TechBytes: eBook Tipping Point

July 20, 2010— -- Electronic books appear to have reached a tipping point. Amazon says eBooks for the Kindle outsold hardcover books over the last three months. Over that time, Amazon sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcovers, and that pace has picked up in the last four weeks. Sales of the Kindle have tripled since Amazon cut the price in late June.

A new digital movie locker service service is getting closer to launch. A group of media and electronics companies that includes Best Buy, Microsoft and Warner Brothers has named their service Ultraviolet. The idea is that you can buy a movie online or at a store and then watch it anywhere, including mobile devices or TV sets, without the hassle of copying your files. The system will begin testing by the end of the year.

In our weekly video game review, an unusual new game called Limbo. The black and white game is about a boy who is curious about his sister's fate so he enters limbo to see if he can find the answer. CNET's Dan Akerman says it's probably not like any game you've played before."It's almost like an old silent film because there are very few sounds, very little music, very little sound effects, no dialogue. Everything is designed to keep you constantly off balance, off focus, to keep you very confused about what's going on and very uneasy," Ackerman said. "It's one of the most psychologically affecting games that I've seen, and you really feel like you're being drawn into kind of an abstract, nightmarish world." Limbo is available for download through the Xbox Live Arcade.

Think your kids spend too much time playing video games? A group of six Dutch guys broke the Guinness World Record for non-stop gaming over the weekend. They played Red Dead Redemption for 50 hours straight, breaking the old record by almost 10 hours. They were allowed a 0-minute break for every hour played as well as coffee, but no energy drinks.