there's one more: To access the book (and any others you purchase), you have to install something called OverDrive Media Console (currently Windows-only--grrr). It's basically a download manager that organizes your audiobooks and generates multipart MP3s (which you can then copy to any portable player … Read more

Google has revamped the contacts section of Gmail to let users decide who's on their A-list.

Gmail adds a contact entry for every e-mail you use, and previously showed either the full list or the "Most Contacted" subset Google chose. Now the service divides contacts into a "My Contacts" list that users can define and a "Suggested Contacts" list with everyone else.

Google announced the move on its Gmail blog on Thursday.

Automation still plays a part: The service can be set to automatically add to "My Contacts" anybody you send … Read more