07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

If you've been a bit too busy to keep up, here are a few of our favorite stories from the past week.

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Hanvon N516 review
• TeleRead Sold to North American Publishing Company

07:40 AM by anurag in E-Book General | News

From http://www.teleread.org/2010/02/10/t...cept-for-mine/

TeleRead, the oldest English-language site devoted to general e-book news and views, is now owned by the Gadgetell subsidiary of the North American Publishing Company (NAPCO). We closed the deal today.

I’m leaving as editor-publisher, but Co-editor Paul Biba (left photo) will remain—now as full editor. What’s more, Senior Writer Chris Meadows (right), the second most frequent contributor, will stay. Both Paul and Chris have been e-book-lovers for eons, and publications ranging from the New York Times to the Guardian have quoted Paul over the years. Under Paul, who has supplied most of TeleRead’s posts since September 2008 and managed it day to day, you’ll continue to be able to speak up for or against DRM and share your thoughts on e-book formats or the Macmillan-Amazon controversy.

Started to advocate well-stocked national digital library systems, a cause still dear to me, TeleRead has been online in one form or another since 1992, when I was posting the library plan on CompuServe. Nowadays we draw close to 100,000 unique visitors a month and are among the world’s primary sources of e-book news for readers, writers, editors, agents and publishers. Among other things, TeleRead prodded the main trade group, the International Digital Publishing Forum, into finally going ahead with a consumer-level standard for e-books; and today the Sony Reader, the new Apple iPad and countless other machines can read files formatted in ePub.

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01:21 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

I just posted part 2 of the review over on my blog. I think it's worth a read.

Original Firmware

When using the default firmware (v1.7), the N516 scores a 1 out of 3. It has no sleep mode, and it can’t read a popular format. In fact, it’s really not very good at reading ebooks. My unit only supported HTML, TXT, and PDF. The HTML was completely unusable; all of the tags were ignored. The PDF was marginal (on a 5″ screen). And the txt is text.

Open Inkpot Firmware

My reading experience improved greatly after I installed OI. Open Inkpot uses FBReader as its reading software, and all of FBReader’s features were implemented: page margin, line spacing, font choice & size, justification, everything. It’s difficult to convey how many options FBreader has, but I can say that it will satisfy the pickiest user.
...
My Recommendation

I still think the Jetbook is better, but if you get the N516 then you should install Open Inkpot. It’s worth it. If it were available, I’d use the OI firmware on my Jetbook.

I'm still trying to find the right level of detail to include in a review. If there is too much detail, then the review is too long. Too little detail, and it's shallow. I think this review is about right. If you think there's something I missed, please let me know.

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for our weekly roundup of what's new and interesting in the world of e-books.

E-Book Devices - Barnes & Noble nook

• New Update available for the nook.

Portable Devices - Apple Devices

• IPad Design - if Apple was custom designing one for me

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Mobileread's ebook library turns 15,000

02:14 PM by Madam Broshkina in E-Book Readers | Barnes & Noble NOOK

Update 1.2 is now available for the nook. The following is from the B&N nook board:

We're confirming that the nook 1.2 update is now available!

We continue to optimize nook software to give our customers a great reading experience. In this, our second software update since we shipped nook in early December 2009, we are providing an improved reading and in-store experience, all key areas that our customers noted. nook v 1.2 will be made available to customers in a seamless over the air (OTA) update over approximately the next week, beginning today, and immediately by manual download.

Q. What's new in V1.2?
nook V1.2 continues to improve nook performance to enhance the overall reading experience and in-store connectivity for nook customers to enjoy exclusive content and promotions in Barnes & Noble stores. Key updates include:

• Enhanced in-store seamless connectivity to enjoy free Wi-Fi, with our More In Store content and promotions exclusively for nook owners.
• Improved opening of eBooks and periodicals
• Improved response to Reading Now & Settings buttons
• Current reading page and bookmarks on all eBooks is properly saved when your nook is powered off
• Bookmarks display page number
• Eligible LendMe™ eBooks in My Library include a LendMe™ flag
• Easier navigation of daily subscription with issues rolled into one folder
• Improved “back” button functionality for navigating eBooks and periodicals
• Personal files downloaded onto nook and displayed in My Documents can be sorted by author & title
• Overall system improvements and battery optimization

01:04 AM by pilotbob in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Have the price of ebooks been getting you down lately?

Are you tired of the Amazon vs Macmillan mud slinging in the news lately?

Well... I am here to bring you good news...

The MobileRead eBook library now contains over 15,000 ebook uploads. These aren't just scan/OCR and transfer. For the most part the ebooks in the MobileRead library are extremely well formatted and proofread.

So, unearth a gem today in our library.

Congratulations and thanks go to all the creators, editors and uploaders for a job well done. Also, thanks to the existence of public domain laws and creative commons copyrights.

Well done MobileReaders!

04:49 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book Readers | Apple Devices

The iPad has my interest, even though I'm not a fan of closed systems, and I never thought I'd consider a device without at least one USB port and a memory card slot. What follows is my reasons for interest, and the things I wish it had. I.e., if I could have provided input, this is what Apple might have included on an iPad developed just for me.

Why I Am Interested

• Good battery life. Hopefully, real world usage matches 10-12hrs.
• Great form factor - light, slim and nicely sized screen
• Zippy performance - should be much faster than e-ink devices
• Capacitive touch screen
• Lots of developer support, and huge iPhone consumer base
• External keyboard via BT or dock. Eventually wired keyboards will probably be available via the connector.
• Should be a good e-book reader, even for PDFs in landscape. (I don't mind reading on an LCD screen.)
• Price is not much more than an e-ink device, so I can potentially make this as an e-book reader purchase that gets me some additional functionality and a more responsive device as well.

If you go to a full O/S like Win7, then you lose battery life and the lightweight advantage. I.e. In that case, I may as well use my convertible tablet, or get a netbook (still a possibility). The extra weight and shorter battery life is a critical factor for me.

It will be interesting to see what Android tablets come out with 7-10" screens, 8+hr battery life, <2lbs weight and sold for <$500. If there is a good device, and it meets my needs, it might beat out the iPad for me.

I don't think we'll see a Win7 device this year that meets those criteria.

What iPad is missing

• USB ports and Memory card slots
• Flash browser
• e-book format support. Seems to have PDF and eReader and ePub. But is ADEPT ePub going to be available? Is PDF support very good?
• DivX video support (and other formats as well)
• Remote PC control - I expect that LogMeIn Ignition or other apps will support this
• BT tethering to use my Treo as modem data plan. I'm not even sure how I'll figure this out before making a purchase decision, but it would be a big plus if it works.
• GPS and mapping SW. Wish it could run Google Maps with GPS. Maybe it will?
• Flash browsing - especially to allow things like Hulu, Fancast, ESPN360, etc.
• Synching without a computer or iTunes. That goes back to the memory card and USB port, but also I don't really want to even use iTunes unless I have to.
• If you buy an app on an iPad/iPhone/iTouch, do you have to buy it again to use it on another iPad/iPhone/iTouch? If not, and I get an iPad, they may have shifted my future phone desires from Android to iPhone as well.

Are these deficiencies show stoppers? I don't know yet. I'm really looking at this as a stopgap device until I can get what I really want with Win7 inside, so it doesn't have to be perfect. Just better than other e-book readers for my own purposes and tastes. I already expect it to be outdated by the time the second generation iPad comes out - but in the e-book reader game, that's par for the course right now.

Caveat - I'm going by memory in terms of what is available on iPad or not. This info may not be completely accurate. And, obviously, in many cases I already indicate above that I don't know. Please let me know if you have answers!

Anyway, I'd sure be interested to see if others have similar desires for the iPad and what you might also want that I left out.

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Been away? Fear not! Here is your chance to check out what appeared on our frontpage this week:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Introducing the new Bebook Neo
• Book Glutton goes Mobile
• Jointech JE200 review
• Apple Event - Live Blogging/Streaming Coverage
• Hands on with the iPad
• Hanvon N516 first impressions

E-Book General - Deals, Freebies, and Resources

• Universal solar charger - Today only [Wed 1-27-10]

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• February 2010 Mobile Read Book Club Vote