Nook Color Becomes a Full-On Android Tablet

Folks, I love free-market competition. And with this great move, Barnes & Noble -- which has been circling the drain -- may very well bounce back and become a serious competitor to Amazon for the ereader market:

Barnes & Noble has touted its Nook Color as “the reader’s tablet” since the product’s inception. But after the company announced the launch of an Android OS update and extended features on the device this week, we’re not sure what to call it anymore.

E-reader? Tablet? E-tablet?

Version 1.2 of the Nook Color’s firmware launched Monday morning, bringing Android OS 2.2 (Froyo) to existing users of the e-reader tablet. The software includes expansions to web surfing on the device, including Adobe Flash and Air support, as well as the ability to receive e-mail.

The company also announced the launch of the Nook App store. Customers are now able to download and use apps on their Nook Color devices, while still being able to purchase books from the Barnes & Noble reading catalog. . . .

Read it all.

I love this because, as a writer, it offers me another vast and growing marketplace for peddling my future ebooks. The Nook Color keeps B&N in the ereader ball game with Amazon's Kindle. The financial pressure now moves to Apple, whose iPad is priced much higher. If Apple is compelled to slash iPad prices to compete with the Nook, that will even further expand the marketplace for ebooks, and accelerate the demand for them.

Archive of my articles at Breitbart's "Big Government"

I've published a number of pieces at Breitbart's "Big Government" site over the past year. For anyone interested, here is the page where all my articles are archived.

"'Atlas Shrugged' Changed My Life"

I wrote this piece about my first encounter with Atlas Shrugged as an editorial commentary some years ago, in The New Individualist. Now it has been reposted online.

Some of you might find this bit of autobiography amusing.