It's a topic that many of us are struggling with these days - where and how should we acquire the books that entertain, educate, and enliven our worlds? In this MacNotables podcast, Andy Ihnatko and Adam range widely across the pros and cons of the many possibilities, bemoaning the loss of small bookstores and library budgets while simultaneously acknowledging the many advantages of ebooks. No hard and fast answers, sorry, but we think you'll enjoy the conversation.

Not to be left out of the price war between Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, Borders has dropped the prices of a number of ebook reading devices that work with the Borders online store. Their E-Ink-based Kobo eReader is now only $129, the Sony Pocket and Sony Touch (also using E-Ink screens) are $119 and $139 respectively, and Aluratek Libre - which has an LCD screen - is on sale for only $99 through 14 September 2010. Borders also has a pair of Android-based tablets with color touch screens coming in a month or so, the Velocity Micro Cruz Reader for $199 and the Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet for $299. The question is, are they enough cheaper than an iPad?

Over at Macworld, Lex Friedman spends more than 1,000 words talking about video codecs. But it's not all nerd-speak. MPEG LA has announced that it will never charge royalties for free H.264 videos. That's important because HTML5 video, which lets you watch Web video without requiring plug-ins like Flash, is currently difficult for publishers and consumers alike, with different browsers providing limited support for different codecs. While H.264 - which Apple already supports in both Safari and Mobile Safari - already has buy-in from major media companies like CNN, Major League Baseball, and YouTube, this announcement could very well spark a unification of HTML5 video formats.

Amazon is releasing two new 6-inch display Kindles to replace the Kindle 2: a Wi-Fi only model for $139, and one with both AT&T 3G and Wi-Fi for $189. The new devices have 50-percent higher contrast, new fonts, faster performance, longer standby time (a month!), and double the storage, all while weighing less. The new models ship 27 August 2010 in the United States.

Barnes & Noble started it, by cutting the price of the Nook from $259 to $199, prompting Amazon to drop the Kindle 2's price to $189 and the Kindle DX's price to $379. Now Sony is following suit, cutting prices on its Reader Daily Edition to $299, the Reader Touch Edition to $169, and the Reader Pocket Edition to $149. Only the Reader Daily Edition has wireless capabilities, though, so Sony may have more work (or price cutting) to do before its products can compete with the Kindle and Nook, much less the iPad.