10:55 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

As you probably know, Samsung announced a line of ebook readers at CES last week. I already reported on the press conference, and I was planning to write about my impressions of the liseuses themselves. But the Samsung booth was both crowded and noisy (good for them!). I only feel comfortable giving an opinion for the E100 (the 9.7" e-reader).

I was not impressed with the build quality of the E100; it felt like it would be easy to warp it and break the screen. I'm also not impressed with its abilities (the same as the other Samsung models) or its price ($699). The market for large screen readers is crowded, and an ebook reader needs to do something to set itself apart. The E100 looks pretty, and that's about it.

I've attached all the good photos I took (the lighting conditions were not good). The e-reader with a joystick under the screen is the 5" non-slider model with Wacom touch screen but no Wifi. The liseuse with only 2 buttons under the screen is the slider model with Wifi and Wacom. The keyboard model also has a 6" screen with Wacom, Wifi, and (according to the label on the back) 3G.

I would like to spend some more time with the smaller models. They were nice to hold and looked very pretty. If only they were available in some color other than white.

P.S. There is one interesting footnote that I can add. The 3 smaller models all apear to be using the same firmware, and all think they are the SNE-60k. The SNE models are a line of ebook readers Samsung released on the Korean market. It looks to me like these 4 models were developed by the same team that worked on the SNE e-readers. This is good news for the user because it might mean that the new ereaders will have fewer bugs (I hope).

01:13 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Gajah International is a tech startup out of Singapore.They currently have 4 distributors in: USA, Holland, Russia, and Spain. As you can see from the photos, they have a number of models planned with several different screen technologies: E-ink, LCD, and Sipix (when it is available).

Unfortunately, not all of my photos came out well, so I can't show you all the models. My notes aren't good for much either. I visited the booth on Saturday, so my higher brain functions were shot after 3 days at CES. But I can tell you that Gajah is developing some e-readers with Adobe DE support, and some with Wifi. There are models both with and without touchscreens.

Oh, and the most important detail: they're shipping ereaders right now. I described the ones they have under development, and I have a good feeling that the new models will be released.

11:37 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

I missed this announcement in the mad rush that is CES. Better late than never.

from the press release:

Debuting today, Hanvon’s WISEreader eBook readers will be available in five, six, eight and 9.7 inch displays, and come in a wide range of categories. Hanvon’s own electromagnetic touch tablet technology allows users to make annotations directly on the eBook page and save them on the device in clear handwriting and detailed annotations. The WISEreader also includes integrated wireless technology (Wi-Fi and EDGE/GSM) allowing users to download eBooks without having to connect to a PC.

Other details mentioned in the press release include a 95% market share in China, unique touchscreen technology, and a claim to being the second largest ebook reader maker in the world. For more detail you can visit their site at www.hanvon.com.

Hanvon had 4 models on display at CES, and they are planning to bring out 5 more models some time in 2010. All 4 current models have support for Adobe DRM. Two of the 4 can be bought in the USA through Amazon and Fry's, and at least 3 different models are available in Europe (N516, N518, N520, N520).

Hanvon N500

• Display: 5” E-ink Vizplex w\touchscreen
• Gray levels: 8
• Full keypad QWERTY Key
• On-screen handwriting with letter and word recognition technology
• Weight: 275g(without cover)
• Dimensions: 176.4mm × 124.4mm × 10.2mm (without cover)
• OS: WinCE
• Storage: MicroSD card up to 32GB
• Wireless: TD/ GPRS
• Supported Formats: TXT, PDF, HTML, JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF, MP3, WAV, WMA
• Power: Li-ion 1500mAh

Hanvon N618

• Display: 6” E-ink Vizplex w\touchscreen
• Grey levels: 16
• On-screen handwriting with letter and word recognition technology
• Weight: 260g(without cover)
• Dimensions: 176.6mm × 124.8mm × 10.5mm (without cover)
• OS: WinCE
• Storage: TF card up to 32GB
• Wireless: Wi-Fi
• Supported Formats: TXT, HTXT, PDF, HTML, XLS, DOC, JPG, TIF, BMP, PNG, GIF, MP3, WAV,
• WMA
• Power: Li-ion 2350mAh

Hanvon N628

• Display: 6” E-ink Vizplex w\touchscreen
• Grey levels: 8
• On-screen handwriting with letter and word recognition technology
• Weight: 308.3g (without cover)
• Dimensions: 181mm × 137.5 mm × 11.4mm (without cover)
• OS: WinCE
• Storage: TF card up to 16GB
• Wireless: TD/EDGE/GPS
• Supported Formats: TXT, PDF, HTML, DOC, MEB, XLS, HTXT, JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIF,
• MP3, WAV, WMA
• Power: Li-ion 1500mAh

Hanvon N638

• Display: 6” E-ink Vizplex
• Grey levels: 16
• Full keypad QWERTY Key
• Weight: 266.4g(without cover)
• Dimensions: 203mm × 134 mm × 10.35mm (without cover)
• OS: WinCE
• Storage: MicroSD card up to 32GB
• Wireless: Wi-Fi
• Supported Formats: TXT, PDF, HTML, JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, MP3, WAV, WMA
• Power: Li-ion 2500mAh

Hanvon N800

• Display: 8” E-ink Vizplex w\touchscreen
• Grey levels: 16
• On-screen handwriting with letter and word recognition technology
• Weight: 480g(without cover)
• Dimensions: 226.3mm × 163.5 mm × 10.2mm(without cover)
• OS: WinCE
• Storage: TF card up to 32GB
• Wireless: Wi-Fi
• Supported Formats: TXT, HTXT, MTXT, HTML, PDF, DOC, CEI, HCEI, PPT, XSL, EPUB, CHM, JPG,
• BMP, PNG, TIF, PPM, JIF, PCX, MP3, WAV, WMA, LRC, AMR
• Power: Li-ion 2200mAh

09:45 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

This is from a week old announcement, but I thought it worth posting:

Local Books resembles popular dining apps like LocalEats or UrbanSpoon—but for book lovers. It shows you local bookstores, libraries and bookish events wherever you are or plan to be.

I've been using beta versions on my trips for months already; it's the ideal travel companion. Even if you know your area well, you're almost certain to find new places. We hope it will be a shot in the arm for physical bookstores and libraries—a new way to see how much bookishness there is around you.

At present Local Books does not show inventory from local bookstores and libraries. But, well, isn't that a good idea?

from:
http://www.librarything.com/blog/201...pplication.php

Get it on iTunes:
http://bit.ly/5Mb4mM

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

Gosh we've talked a lot this week. Here's your weekly round up of MobileRead's events.

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Notes on a brief conversation with Spring Design
• A visit to the Freescale booth at CES
• RCA Lexi
• On the Liquvista "demos" at CES
• New mainstream device available in Greece!
• Europe's dysfunctional private copying levy to remain (Ars Technica)
• Updated and Corrected: E-Book Buyer's Guide to Privacy (EFF)
• Tess Gerritsen on ebook readers (mediabistro)
• About the glut of devices on the ebook reader market
• Delyca S600K
• Liquavista: Threat to E-Ink?
• Wattpad closes first round of funding
• Digilife 6" E-Book
• Daza ebook readers
• Sharp PC-Z1 Netwalker Review (from L'Ombre de l'Olivier)
• How Not To Negotiate for Digital Rights (Scholarly Kitchen)
• iRex DR800 to be introduced in Europe soon
• Update released for Adobe Acrobat & Reader
• Mark your calendar: O'Reilly TOC Conference 22-24 February
• Walt Mossberg reviews the Sony Daily Edition
• JISC digitised 100k pages from 19th century newspapers
• Kindle-ADA lawsuits settled
• The neatest thing I saw at CES: PVI's flexible E-ink screen
• Quirk Books to release Tolstoy's "Android Karenina"
• South Korea plans to adopt digital textbooks next year
• Interview: Matt Mason on piracy as a business model (Spark)
• Sony adds 46 comics to the Digital Comic Store
• World largest 19" flexible ePaper from LG Display
• NetLibrary adds support for Sony Readers, Nook, Cool-ER
• Video: Pocketbook 901 at CES 2010
• Amazon expands language support in Kindle Store
• Public Service Announcement: Cherrypal is a SCAM
• Mark your calendar: Book Blogger Convention on 28 May
• Indianapolis Public Schools Replace Textbooks with Digital Content (THE Journal)
• Digitization projects - updates

E-Book Devices - iRex Digital Reader

• DR1000 firmware update with ADE rescheduled to end of Q1/2010

E-Book Devices - HanLin eBook

• Leo's Hanlin V3 eBook SDK

Portable Devices - Other Devices

• Reading capable umpcs/tablets/slates coming out this year

11:39 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

A project was just begun at UNC-Chapel Hill to scan a vast collection of 18th and 19th century personal documents. From the announcement:

Eighty years after its founding in January 1930, the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Wilson Special Collections Library is inaugurating a program to digitize large segments of the collections.

The Digital Southern Historical Collection debuted Jan. 8 with thirty-five collections digitized in their entirety, plus two more that have been partially digitized.

from:
http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/news/in...1/digital-shc/

Chronicling America just added three 19th century Hawaii newspapers to its archives.

The UH Mānoa Library is pleased to announce that the English-language Hawai’i newspapers have been digitized and OCR-ed, and are available online at the Library of Congress' Chronicling America website, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. The papers are:

* The Daily Herald (Honolulu, 1886-1887)
* The Hawaiian Gazette (Honolulu, 1865-1916; online: 1877-1913)
* The Independent (Honolulu, 1895-1905)

The Daily Herald and The Hawaiian Gazette (during the years included here) represent a conservative pro-American editorial viewpoint, and The Independent represents a strongly nationalistic Hawaiian viewpoint.

from:
http://hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=3334

08:23 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

I'm not sure digital textbooks is the right word for this; the amount and type of material is too broad.

In a pilot program announced at FETC 2010 in Orlando, 12 schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) system will replace traditional textbooks with digital content from Discovery Education. The program also includes curriculum alignment services, professional development, and hardware.

The company's curriculum alignment team analyzed the IPS district pacing guides and chose the digital content that it determined was most appropriate for IPS, including audio and video segments, images, articles, games, and interactive resources.

from:
http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/...l-content.aspx

07:44 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

The Book Blogger convention is a one day event intended to provide support, instruction, and social time for people who blog about books. It's in New York on the Friday immediately after Book Expo America. Some of the topics have already been announced:

• Professionalism/Ethics
• Marketing
• Author/Blogger Relationships
• Building Community
• Writing/Building Content

I know a couple book bloggers, and they're fun to listen to. I was planning to be in NY for BEA, so I already registered for BBC. If you want more information, you can find it here:
http://bookbloggerconvention.com/