Blio, officially debuting next week at CES, lets you read your ebooks as they’re intended to look on paper. Clearly, Kurzweil is signaling his choice of tablets over e-ink, and his first shots are definitely persuasive. With apps planned soon for the iPhone and PCs, Blio’s cross-platform functionality makes it a natural fit for something like the Apple iSlate , which along with other tablet devices should be perfect for reading cookbooks, children’s books , and any other illustrated tome. It marks a natural evolution away from the current stock of ebook readers, which are bound by the drab black and white of e-ink.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos tells Dan Lyons , aka FSJ, just how deep his “missionary zeal” for spreading the gospel of the Kindle runs: One day, it’s going to kill books entirely. The full quote: Lyons: Do you think that the ink-on-paper book will eventually go away? Bezos: I do. I don’t know how long it will take. You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author’s world. That’s not going to go away; that’s going to thrive.

It’s definitely shaping up to be the year of e-book readers: the Amazon Kindle is flying off (virtual) shelves , and we’d expect the Barnes & Noble Nook to start moving at a decent clip once the kinks get worked out . But any device with an always-on 3G connection to a central server raises some privacy questions, especially when it can broadcast granular, specific data about what you’re reading — data that’s subject to a wide spectrum of privacy laws and regulations when it comes to real books and libraries, but much less so in the digital realm. We’d say it’s going to take a while for all the privacy implications of e-books to be dealt with by formal policy, but in the meantime the best solution is to be informed — which is where this handy chart from our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation comes in. As you’d expect, the more reading you do online, the more you can be tracked — and Google Books, the Kindle, and the Nook all log a ton of data that can be shared with law enforcement and various other third parties if required. Of course, we doubt the cops are too interested in your Twilight reading habits, but honestly, we’d rather users weren’t tracked at all. Check the full chart and more at the read link

If you don’t want other people to know what you read, you probably shouldn’t own an ereader. And you really shouldn’t get a constantly connected Kindle or Nook, at least according to the EFF’s eye-opening guide to ebook privacy. The Kindle and Nook are tied to Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s respective bookstores, meaning every purchase and every book search is recorded. Amazon’s license agreement for the Kindle, for instance, notes that the Kindle’s software “will provide Amazon with data about your Device and its interaction with the Service…and information related to the content on your Device and your use of it (such as automatic bookmarking of the last page read and content deletions from the Device).” The Nook is obviously capable of phoning home in a similar manner, but it’s unknown whether or not it does, at least for now. With Google Books, it’s clear that what you’re actually reading is logged, down to the specific page. On the other hand, since Sony’s Reader lacks 3G for a constant connection and isn’t as tightly integrated with their ebook store, there’s less opportunity for data collection, particularly if you stick w/ sideloaded books.

You didn’t think the whole Nook saga was over, did you? After just succeeding in delivering devices to expectant pre-orderers in time for Christmas , Barnes and Noble is today cleaning up yet another mess courtesy of its ill-prepared content servers. Judging by customer feedback on its support forums, it appears a glut of download requests over gift-giving day jammed the B&N net pipes and left a great many disappointed Nook users. All attempts at downloading an ebook yesterday — even by those who got their Nook a little earlier in the month — were greeted with a “Queued: Will complete shortly” message, which apparently remained that way until early this morning when downloading finally resumed functioning. The biggest perceived failure here, though, is the book retailer’s silence on the issue, which illustrates the importance of communicating with your customers — most people seemed tolerant of the setback once they realised they didn’t have faulty hardware.

Ereaders are still at the point where the price is slightly too high and the functionality is slightly too low to purchase on a whim. Aluratek’s LCD-based reader, however, offers a damn low price but sacrifices functionality in return. The Price: $180 The Verdict: Relatively cheap, compared to the major ereader brands, but it’s probably the worst ebook reader we’ve tested. Instead of going for an e-ink screen like the Kindle or the Nook, Aluratek went with a monochrome LCD screen. This is fine, in theory, because it keeps costs low and actually improves refresh rates, it also sacrifices battery life. For example, I could only make it through 80% of the 7th Harry Potter book before it demanded to be charged.

This should come as a relief to all you anxiously awaiting your Barnes and Noble Nook pre-orders. We’ve received a statement from Barnes and Noble affirming that all pre-orders which had an original pre-holiday ship date will be fulfilled, and that the rest of the orders will be filled starting on Friday. Here’s the full, reassuring statement: “We’re happy to report that all customers who pre-ordered nooks and were given a pre-holiday estimated shipping date will be sent their nooks in time to receive them by Christmas. As you know, there’s been an overwhelmingly positive response and unprecedented demand since Barnes & Noble announced its new eBook reader on October 20th. Customer demand continues to be strong and new orders will be fulfilled beginning February 1, 2010. ” Happy, happy holidays! Nook shipping update assures pre-orders arriving on time originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:09:00 EST.

If you’ve been promised a Nook for Christmas, no worries, it’s in the mail. But if you’re ordering one now, Barnes & Noble has stated, “Customer demand continues to be strong and new orders will be fulfilled beginning February 1, 2010.” And there’s no rush shipping in the world that can save that holiday wish.

A tipster who has proven to be reliable in the past says that Barnes and Noble’s Nook will get a software update this week — most likely around Tuesday. The update itself looks to be fairly large, improving some of the major issues we’ve had with the e-reader — like page refresh rate and a lot of other little performance issues. Our tipster also says they’ve played with an updated unit and that it’s much, much better, so we’re interested to see for ourselves when the update goes down. Until then, check out the (partial) list of bugs and fixes we’re hearing the update will include after the break.

When Sony announced the Reader Daily Edition back in August, they hadn’t confirmed which newspapers would be offered alongside the ebooks. It’s just News Corp titles for now, with The Wall Street Journal and New York Post being confirmed. A daily news summary will be on offer for WSJ readers, in addition to the digital version of the paper. The digital copy of the paper will sell punters back $14.99 a month, with the daily summary another $5, and the New York Post will cost $9.99 a month, exclusively sold on the Reader Daily Edition. On sale sometime before 2010 (that’s 13 days, then), it’ll cost $399.99. [ WSJ ]