11:16 AM by athlonkmf in E-Book General | News

First Esquire had to make a six-figure investment to hire an engineer in China to develop a battery small enough to be inserted in the magazine cover. The batteries and the display case are manufactured and put together in China. They are shipped to Texas and on to Mexico, where the device is inserted by hand into each magazine. The issues will then be shipped via trucks, which will be refrigerated to preserve the batteries, to the magazine’s distributor in Glazer, Ky.

NYTimes

E Ink is going to shine as the cover for 100.000 esquire magazines. That'd be a flashing, changing cover on a "classic" printed thing.

(so tempted to buy one, just to hack the cover)

11:03 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

While we're sure some folks were just fine with Ectaco's burgundy colored Jetbook e-reader, the company is looking out for those who like their e-book devices a bit more conservative looking. Ectaco is now offering up its 5-inch LCD-based Jetbook device in burgundy, white, gray, and graphite; but aside from the hues, everything else looks to be staying the same.

Related: Ectaco Jetbook review

09:35 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Listen, we've just got to say thanks. Last week we had our first official MobileRead meetup -- turns out it was a great success. Until we'll hit you all back soon with the top secret location of our next reader meetup, a special thanks to Zelda for being our fantastic organizer in Paris, as well as big ups to Bookeen for joining us on such short notice.

We were gonna write you a 10,000 word essay, but we figured a photo gallery and a quick write-up would do just fine.

See you again soon!

Much love,
MobileRead

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

If you've been absent and are keen to find out what MobileRead was up to this week, check out the links below:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• eReader web site collapsing under the load!
• ePub on the iPhone with Stanza/Feedbooks
• Waterstone's UK to sell Sony Reader this autumn
• First O'Reilly titles now available as e-book bundles
• New Kindle Rumor: Kindle 2.0 in October 2008?
• Kindle makes EW's List of 25 Top Tech

E-Book Devices - Other Portable Devices

• Palm (finally) brings WiFi with the Trēo 800W
• How do you keep your e-book DRM passwords?

Miscellaneous - Lounge

• Unutterably Silly Mobileread Logo Merchandise

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Get Twittered at MobileRead!

09:18 AM by xianfox in E-Book General | News

While certainly not the definitive source for tech news, Entertainment Weekly put up their list of 25 Top Tech Innovations and the Amazon Kindle made the cut at number 23.

Perhaps this shows Kindle is gaining some market acceptance? Either that or it's a paid placement.

05:25 AM by wallcraft in E-Book General | News

O'Reilly has made good on its commitment to release 30 titles in DRM-free PDF, ePub and MOBI format. What is new is that they say all 30 will eventually be available from Amazon for the Kindle, but will not use the proprietary TOPAZ format (even though MOBI is sub-optimal).

See 30 O'Reilly Titles Now Available as Ebook Bundles; Many In Kindle Store Later Today.

05:18 AM by daffy4u in E-Book General | News

Someone just posted this on the Amazon Discussion boards. From CrunchGear:

Kindle 2.0 Coming Around October 2008

An insider let slip that two new Amazon Kindle models will hit stores this holiday season, with the first coming as early as October.

The first is an updated version with the same sized screen, a smaller form factor, and an improved interface. The source told us that Amazon has “skipped three or four generations,” comparing the old Kindle to the 1st gen iPod and the new version to something like the sexy iPod Mini.

The second new model, which is shaped like an 8 1/2 x 11-inch piece of paper, is considerably bigger than the current model and should be available next year.

05:14 AM by nekokami in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Really, very silly. Scroll down the list a bit.

http://www.cafepress.com/mobileread

(VR, we have shirts in your size!)