LITTLE ROCK — Barnes & Noble lights up Nook screen
NEW YORK - Barnes & Noble Inc. said Thursday that it’s tackling one of the shortcomings of black-and white e-readers with a screen that lights up so it can be read in the dark.
E-readers with black-and-white screens, made by Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Sony and others, are easily readable in bright light but don’t come with their own light sources and can’t be read in darkness. The ones with color screens, such as the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, do have their own light sources but are barely legible in sunlight.
The new “Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight” has a standard black-and-white screen, but an array of light emitting diodes inside the frame spreads a glow over the page with the help of an invisible light-guiding layer.
The ability to read books in bed without disturbing a partner by turning on a bedside lamp has been a top request from customers, said Jamie Ianonne, the head of Barnes & Noble’s digital division.
The model will be in stores early next month and cost $139, the New York-based chain said. The cheapest Nook with a color screen costs $169. Barnes & Noble is keeping its nonlit black-and-white Nook in the lineup at $99.
The light will sap some of the battery power. With no lighting, the reader will last for two months of 30 minutes of reading per day. With the light in use, it will last a bit more than a month, Ianonne said.
Samsung tablet update adds features
NEW YORK - Samsung Electronics Co., Apple’s biggest competitor in the market for iPad-sized tablet computers, is updating its line to include a feature that lets a tablet act as a universal remote control for an entertainment center.
The storage space on the new Galaxy Tab 2 will also be expandable with small memory cards.
The tablets will come in two sizes. The 7-inch version will cost $250 and goes on sale April 22. The 10-inch version will cost $400 and goes on sale May 13.
Apple Inc.’s competitors are experimenting with different tablet sizes and features as they try to come up with a way to challenge the iPad’s commanding lead in sales.
Toshiba Corp. last week revealed a tablet with a 13-inch screen, essentially putting a laptop-sized screen in a tablet.
The iPad has a screen that measures 9.7 inches diagonally.
IPads accounted for nearly 60 percent of the tablet computers sold last year, according to research firm IDC.
Apple’s closest competitor in the overall tablet market is Amazon.com Inc., but its Kindle Fire is half the size of the iPad and less than half the price, putting it in a somewhat different category. Of the manufacturers that make tablets in the same size range as the iPad, Samsung has the largest share.
PC shipments climb 1.9% in quarter
The global personal-computer industry unexpectedly grew in the first quarter, marking a turnaround after the sluggish European economy and component supply shortages had dragged down the market last year.
PC shipments climbed 1.9 percent to 89 million units, compared with predictions for a 1.2 percent drop, according to Stamford, Conn.-based research firm Gartner Inc.
Another research firm, IDC, also reported a surprise increase for the quarter.
The growth signaled the PC market is shaking off the effects of Europe’s debt crisis and a disk-drive shortage stemming from last year’s flooding in Thailand. Still, a scarcity of drives made it harder for PC sellers to run aggressive promotions and attract lower-end shoppers, Gartner found. Many consumers also are turning more to other types of devices, such as smart phones and tablets.
“The consumer segment continued to be a drag on market growth, as PC demand was low,” Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner, said in a statement.
The increase in PC shipments signals the industry may “pick up significantly” by the end of the year, Loren Loverde, an analyst at Framingham, Mass.-based IDC, said in a separate report.
PC makers will benefit from supplies of disk drives returning to normal and Microsoft Corp. releasing a new version of its Windows operating system, IDC said.
Tablet sales seen doubling this year
Worldwide sales of tablet computers will almost double to 118.9 million units this year, compared with 60 million units in 2011, according to a report last week from research firm Gartner Inc.
Apple Inc. will continue to dominate the global market, with a 61.4 percent share in 2012, even with the arrival of rival devices from Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc., according to the report. Tablets running Google Inc.’s Android operating system will have a 31.9 percent share, while those powered by Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 8 will account for 4.1 percent of the market, Gartner forecast.
By 2015, about 35 percent of tablet sales will be for business use, though most of those purchases will still be made by consumers rather than by corporations, Gartner said.
Business, Pages 20 on 04/16/2012