05:21 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Electrophoretic displays (EPD) are becoming increasingly mainstream for their superb paper-like appearance and low power consumption. The Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader are only two prime examples successfully using EPD technology. Hence PVI, the company who is behind the production of most EPD panels, has every right to believe that the market is "to grow 10 times over the next three years". Digitimes also reports:

PVI president YS Fu said clients' shipping schedules for EPDs remain unaffected by the sluggishness hitting the small- to medium-size panel market.

PVI chairman Scott Liu said the EPD market will double in 2009 and staggering growth is expected to continue through the next three years. Foreseeing insufficient capacity to meet the strong demand for EPDs, PVI last year determined that it was necessary to acquire Korea's BOE Hydis, which PVI has now officially taken over and renamed Hydis Technologies, Liu said.

Related: PVI: E Ink panel sales up, but cautious outlook, PVI revenues drop - weakening e-paper orders!

02:44 AM by BooksOnBoard in E-Book General | News

As of 5:20 p.m. Eastern Time July 29, Stephenie Meyer's publisher advised the eBook industry that the eBook release of Breaking Dawn, her much-anticipated latest novel in the Twilight series, will be delayed a day until August 3rd.

Our countdown for August 2nd will continue, and the Cybook and other prizes will be awarded. As a champion of eBook readers, we're not happy about this delay in release time, but we'll make the best of it for our customers.

The hard copy release will still go forward August 2nd. This lag in release time has to do with concerns about eBooks getting to eBook customers in certain time zones before the hard copy book is available.

We’re interested in hearing what MobileRead members have to say – what do you think about eBooks being released after paperbooks? How can we get publishers to acknowledge that eBook readers are a significant (and growing) segment of the reading public?

11:37 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

In the mood for some speculation? Join Brad Stone of the New York Times, who is eagerly awaiting the next incarnation of the Kindle reader. It's probably fair to say that some of his points, like the color screen, are out of reach - for now. Touchscreen technology, on the other hand, isn't far-fetched future anymore, and adding advertising to the game sounds reasonable if it could help bring down prizes. Anyway, more speculations over in Brad's blog entry.

Related: New Kindle Rumor: Kindle 2.0 in October 2008?

11:04 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

The good news for all Sony Reader (PRS-505) aficionados, straight from the source:

eBooks.com, the web's leading ebookstore, announced today that it has amassed a huge collection of published ebooks ready for downloading to Sony's ebook PRS-505 device. Until now, owners of a Sony Reader Digital Book have been confined to the collection of titles available direct from Sony's own ebookstore, or from Borders.com. On Thursday, Sony released a software upgrade that enables users to download ebooks in the ubiquitous Adobe format.

"We've assembled the world's biggest range of commercially published books suitable for the Sony Reader," said Stephen Cole, CEO of eBooks.com. "The vast majority of ebooks available from eBooks.com are from major commercial publishing houses. We're keen to enable self-published authors to upload their books to boost the number of titles in our repository -- as some sites do -- but we haven't built that capability yet. The result is that our collection of ebooks is almost entirely made up of books published by the world's leading book publishers."

Academic and Professional Books

In addition to its acclaimed range of popular fiction and non-fiction ebooks, eBooks.com's collection of Sony-compatible titles includes a substantial choice of academic and professional texts from publishers such as Wiley, Springer and Elsevier.

10:52 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Apple Devices

Fictionwise is set to unleash an upgraded eReader for iPhone. Happy iPhone users will soon be able to download eReader e-books from any website; have the option to lock the screen orientation; reverse video display; use tap instead of swipe for page turn; turn off page animation; use various sorting options inside the bookshelf, and enjoy various bug fixes and minor improvements!

Thanks to James of jkOnTheRun who has all the details.

In a related news, Sammy of PalmAddicts provides us with the latest coupon (ER72908) you can use to save 10% on any e-book purchased from eReader.com (good through August 5, 2008).

10:26 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

That's the question asked and answered by James Kendrick at JkOnTheRun today. Turns out he is a big fan of reading on phones (smart phones with a decent screen, of course) because it gives him an always available reading device. So every time he gets a few spare moments he can dive into a book. In fact, this is how he managed to finish six books in the first two weeks after getting his iPhone.

I love reading so much that I don't have any wasted free time ever, I pull out the phone and read. Just yesterday I was at the optometrist to pick up new glasses and unexpectedly had to wait 20 minutess. I pulled out the iPhone and read to my heart's content.

With all the excitement centered around e-ink, sometimes we forget the other ways to read e-books. Don't get me wrong. I have a Sony Reader e-ink device and I love it.

For those who want to read anywhere, anytime, however, a phone is a great option. Especially for guys who can't just throw an e-ink reader in a purse. Some people even find it is worthwhile to read on a "regular" feature phone with a small screen. I'm almost ashamed to admit it because it seems out of vogue these days, but the Treo is my preferred reading platform. I like the backlight. Plus the never ending joy of having a computer in the palm of my hand. But most of all, I like it because it's always with me.

10:26 AM by Alisa in E-Book General | News

Seen on Gizmodo today:

According to a Yahoo spokesperson, anyone who bought DRM music from the store “will be compensated for whatever they paid.”

I'm curious to see if they actually mean they will be refunding money or if they have something else in mind . For most companies that are failing, refunding the entire revenue of the company would not be possible. Yahoo is rather large and its music division was pretty small. Maybe they can do that. At any rate, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. It could set a precedence for future discontinued services.

So, being that nothing lasts forever, aside from getting your money back what do you think would be just compensation if your favorite ebook retailer stopped supporting their DRM?

08:40 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Amazon Kindle

There has been some controversy previously on whether or not you can use Amazon Gift Cards to purchase Kindle e-books from Amazon.

Thankfully, MobileReader Cush contacted Amazon and received the following positive reply:

Hello from Amazon.com.

Using an Amazon Gift Card to buy content from the Kindle store is easy. Simply redeem the Gift Card to your Amazon.com account before you make a purchase. When you click the "Buy with 1-Click" button, any available Gift Card balance on your account will automatically be applied to the purchase before your credit or debit card is charged.

Content from the Amazon Kindle store is only available to customers with a credit or debit card issued by a U.S bank with a U.S. billing address listed as the default 1-Click payment method. To successfully complete your purchase, you must have a valid payment method listed even if you intend to pay for your entire purchase with a Gift Card.

Note the second paragraph with Amazon explicitely stating that a US credit card is still required to complete the purchase. But at the same time, this place (thanks TadW!) has a step-by-step instruction how folks without US affiliation can still use Amazon Gift Cards to purchase e-books from Amazon.

So what's going on? Does it work for you? And do you have other tricks up your sleeve to get the most out of your Kindle reader, without living in the US?