02:17 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

The mobile revolution is coming. Maybe you could argue it's already here. We see growth in everything from netbooks to iPhones to e-ink devices. So why are we struggling so much to satisfy a simple set of e-book reader requirements like the following?...

* Full day (or better) battery life
* Responsive interfaces and page turns
* Lightweight and varied form factors
* Inexpensive (<$100)
* Reading firmware/software that supports many formats and DRM flavors
* Lighted reading surface

Most reading devices solve some of these issues, but not all. And it doesn't really seem to be just around the corner. But innovation from companies like Intel and Microsoft is likely to cause a revolution in the e-reading landscape. It's almost self-evident, but yet revolutionary.

Intel has already indicated that new generation of mobile processors will provide smaller and smaller form factors, more speed and longer battery life. Up next for netbooks, about a quarter from now, is the Pine Trail generation. Then Moorestown in 2010, which will improve handhelds, and then after that we will see huge jumps in the capabilities of smart phone processors.

This means two things:
* All ranges of mobile and desktop devices will eventually be able to run essentially the same Windows (or Linux) OS. Right now, we don't see consistent widespread support of e-book formats and DRM partly because there are so many platforms to cover. Small devices require a whole different OS, and that fragments the market. It means that it's hard work to support formats across a wide range of devices.
* Microsoft (and Linux) will create a set of OS flavors that work consistently across mobile and desktop form factors, further improving the chances of a relatively consistent platform and better battery life. The interface won't look exactly the same, of course, but the capabilities will be the same. Improved multi-platform development frameworks may further help reduce the effort to give consistent e-book support. Nearly instant start up times will show up soon as well.

So, it's just possible that it won't be too long before we see something amazing... Cheap, fast e-book readers in small computing factors, supporting lots of formats and DRM types, and with a long battery life. It doesn't even require e-ink (although that would be pretty great if alternate display technologies improve the picture as well). Finally, in this version of the future, you can choose your favorite reading software, and it will work on all kinds of big and small devices, and all kinds of e-book formats.

Now we're talking! But about those dates...

10:06 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

I'm going to take the following with a grain of salt. The BookSeller is a good blog, but they've been wrong several times before about supposed Kindle launches.

The Bookseller has heard from authoritative sources that Amazon.com will finally announce the arrival of its e-book device the Kindle in the UK next week. The news confirms the story first reported by The Bookseller in July that publishers were expecting an October release of the device. An announcement is now likely ahead of Frankfurt.

One source told The Bookseller: "The key things they needed to tie up have been tied up. The rumours I've heard are all saying next week." The source confirmed that publishers had signed non disclosure agreements so would not be able to comment on the record. But added: "I've heard it from multiple reliable sources. I think they want to avoid the general kerfuffle of Frankfurt."

from here

11:40 AM by pilotbob in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

Help up choose a book as the October 2009 eBook for the Mobile Read Book Club. The poll will be open for 7 days. We will start the discussion thread for this book on October 25th. Select from the following books.

Flash Forward by Robert J. Sawyer
Description from Goodreads:
What would you do if you got a glimpse of your own personal future and it looked bleak? Try to change things, or accept that the future is unchangeable and make the best of it? In Flashforward, Nobel-hungry physicists conducting an unimaginably high-energy experiment accidentally induce a global consciousness shift. In an instant, everyone on Earth is "flashed forward" 21 years, experiencing several minutes of the future. But while everyone is, literally, out of their minds, their bodies drop unconscious; when the world reawakens, car wrecks, botched surgeries, falls, and other mishaps add up to massive death and destruction.
Slowly, as recovery efforts continue, people realize that during the Flashforward (as it comes to be called) they experienced a vision of the future. The range of visions is astounding--those who would be asleep in the future saw psychedelic dream landscapes, while others saw nothing at all (presumably they'd be dead). But those who saw everyday life 20 years hence have to come to grips with evidence of dreams forsaken (or realized). Soon, the physicists who caused the Flashforward are struggling to help the world decide whether the future is changeable--and whether the experiment is worth repeating. Robert J. Sawyer has captured a truly compelling idea with Flashforward, and he fully explores what such an event might mean to humanity. Fans will find this to be his best work to date, although the ending seems rushed after a detailed buildup. --Therese Littleton

The Tide Mill by Richard Herley
Synopsis here: http://www.richardherley.com/TM.html

The Moon and the Sun by Vonda McIntyre
1997 Nebula Award winner
Set in Versailles, France, in 1693, The Moon and the Sun tells the story of a Marie-Josephe, a lady-in-waiting to the niece of Louis XIV -- the Sun King. Marie-Josephe's brother, Father Yves de la Croix, is a Jesuit and also the King's natural philosopher and explorer. He has brought the King a living sea woman and a dead male, both captured on an ocean voyage. So begins a rich tale of conscience, politics, science, history, and love.
Available at http://www.vondanmcintyre.com/index-fiction.html

Verdant Skies by Steven Jordan
The summary is here: http://www.stevejordanbooks.com/novels/verdant.htm

Soul Identity by Denis Batchelder
You can't take it with you...but what if you could? Most people believe their souls outlive their bodies. Most people would find an organization that tracks their souls into the future and passes on their banked money and memories compelling. Scott Waverly isn't like most people. He spends his days finding and fixing computer security holes. And Scott is skeptical of his new client's claim that they have been calculating and tracking soul identities for almost twenty-six hundred years. Are they running a freaky cult? Or a sophisticated con job? Scott needs to save Soul Identity from an insider attack. Along the way, he discovers the importance of the bridges connecting people's lives.

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

Ok kids, time for the weekly roundup of what we've covered this week:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Microsoft Reader for WM6.0 & WM6.1 devices is now available
• Is all reading good?
• Ectaco jetBook to add DRM format
• Neolux demonstrates epaper con badges
• eReader to be Ported to the Palm Pre
• 5%, or 100,000 copies, of "The Lost Symbol" were sold as e-books
• July ebook sales figures announced
• iriver Story on pre-order now - 290 USD aprox
• Steve Jordan to appear in NY Times tomorrow
• Introducing Inkmesh
• Hanvon N518 coming to Germany

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• October 2009 Book Club Nominations

E-Book Software - Calibre

• Calibre V0.6.13 adds support for LRF conversion
• Fame at last!

04:46 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

A MobileRead member just noticed that Hexaglot, a German web retailer, will soon be importing is now selling the Hanvon N518. You can read the announcement here.

It doesn't say much (other than having an exclusive on handwriting recognition), so I dug up a review on the Chinese language ebook site MobRead. I'd recommend that you read it; it has a lot of useful information and quite a few pictures.

Edit: The product page is here. The list price is 279.90€, and the N518 does have Adobe DE support.

01:39 PM by anurag in E-Book General | News

Hi folks,

We are a couple of ebook aficionados who grew tired of clicking through multiple websites to find ebooks in the right format and at the right price. Being software engineers, we decided to try and improve things, and the result is Inkmesh - an ebook search engine. Inkmesh aggregates and analyzes data from multiple ebook and audiobook sources (including MobileRead!) and makes it available for search. In its first version, Inkmesh also allows browsing ebooks by subject and filtering results by price and content type (ebooks, audiobooks, magazines etc). All search results display compatibility with the most popular reading devices and platforms, and individual ebook pages display detailed availability, formats and pricing.

But we're just getting started. The only people who have used Inkmesh so far are the two of us and our significant others, so obviously, Inkmesh is a bit rough around the edges. We think many of you will find the current set of features useful right away, but we are still thinking through all the different directions future development can take. There are some things we definitely need to do, like adding more sources, crawling them more frequently, and providing more filtering options. But beyond that, our feature set depends entirely on our users. And we don't think we can find a better set of initial users than the folks here at MobileRead, from whom we've already learned so much.

So, we request you to give Inkmesh a try - we think you will like it. And we would really appreciate your suggestions for features that you think will be most useful to add to the product. Please let us know through this thread or through the feedback tab on the right edge of all pages on inkmesh.com. Inkmesh is going to improve every day, and your feedback is going to help us work on stuff that matters most.

Thank you!

anurag/bmd
team@inkmesh.com

12:17 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

I have just been made aware that Steve Jordan, science fiction author and good friend of MobileRead, is being featured in a New York Times article tomorrow. It's exciting to see that both his e-book insights and his name as an author will be made known to such a wide audience. I'm sure he will pick up quite a few new fans as a result.

The article, called Before Choosing an E-Book, Pondering the Format, is already available online, and will appear in the New York Times print edition tomorrow.

Be sure to share your congratulations and encouragement with Steve, who is not only a great writer, but puts his e-books where his mouth is relative to DRM. His entire collection is available at very reasonable prices, in many formats, with no DRM.

Check out the web site at SteveJordanBooks, as well as additional coverage at TeleRead Blog, where he is a senior writer.

09:40 PM by gfhuertac in E-Book General | News

iriver is now accepting orders for its ebook reader. Shipping is for October 6th. The price is not that good, but at least they include many extras (SD card, case, 2 free book downloads). One of the interesting things is that the menu is available in 15 languages, so I think that they will launch overseas soon.

Check the link for more info:
http://shop.iriver.co.kr/product/pro...e=001000000000