08:35 PM by jharker in E-Book General | News

In 2005, Google was sued by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers for their ambitious program to scan millions of books from university libraries and make them available for viewing online.

Today they have announced a settlement, and it's excellent: Google will make all books available in full online (some for a fee) and authors will get a share of the revenue! (Authors are also allowed to opt out.) Public libraries will all get a free view-only license, while universities will be able to buy subscriptions allowing free access from campus.

From what I can see, the agreement so far only involves being able to VIEW the books in their entirety, but the agreement specifically anticipates further deals being made in the future. So it may be only a matter of time until we can download any of this vast array of digital e-books from Google for a fee!

You can find coverage of the settlement on PC World and from the New York Times. The Authors Guild also has an official announcement page with substantially more details. The deal has yet to be approved by the U.S. District Court.

02:12 PM by Adam B. in More E-Book Readers | iRex

This is the first installer for FBReader running on the DR1000S.

For those who aren't familiar with FBReader, it's an ebook reading software with a built in library and support for many formats.

Supported formats are:

• ePub format
• fb2 e-book format (style attributes are not supported yet).
• HTML format (tables are not supported).
• CHM format (tables are not supported).
• plucker format (tables are not supported).
• Palmdoc (aportis doc).
• zTxt (Weasel format).
• TCR (psion text) format.
• RTF format (stylesheets and tables are not supported).
• OEB format (css and tables are not supported).
• OpenReader format (css and tables are not supported).
• Non-DRM'ed mobipocket format (tables are not supported).
• Plain text format.

To read a book, you'll have to add it to the library. You can do this by clicking the icon that looks like a book with a "+" sign.

You'll also need to close out of the program by clicking the exit button in the upper right. I plan to support the menu eventually, but I have to dig into that further.

To install: Unzip the file to the root of your SD card. For example, if your SD card shows up as the E:\ drive on your computer, you should have an E:\Programs folder after you unzip it.

After installing, you'll be able to select the FBReader icon from the Documents/Programs folder on your device.

You can toggle full screen mode with the select button (between up and down).

You can find more information about FBReader at their website.

It was actually *very* easy to port, since the DR1000 has a lot of libraries already built for it. Screen refreshes are *fast*. The internal refreshes are amazingly accurate. It only refreshes what's changed on the screen. I didn't have to build in any refreshes into FBReader itself. All of the built in menus and library functions work perfectly.

It's hard to describe how amazingly easy this was in comparison to iLiad ports.

Thank you iRex for making a device that *very* easy to hack on (and for providing the device for my "review")!

If you would like to open supported files directly from the Content Browser, see this thread.

11:41 AM by zelda_pinwheel in E-Book General | News

According to their press release of October 28, Ectaco JetBook will support both ePub and Mobipocket format books beginning in Q1 2009. This is great news for people looking for open format support and for the development of ePub as the standard format.

Thanks to Kris777 for finding the news !

Join the discussion over here.

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

Is it really Sunday again? Hoorah! Time to dig in to another digest of MobileRead delectables

E-Book General - Deals, Freebies, and Resources

• Oprah's Kindle Discount - $50 Off

E-Book Devices - iRex Digital Reader

• iRex DR1000S Unboxing and First Impressions
• iRex Releases DR1000 SDK and source code

E-Book Devices - iRex iLiad

• iRex Releases iLiad Source Code
• iRex Technology Donates Five iLiad readers to OpenIliad.com

Portable Devices - Other Devices

• First Android Phone and Three Application Stores Launch

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Reminder: Paris meet-up on 25th October 2008. [Paris, France]
• Reminder: Southeastern USA meetup: 25 October 2008

11:44 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

As you may know, there has been a rumor floating around that Oprah Winfrey would announce the Kindle as her new favorite gadget. That is indeed what she did today, 24 October, on her show.

In partnership with Amazon, she also announced a coupon code (for $50) you can type in when you buy the Kindle. Since the code is available to anyone who looks at her website, I will repeat it here:

OPRAHWINFREY

The code will expire on 1 November 2008.

02:04 PM by Adam B. in More E-Book Readers | iRex

iRex has released an SDK and source code for the iRex DR1000.

You can find this here.

The SDK is based on Poky, so I have some research to do. iRex also promises to release further documentation.

I'm sure developers will be busy working on discovering the internals and the many possibilities of this new development platform.

11:19 AM by NatCh in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

By now you all know that T-Mobile is launching the first Google Android OS cell-phone, the G1. You probably know that the launch happened yesterday, and you may know that three separate Android application stores opened at the same time.

The folks over at ReadWriteWeb have a nice write up comparing the various stores. Nothing earthshaking in it really: they're just application stores, after all.

The curious thing to me is that they seem to be getting all twistie about the fact that there is more than one place to get applications.

Along with the device itself, the Google Android Market also went live. [snip] However, the Android Market isn't the only place to get apps. Both Handango and MobiHand have app stores of their own. Will this open ecosystem be good for the "Google phone" or will it lead to consumer confusion?

[big snip]

Uh-oh! It's only one day into Android being publicly available and already there are three different places to shop for apps? Google's Android Market will feature free apps at first, with paid apps not being included until next year. Meanwhile, paid applications today are found in two non-official stores, each with different pricing for the exact same apps.

Say whatever you want about Apple's locked-down ecosystem, but there is simplicity in knowing there's only one place to get apps (well, unless you're voiding your warranty through jailbreaking, that is). What will people think of all these Android stores? We're worried that these parallel marketplaces could lead to consumer confusion. We love that Google has gone the open route with Android, but Apple has been successful doing just the opposite. That makes us wonder: is "open" still a way to compete?

Perhaps they're just looking for a way to put some interest on the piece, but it raises an interesting thought in my mind (well interesting to my mind): where did this idea come from that the only way to succeed is to do things the way Steve Jobs does them? I mean that's worked out so very well for them historically.

Sure, the iPod is a raging success, to the point that there is even a semi-organized anti-iPodian movement. And the iPhone has caused a pretty big splash, but I think it may be a bit too early to call it a success on the scale of the iPod (personally, I suspect that many of the iPhone buyers are at least partly driven by a desire to combine a phone with their beloved iPods, an iPodPhone if you will). But those are merely two successes in a long string of what might be fairly characterized as mediocrities. They still have their flops, certainly, Apple TV doesn't seem to have taken off as they must have hoped.

It is completely fair, of course, to compare the Android phones to the iPhone, because Google is positioning the G1 as a direct competitor to the iPhone, but has the free market mindset really warped into a "company store" mindset so quickly?

How many folks out there are truly concerned that having a whopping three stores to choose from will actually confuse consumers? Particularly when the G1 is by its very nature aimed more at folks who don't want to join the Apple Collective? We live in a world where having three Starbucks to choose from on any given block is more typical than it really ought to be, will three separate storefronts be a proverbial Gordian Knot?

They invite comments on their site, so you don't have to share your thoughts only here. Oops, there goes that "consumer choice" cat right out of the bag again!

So what about you? Are you "confused?"

10:51 AM by Adam B. in More E-Book Readers | iRex

From OpenIliad.com:

iRex has announced that they plan to donate a number of refurbished iLiad's to OpenIliad.com. I am very impressed with iRex and their initiative to support the development community. This, in addition to their planned release of the iLiad code shows that the iLiad is not a dead platform, and will live on with updates and feature improvements from the community.

Once the devices arrive, OpenIliad will ship them out to those who have an established project and are in need of a device for testing and development. They will be loaned out on a temporary, as needed, basis.

OpenIliad.com has agreed to provide one to the OpenInkpot project, for their use in porting the OpenInkpot platform to the iLiad.

If you have a project and are in need of a device, please email me at ad...@gmail.com.