01:03 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

It's long overdue (thank you Harry for your patience), but we've finally added a dedicated section where we can discuss specific e-book formats, their virtues and vices, and the best tools to work with them.

Obviously there is still some overlap with other forum categories. Please bear with us as we're migrating existing threads from other places to their new homes.

Your feedback is - as always - appreciated.

02:06 PM by DaleDe in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Our wiki is now multi-lingual. If you set the language entry in your "my preferences" entry at the top of the page in the wiki to your preferred language and a page exists in your language it will be displayed instead of the English page.

If you would like to help with the translation effort be see https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Help:Wiki_Translation for details on how to go about it.

If you have never looked at the wiki before be sure and check it out. It can be reached from the top of the forum page or directly at: https://wiki.mobileread.com/

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

If you've been a bit too busy to keep up, here are a few of our favorite stories from the past week.

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Algonquin Hotel provides Kindle loans
• Penguin 2.0
• Nintendo DS in HarperCollins Deal

E-Book Devices - iRex Digital Reader

• iRex DR1000S Pressreader Review

E-Book Devices - Sony Portable Reader PRS-500/505

• Christmas gift: MahJonG game (starting from SD card via autorun)

E-Book Devices - Polymer Vision Readius

• Some Readius hands-on photos

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• 7000 books ! A new milestone for the MR Library !

03:54 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

I completely forgot to upload these, but I have a couple of photos I made of the Readius during the Frankfurter Buchmesse exhibit last October.

I had a chat with Polymer Vision CTO Dr. Edzer Huitema, who is the kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with. Between gulps, he will impart the details of how flexible e-paper really works. And if you order another, he'll give you a hint or two of what we can expect from his company in near future.

At the time of the meeting, PV was still working on some finishing touches on the Readius, in particular in regard to the software and UI design. From what I've seen, the newspaper display looks quite compelling; it allows you to see the newspaper in layout mode and then, if you wish, to zoom into the articles. The articles are presented in reflowable text mode. Well, it's wasn't perfect yet, as you can see in one of the photos, the software appeared to have some issues with displaying unicode characters.

What really does work well is the folding of the display. I admit I was nervous the first time Edzer handed me the device and asked me to open and close it. It takes some adjusting to fold a display if you are like me used to handle your precious e-book reader with utmost care.

PS: The last photo is not really related.

10:21 AM by Adam B. in More E-Book Readers | iRex

iRex has released software update 1.03 for the DR1000S. This update allows you to read newspapers from PressDisplay. The update also includes a 30 day free trial of the website.

The Selection
PressDisplay has a relatively large newspaper selection. They certainly don't have every newspaper (my local Indianapolis Star newspaper is missing), but they do have the major players in the US. Among the USA selection is the USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, among others. You can see the full selection on their website. It's sorted by country, and definitely has international appeal.

Downloading Newspapers
Downloading a newspaper is a relatively simple process. You will have to download the Pressreader application. There is a Windows version, and also a Mac version in beta. I downloaded the windows version on my Vista laptop. I authorized the computer, searched for the newspaper I wanted, and selected "Read Offline". It then downloaded the newspaper to my computer. After the download finished, I had to tell the software to copy it to my DR1000. It was a simple process, although slightly time consuming. The newspaper file is about 40 megabytes. It would be nice if it could download directly to my device, but I understand why it needs to be a two step process.

Reading on the DR1000S
The PressReader application on the DR1000S is fairly simple, although easy to use. It didn't include instructions, but I'm not sure if they're needed. I selected the newspaper file I copied to my device, and it quickly opened. I was immediately greeted with the front page of the USA today. You can read the text without zooming in, however it's not very comfortable. You can zoom in on an article by tapping the center of it. It will zoom in to the text at a very readable level. You can then use either the on screen arrows to move around, use the arrows on the device, or drag the stylus on the screen to pan. The viewer also supports thumbnails. You can easily make out the image of the page and any pictures that are on it. Overall, it's a very nice reading experience.

There are a few things that are slightly disappointing about the software. There appears to be only one zoom level. This isn't a big deal, as the text should be readable to most people with even below average vision. But it would be nice to zoom out slightly to get more text on the screen. The viewer also doesn't have page numbers or hyperlinks. If you're reading an article that says it's "Continued on page 5A", you have no way of quickly navigating there. Because you have to select an area to zoom in on, there is also no way to read effectively without the stylus. This may be a problem for when the DR1000 comes out without the wacom screen. Also, bookmarking and annotation could be useful, but since newspapers expire after 14 days (at least on the PC, I don't know about the DR), I'm not sure if it's necessary.

Conclusion
The PressReader application is very nice if you would like to read one of the supported newspapers on your DR1000S. I highly recommend everyone with a DR to upgrade and take full advantage of the 30 day trial. It's a pleasure to read a newspaper without having to hold a gigantic stack of dead trees. Personally, I get all of my news from the internet and RSS feeds, and I doubt I will purchase one of their plans after the 30 day period. However, if you're currently subscribed to any of the newspapers that they carry, it may be well worth subscribing to their $9.95 31 issue plan, or their $29.95 unlimited plan.

01:25 PM by Timoleon in E-Book General | News

It looks like Nintendo gamers are going to have something else to do with their consoles. Who wouldda thunk?

From the article:

"Nintendo, the Japanese video games company that brought us Donkey Kong and Mario the Plumber, is to announce a deal with the publisher HarperCollins today to make literary classics available to read on its DS portable games consoles.

The 100 Classic Book Collection ranges from Shakespeare and Dickens to Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. It will cost about £20 and will be available initially only in Britain.

Readers will turn the pages by brushing a finger across the screen. If the collection is a success, Nintendo may expand the range of books available."

Tim

09:06 AM by zelda_pinwheel in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Truly impressive : only 7 months after we reached 5000 books, our amazing MobileRead book creators have sailed past the 7000 mark ! Yes, only a year and half after the first upload, MobileRead now boasts 7000 books for your reading pleasure, completely free to download, lovingly hand-formatted by our own members, in practically every ebook format.

I'm particularly thrilled to see that our perennial stars like Patricia, RWood, Madam Broshkina, nrapallo, vivaldirules, HarryT and Dr. Drib (to name just a few !), whose dedication has not flagged, have been joined by more recent arrivals like mtravellerh, Jellby (specialising in hand-coded, beautiful epub format books !), crutledge, ravenne, and many others, full of enthusiasm for book creation.

We've all enjoyed the wonderful books they've created for us, with such care and attention to detail. The ebook uploads forum is a rich and unique ressource for e-readers everywhere. Let's take a moment to thank them all and celebrate the truly impressive feat !

Thank you, everyone ! I think a celebration is in order !

A few key dates to put things in perspective :

• December 10, 2008: 7,000 uploads
• May 16, 2008: 5,000 uploads
• Feb 19, 2008: 4,000 uploads
• Jan 08, 2008: 3,000 uploads
• Nov 02, 2007: 2,000 uploads
• Sep 04, 2007: 1,000 uploads
• Mar 27, 2007: First upload

09:02 AM by Clemenseken in Sony Reader | Sony Reader Dev Corner

Hi!

Here is one more game for Sony Readers.
Though I developed it for my PRS-500 I first post this version for model PRS-505.
(Version 1.0 for 500s is here...)

Quite some time ago I posted a previous game (Fiveballs).
MahJonG seems to me much better suited to a reading device like ours... Actually I find myself sitting on our couch for hours diddling with it.

If you like it and want to try it, I'd be gratious grateful for your opinion AFTER you tried it!
(It is quite easy to design new layouts but I did not implement that feature into the game. Anyway this should be done "outside" the device...)

There is a zip file that has to be unzipped: afterwards put "Sony Reader" onto the root directory of your SD card.
ATTENTION: applications starting from SD cards drain battery power quite fast! I usually play it with the AC plug connected.

I'll attach a screenshot to this article; this was taken after I "migrated" my PRS game to a "normal" JavaScript browser application. It just gives you an idea how it might look on your PRS (look at it in a 67 percent view !).

Have a nice Christmas time!

Clemens

(Just a forgotten "tool tip": if you move the joystick up/down it will go sideways TWO steps.
PLUS: while developing this app it sometimes SEEMED not to load on the screen; if I then moved the joystick in any direction it appeared immediately - I think this would only happen on MY device, still ...)

I removed the file "..._9.zip" as it only lacked the ability to use PAGE buttons for left/right navigation. Then I did away with version "..._9_1.zip" and "...92.zip" but here is a new one with ONE undo-step and much smoother interface (cursor is set correctly after each delete)

* PLUS * number of tiles and current PAIRS left displayed in the status line!

(Just for records: 1st version "Sony..._09.zip" 75, 2nd "...09_1.zip" 73, 3rd "...92" 140 views/downloads.)