09:53 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

Imagine this. Next time you want to enjoy an e-book, it'll have to wait until you've relieved yourself. I get straight to the point: British scientists discovered a way to turn urine into electricity. I'm not saying this is the most elegant way to power a mobile device, but, well, can you think of anything cheaper?

According to Ieropoulos, a member of the team who has been working on this project:

"One product that we can be sure of an unending supply is our own urine. By harnessing this power as urine passes through a cascade of microbial fuel cells (MFCs), we have managed to charge a Samsung mobile phone. The beauty of this fuel source is that we are not relying on the erratic nature of the wind or the sun; we are actually re-using waste to create energy.

So far the microbial fuel power stack that we have developed generates enough power to enable SMS messaging, web browsing and to make a brief phone call. Making a call on a mobile phone takes up the most energy but we will get to the place where we can charge a battery for longer periods. The concept has been tested and it works – it's now for us to develop and refine the process so that we can develop MFCs to fully charge a battery."

Here's a video describing the process in further detail:

[via Slashdot, image: Flickr]

07:32 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

There are many good books out there. The only problem is finding them. You can follow recommendations from Amazon and roam social platforms such as MobileRead or Goodread. Or you could trust the proprietary artificial intelligence of BookVibe, a new book discovery engine that extracts data from conversations in social media, including Twitter, to identify what's currently hot and what's not among users.

Vindu Goel of the NY Times gave BookVibe a spin:

The service is still in beta, and it shows signs of being a work in progress. Extracting real meaning from the shorthand found in 140-word tweets can be a challenge for humans, let alone computers. Some books popped up on the recommended list because their author had mentioned them. Some reviews were missed because the Twitter user offered a link to an external review without summarizing it in the tweet.

But over all, I found BookVibe to a valuable single-purpose tool and an indication of what’s possible as social media search technology becomes more sophisticated.

Full article @ NY Times Blogs

[via dbw]

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Welcome to another digest entry of MobileRead, where we transform the profound into the bite-sized.

E-Book General - News

• Flexible E-Book devices: One step closer with flexible batteries
• Google Play Books expanding further in Europe

E-Book General - General Discussions

• How does writing style influence your reading choices?
• Storm brewing: Library book pricing
• Are bookstores still worth fighting for?

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• August 2013 Book Club Nominations

E-Book Readers - Amazon Kindle

• NYTimes launches dedicated Kindle Fire app

Miscellaneous - Lounge

• Amazon can't own .amazon domain name

05:41 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

I could wax poetic here about the meaningfulness of the new generic top level domain names (gTLDs), but I will not waste my breath nor your time. It's interesting to note though that Amazon just failed to turn their brand name into a domain. According to Greg Bensinger of the WSJ Blogs:

Late Tuesday, a committee of the nonprofit organization overseeing the Internet’s top-level domain names (the ones after the final dot in a website name), recommended against allowing “.Amazon” to be controlled by the Seattle company. [...] ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee recommended against Amazon taking control of the domain, perhaps in part because of objections from Latin American countries served by the Amazon River, said Nao Matsukata, chief executive of domain-name advisory firm FairWinds Partners, who is attending ICANN's meeting in Durban, South Africa.

For reference, this is how Amazon justified owning the .amazon domain:

The mission of the .AMAZON registry is:

To provide a unique and dedicated platform for Amazon while simultaneously protecting the integrity of its brand and reputation.
A .AMAZON registry will:

• Provide Amazon with additional controls over its technical architecture, offering a stable and secure foundation for online communication and interaction.
• Provide Amazon a further platform for innovation.
• Enable Amazon to protect its intellectual property rights.

[...]

The .AMAZON registry will benefit registrants and internet users by offering a stable and secure foundation for online communication and interaction.

Don't feel too sorry for Amazon though. The application list shows that Amazon submitted applications for 76 gTLDs, and they still have a chance to "win" such domain generics as .kindle, .read, .store, .dev, or .news.

[image source: Flickr]

04:49 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Amazon Kindle

It's been a long time coming, but the New York Times has finally released a dedicated news app for the Kindle Fire aimed at delivering the latest coverage of US and international news from the Gray Lady. It's completely free until August 1st, so if you're a proud Kindle Fire owner, why not give it a try.

Here the full press release:

The New York Times (NYTimes.com) today launched a news app for Kindle Fire, which delivers the latest news and award-winning journalism of The New York Times, designed and formatted for optimal reading on Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

To mark the launch, The Times will offer free access to all 25+ sections of New York Times news, information and opinion, including videos, slide shows, interactive graphics and blogs through July 31.

Beginning in August, non-subscribers will be able to access up to three articles each day on The New York Times Kindle Fire app. Non-subscribers may also subscribe to The Times using their Amazon.com account. New York Times subscribers with Web + Tablet and All Digital Access digital subscriptions will have unlimited access to The Times on Kindle Fire as well as unlimited access to The New York Times Kindle Edition, which provides a representation of the daily newspaper.

Features include offline reading, cross-platform save, share options across social media and e-mail, as well as text-to-speech functionality, which can read articles and blogs aloud. Users can also dictate comments using Android’s native speech-to-text functionality.

The Times app for Kindle Fire is available in the Amazon Appstore. To access all sections of the app after July 31, a NYTimes.com + Tablet Apps or All Digital Access digital subscription will be required. Details and pricing for these plans are available at www.NYTimes.com/Access.

12:04 AM by WT Sharpe in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

MobileRead Book Club
August 2013 Nominations

Help us select the book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for August, 2013.

The nominations will run through midnight EST
July 30 or until 10 books have made the list. The poll will then be posted and will remain open for five days.

Book selection category for August is:

Science Fiction

In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).

How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.

How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a poll at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.

How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.

How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.

How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.

When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the initial poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.

The floor is open to nominations. Please comment if you discover a nomination is not available as an ebook in your area.

Official choices with three nominations each:

(1) Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Sony

(2) A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub | Kindle / Scott Dutton Design & Illustration: ePub

(3) Lost Horizon by James Hilton
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub | Kindle

(4) Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Amazon UK / Amazon US

(5) Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
Amazon US / Barnes & Noble

(6) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Amazon US / Kobo

(7) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Amazon Canada / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble US / Bookworld Australia

(8) Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
Amazon Canada / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Sony Reader Store

(9) Solaris by Lem Stanislaw
Amazon UK / Amazon US / B&N (US) / Diesel / Google Play (AUS)

(10) Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Amazon Canada / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble US / Bookworld Australia

The nominations are now closed.

07:04 PM by speakingtohe in E-Book General | General Discussions

How does writing style influence your reading choices?

A couple of MR discussions have made me wonder just why I like the books I like.

Content and genre aside, there are some authors that I enjoy so much I will read practically anything they write, and others whom I really like the first book I encounter and struggle with the next.

I am a bit ignorant on the subject of writing styles in general and would like to know more. I understand narrative, expository, descriptive and persuasive, but until yesterday I had no idea what second person present tense meant.

Overall I prefer first person present tense, with the narrator being the main character or sidekick.(examples Robert B. Parker, Rex Stout) I also like many books with switching POV’s and books that can go from one timeframe to another, although some of them leave me scratching my head wondering who or when. (Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler was confusing as to timeline in spots but I enjoyed the book)

Descriptive is all well and good, but too much description has me going blah, blah, blah in my head. As does too many rabbits pulled out of a hat.

I like to be able to picture the characters and settings in my mind but I don’t need a whole page or two devoted to the sound of the wind in the trees, although my mother loves things like that. And I am inclined to actively resent pages and pages and chapters and chapters devoted to magic 101 or the complete dynamics behind an alternative reality. (example: Nancy Holzner’s Deadtown series, liked the first, but the second just goes on and on with the demon fighting lessons)

An example of rabbits out of the hat books are The Dresden Files, which I like for the most part, but too many last minute saves by something that seems to have been belatedly poked into the first chapter because the author has dug himself a big hole does nothing for my suspension of disbelief.

I do enjoy my reading and don’t really have to know why I like certain books, but I would kind of like to.
Helen

[attribution: image by Susan Corpuz]

PS
It was pointed out to me by HarryT that I might really prefer past tense and he is absolutely right.

06:52 PM by fjtorres in E-Book General | General Discussions

From the Huffington Post, a reminder that the fallout of the Price Fix Conspiracy is hardly over:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-br...7&rid=26912588

If anything, it is beginning:

While the e-book world takes a minute to digest the court ruling finding Apple conspired with book publishers to jack up the price of e-books to consumers, it's worth noting that there is another e-book pricing battle going on.

Consumers are the ultimate victims here, also, but those most directly affected are public libraries. Some book publishers don't lease e-books to libraries at all, depriving library customers of versions of popular best-sellers. Others set the lease rates exorbitantly high, squeezing the already squeezed library budget.

Yes, having been found to be conspiring miscreants, the BPHs are now fair game for the bigger breed of predatory miscreant: politicians...

The American Library Association (ALA), and particularly former President Maureen Sullivan, have raised the issue loudly and persistently, but the publishers haven't been terribly responsive. Now, state and local governments are just starting to become involved on behalf of their libraries and the library patrons.

In Connecticut, Gov. Dan Malloy (D) on June 6 signed a bill requiring the state attorney general and the state librarian to conduct a study on the availability of e-books to public library customers. The study will have a broad mandate, taking in such topics as surveying current practices used by publishers and distributors (companies like Overdrive or Baker & Taylor, which supply the software to make the e-books available to libraries), to determine if there are any problems with those practices and if so, what to do about them.

The requirement of a study was the last compromise in the legislative process, which started out with a bill by State Rep. Brian Sear (D) "to require publishers of electronic books to offer such books for sale to public and academic libraries at the same rates as offered to the general public." That bill would mean the publishers couldn't charge the public $12.99 for an e-book and charge libraries $85 for the same e-book, which is the practice now.

States should study the pricing of e-books, and pass on to Congress and Federal agencies their findings. Localities should speak up for their library users. And Congress should ask book publishers when they will recognize the harm being done to library budgets and to library users through discriminatory pricing.

More detail at the source.

The BPHs should start beefing up their lobbying deartment. Now, in addition to their Amazon FUD campaign, they are going to have to run 51 lobbying efforts to stop library book pricing from being regulated.

Of course, the same states looking at their library practices are also plaintiffs in the still-pending class action Price Fixing suits. They are not likely to be easily swayed with the usual sweet-talk and small brown paper bags...