Barnes & Noble has announced that their Nook e-book reader is now available online and will be in stores by mid-week. The device has been long overdue because of high demand. A wise decision as more e-readers are entering the market like Apple’s iPad.

From their blog post: We’re excited to announce that nook is now available online and will be in stock at the majority of our stores by mid-week — just in time for Valentine’s Day!

China has closed down the country’s biggest hacker training website called Black Hawk Safety Net. Three people suspected of running the site were arrested. The training site has more than 12,000 paying subscribers and collected more than 7 million yuan in membership fees.

Source: China shuts down hacker training operation

US Space shuttle Endeavour blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida and it is rocketing toward the space station on one of the shuttle program’s last scheduled missions.

Endeavour will go on a 13-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS) carrying six astronauts. The crew will conduct three spacewalks to install the a 23-foot-long, 15-foot-wide Tranquility module.

Source: Shuttle Endeavour blasts off for space station

Set approximately 10 years after the events of the original BioShock, the halls of Rapture once again echo with sins of the past. Along the Atlantic coastline, a monster has been snatching little girls and bringing them back to the undersea city of Rapture. You are the very first Big Daddy as you travel through the decrepit and beautiful fallen city, chasing an unseen foe in search of answers and your own survival.

Here are some early reviews of the game. More later.

IGN (91/100): It’s a game in which story, setting, and gameplay are expertly blended to create an experience that’s as thought-provoking as it is entertaining.

IGN AU (91/100): In raw gameplay terms, BioShock 2 improves on the original in everyway, with a deeper combat system, a broader set of enemy types and the addition of a fully-featured multiplayer mode.

Buy Bioshock 2 from PlayAsia for $49.

Google is said to air ‘Parisian Love’ ad during the third quarter of the SuperBowl tomorrow night. You can check it out here first before watching it on the big screen.

Amazon has release its limited beta for the Kindle Development Kit. Accepted beta developers will be able to download the Kindle Development Kit, access developer support, test content on Kindle, and submit finished content.

Source: Kindle Development Kit

A new study has shown that young adults are no longer interested in blogging to keep in touch with friends and now is opting for Facebook and Twitter to do the same function.

From Pew Internet & American Life Project report:
Since 2006, blogging has dropped among teens and young adults while simultaneously rising among older adults. As the tools and technology embedded in social networking sites change, and use of the sites continues to grow, youth may be exchanging ‘macro-blogging’ for microblogging with status updates.

The latest photos from Hubble Space Telescope reveals planet Pluto’s surface changes surface color and brightness dynamically through seasonal change.

Scientist says [With Pluto] you are looking at the surface in the Solar System that has the biggest changes of anything we’ve ever seen.

Source: Pluto’s dynamic surface revealed by Hubble images

Facebook celebrated its 6 years old birthday with a website facelift. This is the first major homepage revamp since last October.

From Facebook blog: …we’ve been testing several different designs of the home page to improve navigation to and discovery of commonly used features…we started rolling out the most recent navigation updates to help you find what you are looking for on Facebook. Now from the top and left menus you can quickly get to what’s new and important.

Apple has forbid Tim Novikof, the developer of the Flash of Genius app from using the word “Android” in his app’s description. From Apple, During our review of your application, we found that your application contains inappropriate or irrelevant platform information in the Application Description and/or Release Notes sections. While your application has not been rejected, it would be appropriate to remove ‘Finalist in Google’s Android Developer’s Challenge!’ from the Application Description.

Apple also told developers it will ban iPhone applications that use the smartphone’s geolocation system to distribute location-based adverts.