Tired and ashamed of breaking into virtual people’s houses just to read the numerous tomes in Skyrim, Capaneus decided to peek into the game’s files and found the books hiding in plain text. So he turned them into EPUB and MOBI files, compelete with headers, table of contents and covers.

If you already own a copy of Skyrim, feel free to download the E-books on Capaneus’ blog. I’m waiting for someone to recreate all the pots and pans in the game.

[via The Verge]

If you bought one of those ad-subsidized Kindles – and now regret it – there is hope for you. Amazon is offering a way that you can ditch those ads and it’s as easy as coughing up that extra fee you saved buying this tablet in the first place. You simply go into the Manage Your Kindle page and unsubscribe from the ads there.

You can kill the ads right now if you want. I would not have been surprised if Amazon had asked for a premium to remove the ads as a punishment, so it’s good to see that all you have to do is pay the difference between the subsidized and the price of the normal reader at any time.

Aside from its clever name, in my opinion the Kandle looks way better than Amazon’s reading light. Plus its designed to cast a uniform light on the Kindle’s display. Another great advantage of the Kandle is that its compatible not just with the Kindle but with other eBook readers as well. The only downside I can think of with the Kandle is that it’s chubby frame doesn’t go that well with the slim Kindle.

The Kandle is available on Amazon; both the black and white version cost $22 (USD).

[via 7Gadgets]

Kevin Kelly even mentioned this extrapolation to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. His reaction? “He merely smiled and said, “Oh, you noticed that!” And then smiled again.” But it would be stupid to expect Amazon to just give away the product to anyone right? Michael Arrington has a possible answer to that: give the Kindle for free to the people who have already proven themselves to be spenders. And not just spenders, but Amazon spenders –  Amazon Prime members.

That way the Kindle would be like razors or printers – the profit would come from the content. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens this year, but if all this turns out to be true, then Amazon has quite an attractive proposition here. For $79 (USD) a year, Prime members already get free 2-day shipping (no minimum amount required), reduced rates on 1-day shipping, and free streaming of videos via Amazon Instant Video. By next year, Amazon will probably be paying Prime members to take a Kindle. At least that’s what the graph says. Or not.

[via J-Walk Blog & TechCrunch via The Technium via Kottke ]

E Ink recently introduced their Triton color ePaper, which has all of the advantages of the black and white variant, plus the ability to display colored images and text! Watch the video below for a basic explanation of E Ink’s Triton technology, and how it could lead to umbrellas with maps on them:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

According to Akihabara News, Triton technology is actually already in commercial products, like Seiko’s Active-Matrix watch (I don’t know why the watch only displays in black and white though). It’s only a matter of time before we get devices that display magazines and comic books!

[via Akihabara News]

What’s good is that it’s in a reasonable price range. It will cost $599 (USD) for the single-screen 16GB model and $899 for the dual-screen version. It will start shipping before the December 20, 2010. Add $100 to either model, and you’ll get 32GB of storage instead. At $599, the Kno is $100 more than the WiFi-only iPad, but it’s a lot bigger at 14.1 inches. It’s basically got twice the screen real-estate of an iPad. And if you go for the dual-screen, you’ve quadrupled your usable screen size.

The Kno has a color touchscreen and will be able to run a browser and learning apps, but it’s competing more with the Kindle DX than the iPad, in my opinion, since it’s focused on displaying interactive textbooks for students. It’ll also include apps for research, note taking, and organization. While smaller, less functional e-Book readers and tablets don’t make much sense for full-time use, this larger one sure does. Plus, textbooks on the Kno should be 30 to 50 percent cheaper than printed editions.

I’m only interested in what format of e-Books the Kno can easily display, because I already have thousands and I’m not interested in a closed platform.

[Kno via TechCrunch]

We have seen this eReader before; it’s a discounted version of the Aluratek device by the same name. Borders is offering the gadget for just $119.99 (USD), making it one of the least expensive eReaders on the market. The device uses a 5-inch monochrome reflective light LCD that looks like paper and is easy on the eyes.

The Libre measures 6″ x 4″ x 0.35″ and weighs in at only 7.6 ounces. The device has 256MB of internal storage and that storage can be expanded to 32GB with SD cards. The battery is good for 24 hours of continuous use. The device will also play MP3 files and includes 100 classic books pre-installed.

Want one? Head on over to Borders, and place your pre-order now.

I lol’d at Eau, You Have Cats. DuroSports went the extra mile and even concocted a scandal with the Author’s Guild, obviously a parody of the Kindle text-to-speech snafu. The Guild’s “statement” claimed that the Smell of Books was violating the “olfactory rights” of authors, so DuroSports had no choice but to pull out their aerosols for now.

[via OhGizmo!]

The Sony Reader features an innovative high contrast E-ink display, capable of allowing up to 7,500 pages to be displayed without a battery recharge. The display is designed to be read from just about any angle, and won’t wash out under daylight conditions (although I’d love a backlight for nighttime reading).

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the Sony Reader is only about the size of a large paperback book at 6.9-inches high by 4.9-inches wide by .5-inch thick.

Out of the box, the player has sufficient (64MB) memory to store about 80 eBooks. Plenty of additional storage can be gained by adding a Memory Stick or SD memory card. In addition to displaying Sony’s book format, the Reader can also be used to view Adobe PDF files, JPEGs and even has audio playback capability for MP3 and AAC files.

Included with the Reader will be access to Sony’s CONNECT online store with over 10,000 eBook titles available for download. Sony has also announced that they will be including a $50 certificate toward eBook purchases with initial shipments of the Reader through December.

This is looking like it could be one of the must have gadgets for this holiday season.