Let’s think about Amazon, an online retail pioneer. When I think about online selling, I think about efficiency, value, purpose and focus. Get out of the way of the transaction. This is reflected in the Kindle which, despite its name, is an icy cold, colorless device. Jeff Bezos has said several times that a guiding principle behind the Kindle is to have it “disappear in your hands.” “Just give me the content and minimize the fuss.”

Now let’s consider Barnes & Noble – a multichannel retailer that seeks to at least match Amazon’s clean, expedient online experience, but which also  evokes a warm library or reading room in its stores and wants a rich experience with books there. That multichannel approach is reflected in the design’s dual screens. The paper display is the cold, online part that blends into the white border like the Kindle. The bottom screen, though, shows color cover art and its touch capabilities allow you to browse as one would a bookshelf and get “hands on” with a book at a store. Warmth is also reflected in the “Nook” name and the choice of pastel backs.

And of course, the integration of the Nook with Barnes & Noble stores is more than just skin-deep, with the retailer taking advantage of the product’s integrated Wi-Fi to do in-store reading and promotion, and Barnes & Noble’s physical stores will be a good place to showcase the lineup of designer accessories that have high profitability potential.

It’s not the first time a device has had the ability to allow friends to sample content. Microsoft’s Zune famously allowed “three plays or three days” for songs that were shared from another Zune using peer-to-peer Wi-Fi in a process Microsoft unfortunately called “squirting.” While the ability to sample viral music likely had some appeal for the Zune owner, there were siimply not enough Zunes to make the feature worthwhile and Microsoft dropped the feature with the Zune HD.

Like the Zune at its debut, the Nook will also be starting from an installed base of zero. However, Barnes & Noble has circumvented the chicken and egg by by allowing consumers to share its e-books with any compatible device running B&N client software, such as a PC, iPhone or BlackBerry. A Windows M9obile client in the works was confirmed by the company

The question, though, is how does the ability to lend e-books enhance one’s experience as a Nook owner? Clearly if one is in the middle of reading a b9ooik, lending it out for two weeks (which makes it unavailable to the owner) is simply a nuisance. There could be some gratification in lending a completed book to a friend, though. Hopefully, publishers, which control how long a book can be lent for, won’t start calculating how long it takes someone tor read a book and deny lending rigts to shorter titles based on that.

The tie to the Nook is also tenuous for the borrower, who doesn’t have to buy a Nook to enjoy a lent book. Barnes & Noble, though, may really be looking down the road if it supposes that simply exposing more consumers to digital books will grow the market eventually.

Curiously, though, while Samsung has seen great success with its LED televisions, and has done extensive advertising around “LED TV” (including TV spots), the Luxia name has been largely missing in action. Even on Samsung’s own LED TV site, there is no way to search for Luxia televisions or clue as to the existence of a Luxia designation. I’m sure Samsung is pretty nappy to be dominating the LED-backlit landscape. A $4,500 television by any other name is still mighty profitable. But the difference between Samsung’s marketing of “LED TV” and “Luxia” provides very high contrast indeed.

Nonetheless, two products came to light this week that specialize in snippets of functionality – information appliances of sorts to use the mid-’90s terminology. The $199 pictured Red Light Camera Detector, available exclusively from New York specialty retailer  Hammacher ("We were here before The Sharper Image was a blurry idea.") Schlemmer uses a database of red light cameras and GPS to alert drivers when they are approaching such a monitored intersection.

While I can’t remember the last Hammacher product to attract so much attention online, much of it has been negative, surrounding its duplication of functionality and requirement of manual updating. Indeed, this seems more like a $99 or less product, particularly given the plummeting prices of portable navigation devices that cold easily replicate its functionality. Still, many ignore or don’t realize, though, that Hammacher and Brookstone customers are driven more by novelty and design and usually aren’t concerned about purchase optimization.

The second and decidedly plainer looking device is the WikiReader, a gadget from open source wireless developers OpenMoko. Yet, the WikiReader is not wireless. It too relies on regular updates that are delivered via microSD card. Sure, it’s functionality is also replicated by a number of iPhone applications or even any handset with a decent Web browser. Still, the notion of a reasonable $99 encyclopedia that can be toted nearly everywhere has a certain downmarket appeal. While it is no substitute for a real Internet connection, it would be nice to see it patch a few open spaces in the digital divide.

Market potential aside, both of these products would be greatly added by some level of free wireless Internet access; neither would consume much bandwidth. The infrequency with which they’d need to be updated might even be an opportunity to revisit the old paging networks. (Don’t laugh. Remember the BlackBerry started there.) But  I see their ilk as more likely candidates for that elusive white-space network. One thing’s for sure. We’ve not seen the last of service-specific devices.

Kodak High-Definition film was one of the early products to get flack for usurping the “HD” nomenclature. In its defense, the ASA 400 film does seem to produce less grain than other films and has been widely seen as a replacement for the Royal Gold film from Rochester. Rather than increasing absolute resolution, though, it simply seems to produce higher contrast. Perhaps Kodak should have simply come up with some arbitrary contrast ratio number, like everybody else does.

Nearly all digital cameras have been capable of “HD”, that is, more than 720 lines of resolution, for years. Consumer camcorders are now pretty far along that transition.

HD Radio, the digital radio standard developed by iBiquity, has become the technological destiny of AM and FM radio stations as far as broadcast technology is concerned. When it comes to audio, it seems “HD” is the new “CD-quality.” HD Radio offers a greater content selection (albeit one that isn’t nearly as broad as the Internet’s) and better sound quality (which is often better than what is found on the Internet, at least outside of managed services such as Slacker). Because it has lacked the receiver subsidization that helped fuel the early growth of satellite radio, HD Radio has been slow to get off the ground. However, it recently got a shot in the arm by being incorporated into the Zune HD, which is in part a true HD product in that it can output HD video with the aid of a separate dock.

Incidentally, ibiquity is far from the only company to associate “high definition” with audio. Intel led the charge in the PC space and a wide range of headphone brands have offered “high definition” headphones and earbuds, including AKG, Monster Cable, Philips, Sony and XtremeMac.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, a stroll through your local drug store may put you eye-level with the as-seen-on-TV HD Vision sunglasses direct from direct marketing land. The wraparound variety will fit over existing sunglasses so even those in need of prescriptions can get in on some HD vision, making you “look brighter and more alive.” These appear to be the latest in a line of polarized tinted anti-glare shades, a more modern incarnation of Ambervision. Believe it or not, they will not upconvert standard-definition videos, even if you watch them while squinting into the sun. Now how much would you pay?

And if your HD Vision shades don’t do much for staring at your old Trinitron., how about staring at your nails? You’re sure to revel in your high-definition hands with Sally Hansen HD Hi-Definition Nail Color. And what a spectrum of colors it is. HD Nail Color comes in eight different hues, twice the number that could be produced at one time by the standard-definition Atari 2600 (but only half the number that could be produced at one time by Intellivision). The thematically on-point shades include Cyber (purple) BLU (as in –”ray”), Pixel Pretty (turquoise, pictured), Hi-Def (green), Lite (yellow), Digital (pink), Three D (orange), and Hi-Res (red). I suppose using the “Hi-Def” shade of the HD nail polish will produce that holy grail of fingertip colorization, quad-HD nails.

It will be interesting to see what changes Chumby makes in the name of role optimization. For example, the protuberance on its right side may be some kind of knob, and perhaps the top can be outfitted with a proper snooze button. As a long-time Chumby user, the main change I’d make is an easier way to manually move among a few multiple widgets (a la Exposé or HTC Sense) versus continuously cycling through hem slide show-style. The quest for a proper MP3 alarm clock may be at its end.

Previous whole-home video systems have been expensive, unwieldy and complex, partly because of the need to supply power to the batteries, but not the Avaak. Simply plug the base into your router, press the Sync button, and attach the AAAA battery-powered, golf ball-sized camera to one of the amazing tiny magnetic mounts. Then go to the Web site and enter a unique ID for your base station and you’re ready to view and record video from a browser.

It all works brilliantly. I would of course be nice of the Vue could perform the kind of self-identification magic that the PogoPlug can, but Avaak appears on its way to creating the first multi-room video streaming system that can be used by ordinary consumers. I’ll certainly have more to say about the Vue system soon.

Of course, not every device with app ambitions makes it, and Verizon’s recent withdrawal of the Verizon Hub shows that apps can blossom only if a company is committed to continuing and advancing a platform. A value proposition must be established before it can be augmented. But the rewards can be great. Were it not for the iPod touch’s vast app library, Microsoft’s Zune HD would be a stronger competitor.

The latter approval was especially meaningful since subscription services in general have historically berated the a la carte model (even as they warm to it) and there was that unpleasantness a while back regarding Real’s now moot attempts to get its rights-managed tracks onto the iPod. It’s a good thing Real learned its lesson about not trying to circumvent DRM.

But that’s all old news, and now some are heralding Rhapsody’s arrival on the iPhone as a fresh beginning tor subscription services. I disagree. Like Michael Gartenberg, I believe in the potential  of streaming music to connected devices, but see services such as Rhapsody stuck between the rock of well-crafted Internet radio offerings such as Slacker and Pandora, and the hard place of a la carte purchases. Yes, sometimes we all want to hear a specific song, but there are even cloud-based options for that that don’t require a subscription. And if Real Networks is waiting for the carriers to figure it out, good luck.

Having Rhapsody on the iPhone, like having it on Sonos, is a great value-add for Rhapsody subscribers — an even better value-add than having the Sirius XM iPhone app is for those subscribers. I’s a good retention play.  But it doesn’t solve the fundamental problems these services have and I doubt it will signficantly help expand the subscriber base (On the other hand, at least it won’t lock subscribers in to one portable device.)

Meanwhile, the iPhone and iPod touch gain more sway as the most flexible pocketable digital music consumption devices, with their integrated and third-party apps bringing together local music, network music, Internet radio, Slacker, Pandora, Deezer, YouTube music videos, Sirius XM, and now Rhapsody (among others). If you’re a Rhapsody subscriber, you’re going to pay your monthly fee for bits anyway, but now you also get to fork over a couple of hundred to Apple for its atoms whereas before an Apple music player was probably out of your consideration set.

I’m sure Real Networks wishes it hadn’t gone this way as Rhapsody has to adhere to several limitatoins on the iPhone such as lack of background playback and an inability to sell a la carte tunes through Rhapsody, but the popularity of the iPhone probably forced its hand.

And so the rich get richer.

Nevertheless, at the IFA conference in Berlin last week, Sony and Panasonic emerged as leading advocates for the adoption of 3D television based on a more modern approach; each had its own spin. Sony relied on its knowledge of movie making via Sony Pictures (now integrated into its “make.believe” corporate branding along with Sony Ericsson) whereas Panasonic noted that it had a production facility in Hollywood for mastering Blu-ray.

Sony also won showmanship points by distributing RealD glasses and showing 3D clips during its press conference. That’s fair game in my book even though the technology it plans to introduce in the home is actually the same as Panasonic’s, which uses active shutter glasses that Panasonic was showing behind closed doors on its 150″ plasma. Passing through those doors, I noticed the impact of the 3D effect when there is high contrast between foreground and background, lending credibility to its claim that plasma is well-suited to 3D. (It also bodes well for OLED, which both Sony and Panasonic are pursuing.) While the Avatar clip actually fell a bit flat (pun unintended), there was a confetti scene so realistic that I felt I could reach out and grab it. Panasonic also answered Sony’s eye-popping Gran Turismo cockpit scene from its press conference with its own impressive driver’s-eye footage.

Sony and Panasonic are also driving forces behind Blu-ray, and another piece of the puzzle to roll out at IFA was that the Blu-ray 3D spec is coming soon. Indeed, 3D will absolutely need content, and as was noted during the Blu-ray Disc Association press conference, 3D content will be distributed in many ways. But even that may not be enough to overcome some of the hurdles such as wearing glasses. That is why Philips has decided to sit back and sell 21:9 TVs that I can’t believe wouldn’t find an audience in at least the custom installer market in the U.S.

As my colleague Paul Gray at DisplaySearch (whom I ran into on the show floor) notes, 3D  may not close the gap in TV pricing declines, but I still see the question of Blu-ray’s arrival is more of a when (and certainly within the time frame of seeing the effect without the glasses) than if. 3D has particular value for movies and sports, two TV genres that helped drive HD adoption.

But one area that 3D could enhance that hasn’t seen much attention but where it could provide much value is in the oft-neglected user interface, where it could help in swimming through the overwhelming flood of metadata that consumers will need to navigate. Hillcrest Labs has already shown a quasi-3D user interface using its Loop remote dubbed HoME, but it strikes me as the tip of the iceberg as to what companies could do with real 3D capabiliies. Without significant redesign, the prospects of finding personal relevant video in the age of broadband video are frightening, even more so than Count Floyd.