Dear Visitor,
eBook Rumors will be on hiatus from Thursday July 23 until Monday July 27, 2009. The eBook Revolution will no doubt charge ahead during our absence, as eBook Reader and hand-held device designers jockey and struggle for position and as smart publishers see the light and start to offer fair prices, yah? I’ve posted a few interesting links to tide you over. Thanks again for visiting. Feel free to comment your hearts out.
Sincerely,
John Cypher, Editor/Correspondent
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The Globe and Mail’s Social Trends Reporter Jill Mahoney has an excellent piece here about how libraries are adapting to the digital age. The smart ones have been logged onto the changing times for years and are evolving to connect books, computers and the public.  It’s all about staying relevant.
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In a similar social shift we’ve found a story at the Augusta Chronicle where teachers are encouraging students to text the answers to questions. We’ve got teachers and profs making lectures available as podcasts, live streaming video with discussion boards as interface for posting questions. Students are encouraged to tweet, blog and chat online with classmates. Some are even releasing assignments and text references formatted for eBook readers and iPhone. Anything to engage the digital generation, yah?
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An update is available for Stanza, the popular eBook reading app for the iPhone/iPod Touch–and recent Amazon.com purchase. Read what and where here at Intomobile.com. They’re offering smoother page-turns in landscape and portrait orientations, etc. If you haven’t got Stanza get it here.
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Barnes and Noble is opening (or re-opening…remember we reported that they abandoned eBook sales in 2003…). There’s an article about its re-opening here at Reuters. Visit the store here.  Looks like they’ve signed an exclusive deal to provide all content for Plastic Logic’s eReader. That should heat things up a bit for the other players like Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader.
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More on Amazon’s thought-control tactics digging into the private libraries of Kindle subscribers without so much as knocking. It was a copyright issue that Amazon had to deal with that they settled rather arbitrarily in a fashion befitting the secret police. An article at Daniweb here digs deeper into the invasion of privacy and asks the simple question: “Who owns the content you purchase?” (Another good reason to get rid of DRM!)
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In the “She Ain’t No Lady” department this article “Gray Lady’s Dilemma“ by Brett Arends of the Wall Street Journal explores the financial dilemma facing newspapers in the digital age. How do they go electronic and still turn a profit? (Difficult proposition since they’re only interested in making the same profits. Not very adaptable of them…) But, Arends reassures us that such things are possible.
