If you’re like me then you are probably already partly converted to a digital lifestyle. For example, I don’t look up phone numbers and addresses in a phone book anymore; Google is faster and better.That means I don’t need to have a phone book around, and I was thrilled today to learn that I could opt out of receiving one. Read more

Buy.com has an odd little eReader on sale today for $20. Of all the devices currently on the market, the WikiReader stands out.

This device is based round a 3″ low-power LCD screen. It ships with the nearly complete contents of Wikipedia. It doesn’t have Wifi, color, and it’s not designed to let you add your own eBooks.

It is designed to be an always present copy of Wikipedia. TBH, it’s never been clear what role this device was supposed to fill.  It’s pocketable and low power, so if there was ever a chance that you needed Wikipedia but don’t have access to a computer, this could fill the void. But honestly, how often do you need to check Wikipedia but not have access to a computer? It just doesn’t seem likely.

Still, it’s a fun toy to have.

Buy.com

Tiger Direct has a nice deal on the eeePad Transformer today. You can find a refurbished unit on Ebay for $250, which is a considerable markdown from the new retail ($399).

This offer is for the older Transformer, not the Transformer Prime which was released a few months back. But that’s okay, because this is still a very capable tablet and right now you can get it for same price as the Nook Tablet.

This is a 10″ tablet running the latest version of Android on a dual core Tegra 2 CPU. It has Wifi/BT, a pair of cameras, a microSD card slot, and it ships with 16GB of internal storage.

While this tablet is nearly a year old, it still has specs comparable to any number of tablets on the market and it’s still being supported by Asus. A new firmware update is currently being rolled out which adds more features as well as Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Ebay

Don’t want to be bothered while reading? Try one of these book covers.

You’re looking at the work of E.M Bowman,  YA author. She was inspired to create them when a friend found a “Go away, I’m reading” pin on Etsy. Here is how the covers came about:

I thought it was genius, but Tracey Neithercott promptly pointed out that it would be even better to have a dust jacket sporting this same message. It would be larger, bolder, easier to read. Sarah and Tracey started lamenting over how someone Must Make These and Do So Immediately, so I chimed in and offered up my design services.

Yes, these are book covers, but I think this would be a great idea for eReader covers. I’m going to try to turn one or 2 into a cover for my Kindle. M-Edge offers a service that makes custom covers based on images you provide. It’s called MyEdge, and fun covers like the ones above are exactly why it was

The book covers are available for download as PDFs, so I’ve downloaded them and then converted them to image files. I am currently trying to fit them to the cover templates provided by M-Edge, and if I get a good result I will share it via M-Edge’s service. My first attempt will be with the “In Narnia, BRB” cover.

If you’re still stuck on paper, you can download the set of covers (11 in all), and have them printed at your local print shop. You can find more details and images of the covers at the link.

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If you think of E-ink as being just a company that makes eReader screens, think again. E-ink announced yesterday that one of their lesser known products, a music stand using an E-ink screen, won a 2011 Good Design award.

Rosie is a concept design. It’s based on a pair of 9.7″ E-ink screens sitting side by side. E-ink came with the idea for the obvious reasons, and they made Rosie in the hopes that it would spark interest.

And it has. Several companies are reported to be working on designs similar to Rosie, but none have announced a launch date or price.

Have you ever had an old gadget die yet not be able to part with it? One sculptor’s got you covered.

Rodrigo Alonso has recently started  limited production of furniture made from old electronics. He’s made several stools so far, and all were assembled from a unique collection of electronic junk.

It would take an awful lot of personal gadgets to make one of these stools, so it might be better to simply provide your old gadgets as the centerpiece. I could easily see adding an original Kindle to one. In fact, there are some interesting artistic statements that you could make by leaving certain contents on the screen.

Would an excerpt from The Sheep Looked Up work, or would that be too obvious?
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Do you ever miss the smell of books while using your eReader? There’s no app for that, yet, but you might want to check out this robot.

I’ve just learned of a new Kickstarter for Olly, the smell-o-bot. This project is designed to give you scent notifications of your online status updates. If it gets funding, you will be able smell when someone posts on your Facebook wall, responds to  tweet, and  so on.

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Last spring saw the leak of number of cases and dummy display models for the iPad2, both real and fictional. Today I can bring you what might be the case for the new iPad.

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Apple announced all sorts of new tool and apps today, but that’s not the only new trick the iPad got.

The iConvert scanner was unveiled today. It’s an iPad dock that integrates a basic document scanner. This $150 gadget can scan documents at 300dpi. It’s a a front-feed, device, and that’s going to make it a little difficult to get the scanned docs afterward.

This is an expensive scanner, considering that regular scanners can be had for under $100, including some feature rich models from Brother. But this one does work directly with the iPad, and it can scan pages from 2″ to 8.5″ wide and transfer them directly to your iPd as JPG files.

Now, I would rather use  fixed unit due to the many available features. But if I needed  mobile scanner, this one isn’t bad. It would be great for anyone on the rod all the time; receipts and other business documents would seem to be its forte.

I think we might have a winner today for the most returned Android tablet. That’s good news because it’s on sale again.

Woot has the Toshiba Thrive Android tablet on sale today. They’re asking a reasonably good price for the hardware, but this tablet is refurbished.

This is Toshiba’s flagship tablet, and it’s running Android v3.1 Honeycomb on a dual core 1GHz Tegra2 CPU. It has a pair of cameras (5MP and 2MP), a high resolution 10″ screen (1280 x 800), 16GB Flash storage, mike/speakers, a g-sensor, and an ambient light sensor. It also has Wifi, Bluetooth, HDMI out, and USB Host.

This tablet normally retails for $400, and Woot is asking $280. That’s an excellent discount.

Woot