| Amazon Publishing inks deal with Ingram, opens e-book distribution to rivals Aug 30th 2012, 00:53  Amazon Publishing is continuing to broaden its distribution channels, as the New York-based imprint has formed a partnership with Ingram Content Group that will make the company's e-books available to competitors such as Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo. As you may be aware, there's some uneasy tension between the rivals, as Barnes & Noble has previously removed Amazon's print editions from its retail shelves in response to the company's former e-book exclusivity in the Kindle Store. It remains unknown whether any of the competitors will indeed choose to sell Amazon's content in electronic form. It's also worth pointing out that because deal applies only to Amazon Publishing's New York-based imprint, the company's west coast division is excluded from the distribution deal. Regardless of how things shake out, it's encouraging to see Amazon extend the olive branch -- now let's hope the competition reciprocates. Amazon Publishing inks deal with Ingram, opens e-book distribution to rivals originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 20:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink |  PaidContent | Email this | Comments | | Square Enix Coreonline offers top-tier games on the web for free -- if you feed the ad meter Aug 30th 2012, 00:18  It's not hard to see that offering high-quality games through the cloud has its pitfalls, not the least of which is getting customers to pay. Square Enix may have licked that last problem through its new Coreonline web gaming service. Players can still pony up for the full-priced games or even single levels if they want unfettered access, but the cleverness comes through Coreonline's parking meter approach to ad-supported free play: the more ads you watch and the longer they run, the longer you'll get to play without spending a single coin. As our colleagues at Joystiq found out, however, the current level of OS support is inconsistent. Windows gamers can use Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer to start playing, but their Mac-owning friends have to lean on Chrome for some games and can't even consider running the marquee title, Hitman: Blood Money. Square Enix's library of eligible games will start expanding in October; while there's no guarantee the Final Fantasy series or many other dream games will make it to the roster, Coreonline's approach might just be viable enough to spare us a few raids on the bargain bins. Continue reading Square Enix Coreonline offers top-tier games on the web for free -- if you feed the ad meter Filed under: Gaming, Internet Square Enix Coreonline offers top-tier games on the web for free -- if you feed the ad meter originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 20:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  Joystiq | Coreonline | Email this | Comments | | Google Now update brings public safety alerts, lets sports fans manually pick teams and adds movie listings Aug 29th 2012, 23:49  If you're sporting Android 4.1 Jelly Bean then one of its most notable features just got better, as an update for the Google Search update is enhancing Google Now (still getting adjusted? check the guide book for a list of commands) functionality in a few key ways. The new version brings public alerts to your Now page, with emergency messages like storm warnings or earthquake alerts, so if you're in range of Hurricane Isaac, it may be worth grabbing sooner rather than later. A more trivial change lets sports fans manually select their favorite teams from 140 pro soccer, baseball, basketball and hockey clubs -- we tried to find our college favorites and were denied, for now. While trying to automatically decipher our preferred squads from searches is nice, it might not be practical when we're just looking up information on our fantasy football players so this should be a help. It has also added support for movie listings as seen above. Search for a flick that's in theaters and you will not only receive relevant information, but also when and where it's playing in your area. If that's not enough, it can be set to pop up on your "movie days" or when you just happen to be loitering outside a theater. Finally, in a move that should please many prospective Galaxy Note II owners it is ready to work in Korea -- grab the new version of the app at the link below. Continue reading Google Now update brings public safety alerts, lets sports fans manually pick teams and adds movie listings Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile Google Now update brings public safety alerts, lets sports fans manually pick teams and adds movie listings originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 19:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Google Play, Android (Google+) | Email this | Comments | |
