02:25 PM by zelda_pinwheel in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Well, summer is almost over, time to be serious and put our noses back to the grindstone. *snif* ! What better way to console ourselves, than with a MobileRead meetup ? Come join us to shake off the end-of-summer blues with an evening of lively discussion and much geekery ! As usual we'll start with drinks and continue over dinner.

When : Saturday, 19 September 2009

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C'est déjà la rentrée, fini les vacances, il faut passer aux Choses Sérieuses de nouveau. Pour se consoler de la fin de l'été, rien de mieux qu'un RendezVous MobileRead ! Venez nous retrouver et oublier le retour au boulot / à l'école (pour ceux qui sont partis) le temps d'une soirée de discussion animée et, bien entendu, moult gadgets. Comme d'habitude, nous commencerons par l'apéro, et passerons à table par la suite.

Quand : Samedi, le 19 Septembre 2009

08:56 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Very little _new_ news was announced in London Wednesday. The cat had been let out of bag on the European release of the Reader Pocket Edition and Reader Touch Edition by the leaked service manuals. The only really interesting news would have been the Reader Daily Edition, even though it was foreshadowed by yesterday's event in New York. Sadly, it isn't scheduled to happen any time soon.

The Touch Edition and the Pocket Edition are available for preorder from Play.com, WHSmiths, bol.com, (parts of) Sonystyle Europe, and Waterstone's. Bol.com has also opened a new ebookstore with over 100k titles (public domain in English, for the most part).

As we've reported elsewhere, yesterday Sony released version 3.0 of their Ebook Library. This latest version adds Mac support, as well as the ability to download the annotations from the Touch Edition.

One last interesting tidbit is that Sony UK has a list of libraries which support ebooks. The list can be found here.

10:25 AM by CommanderROR in E-Book General | News

A new press release from the makers of the txtr just arrived and gives us some more tidbits of information.

The most important news here is that txtr will be cooperating with e-plus and ecotel to bring Kindle-like on-the-go bookshopping capabilities to the txtr.
No exact details like prices and terms of use have surfaced yet, but the news that somebody has managed to form this kind of deal in Germany is already quite an amazing feat in itself!

The other exciting news is that the txtr will be launched on the Franfurt Book Fair on the 14. of Octobre 2009. All information about prices, subsription fees and content will become available then. It's another date to look forward to!

The attached .pdf is in german, if somebody feels like translating it he's welcome to...

10:03 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

I believe there are not too many people who can call the Sony PRS-600 their own, but this doesn't stop Sony from pulling the trigger on a first firmware upgrade. The upgrade is supposed to resolve an issue where the PRS-600 cannot read data from a memory card.

Sony PRS-600 V1.0.01.08040 download link for PC:

http://download.sony.com/prs/prs-600...0.01.08040.exe

Sony PRS-600 V1.0.01.08040 download link for Mac:

http://download.sony.com/prs/prs-600...600Updater.dmg

Related discussions:

• Sony eBook Library (EBL) 3.0 links

04:29 AM by DMcCunney in E-Book General | News

On Tuesday, August 25th, Sony held a press conference at the main branch of the New York Public Library. The event was held in the Trustees Room, a room on the second floor with a marble fireplace, wood paneling, and and tapestries symbolizing the major continents hanging down along the side and back walls. Above the fireplace was a marble plaque engraved with a quote from Thomas Jefferson: ""I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource most to be relied on for ameliorating the conditions, promoting the virtue and advancing the happiness of man."

A stage was set up up front, with a podium, and flanked by big flat screen displays showing the Sony models. Kiosks were scattered around the room with display models of the Personal and Touch editions of the reader. There was no seating for the original presentation, with a scattering of cocktail rounds for writing and laptops, and an assortment of video cameras on tripods made circulating problematic. A catered spread with coffee, tea, water, soda, OJ, fruit and pastries was available.

Dr. Paul LeClerc, President and CEO of the NYPL gave a keynote address. Dr. LeClerc emphasized the free availability of information, as exemplified by the New York Public Library. He said that NYPL website has 25 million unique visitors, making it second only to the Library of Congress in access to library facilities over the web.

Dr. LeClerc announced a partnership with Sony, and with Google Books. The NYPL is working with Google, scanning public domain texts. They will also be be offering current titles in ePub format via Sony for borrowing via download to a Sony Reader.

The NYPL is partnered with supplier Overdrive for commercial ebook titles, offering over 40,000 now. They anticipate much of the public domain works being digitized in cooperation with Google to also become available for download.

Dr. LeClerc then introduced Steve Haber, President of the division that makes the Sony Reader. Steve's presentation was more informal and anecdotal, and to this observer, curiously unfocused. Steve talked about motivations: "Why digital reading?" "Why ebooks?" He'd been with Sony in various capacities for 20 years, and involved in consumer electronics for longer. He saw parallels with the changes in music, from the old vinyl LP format, to CDs, and finally to MP3 files downloadable from the internet, and with films, which have progressed from things seen in a theater to videotapes, to DVDs, and finally to files available on demand oer the Internet. Similar parallels could be drawn with the progress of books from printed works on paper to electronic files.

Unlike the last press function of Sony's that I've attended, their branding has shifted. They no longer speak of PRS-500, PRS-505, or PRS-700. Instead, they now have three major brands, distinguished by price points. At the low end is the Pocket Edition, with a 5" eInk display, available in several colors, with a $199 price point. Next up is the Touch Edition, with a larger touch screen at a $299 price point. Last is the subject of today's press conference, a new model called the Daily Edition, with a 7" screen touch screen and $399 price. The Daily Edition isn't available yet, but will be out by the holiday season. Sony Readers will be available in 4,800 retail outlets, where people can see and experience the Reader before purchase. Sony retail partners include Best Buy, BJ's, Staples, Target, Toys-R-Us and Wal-Mart.

I had thought a bit about what could be significant enough to bring Sony back across the country for an announcement in NYC, and I had guessed right - the Daily Edition will have 3G wireless access. The Daily Edition will be able to connect to AT&T's network, and through it to the Sony Store. Included in the launch is an improved version of the Sony ebook library software, which will be available for Windows and Mac OS/X. Among other things, it will allow the user to print out annotations they have made to books stored in the reader.

In addition, Sony is introducing Library Finder. through the Sony Store, Library Finder will enable readers to find books in libraries, but entering their zip code. Assuming they have a library card for the library in tht area, they will be able to download borrowed books to their PC and send them to their Reader. Borrow time restrictions are implemented in software, with the book simply expiring at the end of the loan period, so no late fees would accrue. (It was not clear what would happen to annotations made to books borrowed from the library, and the Sony reps I spoke to didn't know.)

One of the things Steve stated as a concern was openness. To that end, the Sony Store is transitioning to ePub as an industry standard format, with Adobe's ACS4 DRM solution.

Steve also saw another parallel with music. Various pieces of music become part of the soundtracks ios out lives. The become associated with people, places, and things that are important to us, and hearing the songs brings the things that are associated with to mind. He feels that books can serve similar functions, and the passages in books can have the same sort of association as songs do. To attempt to tape that experience, Sony was created a new site called "Words Move Me", where posters can discuss books that were significant to them, and passages that moved them.

I found the presentation interesting for what it did and didn't say.

I would have expected more front and center prominence for the new 3G feature in the Daily Edition. This was something asked about that the last Sony event I covered, and something Steve committed to, but "not until it was right".

There have also been snarky comments about the openness of ePub and Adobe's DRM, given the relative lack of ePub formatted titles. I sympathize, but on the other hand, what can Sony do? The de facto standard ebook format now is probably MobiPocket. But MobiPocket is owned by Amazon. How likely would Amazon be to allow Mobi to license the format to a direct Kindle competitor? And DRM is one of those things that isn't going away any time soon. By definition, it's not "open".

Sony claims the ePub format is an industry standard. Well, perhaps, but more companies in the industry have to actually implement it. Part of the problem there is technological. In an ironic situation, the principal outfit pushing ePub is Adobe, and Adobe's InDesign DTP progranm is now used by most publishers to do markup, yet InDesign produces poor quality ePub files. Good quality ePub really requires starting with well formed XML, but tools to do XML markup are a work in progress. From the point of view of the publisher's employee doing the markup, the output format should be irrelevant. The simply want a tool they can use to do the markup, confident that other hands can take the output and use it to create printed books or ebooks.

And as expected, Steve dodged comments about unit sales, and avoided direct comparisons with the Kindle, so we have no clear feel for how well the reader is selling.

The significant point for me about the event is that it occurred. Despite the worldwide economic downturn, and Sony's publicized financial woes in other areas, Sony senior management seems to believe there is a market for the reader, and a fairly large one, because they haven't pulled the plug on the effort.

Related ongoing discussions:

• Sony Reader Daily Edition - SCOOP
• Sony eBook Library (EBL) 3.0 links
• Sony's Reader team to present something August 25

04:27 PM by igorsk in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

PC version
Mac version

11:32 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

In New York, Sony is going to announce a new 3G, touchscreen equipped Sony Reader with an estimated retail of $399. The touchscreen is described as being seven inches wide. The wireless service will be provided by ATT. There will be no charge for access to Sony's ebook store.

Sony will also announce a new service, Library Finder. This involves close integration with digital libraries supported by Overdrive.

The above post was based on the limited information I uncovered in the days before the press conference. It may not be completely accurate.

11:06 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

A picture has been leaked showing 3 Sony Reader models: Pocket Edition, Touch Edition, and Daily Edition. You can view the Flash animation here:
http://www.wordsmoveme.com/reader/ereaders

I really have to hand it to Sony. They're very good at keeping stuff a secret. It looks like I'm the only one who was clever enough to find out what the Daily Edition is. I'll tell you in about 30 minutes.