A new form of ebook Digital Rights Management in development shows just how far the book industry is willing to go to stop piracy.

It’s called SiDiM, and it’s being developed by Darmstadt Technical University in Germany, with backing from the German government and ebook industry. For each individual copy of an ebook, SiDiM applies subtle changes to the text itself, along with other invisible markings.

As TorrentFreak explains, SiDiM might change the word “unsympathetic” to “not sympathetic.” This DRM could also alter punctuation and add extra line breaks to the text.

By changing the actual text of an ebook, SiDiM would create unique copies that could be traced to the original owner. In theory, users would be aware of this antipiracy method, and would be discouraged from widely distributing ebooks over the Internet.

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Barnes & Noble will keep the discounts going on its Nook HD and Nook HD+ tablets, citing the “fantastic success” of Father’s Day sales.

The 7-inch Nook HD now costs $129 for the 8GB model and $149 for 16GB, for a savings of $70 to $80. The 9-inch Nook HD+ costs $149 for 16GB and $179 for 32GB—a discount of $120 for both models.

Although Barnes & Noble says these discounts are only good for a limited time, the company isn’t saying when prices will go back to normal, if ever. Sale prices are being honored at Barnes & Noble’s website, as well as at retailers such as Best Buy, Target, and Walmart.

Mixed messages

Although we’re not complaining, the deep discounts seem suspicious in light of rumors that Barnes & Noble might be scaling back its hardware business and focusing on sales of digital content. At these prices, the Nook undercuts both the Amazon Kindle Fire and Google’s Nexus 7 tablets. It certainly looks like Barnes & Noble is trying to dump its inventory.

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A pair of South Carolina lawmakers has introduced legislation that would pave the way for a pilot program involving electronic license plates that could be altered remotely by the state's DMV.

The “e-tags” would make it easy for drivers to switch plate numbers as a car changes hands, or they could be used to display messages to the public such as “SUSPENDED,” “UNINSURED,” or “STOLEN.” The e-tags, which are accessed via cellular network, could—in theory—also be used to track a car’s whereabouts.

The proposed e-tags, manufactured by SC-based Compliance Innovations use low-power electronic paper technology similar to that available in the Kindle e-reader. The e-plates could remain completely inert for up to 10 years without any charge and would only require energy if they were to change their display, which the plate would draw from the car’s kinetic movements or solar power.

DMV is watching

Compliance Innovations

Each plate could be altered remotely if a car changes owners, a vehicle is reported stolen, or a driver’s license is suspended. On the plus side, that would mean fewer trips to the DMV and could act a deterrent to would-be thieves (whose cellular hacking skills are not up to snuff). It has even been suggested that the plates could be used to issue region-wide Amber Alerts.

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It’s coming up on four years since Comixology’s app appeared on the iPhone, and that 2009 release was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between comic-book readers and their mobile devices. In the intervening years, though, the app’s reading interface hasn’t really changed—until now. The new version of the Comics iOS app, released Tuesday, adds two new reading modes that will be especially welcomed by users of Retina iPads and the iPad mini.

The new version of the app lets readers choose a two-page view or a fit-to-width view, in addition to the existing one-page and Guided View options.

The two-page view is great for people with good eyes and Retina iPads. If you hold your iPad in landscape mode, it’ll place the left and right pages of a comic together, whether it’s a two-page spread or two single pages. This makes the text and art pretty small, but eagle-eyed readers might find it acceptable on the iPad’s high-resolution display.

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Times are tough for Sony. The once-venerated electronics manufacturer is struggling in the tablet, smartphone, and digital music-player markets, so I felt much trepidation when I opened the box of the Xperia Tablet Z, Sony’s new $500, 10-inch Android tablet. But I came away pleasantly surprised. This is an idiosyncratic device, to be sure, but it's got a whole lot going for it.

It’s a prop, right?

At 495 grams, the Xperia Tablet Z is so light, it seems more like something you’d find atop a coffee table at a furniture store than a fully functional tablet. I’ve never felt comfortable carrying a full-sized iPad in one hand due to its weight (652 grams), but not once did I worry about dropping Sony's tablet.

At 0.27-inch thick, the Xperia Tablet Z is also thinner than the 0.37-inch iPad. But because it sports boxy edges (as opposed to the iPad’s curved lines), it doesn’t feel thinner than an iPad—but it is much easier to hold onto. In fact, this is the first large tablet I’ve held that feels more like a magazine than a piece of technology.

This isn't to say the Xperia Tablet Z feels cheap—far from it. From the front, it’s a black glass slab resembling the monolith from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but for the Sony logo next to the top left corner of the screen. (Bad form, Sony. And the logo placement is even worse when staring at the tablet sideways or upside-down.) The sides are featureless black, but for a silver on/off button, and the back is matte black. It’s pretty, but picks up fingerprints in a hurry.

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Even as we move into spring, it's still chilly enough many mornings that gloves are a welcome addition. And while out daily with my two small dogs before work, I still need check in on email and Facebook via my smartphone, even while holding a double leash.

But when my fingers are cramped with cold, it's difficult to manipulate my phone's touchscreen. I also fear that stiff fingers in thin gloves, combined with jerks by my pets, will send my phone tumbling to the sidewalk.

So, I tried a pair of Isotoner's Smartouch 2.0 matrix nylon ultra plush gloves, which have conductive threads woven into the tips of three fingers on each glove (that's one more finger than the previous version of the gloves provided).

The conductive threads on the tips of the thumb, first, and second fingers of the gloves conduct electricity to your touchscreen in much the same way your fingers do—so opening bookmarks, such as email, Google, and calendar, on the touch screen was as easy as doing so with ungloved fingertips.

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The Galaxy Note 8.0 will set you back $400, and I'll admit that I had some trouble figuring out why. It certainly isn't the aesthetic appeal, as the Note 8.0's white plastic shell—standard fare for Samsung's Galaxy lineup—doesn't evoke much in the way of gadget envy. Although it’s appreciably light at just shy of 12 ounces, the tablet is wholly generic, a Wi-Fi-only plastic slab with an 8-inch, 1280-by-800-resolution display that could be anything, save for the humble Samsung branding sitting on the top bezel.

What the tablet lacks in looks, however, it makes up for in other areas. The Note 8.0 centers its user experience on the S Pen stylus, once a curio, now a staple of the Galaxy Note family. Coupled with Samsung’s “Premium” suite of supporting apps and a few clever tricks, the latest entry in the Galaxy Note lineup just might prove to be a compelling contender. Let’s see how it stacks up against the competition.

Eye of the beholder

Nate Ralph

The plain plastic shell doesn’t do much to help this model stand out from competing tablets. But that's all right; the Note 8.0 is sturdy, and while it’s technically a bit heavier than Google’s Nexus 7 (by about 5 grams), you’ll be hard-pressed to notice much of a difference. My hands are admittedly a bit large, but the 8-inch device is no more cumbersome than the Nexus 7 or Apple’s iPad Mini, and I had no trouble toting it while sitting or lounging about.

The accoutrements are fairly standard: The headphone jack sits on the top edge, and the Micro-USB port sits on the bottom. The right side offers a power button, volume control buttons, and an IR blaster for controlling your television with Samsung’s WatchOn app. The left side hosts the MicroSD card slot; you can use 32GB MicroSD cards to bolster the 16GB tablet’s paltry 10GB of available storage space.

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Despite all the Microsoft Surface hype, Windows 8 tablets have yet to find their niche. It’s difficult, after all, to be more expensive than Apple’s ever-cool iPad, yet less usable than a reasonably cheap laptop.

So what can the Asus VivoTab Smart—a slim little 10.1-inch tablet with a Clover Trail processor—bring to the table? Well, for one thing, it’s relatively cheap: the VivoTab starts at just $499, and that includes 64GB of built-in storage. It also runs the full version of Windows 8, so you don’t have to settle for Windows RT.

Good tablet performance and battery life

Just because it runs a desktop OS doesn't mean it runs like a PC, of course. Compare it to a low-powered Ultrabook, and it's toast. It’s moderately powerful for a tablet, however, scoring higher than similarly appointed models with Intel Pentium 6 CPUs and 2GB of memory, such as the Samsung XE500T1C-A01 and the Acer Iconia W510-1422. Battery life is good and long, at 7 hours and 36 minutes in our tests.

Of course, the $499 price tag doesn’t include the VivoTab’s accessories: a Smart Cover-esque magnetic screen protector that folds into a stand, and a separate, Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad. The screen protector/keyboard combo costs an additional $130, which means it’s about $629 for the full VivoTab Smart experience. This is still a fairly good deal—the Dell XPS 10 tablet with keyboard bundle also costs $629, but it has half the built-in storage.

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Will the HP Envy x2 evoke jealous thoughts in the coffee shop? Given its sleek, brushed-silver looks and thin clamshell design, probably. Will it stir the deeper emotions that other, faster convertible Windows 8 tablet/laptops do? Sorry HP, no. Still, this thoughtfully designed portable delivers enough battery life and performance to more than adequately fill the roles of both tablet and small laptop.

Light, usable design

The Envy x2 sports a 1366 by 768 (16:9), 11.6-inch display that shows off video well and delivers more than enough usable brightness. The tablet portion weighs a comfortable (given its wide nature) 1.54 pounds, with the 1.56-pound keyboard/port dock bringing that up to 3.1 pounds. All told, toting the package is no great feat. The tablet portion locks into the keyboard dock, and is released via a slide switch.

Most of the EnvyxX2's ports reside on the dock, including a headset jack, HDMI video output, and two USB 2.0 ports. The lack of USB 3.0 or any other high-speed interface for backing up is a minor quibble given the light-use nature of the product. There's also a SDHC car reader, and a large power connector jack. Connectivity (all on the tablet) includes 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, as well as Near-Field Communication, though there are few applications for the latter at the moment.

The tablet portion sports the usual features: a 1080 display-side Webcam, an 8-megapixel back camera, plus an ambient light sensor. There are only two ports--the power jack and the headset jack. With no USB or card reader, you'll need to load or offload data docked or via Wi-Fi. The tablet also has a power button and rocker-volume switch which are placed handily on the back, just a short reach from where your fingers fall when holding the tablet with both hands.

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The Barnes & Noble Nook HD is more than just an excellent color e-reader: It’s based on Android, which makes it possible to add many great apps and extend the functionality of these tablets far beyond simple reading.

Barnes & Noble provides a curated app store full of apps. You'll have to look closely though, since most, but not all of the apps in the Nook App Store are compatible with the HD and HD+, which runs the same software but has a larger display.

Some apps only work on the Nook Color and Nook Tablet. Before buying, be sure to check the device list to make sure the HD and HD+ are included.

Some developers also offer free trials of their paid apps, a convenience that competing app platforms generally don’t provide. While shopping, look for a "Get Free Trial" link next to the buy button, or peruse the Nook App Store’s consolidated listings of free trials.

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Sub-$200 tablets are commonplace today. Kobo’s Arc, a 7-inch Wi-Fi-only tablet, is the latest entrant to this party, but it's hardly revolutionary.

None of its physical specs, except for its built-in 64GB of memory, help it stand out against the competition, which includes the Amazon Kindle Fire HD, the Barnes & Noble Nook HD, and the Google Nexus 7. Where the Kobo Arc does stand out is in its software: It runs a skinned—but not totally transformed—version of Android 4.0. In other words, the Arc offers the full Android experience (including access to Google Play, unlike the Kindle Fire HD and the Nook HD), but with a couple of unique Kobo touches. Only the Google Nexus 7 can compete with that.

Ordinary design

The Kobo Arc is best described as solid. It’s not an unattractive tablet, but compared with its competitors it looks and feels bulky and, well, sturdy. At half an inch thick, the Arc is thicker than the Kindle Fire HD, Nook HD, and Nexus 7; and at 0.8 pound, it’s heavier than the Nook HD and the Nexus 7. The Nexus 7 is about half an ounce (or 0.04 pound) lighter than the Arc, but that half an ounce makes a big difference when you’re holding the tablet in one hand. And ultimately, that difference weighs heavily against the Arc.

Kobo was going for rugged design, though: The company claims that the Arc can withstand drops from up to 1.5 meters (about 4.9 feet), more than its competition.

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Galaxy S III? Nexus 7? In any case, congratulations on your new Android phone or tablet. What’s that? Someone told you there were no decent games on Android? Well, as 2013 rolls in, not only have most iPhone developers ported some of their best titles to Google's mobile OS, but we’re also seeing many great games that are available only on Android. Read on for a list of fun, accessible, and affordable Android games that will keep you glued to your phone or tablet wherever you go.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds is, by anyone’s count, the once and future king of mobile games—three years after its release, it’s still impossible to ride the subway for a week without seeing someone playing this game. The premise is simple: Pigs have stolen the Birds’ eggs, hence the Birds are Angry; use the touchscreen to slingshot your Angry Birds at the pigs. The levels are creative, you can use birds with special abilities, and the game's theme song will stick in your head for the rest of your life. Highly recommended—and if you ever finish it, you can move on to Angry Birds Seasons, Angry Birds Rio, and Angry Birds Star Wars.

Price: Free

Pac-Man Championship Edition

Who doesn’t love Pac-Man? No fair answering “people born after 1990.” Okay, who doesn’t love Pac-Man with high-definition retro graphics and a weird trance-rave aesthetic? Also people born after 1990? Huh. Well, tell you what—Pac-Man is a classic, and this is a great, stylish, fast-paced remake of a classic. The ghosts are faster, the levels are more varied, and Pac-Man himself is more agile, skidding around corners like a 1972 Trans Am.

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Now that you have an Amazon Kindle Fire HD, you’re ready to load it up with apps. The trick is finding the apps in the Amazon Appstore that are "optimized" for the Kindle Fire HD’s display. That list is short and full of mostly games, but it's growing as more apps embrace the world of high-pixel density tablets. The best part: Most of these apps are free, though some require you to tough out the ads or sign up for a service.

Reading

Kindles are for reading, right? These apps will enhance your reading experience both by giving you more things to read and more ways to keep track of the things you like to read.

OverDrive Media Console

You can supplement the books in your Kindle library with books from your local library, or one of many libraries across the country that will lend to nonresidents, with the OverDrive Media Console (free). This app lets you browse and check out eBooks and MP3 audiobooks which can be read or played back inside the app. You can also share what you're currently reading with Facebook friends or through Goodreads. The text renders cleanly and is easy to read on the HD screen.

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If The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was real, Aunt Viv would be statistically more likely to be a video game addict than Will or Carlton.

That’s according to the findings of a survey from the Entertainment Software Association (PDF), which found that overall the ladies are nearly as into video games as the fellas (45 percent versus 55 percent), and the average age of the most frequent video game purchaser is a solid 35. Taken together, the statistics fly in the face of conventional stereotypes and find that women above the age of 18 represent a significantly greater proportion of the gaming population (31 percent) as compared to males ages 17 and younger (a surprisingly paltry 19 percent).

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA)

While the ESA survey doesn’t break down specific video game habits by gender, several studies that have found that women over 30 are the most important market for mobile games. A 2012 survey found that 27 percent of women over the age of 30 spend three hours or more per day playing mobile games, a rate double that for either sex between ages 12 and 29.

Among mobile gamers, the two most popular categories of games are “Puzzle” and “Casual, Social,” each with 35 percent of the market. If women are playing more mobile games, which tend to be of the gender-neutral Candy Crush or Fruit Ninja variety, this may be a partial answer to recent criticisms highlighting the gaping chasm between the number of female gamers and the dearth of female game characters on dedicated gaming consoles. The stats, of course, still do not answer the question of why console game developers aren’t trying harder to bring the huge audience of female gamers into the fold.

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Nvidia is to start licensing its graphics cores more widely in a bid to cash in on the need for powerful graphics in smartphones, tablets and other devices.

Nvidia will start by licensing graphics cores based on the Kepler architecture, which is used in its latest graphics cards, the company said Tuesday. Kepler cores will also be used in Nvidia’s Tegra 5 mobile chip, code-named Logan, which will ship next year.

“The reality is that we’ve done this in the past. We licensed an earlier GPU core to Sony for the Playstation 3. And we receive more than $250 million a year from Intel as a license fee for our visual computing patents,” said David Shannon, Nvidia’s executive vice president and general counsel, in a blog entry.

“Now, the explosion of Android devices presents an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate this effort,” Shannon wrote.

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Last summer, Brooklyn design studio Pensa decided to test out a public solar-powered charging station for mobile devices in the studio’s home borough. The idea immediately took off and what started as a trial project in Dumbo, Brooklyn’s Pearl Street Triangle in 2012 has become a citywide effort in 2013.

On Tuesday, Solar power technology firm Goal Zero, Pensa, and AT&T unveiled the first of many solar-powered charging stations that will keep New Yorkers powered up this summer between work and a night out on the town.

Dubbed Street Charge, the first station is set-up at Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn with plans to expand the stations to popular locations across the five boroughs such as Brooklyn Bridge Park, Coney Island, Governor’s Island, Union Square, and Summerstage in Central Park.

Each station features six USB outlets including connectors for iPhones (30-pin and lightning), as well as micro USB connectors for Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone. There are also regular USB ports for anyone who brings their own cable.

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After months of delays and redesigns, the Wikipad Android gaming tablet will launch June 11 for $249.

Wikipad is a 7-inch Android tablet that slides into a U-shaped game controller. The controller is included with the tablet, and packs dual analog sticks, a directional pad, four face buttons, bumper buttons, and triggers. In other words, it’s set up like a standard console game controller, except it also has its own speakers.

Specs on the tablet itself are similar to Google’s Nexus 7: an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, a display with a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.

The Wikipad’s main advantages are a microSD card slot and micro-HDMI output. The tablet alone weighs 0.71 pounds and measures 0.42 inches thick, but the controller bulks the package up to a weight of 1.23 pounds and thickness of 2.57 inches.

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[As tablets get more powerful, with more memory and sharper-looking screens, their apps are getting a makeover. Increasingly, mobile apps employ multimedia—combining words, pictures, audio, and video—in new and interesting ways. In our Digital Reading Room series, we’ll look at some eye-catching multimedia apps and tell you which ones deserve a place on your mobile device.]

School may be out for summer, but learning never needs to take a break if you’ve got an iPad. The apps we look at in this latest installment of Digital Reading Room take those summertime trips to museums and zoos and recreate them in a tablet-sized package. Even if you’re not naturally inclined toward ancient history, endangered animals, or modern design, you’re likely to become engrossed in each of the compelling introductions to the subjects offered through this trio of apps.

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A low-power Thunderbolt interconnect for smartphones and tablets is in the works, but the wired technology may not thrive if consumers prefer products using the wireless WiGig specification for data transfers.

There is a need for faster throughput so smartphones and tablets can connect to high-definition TVs and storage peripherals, said Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, in an interview on the sidelines of the Computex trade show in Taipei.

The Thunderbolt data transfer technology shuttles data at high speeds between host computers and peripherals. Intel’s mobile Thunderbolt interconnect will be a low-power version of its more power-hungry relative used in Macs and PCs, Perlmutter said. He did not provide a time frame on when the technology would be ready.

Apple was an early adopter of Thunderbolt, and if introduced, low-power Thunderbolt could be a candidate for use in iPhones and iPads. The mobile devices currently use the proprietary Lightning interconnect for charging and connecting to peripherals.

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Toshiba on Monday took the wraps off what it hopes will be the first tablet powered by Nvidia's latest Tegra 4 processor. Dubbed the Excite Pro, this $500 tablet runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and has a 10.1-inch 2560 x 1600 pixel IPS display. For those of you counting pixels at home, that puts the Excite Pro at 300 pixels per inch (ppi)—more than what's currently offered on Apple's iPad with Retina display and its 264 pixels per inch.

The tablet also features an 8-megapixel camera which, when combined with the Pro's beefy processor, allows you to shoot in both panorama and high-dynamic range (HDR) modes. Toshiba also claims that the Pro will feature enhanced image stabilization, though I'm not exactly sure we should be encouraging people to take photos using tablets.

Toshiba also unveiled two other Excite tablets on Monday that it hopes will grab people's attention: The Excite Write and Excite Pure. The Write is outfitted with a digitizer display and features a stylus that supports 1024 pressure points for more accurate handwriting recognition. The tablet looks like it'll come in handy when taking notes or drawing. It'll be interesting to see how it compares next to Samsung's 10-inch Galaxy Note. The Write will retail for $100 more than the Excite Pro but—save for the digitizer and stylus—the two tabs are identical in terms of specs.

If you aren't keen on styluses, or are just on a budget, then the Excite Pure may be more your speed. This 10.1-inch tablet is powered by last year's NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor and 1GB of RAM (as opposed to the 2GB found in the Pro and Write). The tablet runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, like its older siblings, and also features a Micro SD card slot that allows you to augment the device's 16GB of internal storage. So what’s the benefit of getting a tablet with slightly lower specs? A greatly lower price-tag: The Excite Pure will cost $300, putting it in the same price-range as the Nexus 7 and iPad mini.

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In springtime, people’s fancies may turn to love, but their to-do list turns to cleaning. Make this the year that you finally recycle all the ancient MP3 players, toner cartridges, ethernet cables, and bulky monitors out of the closets, garages, and spare rooms where they’ve been lurking. Your home will feel more modern, and you’ll be doing your part to boost the 27 percent electronics recycling rate in the U.S.—just in time for another spring constant, Earth Day.

Why recycle at all?

Sure, it would be easier just to dump all your old, unwanted electronic stuff in the trash. However, old computers and their related peripherals contain a lot of heavy metals—lead, cadmium, mercury—that are bad for people’s health when they get into the soil and water. In addition, when old electronics hit the trash heap, they’re out of a recycling stream that can cut the energy costs for production of future electronics.

But if the environmental concerns don’t grab you, consider the business benefits to recycling electronics: According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, compared to disposal, computer reuse created 296 jobs per every 10,000 tons of material disposed of each year. The Electronics TakeBack Coalition estimates that the U.S. generates approximately 1.7 million tons of electronic waste annually—so imagine the job potential that’s still there. And if those arguments don’t sway you, maybe the long arm of the law can: It’s illegal in 25 U.S. states to simply trash your old electronics.

Now, don’t you want to avoid breaking the law? Don’t you also want to employ people and keep the planet clean by recycling your old stuff? Of course you do, so let’s get started.

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Back in January I wrote about the "inconvenient truth" of trying to charge your iPad from a USB port: there's not enough juice.

My recommendation at the time was Digital Innovations' ChargeDr, a USB dongle that allows tablets and other devices to charge more quickly. It works (quite well, in fact), but it's a $30 solution.

If you fancy free workarounds instead, check out Asus Ai Charger. This free utility promises to charge iPhones, iPods, and iPads up to 50 percent faster using your PC's existing USB ports.

That's a pretty lofty claim: software that can boost the effective power output of hardware? It sounds almost impossible, but I'm here to tell you: it works.

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If you’re planning to sell or give away your iPad, then it is essential that your personal information and data be erased from it. If it’s running sluggish after a few years, sometimes backing up your data, erasing it from the tablet and restoring it might improve performance.

First, you need to make sure that you have the most current version of iTunes.

Once you’re up to date, plug your iPad into your computer. On the iPad screen click “back up now.” This may take some time depending on how much data and applications you have on your tablet.

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Though Android’s global market share is intimidating, two other numbers are enlightening: 22 percent of Android users eventually switch to an iPhone, while only 9 percent of iPhone users go the other way. As those numbers suggest, switching from Android to iPhone isn't that difficult. Here’s how to make that transition as painlessly as possible.

Keeping contacts

Users switching phones often worry first about retaining their contacts. But help is available: Most carriers are happy to assist you in moving contacts from one device to another. They usually handle this task in-store when you activate your new iPhone. If you’re activating at home, check your carrier’s support page for its contact transfer service.

Even if you've already bought and activated your iPhone, your carrier should be able to transfer your contacts, as long as you still have your old phone or you’ve backed up your contacts.

If for some reason you can’t get your carrier to help, you can move your contacts yourself. Assuming that you synced your contacts with Google or a Microsoft Exchange server, you can retrieve your information from there.

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When you buy an ebook from Amazon, it's yours, right? Technically speaking, Amazon is merely licensing the book to you. And the company can, seemingly on a whim, close your account and delete all your books.

This isn't likely to happen, but it gives me pause. Indeed, it makes me want to back up the books I bought and paid for, just in case. What's more, if I ever decide I want to read those books using, say, another reader (be it an app or device), I'd like the option of converting them to another format.

Both options require the removal of Amazon's DRM -- the digital lock the company puts on its books to prevent unauthorized sharing.

I have no intention of sharing. I simply want to exercise my fair-use rights. Luckily, it's possible to remove Amazon's DRM (at your own risk, of course) using free book manager Calibre and a couple plug-ins.

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The batteries that your mobile devices contain are miracles of engineering. They hold amounts of energy that their predecessors couldn’t come close to equaling. Properly using this potential can help your mobile batteries last longer on the road. Here are our tips for obtaining optimum battery performance.

1. For the quickest Tablet charge, use the original charger or a charger specifically designed for it.

iPads and other tablets have large batteries, so they come with chargers that can output lots of juice to recharge them quickly. For example, the iPad's adapter can output up to 2100mA (2.1 Amps), which is more than double the amperage that a typical USB port can support. This extra power output makes a huge difference. In our tests, charging an iPad took 5 hours, 9 minutes with the iPad charger (which can deliver up to 2100mA), but it took 10 hours, 13 minutes with an iPhone 5 charger (which maxes out at 1000mA). In a similar test with a generic USB travel charger, the charger took more than 24 hours to build up a full charge in the same iPad.

As these tests demonstrate, to reduce charging time to a minimum, you need to use either the original charger or one designed specifically for your device. Some devices contain circuitry that won’t allow the battery to use the charger's full capacity unless the charger contains a special authorization chip: otherwise, the device will charge at a much slower rate. For instance, when we tried to charge an iPad 4 with a Samsung Tab 10.1's charger, the process took over 19 hours to complete, even though the Samsung charger can deliver the same amount of juice as the original iPad 4 charger. That’s because the iPad 4, not recognizing that the charger could deliver a larger flow of power, limited the incoming current to an unnecessarily low level. The same was true of the reverse situation: When we tried to charge a Samsung Tab 10.1 tablet with an iPad 4 charger, the process took more than 15.5 hours. In contrast, the original Samsung charger completed its work on the Tab 10.1 in 4 hours, 46 minutes.

2. Most cell phones don’t need a specific charger.

Cell phones, which carry smaller batteries than tablets use, don’t require high-current chargers. As a result, you can use a generic charger to transfer power to them, without suffering a severe slowdown in charging time. When we timed how long an iPhone 5 took to reach a full charge when fed by various chargers, the differences ranged from 2 hours, 4 minutes with an HTC travel charger to 2 hours, 59 minutes with a Samsung charger. The original iPhone 5 charger took 2 hours, 16 minutes—so you won’t suffer much of a penalty for using a third-party charger with your cell phone or other small device.

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The world is a filthy, filthy place. Just look at your mobile device, and you can see on-screen evidence of what happens when gadgets continually get poked by grubby fingers, pushed against sweaty ears, and parked on tables covered with crumbs and other contaminants. How do you keep your phone or tablet shiny and clean in the face of this onslaught?

Cleanliness is next to gadgetness

Alpine Products packages its Spudz microfiber cloth inside a small, attachable case.

Adopting a routine of cleaning your mobile device every day will help. For daily cleaning, apply a microfiber cloth with the minimum possible force to remove dirt and stains. Between cleanings, store the cloth in a bag or other container to prevent it from picking up dirt or other foreign matter along the way, especially as these could scratch the screen when you use the cloth. Replace the microfiber cloth with a new one regularly, to avoid spreading the very stains you're trying to remove. Several companies, such as Alpine Products, offer small microfiber cloths that tuck into a cover and clip onto the device itself, or onto a bag or key ring. Keeping the cloth with your regular gear kit (chargers, cables, extra battery, and the like) will help you stay on top of cleaning.

If your screen has food or other dried-on stains on it, dip a corner of your microfiber cloth into water, and then use this to try and gently moisten and remove the stain. Do not apply water to the screen directly: Drops can easily slip inside your device—and that won’t end well.

Regular cleaning

Once a month, you should clean your devices thoroughly, including each device's screen, ports, and buttons. Such cleaning can extend the effective life of your equipment, but some caution is required.

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Smartphone photography keeps getting better. The Camera and Gallery apps that come with Android 4.2 (still called Jelly Bean) have evolved into powerful tools for taking, viewing, editing, and sharing photos.

Before you take a picture, you can fine-tune the exposure, set the white balance, and tell the camera where to focus. You can photograph the entire world around you, 360 degrees horizontally and vertically. Afterward, you can add filters, tweak the exposure some more, fiddle with the colors (or remove them), crop the image, straighten it in both 90- and 1-degree increments, and put a frame around it. And when you're happy with the result, you can upload it to whatever social media sites you choose.

I spent some quality time with a Google Nexus 4 smartphone to find out just what Android 4.2's photography apps can do. This is a pure Android phone, with no manufacturer additions or alterations to the operating system. In other words, anything I could do here should be available on other smartphones running Android 4.2.

(A personal note: You might think, looking at the photos ahead, that I'm obsessed with my cats. Not so. It's just that, unlike people, they never object to having their photos appear on the Internet.)

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Out with the old, in with the new. The way tech changes and evolves these days, it’s not uncommon to want to unload your old gear every few years in favor of newer, better, shinier stuff: a faster laptop, a slimmer tablet, or a more-powerful smartphone.

Of course, in order to make way for that new gear, you’ll have to decide what to do with your old hardware. Instead of just tossing it in a drawer, many users opt to sell it, which can help defray the cost of new stuff.

But where’s the best place to sell used tech? How can you keep your devices in good shape so you get maximum resale value? And, most importantly, how do you wipe away all traces of your personal data?

The good news is that these important questions don’t have complicated answers. With a little know-how, you can easily get a healthy return on your old gear and make sure it’s as empty of data as the day you bought it.

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