reading

A few days ago, Kobo turned 1 year old. To celebrate the anniversary, the company enhanced its iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch apps, adding Instapaper integration and new social-media features that allow you to share what you're reading with others.

All in all, the Kobo iOS apps look more jazzed up and we expect all the big e-reader players to continue building out the social-media functionality in their apps (Amazon and Barnes & Noble also feature social-media hooks in both their devices and apps). The Instapaper integration is interesting because it allows you save Web clippings as you surf … Read more

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Twitter releases its top trends of 2010, and I sit down with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone to discuss them

YouTube releases its top video views of 2010

Google finally launches a Latitude app for iPhone

T-Mobile says a 4G tablet is on its way

Google indexes search results by reading level

Google quietly added an advanced search feature over the last couple of days that sorts the Internet by reading level.

Search Engine Roundtable noticed that when you click on the "advanced search" link next to a Google search box on the right, you're now presented with an additional option to sort by "reading level," which lets you "annotate results with reading levels," "show only basic results," "show only intermediate results," and "show only advanced results."

A Google representative said in a statement that the company added this &… Read more

Web Snapper is an app and Safari plug-in that provides a fast and flexible way to capture screenshots of web pages. The Mac OS provides some very limited screen-capture capabilities with Grab, but Web Snapper provides many more options (especially in terms of format, and in its easy-to-use integration with Safari), and it can capture multi-page vector PDFs with actual text, links, and styling intact.

Web Snapper gives you a few different options for your interface, which will likely vary based on your workflow and browser preference. Using any browser, you can drag and drop URLs onto Web Snapper's … Read more

Web Snapper is an app and Safari plug-in that provides a fast and flexible way to capture screenshots of Web pages. The Mac OS provides some very limited screen-capture capabilities with Grab, but Web Snapper provides many more options (especially in terms of format, and in its easy-to-use integration with Safari), and it can capture multipage vector PDFs with actual text, links, and styling intact.

Web Snapper gives you a few different options for your interface, which will likely vary based on your workflow and browser preference. Using any browser, you can drag and drop URLs onto Web Snapper's … Read more

The other day I had to drag my kids along for some furniture shopping. Rather than endure whining and interruptions for half an hour, I handed over my iPhone--with the condition that the only apps they could use were e-books.

We didn't hear a peep from them the whole time.

As I said in Five amazing e-books for kids and again in Five more amazing e-books for kids, iOS devices are awesome e-book readers--especially for children's titles. So in honor of the season, I've rounded up another five excellent e-books for kids (six, actually)--all of them honed for the holidays.

Oceanhouse Media just cranked out a host of new goodies, including the Thanksgiving-themed "The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks" and the classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"--the latter featuring artwork and sound effects from the beloved TV special.

They're both $2.99, and both universal, meaning they're compatible with iPhones and iPads alike. (While you're at it, check out OM's new Little Critter titles: "All By Myself," "Just Grandma and Me," and "I Just Forgot." They're not holiday-related, but they're just as fabulous--and only $1.99 apiece.)

Christmas Tale for iPad  Let's hear it for a rare e-book freebie. It's your basic toddler-oriented tale of Santa, the North Pole, and presents, with nicely illustrated pages and the obligatory interactive goodies hidden therein. The app also includes a few games and even a wish-list builder. It's free until December 15.… Read more

For people who love to read but don't have a lot of extra cash to spend on books, nothing beats the public library. Love ya, Ben Franklin!

In recent years, many libraries have started offering e-books that you can check out for a few weeks, just like the real thing. Unfortunately, despite the plethora of e-book readers in the App Store, you couldn't read these DRM-protected library titles on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad.

Now you can. Bluefire Reader now supports not only ePub and PDF formats, but also the Adobe DRM used by most libraries. I just … Read more

I know I've posted a lot of e-book reader deals of late, but that's because they just keep getting better. Also, I'm a huge fan of anything that encourages people to read--like, say, e-readers priced under $100.

And this is a first! Buy.com has the refurbished Barnes & Noble Nook (Wi-Fi) for $99 shipped. That's $50 less than the price of a new one, but the warranty is the same: one year.

The Nook, which debuted about a year ago, is noteworthy for including a color LCD touch screen beneath its 6-inch, E Ink-powered reading … Read more

The idea of finding out more about a word or phrase you run across while reading is becoming more popular. In reading applications on the iPad, and of course, Amazon's Kindle, it's now common to find a built-in dictionary tool, or a way to start a Web search on something that may have you scratching your head.

That same technology is coming to digital book and document repository Scribd via a partnership with Apture. Now, when a reader gets to a word or phrase they want to know more about, they can highlight it and select the "… Read more