Rooting a device will allow you to install any app you want on it. It’s a pretty useful trick if you have the know-how. And now the Barnes & Noble NOOKcolor has fallen victim to this. The result is a NOOKcolor that allows you to read Kindle books. How do you like that irony?

Obviously Barnes & Noble is not happy about this. It doesn’t just stop at Amazon’s Kindle app, though. The rooting process in this case also added Gmail, YouTube and some other Android tricks to the NOOKcolor.

Amazon has announced a new style of book for the Kindle called ‘Kindle Singles’ that are twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book. Kindle Singles will have it own section within the Kindle Store and will be priced much cheaper than books in the Kindle Store.

Kindle Singles will be the usual “Buy Once, Read Everywhere”. Buyers will be able to read them on their Kindle, Kindle 3G, Kindle DX, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, Mac, PC, BlackBerry, and Android-based devices.

In addition to announcing their new Amazon app for the new BlackBerry PlayBook, Amazon has also announced a new way to read its electronic books, Amazon Kindle for the Web.

Amazon Kindle for the Web lets you read samples of books online in your web browser, without having to download or install anything extra. You can also share samples of books with your friends through a variety of social networks as well. Amazon Kindle for the Web has been released in beta.

Whether you own an ereader or not, chances are you’ve heard all about how self-publishing is easier today than it has ever been before, allowing authors to quickly and easily publish their work. And I’m here to tell you that it’s true. However many authors out there still haven’t taken advantage of it.

Maybe you don’t have the time to look into it, maybe you’re still getting over the sting from all of the rejection letters you got in the old days, with the old way of publishing. Whatever the reason, many times we hear about new and great ways to do things and it just goes in one ear and out the other. Probably because we think there has to be a catch.

Google isn’t content to just make public domain books freely available for e-book readers. Google has just confirmed that its Google Editions e-book service will be launching in late June or July. Looks like the service will let users buy digital copies of books they find through Google’s existing book search service, and let retailers sell Google Editions on their own site and retain the “bulk of the revenue.”

We don’t have a ton of details yet. Nothing on pricing or which publishers involved, but Google has said that it planned to make between 400,000 and 600,000 books available with prices to be set by the publishers.

Reading is awesome. It will expand your horizons, take you on amazing adventures etc. But sitting down to read isn’t helping you stay slim. These circular walking bookshelves can help you workout your body along with your brain.

Artist David Garcia has built a prototype. However this should be marketed for holding video games, not books. That’s where we need the exercise. You’ll need a large room for this thing, but it will keep you fit.

Vader doesn’t like books. When faced with a shelf full of books, he’s been known to violently stab them with his lightsaber. If you feel the same way as I do about the Star Wars prequels, these bookends would be the perfect place for any prequel-related books and movies as they will be stabbed with a lightsaber and left on the shelf.

The light saber is illuminated from the inside, powered by batteries. It’s priced at $49.95 and worth every penny.

Amazon’s Kindle has released apps for both the iPhone and the PC. And now its arriving on the Mac. The Kindle app is free, and hooks you up with Amazon’s bookstore where you can buy books or check out previews of books.

With these apps, Amazon has done the smart thing and taken the ebook store as far as it will go, which is a good thing since the iPad will shake things up. I wonder what the ereader market will look like in one year.

Books are great and all, but who wants to read all of those words? If only we had a company that would shorten books for us. We do. That company is called FT Press and it’s turning professional and self-help books into “Elements” and “Shorts.” Elements has between 1,000 to 2,000 words and sells for $2, while Shorts are a little longer at $3 for around 5,000 words.

This is obviously micro-blogging’s fault. Thanks Twitter. Consider this micro-reading. Timothy C. Moore, publisher of the FT Press, told The New York Times that it was “a good idea to be able to provide people with shorter, more expedient, more time-sensitive” versions of books.

Amazon’s Kindle broke an important record on Xmas. On Christmas, the company sold more Kindle books than physical books. Yes, they did have a huge push for the holiday. Many people got a Kindle for Christmas and ordered a bunch of eBooks. But it’s still impressive.

The question is can they maintain this momentum? Were it not for a huge banner on their front page for the last week, begging you to buy the Kindle in time for Christmas, sales would not have been so sweet. So we aren’t sure that they can maintain strong sales, but who knows.

Typically, translating any book into braille more than doubles its thickness. But with e-books that doesn’t have to happen. Designer Seon-Keun Park, Byung-Min Woo, Sun-Hye Woo and Jin-Sun Park want more blind people to be able to enjoy books, so they created this Braille e-book concept.

The idea is that this is a braille Kindle. Using EAP technology, it can change the surface pattern via an electromagnetic signal that will simulate braille text. It’s an elegant and simple solution that would enrich the lives of blind readers quite a bit.

These Pixel art book jackets really add to your geek cred. They are a great way to not only dress up your books, but to add some decorative nerd-flair to your home.

The folks over at icoeye have compiled a great guide and a PDF that you can download to add some geeky style to your library. Pretty cool. You can download the template to create your own designs too.

There’s still some time left to find cool robot gifts for Xmas. Behold The Botropolis 2008 Christmas gift guide, fresh from our robot site Botropolis. We have you covered.

Everything from robot ornaments, to talking Dalek alarm clocks, to robot kits you can build yourself, to T-shirts. Fear the one’s that scientists are building, but love the one’s that you can buy, that’s our motto. Hit the link for all kinds of robot gifts fit for any stocking.

Some of us still read actual paper books at night in bed. If you are not alone in bed, that can be a problem. An overhead light just won’t work. Even a typical small lamp will keep your significant other awake.

So if you’re going to invest in a quality lamp to read by, consider something like this odd little lamp. It has the quirky design of a miniature man reading a book, and the book functions as a lampshade. He’s made from polished zinc, and could actually be considered a small piece of art as well. He’s only £28.50.

ECTACO has nothing to do with a taco, yet they have some pretty big ideas about the future of reading books and they are not afraid to let you know. The company says that it’s jetBook reader will allow you to, “Kiss your old-fashioned, dusty library goodbye,” and that’s good because “Not a single tree was cut down to make it!” It’s obviously a life changing device.

Plus it’s bright red and we all know that red is better then a plain old Kindle any day. The device has a 5-inch grayscale display, multi-language support, and bookmarking ability, plus playback of MP3 files, and an SD slot. The red harbinger of death to real books, and savior of trees will cost you $349.95, which might make some of us as red in the face as the device.