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

If you've been too busy to check out MobileRead this week, check out our usual roundup:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Sony PRS300/PRS600 available for pre-order
• Sigil moves in to a dedicated forum on MobileRead !
• Sony PRS-300 and PRS-600 press release and gallery
• Mainstream iRex 8.1-inch reader for 400$ (rumor)
• EU consultation on IT (and a bit on copyright and DRM)

E-Book Software - Sigil

• Sigil, the ePub editor

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Reminder: List of MR Meetups in August

03:34 PM by Who are you? in E-Book General | News

The EU has started the Public consultation on post-i2010: priorities for new strategy for European information society (2010-2015), wanting to know how to regulate Information and Communcation Technology for the next 5 years.

Most questions are not all that relevant for the people here (nearly all questions are optional to answer, so don't worry about that), however some questions are relevant for all consumers, so if you're an EU citizen let your voice be heard.

6) Promoting access to creativity at all levels

In terms of expectations, Internet users' and the creative content providing sector have never been as at odds as they are today. Creative industry players are struggling to find new viable business models that are able to ensure sufficient revenues for creators and to meet consumer expectations. The market for digital content is still fragmented and broadcasters and other content providers, together with end-users are prevented from benefiting from a true digital Single Market.

Participative platforms have grown as passive users (readers, viewers, consumers etc.) have become active producers (or "prosumers"). These users tend to ignore their statutory rights and their obligations towards rights holders for the content they transform or/and simply share in web 2.0 communities. Moreover, intermediaries generally impose take-itor-leave-it complex standard terms of use to their users. Against this background, users currently do not enjoy a clear set of rights balancing the conditions set by rights holders (with DRMs [Digital Rights Management] and/or license agreements) and internet services or platforms imposing restrictive standard terms of use.

In a landscape characterized by peer-to-peer and other such offers, it is essential that SMEs in the EU content sector are capable of providing the content and appropriate platforms for distribution.

Public institutions and private partners are beginning to preserve the European cultural heritage digitally. So far only a tiny fraction of the works held by Europe's cultural institutions are available in electronic format. Digitisation of cultural resources is hindered mainly by the lack of adequate funding and by copyright-related issues.

A - Affirming users' rights in the participative web
Participative web enhances, among others, users' self-expression, creativity and media pluralism.

1. 6.1. How can users be empowered through transparent information? -multiple choices reply- (optional)
   • Warrant new forms of transparency obligations for standard terms and conditions imposed by web 2.0 services to ensure that end-users are aware and understand their rights and obligations
   • Reshape privacy rules to guarantee that users have access and can effectively control over their personal data stored online
   • Promote self-regulation
   • Adopt stricter measures aimed at protecting minors in the social networking web
   • Others
     please specify: -open reply- (optional)

2. 6.2. How can creativity be stimulated by building EU-wide easily accessible mechanism to allow users to clear rights and be free to work on existing content for non-commercial
   purposes? -multiple choices reply- (optional)
   • Ease the complexity of copyright management
   • Establish a rights clearance database to facilitate creation and distribution of content online
   • Make copyright law more flexible as regards non-commercial uses
   • Promote alternative open licensing schemes
   • Others

3. 6.2.1. Please give examples: -open reply- (optional)
4. 6.3. A "fair" non-commercial use of licensed content should be free of technological restrictions in terms of interoperability. Should interoperability of content be left to the market or should users have a clear statutory right to play the content they paid for anytime, anywhere and on any platform? -single choice reply- (optional)
   • Market
   • Statutory right

You can find the questionnaire here.

01:23 PM by kaas in E-Book General | News

From Gizmodo:

It looks like iRex, leading makers of giant, feature-packed ebook readers for real-life P.G. Wodehouse protagonists, is casting a monocled eye on the mainstream market. Crave's got details on a forthcoming 8.1-inch touchscreen reader, with wireless, rumored at under $400.

That should make quite a few people here happy

Here some more info from CNet:

Here's the little we know:

* 8.1-inch display
* 3G wireless connectivity (no carrier announced)
* Touch screen with stylus navigation
* Fall 2009 release

Until now iRex, one of the early e-reader pioneers (you remember the iLiad, right?), has mainly offered more business-oriented readers that are rather pricey and sold primarily to European customers. However, this model is a consumer model that will be sold in the U.S., as well as other countries (here in the States, I suspect it will cost less than $400 and possibly less than $350). Allegedly, the unit will have a tie-in with one of the large online e-book sellers, though iRex wouldn't say which one.

04:01 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Interested in the latest Sony news of tomorrow? Check out this press release, due to August 5th, announcing Sony's new Reader Pocket Edition PRS-300 and the Reader Touch Edition PRS-600.

Sony is today delivering on its promise of making digital readers and eBooks accessible and affordable for consumers with the introduction of two new Readers. Part of a new Reader line, the Reader Pocket Edition™ puts a library in your hands for as little as $199. Both the Reader Pocket Edition and the Reader Touch Edition™ will be available at the end of August, at SonyStyle.com, SonyStyle stores and select retail partners. Also, new releases and New York Times bestseller titles in the eBook Store from Sony will now be available for $9.99.

Link to the full press release

In addition, check out these two images galleries depicting the new Readers in full hi-res beauty:

PRS-300 Reader Pocket Edition Image Album

PRS-600 Reader Touch Edition Image Album

Thanks to our member Igorsk for the tip! Please visit our ongoing discussion for the latest development.

04:43 PM by zelda_pinwheel in E-Book General | News

Just two days after the alpha release of epub-editor Sigil, developped by our very own Valloric after much discussion with MobileRead members and book-makers, we are happy and proud to announce that Sigil is setting up house in its very own forum right here on MobileRead !

You can find it here, and the door is always open, so please feel free to stop by, look around, and sit in the comfy chair for some sweet epub-editing goodness.

This is the place to ask questions, talk about best practices, exchange useful tips, talk about possible bugs, and discuss what features and enhancements are important to you, to make Sigil the best epub editing software ever ! So what are you waiting for ? We think it's off to a great start already.

09:39 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Lo and behold, we've already three meetups planned for this month: two in Canada, one in Scotland. If you're anywhere nearby you should definitely swing by to at least one of them!

• August 8th, 2009 (Saturday this coming weekend!) in Montréal, Canada during the 67th World Science Fiction Convention - Link
• August 15th, 2009 (Saturday) in Toronto, Canada - Link and Link
• August 22th, 2009 (Saturday) in Edinburgh, Scotland during the Edinburgh Book Festival - Link and Link

01:53 PM by Valloric in E-Book Software | Sigil

OK, here we go...

As some of you may already know, I have been working on an ePub editor for quite some time now. And after about six months of development time, I come to you with the current, initial version of Sigil. It’s still rough around the edges (to say the least), so consider it an alpha build at best (version 0.1.0). It can crash, it can bug out on you. It has nowhere near the features I want it to have, but it will get there. I consider this to be a multi-year project for me, so this is just the start.

Now what does it have to offer…

• Free and open source software under GPLv3
• Multi-platform: runs on Windows, Linux and Mac
• Full Unicode support: everything you see in Sigil is in UTF-16
• Full EPUB spec support
• WYSIWYG editing
• Multiple Views: Book View, Code View and Split View
• Metadata editor with full support for all possible metadata entries (more than 200) with full descriptions for each
• Table Of Contents editor
• Multi-level TOC support
• Book View fully supports the display any XHTML document possible under the OPS spec
• SVG support
• Basic XPGT support
• Advanced automatic conversion of all imported documents to Unicode
• Currently imports TXT, HTML and EPUB files; more will be added with time
• Currently exports EPUB and SGF (Sigil native format); more will be added with time
• Embedded HTML Tidy; all imported documents are thoroughly cleaned; changing views cleans the document so no matter how much you screw up your code, it will fix it (usually )
• An actually usable user interface
• Native C++ application
• Bugs
• And a lot more...

It can be downloaded here: http://code.google.com/p/sigil/. There is currently no documentation, so don’t waste your time looking for some (it will be added with time, don’t worry).

Installation instructions can be found here.

Report any bugs on the issue tracker on Sigil’s website (search the threads and the tracker first, please; also, read this wiki page). Be sure to include any and all relevant information. The more info you give me, the better and sooner will I be able to help you. Feel free to give any suggestions on how Sigil can be improved. My TODO list of features and improvements fills up a book (literally), but I’m certainly more than willing to hear what other people think.

This is open source software, and it will hopefully be open source development. I want the community to say what should be changed, updated, improved and in what way. MobileRead is by far the most awesome community I’ve ever been a part of and I know we’ll be able to come up with some great ideas.

Request for documentation writers can be found here.

For those who want more up-to-date information on Sigil's development, you can always see the live ChangeLog here. That file is linked directly from the repository, and it is updated as bugs are fixed and features are added. You can also subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds here.

Also feel free to check out Sigil's development blog.

10:56 AM by pilotbob in E-Book General | News

Well, from rumor to availability. Sony's newest eBook reading devices are now available for pre-order at J&R.

The Sony PRS-300 is priced at $199:

http://www.jr.com/sony/pe/SON_PRS300RC/

The Sony PRS-600 is priced at $299:

http://www.jr.com/sony/pe/SON_PRS600SC/

Some interesting items found in the information for these devices.

For the PRS-300:

• USB 2.0 Data and power connection
• Intuitive eBook Library software for PC and Mac
• 512MB of onboard Memory lets you carry up to 350 of your favorite books at a time.

For the PRS-600

• Touchscreen navigation
• Freehand highlighting and annotation
• Built-in Oxford American English eDictionary
• Intuitive eBook Library software for PC & Mac
• 512MB of onboard Memory

Available accessories for both units include a car charger for $29 and a cover w/light for $54.

Interestingly there is no mention of any memory card slot on either device. Of course, that doesn't mean neither has them.

The file formats on both appear to be the same as the current PRS505/700 including BBeB (lrf/lrx), ePub and PDF with and without Adobe DRM, rtf and txt files. Still no html support.

Finally there is no mention of expected ship dates. Just a "notify me when available" button.

Get your orders in now.

Thanks to member komugi for this find. There's plenty of discussion on these devices found here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52303

UPDATE 8/2 18:00 EDT.... apparently J&R has pulled these pre-order pages down. I assume this means they jumped the gun however it does show that Sony is very close to announcing these rumored devices.