January 2 - 11:55am EST   Axiotron has begun shipping its Modbook tablet Mac, a modified MacBook with a built-in Wacom digitized pen-sensitive liquid crystal display. The only Mac-based tablet on the market won the Best of Show award at Macworld Expo 2007 after debuting at the event. The Modbook features a 2.0GHz or 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Inkwell handwriting recognition software, a 24x DVD combo or 8x DVD SuperDrive, GPS support, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Modbooks start at $2,300 and include a 1-year warranty. [full story]

December 11 - 3:05pm EST   Amazon's hyped Kindle book reader now has third-party support, an electronic book publisher has announced. Fictionwise says that over 15,000 titles are available for the Kindle from its MultiFormat category, including works by the likes of Mark Twain, Franz Kafka and Poppy Z. Brite. Shoppers cannot however download directly to their readers, as they can with official Amazon books: they must either download to their computer first and sync via USB, or else have Fictionwise e-mail books to their Kindle with a 10-cent Amazon surcharge. [full story]

December 5 - 7:00pm EST  In brief: A new book delving into Mac OS X keybaord shortcuts has been released, a new volume of SL MultiTracks CID WAV Drum Loops debuts, a release date for the game Eschalon: Book I has been released, PulpMotion is coming to North American stores, LightScribe holiday templates have been released ... A new book, Core Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts, by Dean Pirera, is coming out this January (2008) written exclusively for Mac users wanting to learn all the tips and tricks for navigating with a keyboard. The book is printed in a handy A5 spiral bound format and is the most comprehensive desktop reference guide of its kind available with over 1,000 Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts laid out tables all thoroughly ... [full story]