TeleNav

If developers choose, they can implant TeleNav's HTML5-based turn-by-turn navigation right into pages or apps.

You know those sites that include a map, so you can spot the store or restaurant or whatever attraction you're looking for? Well, what if those maps knew where you were, and could guide you, turn by turn, to the establishment? Though that was a far-fetched notion not too long ago, the advent of HTML5 and mobile devices makes it a reality, courtesy of GPS software maker TeleNav.

The service, available for developers now, and scheduled for public launch in early 2012, lets website developers put turn-by-turn controls into their pages for free, including "full-color moving maps, audio directions and even automatic rerouting, if the driver misses a turn," according to TeleNav. The reason it works is because the latest browsers are designed to interpret more complex commands for multimedia and location services, collectively referred to as HTML5.

TeleNav is presenting this as a tool for shops and services to attract customers: “With one line of code, (businesses) can give customers one-click access to premium, voice-guided turn-by-turn directions to any location, including hotels, restaurants, merchants or deal locations," said Sal Dhanani, the company's co-founder and products VP.

I see this as, simply, the natural progression of things — if you can have maps, and have location-aware devices serving up those maps, how long before someone put two-and-two together, and built a website that could steer you around to wherever you want to go? Not long at all, it turns out.

More on GPS from TODAY.com and msnbc.com:

• Owners try GPS devices to track their pets
• Has the government attached GPS to your car?
• What a find: GPS shoes for Alzheimer's patients

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.

John Brecher / msnbc.com

The New York Times reported that Amazon will roll out a Kindle Fire update "in less than two weeks," citing a company spokesman. The cause for the update? Fixes for problems that have concerned many early users.

The update will be pushed to devices over the air, no syncing necessary, and will bring improved performance and multitouch navigation, says the Times. Furthermore, users will be able to erase recent activity for improved privacy. "No more will wives wonder why their husbands were looking at a dating site when they said they were playing Angry Birds," wrote the Times' David Streitfeld.

Here's the full text of Amazon's statement, which we received directly from the company on Monday:

Kindle Fire is the most successful product we've ever launched — we've already sold millions of units and we're building more to meet the strong demand. As with all of our products, we continue to make them better for customers with regular software updates — in fact, in less than two weeks, we're rolling out an over-the-air update to Kindle Fire that will improve performance, touch navigation, and give customers the option to choose what items display on the carousel.

These particular issues are not ones I noticed when I reviewed the Kindle Fire, perhaps in part because I didn't do anything on the device that I wouldn't want my wife to see, and in part because I viewed the Kindle Fire as an excellent compromise: It's not a $500 iPad, but it's a $200 tablet that brings you the best of Amazon (along with the best non-Google Android apps). It works well in this capacity, and while the $250 Nook Tablet is a better device, what Amazon offers, beyond books, is hard to beat and getting better all the time.

Not all issues have fixes. As I pointed out in my review, there's a lack of physical volume buttons and an awkwardly placed power button, neither of which can be fixed with software.

There's one hardware concern that may have a software fix: The battery life on the Kindle Fire is not as good as the Nook Tablet or the iPad. Often, this has to do with how well the OS can control the various processes of the core system and apps, and how much it can shut down when it goes into sleep mode.

Amazon did not answer my specific query about battery life, nor is it mentioned in the above statement, so it likely will not change with this update.

More on the Kindle Fire from msnbc.com:

• Kindle Fire review: Yes, it's that good
• Amazon's Kindle Fire lets kids charge up a storm
• Kindle Fire will be No. 2 tablet after iPad
• Tablet war 2011: Nook vs. Kindle vs. iPad

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.

A recent study showed just how easy it was to fool even a security expert into accepting friend requests from total strangers. The trick? Open a profile posing as someone's real-world friend. Even if they're already that person's friend, there's a chance they will friend him or her again.

The study, presented at a conference by Brazilian security expert Nelson Novaes Neto and written up by Ars Technica, involved establishing mutual friends between the victim and the fake account. When the fraudster spammed hundreds of possible mutual friends, some were bound to accept, and did. Within 7 hours, the fake account had enough mutual friends to look like a legitimate acquaintance — all the credibility the victim needed.

There are more details over at Ars, and I encourage you security-minded folks to read the whole piece.

The lesson here is that no matter how squeaky clean you are, and no matter how squeaky clean your friends are, there's bound to be someone sinister lurking on the outskirts of your personal network.

Not only should you avoid friends of friends (who could be pretty much anyone in the world, at this point), but you should question suspicious friend requests: Didn't you already friend that person? Why do they only show 12 friends in common, if you can name at least 20? Why are there two accounts on Facebook for the same person?

Play it safe, people. And for Pete's sake, check your privacy settings!

More on Facebook from TODAY Digital Life:

• Unborn baby Facebook friend requests cause stir
• FTC settlement aside, Facebook still owns your privacy
• Facebook makes privacy pledge in FTC settlement
• Buffy the Facebook phone coming?

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.

Google Groups

Screenshot of the message board posting the release of an x86 Android version.

Android developers have released a version of 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich that is compatible with "x86" chips. That is, Android can run on chips by Intel and AMD, the ones found in most personal computers, from netbooks and laptops to desktop towers.

9to5Google spotted a message board posting about the release, which promised Wi-Fi and multitouch functionality, but no access to sound, camera, networking or hardware acceleration. The Google-watching blog reminds us that the search giant promised back in September that all future versions of Android would be friendly to Intel (and AMD) chips.

It makes sense, given the fact that there are Android tablets that have the power of typical laptops already, and in terms of basic usage, the OS could easily compete with Microsoft's Windows and Apple's Mac OS. Power users would probably steer clear, or would keep an Android version available for times when battery life is more important than functionality. That is, assuming battery life is better.

It also makes sense because it matches what Microsoft is doing, which is the reverse. In late 2012, Windows 8 will launch in two flavors, one that runs on x86 Intel and AMD chips, like the previous versions of Windows, and another that runs on ARM-based chips, which are found in tablet and phone devices that currently run Android and Apple's iOS.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

More on Android from msnbc.com:

• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich available for developers
• It's Android or Apple for 71 percent of US smartphone users
• McAfee: Malware loves Android
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus review: The one to beat

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.

According to "sources," The Daily is reporting that Microsoft will launch Office for iPad, as well as a new Mac edition.

The notion that Microsoft is at work on this wouldn't be farfetched — Office has thrived on the Mac, and Microsoft doesn't ignore huge markets. As for timing, The Daily's Matt Hickey reports that a new Office for Mac and an Office for Windows 8 would launch near the end of 2012, presumably when Windows 8 itself launches. Meanwhile, the iPad version could launch "well ahead of that date."

As for Microsoft (which, along with NBC Universal, is a co-owner of msnbc.com), a spokesperson could only tell us, "We have nothing to share at this time."

Sure, it's a rumor, but it's a juicy one, and one we'd like to see come true. Here's hoping.

More on Microsoft from msnbc.com:

• Can Windows 8 save the PC?
• Microsoft builds six-story, live-action Windows Phone in NYC
• Nokia's first Windows Phones see light of day

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.

Seagate

You may not know what a hybrid hard drive is, but anyone with an aging laptop should learn. Seagate just introduced its second-generation Momentus XT. The jargon may be intimidating, but if you don't look into it, you could be miss out on a cheap powerful upgrade.

Hybrid hard drives are awesome: They combine a regular magnetic disk with a small, super-fast solid-state drive (SSD). An intelligent processor on the drive itself copies the most important and frequently used files to the SSD, so that everyday interaction with your computer is very fast. In fact, if all of your day-to-day work fits on the SSD, you basically get the same performance as much more expensive SSD-only drives. Because of the on-board intelligence, nerdy chores like disk defragmentation just aren't required.

As for speed testing, our friends at Laptop put the new Momentus XT through the paces, and determined that, app launching, file opening and booting up a computer are all "significantly faster than those of a 7,200 rpm hard drive and only a little bit slower than an SSD."

The new Momentus XT lists for $249, and has 750GB of storage. Spec-wise, compared to the original, it's got a much speedier connection between magnetic drive and SSD, and has double the size of the SSD (from 4GB to 8GB).

My breathless enthusiasm isn't because I was taken in by a press release. I have tried out the first generation and it provided a very noticeable speed bump, particularly with apps I use every day (I'm looking at you, Outlook for Mac). Adding a hybrid drive is a good way to revive an aging machine without spending too much money.

While the new 750GB Momentus XT is going on sale now, last year's 500GB model, still a great performer, is available for $150 or less. (Here's more on the news from Seagate.)

More on Seagate and competitors from msnbc.com's Gadgetbox:

• Super-size your iPad with 500GB drive
• Testing a hard drive with a shotgun
• Seagate drive puts 4 TB on one disk for $250

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.

RIM

Administrator console for BlackBerry Mobile Fusion.

RIM just announced a security platform that covers BlackBerry devices — but also devices running Android and iOS. On one hand, it's a sign that IT managers seek BlackBerry's renowned security. On the other hand, it's a sign that RIM is giving up on competing with its functionally superior rivals.

"If you can't beat them, join them," wrote telecom analyst Jeff Kagan, in a note. "This looks like RIM's attempt to remain relevant in a changing marketplace."

What's the change? That people aren't buying BlackBerry handsets anymore, choosing instead phones that run an operating system powered by Google or Apple. RIM's global sales have plummeted 58 percent in the past year, according to a recent report by Canalys, which said RIM is doing even worse than that in the United States. RIM's U.S. market share fell from 24 percent this time last year, to just 9 percent now. Meanwhile, the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet has been a total flop. 

The new software, called BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, sounds great: IT managers can juggle apps, settings, passwords and other software on phones running all three major operating systems. They can wipe the memory of lost or stolen phones. And the system can handle multiple devices per user. This last bit is a key benefit since a lot of people who were issued a BlackBerry by their company have gone out and bought a cooler phone — to the chagrin of the IT folks.

If RIM's intent is to shift from hardware to software and services, like IBM did so successfully, then this may make sense. But it's hard to ignore BlackBerry Mobile Fusion's acknowledgment of the ascendancy of Android and iPhone, at the cost of RIM's core business. RIM will also add other platforms such as Windows Phone if there's a demand, though at the moment, the company is "not hearing" that demand.

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion "will help stem the tide of those companies that may have considered eliminating their BlackBerry Enterprise Servers but it won't help sell more phones," Gartner analyst Phillip Redman told Reuters. "That's what they really need to do."

RIM discussed the software in a press conference, but Alan Panezic, RIM's VP of enterprise product management and marketing, did not answer any questions (including our own) about how this changes BlackBerry's competitive stance against Android and iOS.

RIM will have a wide release of the software in late March. In the meantime, RIM has launched a Mobile Fusion product page where you can follow updates.

More on BlackBerry from msnbc.com:

• Dumping Your BlackBerry? Join the Club
• RIM dissidents push for change at BlackBerry maker
• RIM gets sued over BlackBerry outage
• Google to end Gmail app for BlackBerry users
• BlackBerry launches music-sharing service

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.

Amazon is fixing to have a mid-priced smartphone to sell to the Kindle audience this time next year, according to a report by Citigroup analysts Mark Mahaney and Kevin Chang that cited "supply chain channel checks."

The word is that Amazon has booked Foxconn, makers of many an Apple product, to create the smartphone, though it might be manufactured by another Taiwan-based firm. The goal is apparently for Amazon to build a phone in the $150 to $170 range, which it would sell to carriers more or less at cost. Amazon would make money by selling services and content, like it does with Kindle e-readers, and will now be doing with the Kindle Fire.

It's not a crazy speculation to say that Amazon, which already has a thriving Android app store, would want to be more involved in the phone hardware, but of course, it's not something the company will talk about now. We'll have to see what happens next year, and how well suited Amazon is at that time to compete against Apple, Samsung and the rest, in the cutthroat world of smartphone sales.

(Although this story has made the rounds of the Internet, it appears that PaidContent was first, or at least among the first wave, with the scoop from Citigroup.)

More on Amazon from msnbc.com:

• Kindle Fire review: Yes, it's that good
• Demand for Kindle Fire threatens iPad domination
• Amazon's Kindle Fire apps show Apple-like strategy

Wilson Rothman / msnbc.com

Barnes & Noble has a problem. It's not software. It's not hardware. It's Amazon. 

The B&N Nook Tablet, successor to the underground hit Nook Color, is a terrific tablet, with a vibrant screen, a speedy CPU and a nice offering of books and other media. If you buy it, especially for reading, or streaming from your Netflix video or Pandora music accounts, you'll likely be quite happy. For $250, it's hard to find a nicer media-focused 7-inch Android tablet.

But there's a war on. 

Amazon didn't have a tablet when people were snapping up Nook Colors (or is that "Nooks Color"?). Now that it does, Amazon has priced its own 7-inch Kindle Fire deliberately low, at $199, and tied in a ton of no-extra-charge videos and books from the $80-per-year Amazon Prime. Amazon doesn't stop there: It also piles on new-release videos to buy or rent, a cloud-based music player that you can upload your own music to, an MP3 store and an Android app store that has already been powering phones for half a year. 

My point? Amazon is a multibillion-dollar powerhouse that is using a 7-inch tablet as a beachhead in an all-out media war against Google and Apple, and it has no intention of letting a brick-and-mortar retailer with no big media play stand in its way. Barnes & Noble can compete surprisingly well on books, magazines, children's interactive storybooks, comics and still more formerly printed media. But for video and music, it must cozy up to partners that are in no shape to fend off Amazon either, and that will likely prove to be Barnes & Noble's Achilles' heel.

OK, doom-and-gloom forecast aside, let's talk about what all of this means right now.

Hardware
There are a few reasons why the Nook Tablet is superior to the Kindle Fire. The screen is the same, and I didn't really notice a speed difference. But the battery life on the Nook Tablet is noticeably better than the Kindle Fire's. During an overnight test, both starting from fully charged, the Kindle flashed the 15 percent alert, while the Nook Tablet was still at 42 percent.

Wilson Rothman / msnbc.com

Nice volume buttons!

The Nook has physical buttons for volume control, and has a nice big home button you can actually press, unlike on the Kindle.  

The final big differentiator is internal storage, but that's not a clear-cut thing. While the Nook Tablet has 16GB of internal storage, versus the Kindle Fire's 8GB, users can only access 1GB of the Nook's storage to put your own content. And because the only way to get a non-streamed movie on there at the moment is to rip a DVD and copy it over yourself, that means there's really only room for one movie. If you want more storage, however, you can expand it — something the Kindle Fire won't allow. A 32GB microSD card will cost you less than $40.

Reading
Barnes & Noble has built a reading experience that surpasses the competition in several ways. Thanks to the Nook Color, the company now has an impressive library of kid's books. If you have kids, but you're indisposed, the books will read themselves aloud. And traveling or ultra-busy parents might enjoy the fact that they can even record their own voices. I have to say, while this is an initiative I applaud, the Nook Tablet's 7-inch screen is pretty small for children's content. Kids' books are giant for a reason, and the iPad's 10-inch screen is the bare minimum size for enjoying kid content. 

B&N also sells many "enhanced" e-books: cookbooks with over an hour of video, new releases with audio introductions, all-time bestsellers with never-before-seen photos and other documentation.

On top of that, the company is very busy making deals with magazine and comic publishers in order to claim the largest collections of both. 

When it comes to text, whether it's plain old type or something that's literally trying to jump off the page, B&N is doing great.

Amazon's biggest counterattack on the reading front comes in the form of the Kindle Owner's Lending Library, a service that lets you borrow a book per month for free, including some bestsellers. (B&N would be quick to reply that it, too, offers freebies — via email and in person, if you show up at its stores and hop on the Wi-Fi.)

Music & video
Things start to get weird when we get into the other forms of media. Since Barnes & Noble can't sell you movies or music directly, it relies heavily on partnerships. One chief partnership is Netflix, which comes out looking amazing on the Nook Tablet. B&N spends some time talking about the "HD entertainment" available for the Tablet — to be clear, the screen's resolution isn't physically "high definition" so I was a bit skeptical. But then I saw what the hullabaloo was about: Compared to the Kindle Fire, the playback of many Netflix shows on the Nook Tablet is waaaay better, because it's coming from an HD source. 

So even though the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet have essentially the same screens, the content getting streamed from Netflix (and, apparently, Hulu) is better quality. (This higher quality can also be seen on the iPad's Netflix app, by the way.)

If you're not using Netflix or Hulu, it's currently a challenge to watch movies on the Nook Tablet. B&N will be partnering with video rent-or-buy options in the future, but it doesn't have anything like that at launch. If you are savvy enough to buy a DVD and rip it on your computer, you can copy it to the Tablet's internal drive via USB, then find it by fishing through the not-so-great Gallery menu. 

For music, it's more straightforward. You just copy your own files over, and they show up in the music player. If you don't have any music of your own, you can sign up for a free service like Pandora or Grooveshark, or get a subscription with Napster, Rhapsody or Mog.

What Amazon does, by contrast, is give you a chance to upload tons of your own music to the cloud, and then stream it as you wish on your tablet. Maybe you'd find that extraneous, but that, plus a thriving MP3 store, represent a big music advantage. 

Apps & games
Although the Nook app store has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a packet of add-ons for the Nook Color, it will be hard for B&N to keep up with Amazon now that Amazon has its own device. The future will likely mean an awful lot of apps built to run on the Kindle Fire, and while that means they'll be well suited to run on the Nook Tablet as well, Amazon may try to buy off the best stuff as "exclusive." 

While that plays out, Barnes & Noble has a bigger issue, and that is that it's hard to search for apps on the Nook Tablet. Book titles keep popping up, and there's no apparent way to filter just the apps.

On the gaming front, the Kindle is already pulling ahead. Both have Rovio, maker of Angry Birds, but Amazon has Electronic Arts, PopCap, Gameloft and others lined up, too. Even though the Nook Tablet hardware is allegedly better for playing heavy-duty titles, there were none to try out, only casual games, the old bird-in-slingshot stuff that any phone can handle these days. (UPDATE: Barnes & Noble does have games from EA and Gameloft, but what I said remains true: B&N doesn't yet have graphics-intensive games from those publishers, like "Dead Space" and "Asphalt," which are available for the Kindle Fire.)

Web browsing and email
Don't make too big a deal about browsing and email on either of these devices. The 7-inch screen makes much of the the Web hard to look at, despite the completely adequate browsers found in both devices. And for email, both use off-the-shelf apps that are functional but light on frills. 

How it boils down
It's something of a tragedy, I feel. I spent much of my Kindle Fire review talking about how it threatens the iPad, and now, though the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet are fairly evenly matched, and in some ways I like the Nook Tablet better, I have spent much of its review telling you why it will also take a hit thanks to Amazon.  

But since these are first and foremost e-book devices, the best choice is still the one that aligns with your preferred shopping experience. If you spend a lot of time in Barnes & Noble, the Nook is right for you. If you are an Amazon Prime customer, then Kindle Fire is a no-brainer. 

And if you are undecided on these matters, write down your five favorite contemporary authors, and see how much of their material turns up in either store. You need to land wherever you find the most content that suits your own personal taste, otherwise the rest of the drama matters for naught.

More on the Nook and Kindle war:

• Kindle vs. Nook: $99 e-ink touch readers face off
• Tablet war 2011: Nook vs. Kindle vs. iPad
• Q&A: Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet vs. iPad
• Kindle Fire review: Yes, it's that good
• Kindle Fire success is Google Android failure

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.

Google

Google rolled its cloud service out to the whole U.S. today, lifting the invitation requirement and dispelling any notion that there would be a fee. Users can upload up to 20,000 of their own songs, which they can access from Web browsers and Android apps. In addition, they integrated it to Android Market, so that you can buy new music as well.

The service not only has a music recommendation program, like other music stores, but it also has Google+ integration for socialized music discovery. Every time you buy, you can share to Google+ right from the purchase confirmation screen. Shared music can be heard in its entirety by your friends for free.

There will also be a free song every day, and not just by unknowns, but big names like David Bowie. There will also be some exclusive tracks, including live concerts from the Rolling Stones and Coldplay, and a new studio album from Bustah Rhymes. There are free concerts available from Shakira and Pearl Jam.

Google / T-Mobile

It's compatible with Android 2.2 and up, hitting phones and tablets of U.S. users in the coming days. The store launches on the Web today at android.market.com, while Google Music's cloud service is based at music.google.com.

T-Mobile will partner with Google, allowing Android users to charge their on-phone music purchases to their phone bills. The carrier will also offer extra free content exclusively to subscribers "through the end of the year."

As a Reuters piece from earlier Wednesday pointed out, there may be some challenges for Google Music, despite the above perks.

More on cloud music services from msnbc.com:

• Google music download store may be 'unexciting'
• iTunes Match review: Not made in heaven
• Cloud music to your ears from Google

Our walkthrough of Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player from May of this year:

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.

John Brecher / msnbc.com

Before there was a Kindle Fire or a Nook Tablet, there were e-ink readers, humble slates that showed black words on a white (or nearly white) background, easy on the eyes, the way our ancestors intended. This week, the e-ink readers from Amazon and Barnes & Noble get the power of touch, and the even greater power of a $99 price tag. But which one's better? 

Spoiler alert! The B&N Nook Simple Touch and the Amazon Kindle Touch are basically the same. 

They have the same screen size, the same contrast, the same speed of page turns. Both can hold 1,000 books or more, though I would be impressed if you ever used more than 5 percent of the capacity. Why? Because both companies keep track of books you buy, and let you reload them in seconds anytime you like. The battery on the Nook Simple Touch lasts "over two months" while the battery on the Amazon Kindle Touch lasts "up to two months." In other words, it's the same!

And besides the fact that they're substantially cheaper in price, these e-ink devices have their benefits. They're as light as paperbacks, are easy to read outside or inside, and can be forgotten for days with no charging, and still be ready for your reading pleasure. Both let you borrow books from libraries and friends, both have social components so you can upload passages to Facebook, and both let you make notes that sync to the cloud, so you can check them later from any device.

The downside is that they need a light source — be it bedside lamp, Itty Bitty Book Light or flickering torch on the wall of your stony keep. There's no color e-ink option, or any way to watch video. Increasingly, cookbooks and kids' books have extra content intended for full-color LCD screens, and these books usually won't even open on e-ink readers.

Whichever e-reader you choose is likely to deliver the same amount of happiness, but there are subtleties, both in the way the devices behave, and in the way their companies manage content, that are worth you knowing before you plunk down your hard-earned Benjamin.

John Brecher / msnbc.com

No, this isn't poor white balance: Both "black and white" screens actually display charcoal text on an off-white background.

What you'll like about Amazon Kindle Touch:
Amazon's big push right now is for people to sign up for its $80-per-year Prime service. One of the perks is borrowing a book a month from its "Kindle Owners' Lending Library," which includes top-selling titles that you can read at no additional charge, but only if you own a Kindle. Users of the Kindle apps don't get a piece of this action.

While the Kindle Touch lists for $99, you can spend $50 more for a 3G version, which can sync your books anywhere in the world with no fees or contracts. Not only is that nice to have if you're traveling, it's also a key benefit for the older readers, who like the big font sizes of e-readers, but don't have homes equipped with Wi-Fi. 

The Kindle Touch supports a lot of mainstream file formats, including PDF, TXT, Word docs (both .doc and .docx) and even HTML pages. (It does not support the ePub format used by many other readers, however.)

Kindle X-Ray is a system that breaks down books to the "bones," key passages, plot shifts, historical references and character appearances, using cloud computing and a combination of community-powered encyclopedias Shelfari, for literature, and Wikipedia, for general subjects. I don't know yet if it's a reader's aid or the 21st century equivalent of Cliff's Notes, but either way, it seems compelling. 

Amazon still has an "Experimental" section that includes a Web browser, MP3 player and text-to-speech, where permitted, for reading books out loud.

What you won't like about it:
The way Amazon got its price down is by loading "special offers," that is, "advertisements," onto the sleep screen and home screen of the Kindle. If you want to buy the same device without these ads, you have to pay $30 extra. It's not that annoying to me, and these really are offers you can act on to save money, but many people justifiably bristle at it. 

A bit more offensive to me is the Kindle e-ink interface. The Kindle Fire tablet has a simple, smooth interface, so it's hard to get lost. By contrast, on the Kindle Touch, it's easy to get lost on its home page. You can organize your books into collections, but it's still a bit cluttered, and though the touch interaction works, the system was not redesigned to make your finger feel at home.

What you'll like about the B&N Nook Simple Touch:
On interface, Barnes & Noble wins. The home screen is more graphical, and the home button lets you jump from there library, shop, search and settings with a quick tap. Even the pages with a lot of text are a bit cleaner, and there are no ads. To top it off, the Nook Simple Touch has forward and back buttons on each side, and a slightly contoured back panel for better gripping, so it's easier to use one-handed. 

Obviously, Amazon is an online powerhouse while Barnes & Noble is more ubiquitous in the big-box malls, so B&N capitalizes on the in-store experience. If you don't have Wi-Fi, you can still pop down to the store to hop on Wi-Fi for free, and download books. (You can also get free Wi-Fi from AT&T hotspots, nationwide.) You can read books that you didn't pay for when you're in the store, so theoretically you could get a bunch of books for free, if you spend enough time in the B&N cafe. And speaking of free, B&N has in-store freebies for Nook owners, and regularly sends emails for free book offers, too.

If you happen to be someone who bought books from other services that support the Adobe Reader rights management software for the ePub file format, then you can use those books with the Nook Simple Touch. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, this probably doesn't apply to you.) 

What you won't like about it:
You'll have to rely on Wi-Fi (whether at home, in the store or somewhere else), since there's no 3G option for the Nook Simple Touch.

Though the Nook Simple Touch does support the widely accepted ePub and PDF formats, it can't load Word or TXT documents you might want to see on it. 

There are no frills, such as the Web browser or text-to-speech, so travelers, early adopters and people with special needs may find the Nook lacking. 

The bigger picture
It's safe to say that, point by point, I favor the Nook Simple Touch, but the differences that I highlight are far outweighed by the similarities I discussed up top. And the biggest competitive tensions are still there: If you buy books from Barnes & Noble, you can't read them on a Kindle, and if you buy books from Amazon, you can't read them on a Nook. (Not, at least, without some serious hackery.)

And as for those other e-readers you may have heard about, from Sony, or Kobo, or some no-name brand, do yourself a favor and avoid them. There are major benefits in sticking with one of the key players, not least of all the apps that these companies have for iPhone, iPad and Android, that let you keep books synced across devices. And with pricing of Amazon and Barnes & Noble touch-sensitive e-ink devices down below $100, there is absolutely no monetary benefit you can gain by straying from the two leaders.

That's why my best advice to you is to pick a company and stick with it. Do you shop at Barnes & Noble a lot? If so, go with a Nook. Do you belong to Amazon Prime? If so, check out Kindle.

More hot Nook and Kindle action from msnbc.com:

• Tablet war 2011: Nook vs. Kindle vs. iPad
• Q&A: Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet vs. iPad
• Kindle Fire review: Yes, it's that good
• Kindle Fire success is Google Android failure

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.

Apple

While the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet are no match for an iPad, pound for pound, their lower pricing means they provide as much of the value, dollar for dollar. There is competitive and economic pressure on Apple to drop the price of the iPad by $100 or more. And far from being anathema for the profit-driven tech giant, a well-timed price cut is directly in line with Apple's iPod and iPhone strategies.

Business Insider cited a report by Bill Shope, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, forecasting "near-term demand challenges" for the iPad. iPad sales were good but not great this past quarter, and though they might see a bump in the holiday buying season, Shope says Apple needs to do three things: Continue to push the iCloud platform, add the addictive Siri voice assistant to the iPad and drop the tablet's pricing.

There's precedent for this, as Shope and anyone else who's watched Apple for the last 10 years can tell you. The iPods saw substantial price drops year over year, as features improved and hardware evolved. The iPhones, though they follow a different pricing model because of carrier subsidies, also came down fast from their initial, punitively high cost.

The iPad was safe at $499 as long as Android hardware rivals were charging even more for inferior hardware, and drew no real attraction from the masses. The conventional wisdom until now has been, "People don't want tablets, they want iPads." But Amazon and Barnes & Noble are a lot better than other Android hardware makers at explaining why people should own a tablet, and the fact that their wares are priced from $199 to $249 only adds to the pressure.

But bear in mind, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are selling 7-inch tablets, and there's a valid premium to be paid for double the screen size, which is what you get with an iPad. To add to the stress for Apple's accounting department, Amazon will eventually release a competing 10-inch tablet. Because the Kindle Fire is just $199, a 10-incher could possibly be as low as $299.

So when will the inevitable iPad price cut hit?

My guess is, of course, this spring, assuming that's when Apple chooses to launch iPad 3. My current pet theory — though I stress it's just a theory — is that Apple will release an iPad with a microscopic-pixel Retina display similar to the iPhone for $499, and then sell a basic 16GB-only version of the current iPad 2 for $399. Goldman's Shope says Apple could even strip their iPad 2 down to 8GB, keeping costs low enough to really crush competitors and "further accelerate Apple’s already impressive momentum in emerging regions such as China.

What would be cool as all get-out, albeit a little less logical, would be if the top of the line started at $399, and the budget model was $299, but I don't think that will happen this early. Whatever happens, it's highly unlikely that a price slashing will occur before Christmas. Apple just doesn't play that game.

More on the iPad and its competitors from msnbc.com:

• Amazon's success is Google's failure
• Kindle Fire review: Yes, it's really that good
• Q&A: Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet vs. iPad
• Amazon's Kindle Fire apps show Apple-like strategy
• Tablet war 2011: Nook vs. Kindle vs. iPad
• Barnes & Noble confirms Nook Tablet for $249

Catch up with Wilson on Twitter at @wjrothman, or on Google+. And join our conversation on Facebook.