Amazon not only bought Liquavista from Samsung, they’ve also launched their own line of digital money/tokens called Amazon Coins. One Amazon coin is worth a penny.

The purchase price for Liquavista was not disclosed. Bloomberg News reported earlier this year that Samsung was seeking less than $100 million for the business. Samsung bought the Netherlands-based company in early 2011 for an undisclosed sum. A Samsung spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

To try to make this simple, Liquavista is a tech company that makes things easier for you to view, and uses less power while you are viewing. It’s done with a process called “Electrowetting,” which you can read more about here.

Once again, you can’t fault Amazon for being on top of its game.

Classic Books With New Covers

I have to admit that I’m a little conservative when it comes to my classic novels. My copy of The Great Gatsby is black leather with gold lettering and small gold designs. And I highly doubt I’ll bother to see the new version of Gatsby on film until it reaches cable simply because I have read the book dozens of times.

There’s been a lot of talk about the new (book) edition of The Great Gatsby, with its movie tie-in cover that’s been dubbed terrible by some and enticing by others. But there’s a whole world of re-imagined book covers for classic novels well beyond those Leonardo Di Caprio editions of Gatsby. Take a look, for instance, at book designer Neil Gower‘s new cover for the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra, which was released April 30. (It’s the one in red, above, at right, next to the 1934 classic designed by Alfred Maurer.) There are many, many examples of old books done new again, like Drop Caps (see below), the stand-out series from type designer Jessica Hische and Penguin VP Executive Creative Director Paul Buckley. And there’s Coralie Bickford-Smith‘s lovely Cloth-Bound Classics series for Penguin, in which she turns books into collectible, cloth-bound artifacts (scroll down to see them; they’re the row of books with spines facing toward you below The Portable Dorothy Parker).

I don’t see anything wrong with redesigning the covers for these books, and as an author I think most of the people who wrote these books would probably find it amusing…unless the new covers were designed by some of the small e-presses I know who like to hang crooked little kids swinging between two gay men on covers. In that case, the authors might just gag. You can read more here.

Plus Size Model Robyn Lawley

I’ve always wondered why there weren’t more plus size models, male and female. One of the things that’s always struck me as odd is that the fashion industry has always focused on these painfully stick thin models who never look healthy or attractive…unless that’s what you’re really into. They make the thinnest people we know in the real world look overweight. And finally someone noticed this, and plus size model Robyn Lawley made a tasteful impression at the American Ballet Spring Gala recently.

The 23-year-old attended the American Ballet Theatre Spring Gala yesterday, and she looked every part the A-list fashion figure. Robyn’s nude bustier dress and matching high-heel booties made for a fresh and elegant look to herald in the sunny season.

You can read more here. Maybe this is a new trend? Frankly, even though I’m a little fanatacial about my own weight, and rarely eat more than one meal a day, I think a lot of my own conditioning came from the images I picked up subconsciously from the fashion industry with regard to gay men. And those images about how straight women and gay men should be painfully thin are not always realistic for everyone.