12:53 AM by NatCh in E-Book General | News

Information Week is reporting comments from a named industry analyst to the effect that Amazon is looking hard at the textbook market, particularly at the university level:

After a meeting with Amazon executives, McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Tim Bueneman told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that Amazon sees a big opportunity in marketing the Kindle to college kids, and it's working on updated version of the e-reader to accommodate this.

This very interesting rumor has the earmarks of being more than just a rumor. Hopefully there won't be any repercussions for Mr. Bueneman or his firm for letting it slip.

Of course, as the article points out, the interface on the current model isn't really suited to textbooks, so that suggests that we might see a pretty radically different design in the rumored forthcoming Kindle models.

And this will come as a complete shock to all:

Representatives from Amazon remain tight-lipped about any updates to the Kindle.

Source

04:58 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Eagle-eyed Madam Broshkina stumbled over this colorful tidbit about the rumored next Kindle device. Seattlepi reports:

Amazon is working on a new version of the Kindle, and sees a big opportunity to market its e-book reader to college students, McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Tim Bueneman said Friday in an e-mailed note based on meetings with management.

"There are already several new, improved versions of the Kindle in the works," he wrote. "But AMZN has no plans, however, for an MP3 music audio version. We guess the new version will have improved interface operating controls. This has been an issue with some buyers."

Amazon managers "told us that the Kindle is definitely selling very well, but they also said the analysts and reporters giving out these extremely high estimates 'did not run them by company,'" Bueneman wrote.

See also TechCrunch and CNet Crave.

While I don't care so much about Kindle sales figures, lo and behold, I do care about Amazon pushing for new improved models. Having some kind of confirmation now to our earlier speculations should be enough to make any true e-book nerd break out in a sweat.

01:04 PM by nrapallo in Other formats | IMP

I've found using the Lit2sb program very rewarding over the last few years. It has been a 'work horse' program accepting almost everything thrown at it and producing elegant .imp ebooks!

That said, there are some quirks that I've come to live with, namely: 8.3 filename processing, o_sb.imp output filename, uncontrollable margins (and other CSS settings), ...

I've always wanted to re-compile the program to do the things that I wanted it to do, but have been thwarted until just recently.

That's right, I've managed to resurrect the perl script it was written in (and compiled into a .exe by ActiveState's perl2exe and further obfuscated by upx compression). Unfortunately all comments seem to have been stripped in the original compilation process.

The perl script was written by reblibrarian (Philippe Rigaux of ebooksfrance.com) as evident in this posting in the REB1200 Yahoo group

RE: [REB1200] Lit2SB source code

When I written lit2sb, it was only intended to automate the conversion of
.lit files, I mean that lit2sb don’t do any html conversion. In fact you
should see it more as a batch file written in perl…

So for your remarqs:

1) ??
2) I don’t touch the source html (I only add margins)
3) Lit2sb don’t add any line breaks, probably the gemstar publisher do
that or the ms$reader ignore those?

If you know perl I can send you a copy of the source script but the script
perl is compiled for the convenience of end users…

Phil

I have re-compiled a windows executable (Lit2sb.exe) based on a modified copy of that perl script to allow proper conversions. Just replace the original lit2sb.exe executable with the one in the below .zip file. Of course, do so after following the instructions previously given Convert .lit directly into .IMP formats.

Among the things fixed were:
- uses source .lit filename as final .imp output filename and places resulting .imp in the same directory as the .lit source.
- for resulting .imp and .opf, no longer uses 8.3 filenames.
- uses "2%" left and right margins now, instead of "18pt"
- properly scales GEB1150/EBW1150 cover image so as to avoid bottom margin bleeding.
- fixed system calls to external programs to properly prefix path.

TO DO:
- make a GUI ala Mobi2IMP. The program will be called Lit2IMP!
- for REB1200 and EBW1150, rescale all images referred to in the .html ebook so that there is no bottom margin bleeding.
- fix the auto TOC entry insertion which usually duplicates the last entry in the <spine> section of the .opf.
- add any user requested (simple) modifications... Have any?

As always, enjoy!

10:06 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Just a (another) little friendly reminder that we're holding two MobileRead Reader Meetups today. One is in the Washington DC area tonight at 5pm, the other in Austin, Texas at 2pm. Regulars and lurkers, please show up or our egos will be mercilessly permanently wounded. Plus, we are holding by our promise that at least one live human female will be present.

Washington, DC Area, US Details
When: August 23rd, 5:00pm
Where: Herndon, Virginia - Euro Bistro, 314 Elden Street (corner of Eldon and Herndon Parkway) 703-481-8158

Texas, US Details
When: August 23rd, 2:00pm
Where: Austin - Panera Bread, 2805 Bee Caves Road

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Have something interesting to say about e-books or mobile computing? Join our forums and share your view on topics like the ones discussed at MobileRead this past week...

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• News.com: Music, movie lobbyists push to spy on your Net traffic
• Is an ebook "green" reading, as in environmentally friendly?
• From News.com: E-books discussed at Denvention 3
• How much does the average author get paid?
• Netronix increases ebook device shipments
• Terry Goodkind finally an eBook Author
• PVI asked to keep quiet about E Ink shipment figures
• Judge to copyright holders: Consider 'Fair Use' first before doing anything
• iRex iLiad goes Austria as "HixReader"
• Kindle E-Ink screen transplant from a Sony Reader

E-Book Devices - Which one should I buy?

• Survey of current and upcoming 2008 e-ink devices

E-Book Devices - Amazon Kindle

• Amazon: "Tell the Publisher" request links disappeared

Portable Devices - Other Devices

• Palm rolls out the Trēo Pro

Miscellaneous - Lounge

• MobileRead ebook stories

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Washington, DC Meet-up Saturday August 23rd at 5:00 pm

06:15 AM by Madam Broshkina in E-Book General | News

Not for the faint of heart, but the instructions in the following link will show you how to remove a broken screen from an Amazon Kindle and replace it with the screen from a Sony Reader.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Amaz..._from_a_Sony_/

03:33 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Austrian company HieBooks is going to present the iRex iLiad under the new name HixReader at the Buch Wien 08 fair this November. In December, Austrian bookstores are said to carry the HixReader along with commercial e-books that can be transferred upon purchase via USB connection. A customer portal for remote e-book purchases is planned at a later stage.

Apparently, HixBooks sees itself as a digital distributor, where publishers can securely upload their e-book content to a remote platform called HixLibrary; bookstores and booksellers then access HixLibrary to deliver the content to consumers.

02:46 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Amazon Kindle

A few days ago we celebrated the fact that Amazon would allow us through a simple mouse click to "request" a book to be published in Kindle format. Well, I don't know if this is just a temporary issue, but it seems like the request links have disappeared! Who knows... perhaps publishers got irritated over the vast amount of requests they must have received in the past few days?