11:52 PM by dioib in E-Book General | News

This conceptual video is a corporate collaborative research project initiated by Bonnier R&D into the experience of reading magazines on handheld digital devices. It illustrates one possible vision for digital magazines in the near future, presented by our design partners at BERG.

from:
http://www.bonnier.com/en/content/beta-lab

02:23 PM by anurag in E-Book General | News

Hot on the heels of the story in Publisher's Weekly that "publishers could be losing out on as much $3 billion to online book piracy" comes a sudden realization of a much larger threat to the viability of the book industry. Apparently, over 2 billion books were "loaned" last year by a cabal of organizations found in nearly every American city and town. Using the same advanced projective mathematics used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 Billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. These lost sales dwarf the online piracy reported yesterday, and indeed, even the global book publishing business itself.

From what we've been able to piece together, the book "lending" takes place in "libraries". On entering one of these dens, patrons may view a dazzling array of books, periodicals, even CDs and DVDs, all available to anyone willing to disclose valuable personal information in exchange for a "card". But there is an ominous silence pervading these ersatz sanctuaries, enforced by the stern demeanor of staff and the glares of other patrons. Although there's no admission charge and it doesn't cost anything to borrow a book, there's always the threat of an onerous overdue bill for the hapless borrower who forgets to continue the cycle of not paying for copyrighted material.

...

From http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/20...-costs-us.html

Fun read.

11:53 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

This review is fairly long (1400+ words)so I'm going to split it into 2 parts. The second half will be the first response to the topic.

Sony lent me a Daily Edition at CES so I could write this review. I used it during my commute to CES every day and then on the plane ride home. Now that I've had a week I think it's an interesting device. I wouldn't buy one, but I can see why it might suit someone else.

Periodicals
I prefer RSS feeds as my news sources, so I don't usually read newspapers. But I bought and downloaded a couple issues, and I'm glad I did. Periodicals are one of the Daily Edition's better features.

First of all, periodicals are listed separate from other ebooks; there's a separate tab on the main page. I like that because it makes them easier to find. The newspapers are organized by the publication's title and then by date. You can sort them by issue date or latest read. Another feature I like is that you can decide how much of a back list you want to keep for each publication. You can also decide to protect editions from being deleted.

The reading experience was also pretty good. You lose a small amount of space at the bottom of the screen to a menu with 4 buttons: Previous, Section Top, Table of Contents, Next. The Next and Previous buttons serve a dual purpose; if you're on the first page of a section (Metro, Lifestyle, Commentary, etc), you'll see Next/Previous Section. But if you're in the middle of a section, you'll see Next/Previous Article.

There is also a rather odd feature I want to point out. There is no image mode on the Daily Edition; you can't select an image and have it appear full screen. But there is a zoom option (in Epub), and it works nicely for enlarging an image. I've tried it with a number of images, and either all these images are high resolution or the Daily Edition is doing a bang-up job at interpolation.

It would be nice, though, if I could double click on an image and have it zoom automatically. HINT, HINT, SONY.

Epub
I much preferred my own collection; the ones I bought from Sony had margins at least twice as wide and were fully justified.

PDF
I've never liked how Sony handled zoom; I think the zoom should be consistent across page turns. But the Daily Edition has a new autocrop option, and for the most part it resolved the issue. I tried a couple academic PDFs, and the autocrop showed me a page that was good enough to scan the contents and look at the equations and graphs (both of which are lost in reflow mode).

I'm not sure but I suspect that Sony doesn't expect the user to stay in zoom mode. I think they expect you to spend all your time in the reflow mode. This makes little sense for complex PDFs, though.

The Sony Store
As you probably know, you can buy ebooks directly from the Daily Edition. I see the value in that; now if only the experience weren't quite so unpleasant (on par with Sony's desktop software).

I bought several bundles, and it wasn't clear exactly which titles came in a bundle. Listing details so it can be found easily is a web design 101 topic; it's a shame that Sony hasn't learned it yet.

I expect the store to behave like it is being run in a web browser and it doesn't. Sony made a number of design decisions that confused me. For example, after buying a book I want to be able to go back to the page I was on (a list of a particular author's books, perhaps). I don't want to go back to the main store page; if I did I would use the options button and select “Store Home”.

There is a back arrow, but it's not a back button. All it will do after a purchase is take me to the shopping cart screen, which is weird because all the transactions are buy-it-now. I couldn't actually put anything in the cart, so I really have to ask why it was implemented?

There are no refunds for any purchases, and this concerns me. I'd be afraid to let anyone touch the Daily Edition because they might buy something without realizing it.

07:02 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

AUSTRALIAN publishers have been given until May to get their e-book houses in order if they want to join the digital revolution.

A partnership between Canadian digital book wholesaler Kobo and REDgroup - owner of booksellers Angus & Robertson and Borders - has brought new urgency to Australia's race to go digital.
...

At least a dozen new hand-held devices are expected to hit the Australian market this year and spark a surge in demand for e-books.

But only two leading publishers have converted Australian print books to digital form in significant numbers - Allen & Unwin has a library of 1500 titles, while Pan Macmillan Australia has 500 titles ready to go digital.

Even the National Library of Australia had digitised only 2366 books among its vast collection by July last year.
...

from:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/entert...058384609.html

06:59 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

While the Kindle is not yet available in New Zealand, there are some other e-readers available at electronics retailers, and the ever- portable netbook is becoming a large contender as a sought-after device for electronic book fans.

While the New Zealand e-book market is still very small, an organisation has been created to accelerate the development of digital publishing in this country.

from:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/ga...in-New-Zealand

03:05 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Charbax uploaded another video yesterday. He found a device at the Marvell booth that everyone missed, including me.

It's a 2 screen ebook reader that's a pocket sized version of the Entourage Edge. It has a 5" E-Ink screen and a 4.8" LCD touchscreen. There's no word yet on spec, capabilities, price, or availability. But after you see the video you'll agree that it looks really cool.
.

from:
http://armdevices.net/2010/01/17/ast...-ink-e-reader/

*******
Thanks for finding this should go to MR member jankovicgood, who started the discussion over here.

01:35 PM by pilotbob in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

Help us select the next book that the Mobile Read book club will read for February 2010.

The nominations will run through Jan 25.
Voting (new poll thread) will run for 5 days starting Jan 25.

Book selection category for February per the "official" club opening thread is:

February 2010
Romance

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 pool 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 poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.

The floor is open to nominations.

Official choices each with three nominations:

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Sometimes only remembered for the epic motion picture and "Frankly ... I don't give a damn," Gone with the Wind was initially a compelling and entertaining novel. It was the sweeping story of tangled passions and the rare courage of a group of people in Atlanta during the time of Civil War that brought those cinematic scenes to life. The reason the movie became so popular was the strength of its characters--Scarlett O'Hara, Rhett Butler, and Ashley Wilkes--all created here by the deft hand of Margaret Mitchell, in this, her first novel.

The Accidental Tourist Anne Tyler
Scarred by grief after their 12-year-old son's senseless murder (he was shot by a holdup man in a Burger Bonanza), Macon and Sarah Leary are losing their marriage too. Macon is unable to cope when she leaves him, so he settles down "safe among the people he'd started out with," moving back home with two divorced brothers and spinster sister Rose. Author of a series of guidebooks called "Accidental Tourist" for businessmen who hate to travel, Macon is Tyler's focus here, as she gently chronicles his journey from lonely self-absorption to an "accidental" new life with brassy Muriel, a dog trainer from the Meow Bow Animal Hospital, who renews and claims his heart.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Published a year before her death at the age of thirty, Emily Brontë's only novel is set in the wild, bleak Yorkshire Moors. Depicting the relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights creates a world of its own, conceived with an instinct for poetry and for the dark depths of human psychology.

Shadow Game by Christine Feehan
The classified experiment is the brainchild of renowned scientist Peter Whitney and his brilliant daughter, Lily. Created to enhance the psychic abilities of an elite squadron, it can transform their natural mental powers into a unique military weapon. But something goes wrong. In the isolated underground labs, the men have been dying-victims of bizarre accidents. Captain Ryland Miller knows he is next. When Dr. Whitney himself is murdered, Ryland has only one person left to trust: the beautiful Lily. Possessed of an uncanny sixth sense herself, Lily shares Ryland's every new fear, every betrayal, every growing suspicion, and every passionate beat of the heart. Together, they will be drawn deeper into the labyrinth of her father's past…and closer to a secret that someone would kill to keep hidden.

It Happened In Egypt by Charles Norris Williamson (1859-1920) and Alice Muriel Williamson (1869-1933)
Lord Ernest Borrow and Captain Anthony Fenton think they know a secret – a secret that could make them both rich. En route, they are sidetracked by Sir Marcus Antonius Lark, a woman who thinks she’s Cleopatra reincarnate, a Gilded Rose of an American Heiress, and Mrs. Jones, a mysterious Irish woman with a past. Will they find the secret? Or will the trip up the Nile on the Enchantress Isis net them another discovery altogether? (summary by Sibella Denton)

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Dead Until Dark is the first book in Charlaine Harris's series The Southern Vampire Mysteries / Sookie Stackhouse novels. In this first installment, the author introduces the character of Sookie Stackhouse, a young telepathic waitress from the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, and her world, an alternate history where vampires, shapeshifters and other supernatual beings coexist with humans. In Dead Until Dark Sookie begins a romantic entanglement with her vampire neighbor and is faced with a series of murders in town.
Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews. It's a romantic mystery / urban fantasy. It's actually written by married couple. It has an e-book version.

His Robot Girlfriend by Wesley Allison (HistoryWes)
[need abstract]

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
In a sleepy little New England village stands a dark, weather-beaten, many-gabled house. This brooding mansion is haunted by a centuries-old curse that casts the shadow of ancestral sin upon the last four members of the distinctive Pyncheon family. Mysterious deaths threaten the living. Musty documents nestle behind hidden panels carrying the secret of the family’s salvation—or its downfall.

Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase
Tough minded Jessica Trent's sole intention is to free her nitwit brother from the destructive influence of Sebastian ballister, the notorious Marquess of Diain. She never expects to desire the arrogant, amoral cad. And When Daines reciprical passion places them in a scandously compromising, and public, position, Jessica is left with no choice but to seek satisfaction...
Damn the minx for tempting him, kissing him...and then for forcing him to salvage reputation! Lord Dain can't wait to put the infuriating bluestocking in her place -- and in some amorous position. And if this means marriage, so be it -- though sebastian is less than certain he can continue to remian aloof...and stell his heart to the sensuous, head strong lady's considerable charms.

Romancing Mr. Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
Penelope Featherington fell madly, hopelessly in love with Colin Bridgerton two days before her 16th birthday. Unfortunately, Colin has always seen Penelope as the plump, shy best friend of his younger sister. By the time Penelope is 28 and a seasoned member of the English ton, she's accepted that her love for Colin is destined to remain unrequited and she shall be a spinster forever. Fate, however, has other plans. When Lady Whistledown's Society Papers announce that Colin has returned from his nearly nonstop travels, Penelope is blissfully unaware that her life is about to change dramatically. Colin is equally unaware of the turn his life is about to take. He's not surprised that his beloved mother is determined to marry him off, but he's rather astonished to find himself inexplicably drawn to Penelope. Her dry wit and intelligent mind are delightful, and Colin soon finds himself joining forces with her to deflect his matchmaking mama's good intentions. Together, the two will thwart their mothers' iron wills, face the formidable Lady Danbury, confront the gossips of London society, and resolve the lovely dilemma of falling in love. And, oh yes, there is that matter of the true identity of Lady Whistledown. Will the twosome unmask the elusive journalist? Or will their efforts be doomed to failure like so many others' before?

08:50 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

from electricpig.co.uk:

The Asus DR-950 is Asus’s second e-reader outed this morning, and this one’s gunning straight for the Kindle DX. It’s a black and white job with a spacious 9-inch touchscreen, and we’ve got all the details on it here.

The Asus DR-950 may not have an OLED screen, but at 9mm thin it’s still shaping up to be an impressive piece of engineering, and at 370g, will weigh less than the half kilo Kindle DX.

The Asus DR-950 will pack a 1024×768 resolution display, and on the software front will offer RSS feeds, translation and text to speech. It’ll also pack 2 or 4GB of internal memory and an SD slot, Wi-Fi and HSDPA or even WiMax, plus a USB port for sideloading, a 3.5m audio port for music.

The Asus DR-950 will support PDF, TXT, Audible, MP3, ePub, HTML, JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP file formats. There’s no word on a release date just yet but check out the pictures while we gather more details.