05:29 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

from The Bookseller:

Penguin is releasing its first e-book app in January, offering three chapters of big new year debut The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman free for download on the Apple iPhone.

The app will be available from 7th January and will offer users the option to buy the whole book after reading the opening chapters.

Digital publisher Jeremy Ettinghausen said the publisher was "really excited" by its first app. "Giving people the option to try-before-they-buy seems to us to be the best way of getting this book into as many people's devices and hands as possible and hopefully it will be a huge hit in all
formats," he said.

I think someone might have goofed somewhere. Penguin Group already has an iPhone app. I have it. I really have to question the value of writing an app simply to give away a 3 chapters. Surely they could have found a less costly distribution venue.

09:47 AM by pilotbob in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

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

The nominations will run through Dec 28.
Voting (new poll thread) will run for 5 days starting Dec 28.

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

January 2010
Science Fiction (rivets/science)

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:

Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Stephenson conjures a far-future Earth-like planet, Arbre, where scientists, philosophers and mathematicians—a religious order unto themselves—have been cloistered behind concent (convent) walls. Their role is to nurture all knowledge while safeguarding it from the vagaries of the irrational saecular outside world. Among the monastic scholars is 19-year-old Raz, collected into the concent at age eight and now a decenarian, or tenner (someone allowed contact with the world beyond the stronghold walls only once a decade). But millennia-old rules are cataclysmically shattered when extraterrestrial catastrophe looms, and Raz and his teenage companions—engaging in intense intellectual debate one moment, wrestling like rambunctious adolescents the next—are summoned to save the world.

Under the Dome by Stephen King
"The town of Chesters Mill (pop. approximately 2000) is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible barrier, preventing anything other than a small amount of air from passing through. What follows is mostly told from the perspective of Dale "Barbie" Barbara, a former Army lieutenant. After "Dome Day" as it comes to be called, the town quickly collapses into anarchy, as a small war breaks out between the power-hungry second selectman James "Big Jim" Rennie, and a portion of the townsfolk. Resources quickly begin to dwindle, and many begin to resort to monstrous acts of violence to survive."

08:04 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Aigo, a Chinese manufacturer of MP3 players, just released a new liseuse. The projected retail price is 2500 yuan. There is no word yet on whether it will be available outside of China.

specs:

• 6" Vizplex screen
• 2GB storage
• TF (micro SD) card slot (8GB limit)
• document formats: PDF, DOC, TXT, HTM, HTML, CHM
• connectivity: USB2.0
• speaker

via ZOL (click through for the pictures)

06:02 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

CES is coming up, so I've been researching exhibitors. I'm now up to 64 booths I want to visit, and I thought my notebook would make a couple interesting posts. This is part one.

Asus
Let's start with the biggie. Asus is exhibiting, and will also have a press conference on Tuesday the 5th. Asus probably won't announce an ebook reader, but I'm hoping that they will announce the rumored dual screen tablet.

Easypress Technologies
This company is fairly low on my list because I'm already familiar with it. It's a UK based software developer whose main product is an Epub conversion service. But if Adobe is on your list, you might want to stop by this booth.

iriver
Because it's the flagship product, the iriver story will almost certainly be on display. Iriver only recently registered for CES 2010. When I last checked (about 3 weeks ago), iriver wasn't listed as an exhibitor.

Brother
This is another late registrant, and I'm still waiting to hear back on whether they'll bring the SV-100B Document Viewer. Update: At this time, only the sewing machine division is exhibiting at CES.

Samsung
Four different divisions of Samsung are listed as exhibitors, and there is a press conference on Tuesday. I've already asked the Samsung PR people about the liseuses Samsung is selling in Korea; no word yet on whether they'll be on display.

Aiptek
This is a Taiwan based company, and it will be displaying their ebook reader, the Story Book in Color. I discovered this company by accident; in describing their ebook reader Aiptek forgot to call it an ebook reader.

Bookeen
Bookeen will be bringing both the Cybook Gen3 and the Cybook Opus. BTW, this company's name is French for "Where's that firmware update you promised?". Seriously, though, I know why it hasn't been released but I'm not allowed to say.

11:19 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

A few days ago I found the manuals for Brother's Document Viewer on their support site (here, here, and here). I checked with Customer Service, and the liseuse itself has not yet been released. I've gleaned the following information from the manuals. But without the device in hand I can't confirm that my interpretation is correct.

Interesting point #1
If you have certain models of Brother Multi Function Devices (printer/scanner/fax combos), you can plug the SV-100B into a USB port and print to it. I don't know yet which models.

Interesting point #2
The SV-100B requires that you run software on your computer. SV-Manager is needed to convert from "Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF, etc", and only runs on XP and Vista. But it also comes with a printer driver, which should make conversion easier.

Interesting point #3
The format read by the SV-100B is proprietary, but there is a good reason for that. SV-Manager allows (forces?) you to encrypt a file so it can only be read on a specific SV-100B. The encrypted file cannot be cross loaded to another liseuse or PC.

I know that most consumers won't care for that feature, but this isn't a consumer product. This is a business product and anyone who's handled document control will appreciate the ability.

Interesting point #4
Brother's file format supports bookmarks, but I can't tell if it also supports internal links or an external TOC. They're not mentioned, so I doubt it.

Interesting point #5
You can use Bluetooth to tether the SV-100B to another device so you can display files from the other device on the SV-100B. The exact method for this is not explained.

Interesting point #6
The SV-100B has already passed FCC, so it's legal to sell it in the US.

Interesting point #7
The SV-100B has an upper limit of 10k pages. I believe the limit is security related, but it's not entirely clear.

Interesting point #8
If the device specific encryption isn't enough security for you, there is a password protected folder on the SV-100B. The password is 4 digits, and if 3 wrong passwords are entered in a row the folder is locked down.

Interesting point #9
I found the specs:

• Screen Size: 202.8mm x 139.4mm
• Resolution: 1200 x 825
• 4 Shade Gray Scale
• Refresh rate: less than 1 second *1
• microSD Card slot (2GB limit)
• USB 2.0 High-Speed
• Bluetooth® 2.0
• Security 128 Bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)
• Password lock function
• Lithium Ion Battery (user repalceable)
• Charging Time: approx. 3 hours (AC Adapter)/ approx. 5 hours (USB)
• Max battery life: approx. 83 hours (5,000 page display)
• Exterior Dimensions: 237 (W) x 247 (D) x 15.5 (H) mm
• Weight: approx. 600g
• Device life: display of 370,000 pages or 5 years
• Compatible format: unique format

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

It was the week that was. Here's what MobileRead's been talking about since last Sunday:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Freda ebook software for Windows Mobile release version 1.
• Who owns the ebook rights to older books?
• An entire dress made from OLED screens (from Wired)
• Stephen Covey ditches Simon & Schuster, gives exclusive rights to Amazon
• Spain reduced the VAT on ebooks
• Kindle for iPhone now available in 60+ countries
• Wiley signs deal with Scribd
• Shortcovers changes name to Kobo, updates iPhone app.
• Authors Guild to Random House head: What's in the water over there?
• Borders to partner with Kobo to deliver ebooks
• How to get Amazon to stop accepting returned Kindle ebooks
• Amazon's $9.99 eBook Attacked as "Predatory Pricing"
• Wikipedia ported to the Hanlin V3
• First official information on Google Editions
• Scribd to open a Kindle Store next year?

E-Book Devices - Sony Portable Reader (New Forum)

• Sony Daily Edition to Offer Wall Street Journal Subscriptions

E-Book Devices - Astak EZReader

• Astak Mentor Lite 6" - First Impressions

E-Book Devices - PocketBook

• For the Pocketbook 360: FBReader with page breaks & wrist pageturn

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Reminder : Paris, France meetup this saturday ! (19 December 2009)
• New MR feature: Ignore Thread
• MobileRead Library Milestone - 14,000 ebooks!
• MR Winter Contest – the Winners!

05:04 AM by Tom2112 in More E-Book Readers | Astak EZReader

Well, I just bought an Astak Mentor Lite 6" for my sister. (Don't tell her, it's a surprise!) And it arrived in the mail today. I've had it for all of about 3 hours so far, and I've only had an hour or so to monkey with it.

I purchased it through buy.com, and it was a good price: $230 plus $15 shipping and handling. The package arrived without incident, and I was impressed with how well they packed the Mentor's box inside another box with a bunch of packing foam. So kudos to buy.com.

I pulled the unit out of the packing materials, and the consumer box it was in was stylishly designed. It was lighter than I expected. I popped it open and pulled out the Mentor. The mentor was securely packed within the box and protected with a heavy foam pad over the screen. It was also inside a plastic pouch. While it isn't waterproof, I will have no anxiety shipping this to my sister overseas.

Finally:
I got a black Mentor simply because I didn't like the look of the white and I figured white would show its age quicker in the long term. The Mentor was surprisingly thin. You don't really think about how thin 0.35 inches is, but it's thinner than my iPhone. It was also very light. I don't know what I was expecting - as this is my first dedicated ereader - but maybe I was expecting a big battery and extra weight and size from it.

The Mentor has a nice satin finish to it. I would have liked a glossier finish for bling-factor, but I know the satin will hold up better, give better tactile grip when holding the device, and it will fade into the background while I'm reading. So that was a good choice, Astak.

The black Mentor is nice looking, and has several buttons (seven) around the outer edge of the device. They are all cryptically labeled with unintelligible icons - except the power button which is obvious. I was shocked to learn that the "Off" notification on the screen was NOT printed on the plastic sheet of screen protector. And as soon as I pressed the power button the device booted. It booted relatively quickly, though I think it should be quicker. But then again, we all want things quicker no matter how fast they are. The boot time was not excessive by any stretch.

Once the device booted, I started playing around with it. The interface isn't complicated, but it will take a minute or two to figure out. The one thing that really puzzled me was that you could scroll down through the ebooks already on the device by hitting the down directional button, but it did not scroll to the next page after the bottom item. You have to hit the right button to go to the next page. While I suppose that makes sense from a book perspective, it doesn't make sense from a computer perspective.

The device isn't nearly as responsive as my iPhone, but it wasn't terribly slow either. I opened up one of the included ebooks and paged through it. I was completely impressed with the e-ink screen. It looks fabulous! Sure the black could be a touch blacker, but the contrast was excellent and the text was easier to read than a lot of papaerback novels I have lying around.

I thought the screen flashing between each page turn was bizarre until I found out that it is the nature of the e-ink screen to do that. The page turns weren't lightning fast, but were very acceptable - probably about the same amount of time as I would normally take turning a page in a print book.

I found the interface to be a bit klunky at first. I guess I'm just used to using Stanza on my iPhone. But after a few minutes I was navigating with ease.

The menus are a bit cryptic, and I wish the device were more configurable - but I'm a techie - I wish everything was more configurable.

I only ran into one real problem. I loaded a large (13 Mb) .RTF file onto the device and tried to read it. The device never opened the file. It sat for several minutes - I even left, went to the restroom and came back and the device still hadn't started the file. I tried navigating away, but all the buttons were unresponsive - even the power button. So I clicked the reset button on the back with the tip of a pen, and the device immediately rebooted. I didn't try that file again. I grabbed a couple other files and they all worked fine.

I did notice that the device does not support .LIT files. That's disappointing as I have a ton of them. It's not a deal-breaker though, since I can convert them to epubs if I take the time.

I should mention that the device came with a nice faux-leather carrying case. The case fits the device nicely, but the front flap doesn't close quite right. I think the magnets are misaligned, and you have to close it "just right" to get it to stay closed. Other than that, the case is nice. I don't think I would want to read too much with it in that case, but I'm sure my sister will appreciate it since she will probably throw the device in her cavernous purse.

Overall, I'm impressed with the Mentor 6" and if I didn't always have an iPhone in my pocket, I would probably buy one of these for myself. As it is, I will definitely take advantage of the device and use it to read on the plane trip to go deliver it to my sister.

Feel free to ask questions, if you have any. I will have the device for a few weeks before I give it to my sister.

04:24 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Business Insider recently interviewed Scribd CEO Trip Adler, and is reporting that:

Scribd, the YouTube for print, is working on a new way to get e-books onto your Kindle without buying them from Amazon.

from:
http://www.businessinsider.com/scrib...-books-2009-12

*****

Basically Scribd is going to open a mobile version of the Scribd Store that's tailored for the Kindle. Yippee-skippee.