11:50 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

The long and painful wait is almost over (at least for UK residents): As previous rumors have already hinted, and the Independent is reaffirming in their Business section today, the UK's leading bookseller, Waterstone's, is gearing up to launch the Sony Reader device.

No price yet, sorry folks, but we heard people say something of around £200.

Previous discussions on Waterstone's and the Sony Reader: Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle Coming to the UK soon, 505 to be sold by Waterstone's in UK

10:56 AM by NatCh in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

After many years, Palm seems to have finally heard the clamor of its customers, and has released the Palm Trēo 800W, which has built in WiFi. It's not Palm OS, but presumably that the 800P will be a follow on before long.

The rest of the specs are mostly familiar, but there are a few new twists that will be much appreciated by some.

The display has changed to 320² pixels (color, of course), the expansion slot has shrunk to microSD size, supporting up to 8GB, and the connector is now one of the new micro USB ones. As you can see from the picture, the device is overall more Centro-like than previous Trēos. It will also sport EVDO Rev A. and a built in GPS function via Sprint's "benevolence."

That of course leads us to Sprint being the distributor on this one -- I guess it's their turn again. I'm sure the contracts will be similar to the ones we're already familiar with, the rebated price appears to be $249.

Some other interesting tidbits from the press release:

On EVDO Rev A:

As Sprint's first smartphone to ship immediately with EV-DO Rev. A network support, the Treo 800w offers customers the ability to quickly browse the web and send and receive emails - even those with large attachments - at broadband speeds.

...

With EV-DO Rev. A, peak network download data rates increase to 3.1 Mbps and peak upload data rates increase to 1.8 Mbps; average download speeds improve to 600 kbps to 1.4 mbps and average uplink speeds increase to 350-500 kbps.

On WiFi:

Palm's WiFi hardware and software innovations make it easy to get online fast and manage network connections and power usage. The one-touch WiFi button provides a clean, uncluttered WiFi experience that gets Treo 800w users rapidly connected at home, in the office or in WiFi hotspots.(2) It includes 802.11b/g WiFi and built-in Internet Explorer Mobile, which means faster, more secure access to web-based data.

On GPS functionality:

With integrated GPS and Palm software enhancements, the Treo 800w smartphone offers maps, point-to-point directions and point-of-interest (POI) searches for locations such as restaurants or stores.(3) POI search is available directly from the Today Screen and is integrated with contacts, giving customers one-touch access to the places they want to go. Treo 800w also supports Sprint Navigation for turn-by-turn directions as well as other popular third-party location-based services applications.

On "enterprise" email service support:

It connects directly with Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or 2007 and works within a company's existing Microsoft infrastructure, eliminating costly middleware or the maintenance of additional servers.

...

Microsoft Direct Push Technology is available out of the box and gives users connected to a Microsoft Exchange Server fast, automatic wireless updates from their email, calendar, contacts and tasks.(4)

...

The Treo 800w is compatible with Microsoft's System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008, which delivers increased security and easier smartphone management as well as access to information on the corporate network via mobile VPN.

Looks like a direct run at Blackberry, that does.

Full specs here, and press release here.

10:40 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Have you also caught the Twitter bug? If yes, go to your user profile settings all the way down to the bottom and enter your Twitter screen name there.

This will show all your latest Twitter Tweets in your user profile here @ MobileRead.

Please feel free to report any bugs or related wishes (I just finished writing this widget a few minutes ago).

03:09 PM by Hadrien in E-Book Readers | Apple Devices

Official page/Demo video
Help page on Feedbooks

Available for free

Presentation on the App Store:
"Read electronic books on your iPhone and iPod Touch! With a reading interface that is unprecedented in its clarity and ease of use, Stanza is bringing the eBook revolution to your pocket. Store and categorize hundreds of books in the organizer, choose from thousands of free books available in the Lexcycle Online Library, and transfer books you share from your computer using Stanza Desktop. Your entire summer reading, your class syllabus for the whole year, or all the reference material you will ever need: all at your fingertips. Literally."

This is great news for iPhone/iPod Touch owners: ePub support, thousands of books to download from Feedbooks and the possibility to transfer your own files in any format supported by Stanza Desktop.

03:43 AM by HarryT in E-Book General | News

The eReader web site is struggling to keep up with the load as thousands of new iPhone and iPod Touch users try to download their purchases to their new devices. The owners of eReader say on the FictionWise mailing list:

Hi guys,

As many of you probably know, the ereader.com server is absolutely
getting crushed right now as thousands of iphone users try to download
their past purchases all at once. We're working to try to tune this
better over the weekend, but the fact is, our infrastructure just can't
handle everyone trying to download every book they ever purchased in the
past ten years all on the same day!

We ask for your patience. The initial crush will die down hopefully in a
day or two, and we'll try to offload some of the traffic to other
servers as quickly as possible.

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

Here are the highlights from the past seven days of MobileRead:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• RSS to ePub, Mobipocket/Kindle and PDF
• Linux for e-readers: OpenInkpot progress *IS* being made...
• ZappTek: Here come the iPhone/iPod Touch eBook Readers
• Fictionwise eReader available at iPhone App Store
• Do free eBooks affect sales?
• Billionaire Warren Buffett may join Kindle crowd
• iPhone Public Domain Books for 99 cents
• PVI: E Ink panel sales up, but cautious outlook

E-Book Software - Reading Software

• Adobe Reader 9 "Lite" (unofficial)

E-Book Devices - Amazon Kindle

• NPR: Taking Kindle To The Pool
• Houston Chronicle has been Kindlized!

E-Book Devices - Polymer Vision Readius

• Polymer Vision Readius to debut this fall, detailed specs!
• The Readius: ask your burning questions!

E-Book Devices - Other Portable Devices

• Ultra-mod Tabeee Mk-1: Eee PC to be turned into an e-reader

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• MR Reader Meetup in Paris on Friday, July 18th

04:03 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

PVI's sales of E Ink panels in June have at least partially recovered from the previous month's low. However, compared to one year ago, total sales is still down by a worrisome 33 percent, according to Digitimes. And although the third quater is usually high season, PVI remains cautious about the overall small- to medium-size panel market.

Color me skeptic, but considering that PVI is still the major (only?) provider of E Ink displays, the declining numbers in panel sales do not seem to agree with the projected numbers of e-book devices sold, as provided by various upbeat analysts.

Your opinion on this one?

01:29 AM by daffy4u in E-Book Readers | Apple Devices

iPhone App Store Takes on Amazon Kindle with 99 Cent E-Books

Looks like there is going to be an ebook component to the iTunes Store.

With the arrival of the iTunes App Store, some enterprising individuals have started to populated the virtual shop with a bunch of novels from the public domain. All they have to do is "re-box" them, so to speak, before selling through through the Apple online store for 99 cents each. The e-books that you'll find include stuff like Dickens and Tarzan.

The text is said to look pretty crisp and the relatively large display of the iPhone makes for a pleasurable read as well. And you might look a little sexier staring at your iPhone than at your Kindle.