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

Missed some of our big stories this week? Time to catch up:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Fujitsu FLEPia vs. iRex iLiad vs. DR1000 video
• Wizpac txtr demo at CeBIT
• Stanza offering during Read an E-Book Week
• O'Reilly predicts a Doom of Obscurity for Kindle ... if it stays proprietary
• Build your own E-Ink reader for $3K!
• Article: PVI to mass produce e-readers
• Shortcovers launches tomorrow!
• Neolux Launches Nuut2 ebook reader
• BOOX e-book reader by Onyx International
• New BeBook eReader: adds Wifi and touchscreen!
• NYT's Pogue not impressed with the Sony PRS-700
• BOOX ebook reader UPDATE: new information & Youtube Video
• Kindle 3 - this year, with larger screen, touch-enabled (rumor)
• Amazon Caves on Text-To-Speech

E-Book General - Deals, Freebies, and Resources

• ABC Amber ePub Converter Released

E-Book Devices - Amazon Kindle

• Kindle 2 has a spot for a SIM card
• Free content for your Kindle via Whispernet
• Why you should buy a Kindle (according to xkcd)
• Mossberg gives K2 thumbs up

Portable Devices - Apple iPhone

• jkOnTheRun: Stanza vs. eReader

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• MobileRead Membership Reaches 30,000

06:45 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

As you may know, there has been a public debate going on since 9 February over whether Amazon had the right to create the TTS ability of the K2. You can read what the Author's Guild has said here, and here. I just received this press release.

SEATTLE, Feb 27, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given. Furthermore, we ourselves are a major participant in the professionally narrated audiobooks business through our subsidiaries Audible and Brilliance. We believe text-to-speech will introduce new customers to the convenience of listening to books and thereby grow the professionally narrated audiobooks business.

Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rightsholders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver's seat.

Therefore, we are modifying our systems so that rightsholders can decide on a title by title basis whether they want text-to-speech enabled or disabled for any particular title. We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many will decide that it is.

Customers tell us that with Kindle, they read more, and buy more books. We are passionate about bringing the benefits of modern technology to long-form reading.

I'm surprised. I thought Amazon had a solid position, both legal and contractual.

But there is an upside. There is an exception to the DMCA that allows for DRM removal of ebooks that have TTS ability disabled. The K2 jeopardized the exception because it had TTS for all ebooks. Now that it doesn't, I can legally remove DRM from my ebooks again. This is completely wrong.

07:47 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

If you like to believe in unconfirmed rumors and gag for some more Kindle action, it looks like you won't have to wait too long for another Amazon device to emerge. According to unnamed sources talking to Digitimes, "Amazon plans to launch a new generation of Kindle by the end of this year, which will be larger in size and equipped with touch functions" (emphasis mine).

Could this the rumored student version that we heard of before, here and here? Don't place your bets on it yet, but usually Digitimes rumors are pretty accurate!

05:15 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

With all the recent buzz about Kindle 2, it's easy to ignore the alternatives. David Pogue of the NY Times just got his hands on a Sony PRS-700, which is built on similar hardware as the K2 (both use Vizplex E-Ink, a Freescale i.MX31L CPU and the Epson Broadsheet controller).

Mr. Pogue likes about the Sony:

• it's "gorgeous", made of "sleek black metal", provides a "better margin" around the screen - in comparison the K2 still looks like it was designed by the "makers of the Commodore 64"
• it has a touch screen and built-in illumination

David doesn't like about the Sony:

• contrast "suffers" and there is an "annoying" reflective glare due to the additional touch screen layer
• requires a PC (Windows only) for getting content - "a ritual that feels extremely ancient and creaky once you've tasted the bliss of the Kindle's instant cellular downloads"
• Sony e-books are priced higher and the Sony store contain fewer titles - "under 100,000, compared with Amazon's 240,000"

His verdict: "What the world really wants, of course, is an e-book reader with Sony's design panache and Amazon's wireless bookstore." I couldn't agree more.

Article: Sony PRS-700: The Other e-Reader

Related: New York Times review: K2

05:56 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

A little bird told us that a new BeBook device is about to be unveiled. The new model, of which we don't know the name yet, will add the following exciting features:

• Complete redesign
• Wireless connectivity (3G and/or WiFi)
• Touchscreen navigation
• ePub support (with and without DRM)
• Wireless RSS support

The official launch is scheduled for summer 2009, though you might be able to get a first glimpse of the new BeBook at the Cebit exhibit in Hannover, Germany next week or at the Paris Book Fair in Paris, France from March 13th to 18th.

02:34 PM by searcher in E-Book General | News

Neolux, the maker of the Nuut, has announced a new ebook reader, the Nuut2. The original Nuut was a rebranded Netronix reader similar to the Cybook. The Nuut2 appears to be an entirely original creation of Neolux.

Some specs:

1. 6" Vizplex screen with the new EPSON Controller.
2. WiFi wireless Internet functionality by default.
3. Format support includes PDF, Epub, txt.
4. SD card, USB Host
5. Storage - 1GB
6. CPU - 300 MHz ARM

http://ereadgizmo.com/gadgets/neolux-launches-nuut2

12:53 PM by pilotbob in E-Book Readers | Amazon Kindle

[I thought this worth repeating in its own thread]

Don't forget with the browser you can download books from mobileread.com and feedbooks.com. Just put the download guides on them. Type these URLs in your Kindles browser to get them:

https://www.mobileread.com/mobiguide

http://www.feedbooks.com/kindleguide

Once those "books" are on your Kindle you can browse/search through them and d/l books directly to your Kindle... free of charge.

These are public domain and creative commons books that are perfectly legal and legit and can be shared with all your friends too.

BOb

08:53 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

A new ebook reader is going to be announced next week at the CeBIT show: It's called the BOOX. I've heard back from developers, and they will be releasing more info tomorrow. Here is what we know so far:

Technical Specs
Content Formats Supported
EPUB PDF HTML TXT CHM MOBI
JPG/BMP/PNG/GIF/TIFF
MP3

Interfaces
Touch Screen
USB Type A Connector For USB Memory Stick
SD/MMC Slot
2.5mm Stereo Audio Jack
(Optional)WIFI 802.11g Wireless LAN

System Specification
Processor: 532 MHz
Ram: 128MB
Flash memory: 512MB
Screen: 6-Inch

The specs say it has a touchscreen, and if you look at the picture you'll see that only one button is visible below the screen. I wonder if that button is anything like the Zune swipe pad?

Onyx will be at CeBIT next week at Hall 19, Stand B18. If anyone who will be there can take some pictures, we'd appreciate it.

Update: Onyx added more product information to their website this morning. My rpevious information source was a product listing on the CeBIT website. Read here for more information:
http://www.onyx-international.com/cms/product-box.html