Sep 11

Beware Device Convergence

Mary-Jo Foley at Zdnet.com offers a humorous but thought-provoking article about the fabled all-in-one device that can read eBooks, play movies and cruise the Internet for recipes, all while you’re using it to trim your nose hairs. The truth is, designers have to be careful they don’t assume that consumers are as wild about technology as they are. Obviously, you don’t build an iPhone or Kindle so you can read electronic books unless you’re a techno-freak to begin with.

As Mary Jo Foley says in her article, there are people out there who have joined the 21st Century but prefer limiting their devices to single use, and are happy to cart them all around in a bag. (Utility belt market opening up?)

Didn’t they just publish a report saying that people who are multi-taskers, actually perform poorly at their tasks? Why expect our handheld devices to do it well, yah?

Sep 10

Google to the Rescue?

Jorgen returns with a link to an article by Jessica E. Vascellaro at the Wall Street Journal. In it, we see that Google, long considered the nemesis of publishing, is offering its services to help newspaper publishers get paid for their content.

The newspaper industry has been staring oblivion in the face since the beginning of the Internet, digital content and well, modern times, and they should listen to Google, rather than maintain the attitude that got them into this mess in the first place. That being: “The Internet is a flash in the pan. It won’t last.”

It sounds like a fairly simple fix with Master of the Search Engine Universe, Google, upgrading its current Google Checkout service to handle premium billing and subscription plans. They can simply tweak it to handle newspaper and magazine content.

Even though Google is often portrayed as the digital monster that’s taking over the world, I give it a bit of slack, since it seems if it were left to the newspaper publishers we would still be paying constantly rising prices for newspapers and magazines while retailers are fleeced for advertising space. I don’t even think there’d be radio, if it were left up to the newspaper industry.

The only way to control Google (or at least have some influence) is to work with Google. It obviously didn’t go away when the traditional corporate forces tried to ignore it, yah?

Sep 09

Dual eBook Reader from Asus?

We talked before about a rumored eBook Reader in Asus’ Eee-line of products. Now we’ve got an article from Mark Hachman at PCMag.com that starts to confirm the rumor, and adds an exciting new element to the story.

Hachman writes that The Times of London reported that this thing is going to have a hinged spine connecting two reading panels, at least one of which will be tricked out for color display. See the picture here.

Asus is also talking inexpensive and premium versions of the machine, so this is certainly going to get a lot of speculation going. (Will the dual screen be reserved for the premium, or will the economy version fly black and white only, we’ll see, yah?)

Coolest idea yet, read along: one of the screens might be able to serve as a virtual keyboard effectively turning your eBook Reader into a laptop. Too much! That’s the kind of thinking we need to get this eBook Revolution into high gear.

Sep 08

Google Books Pens deal with Interead

ITProPortal reports Google Books signing a deal to provide eBooks to Interead’s COOL-ER  eBook Reader. This move makes Interead the first eBook store outside of the United States to offer a million-plus free eBook titles.

Beleaguered web searcher and soon WORLD LIBRARIAN, Google Books is not letting the ongoing debates surrounding the legality of scanning the world’s books slow them down, as they push ahead with a deal to match the contract they penned to supply Sony’s growing collection of eBook Readers with content.

So, the more deals they strike, the faster people will see the process as legitimate, yah? It’s an interesting approach.

Thanks again to Jorgen to pointing us to a flurry of Google Books and Amazon developments.

Sep 07

Scribd.com Continues to Impress

Scribd.com is growing in size, function–AND POPULARITY. They boast: “Tens of millions of readers. Millions of documents. 35 billion words.”

Sign in to purchase eBooks from some of the world’s leading authors and independents  for direct download to your eBook Reader or other handheld device. They offer an excellent pdf-based file format for online reading at your desk or on your laptop.

They’re also in the process of ‘democratizing’ Scribd with the addition of a social networking system, where you can upload and sell your own work or others’.

If you haven’t checked it out, you simply must. Scribd.com is a pioneer in the way we’re all going to read and sell books.

Sep 06

The Future of Libraries

CNN has an excellent report on some of the changes that are coming to that tried and true institution, the Public Library. Read the article here.

With the relentless forces of the digital age chipping away at every corner, one has to wonder what the library of the future will look like. The widespread adoption of eBooks and wireless eBook Readers begins to call into question the necessity of these physical archives.

Even the argument of their use as a public meeting place is being eroded by social networking, Twitter and an endless flow of texts.

How can the library remain relevant?

Sep 05

Amazon offers $30.00 gift card as apology.

We talked about it before here, and now PCWorld is updating the story. Back in July, Amazon brazenly entered Kindle owners’ collections and summarily deleted titles by George Orwell that they had mistakenly sold them…this without asking permission or offering explanation. Read some of the fallout here.

Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos ended up dishing out a sincere apology in an attempt at damage control.

On Friday Amazon announced it was offering a $30 Gift Card to  the offended Kindle owners who lost copies of  1984 from their Kindles but are uninterested in a replacement.

You can tell the competition is heating up in the eBook Revolution. After all, if Amazon wanted to play nice they wouldn`t have broken into the Kindles in the first place, yah?

Sep 04

Google Books Under Attack

Thanks again to our friend Jorgen who returned to direct us to a couple of stories about the ongoing debate over Google Books’ attempt to rule the eBook World…

First the Wall Street Journal offers this ‘hard to believe’ author and consumer defense mounted by Amazon. (Honestly, Amazon, don’t you want to rule the eBook World too?) I seem to remember a $9.99 boycott of eBooks over there not all that long ago…yes, readers had to force you to lower your prices. And there was that time you deleted books from Kindles without even saying why. Isn’t that an invasion of privacy?

Find more specifics on Amazon’s argument at zdnet.com.

The second story at the Chronicle Review  examines how Google Books’ method of archiving books could get in the way with how researchers use texts. The article warns that pricing, access, and privacy aside, we should think long and hard before putting control of all this information into the hands of a corporation that could one day be swallowed up by Wal-Mart. That chilling thought and more in this in-depth piece.

Sep 03

An example of ridiculous eBook pricing.

Here’s a story at Bookseller.com describing how Transworld, (…there’s a warm and cuddly name for you…) the publisher of Dan Brown’s new book The Lost Symbol,  will release hardback and eBook editions simultaneously on September 15th both priced at $29.95. That while Amazon offers a $9.99 Kindle edition.

Come on! $29.95 for an eBook, when most people think $9.99 is too much? On top of that other retailers will be free to discount their copies, which will further muddy the waters.

It would be easy to be snide, but it’s early in the eBook Revolution. There are bound to be confusing moments like this that consumer backlash is bound to straighten out. Let’s hope the high prices do not promote too much piracy and file sharing.

STOP PROMOTING PIRACY. SELL CONTENT PRICED AS CONTENT!

Sep 02

eBooks Open an Affordable Chapter in Education

Acting on another tip from Jorgen, I visited the Washington Times to read an article about how the cost of printing is forcing a move toward eBook use in schools.

The article makes an excellent point. Texts with a shelf-life are no longer suited to cash-strapped school systems. Having purchased a few over-priced (single-use) texts and reference books over the years, I can understand why there are groups forming to protest these rising costs. If providing a good education is job one, then something’s got to give.

The cost of running schools rises every year and tuition hikes are an annual event, so it seems that a reusable eBook Reader purchased or leased by the school or student might be the perfect fit. Linked to the eBook’s editability and flexible platform, texts could be upgraded whenever the circumstances demanded.

So, it would be interesting to see education drive us toward this new tech, when everyone was expecting entertainment to do it. Perfect for the eBook revolution, yah?