04:08 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Apple Devices

Here is a tantalizing piece of news from James of jkOnTheRun, reporting that Fictionwise is working on an iPhone version of the popular eReader software. James received the following word:

Apple released their SDK for iphone/itouch on March 6. We have two Mac development experts doing the work to make eReader function on the iphone/itouch right now. Apple will allow third party applications, like eReader, to be used by customers after the next iPhone/iTouch firmware update which is currently estimated to be released on June 30 and we expect to be done with our porting work at about the same time.

However, there is also a wild card in that Apple must approve of each and every application released for iphone/itouch, and we are currently seeking information about what the criteria are to qualify. We will certainly support these devices if we possibly can and Apple allows it.

Thank you!

Best Regards,

Fictionwise/eReader Support Team

Link: jkOnTheRun

03:57 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Those gagging for some hot ePub action will be pleased to know that the experimental version of DocBook XSL has added ePub support and is ready for immediate consumption. Thanks to Nick Bogaty from Adobe for sending us a link to the following Adobe blog entry:

If you're using the DocBook XSL distribution you've probably already seen that DocBook XSL 1.74.0 has been released with ePub support. Note that the 1.74.0 release is an experimental release, and is made available for testing and evaluation. See the release notes for a note about DocBook dot-0 releases.

The 1.74.0 release can be found in the project site downloads.

The ePub target has been tested against a number of files, but I would encourage those of you who use DocBook to try out the new target and to submit any issues you find to the tracking system on the DocBook project site. The only way we'll know if it doesn't work for you is if you tell us.

02:44 PM by Donnageddon in E-Book Readers | Apple Devices

From Wired Blog

The iPod Touch makes a great e-book reader, with a large, high-resolution screen and touch navigation.

That's fine, but the little iPod gets uncomfortable to hold after a while, and it lacks the presence of a real book. Imagine seeing an attractive girl (or boy) sitting outside a pavement café, drinking an espresso, smoking a Gauloise and reading a tatty paperback. It's a romantic image which is shattered when you swap the book for a PDA. I decided to disguise my iPod as a book, and if that wasn't pretentious enough, I put it in a modded Moleskine, the notebook of choice for fops and dandies the world over.

Here for more

I have an iPod Touch, but haven't yet used it much for reading. I might give this a try though, looks very good!

10:48 PM by ZaZg in E-Book General | News

... well, almost.

I have made the mistake of entering a Canadian credit card on the Sony bookstore, and it now identifies me as a Canadian. Oh, well, I suppose I am.

What's the harm in that? Well, many books are now marked U.S. Only. I checked Sony's FAQ, and they state that "some publishers have not authorized the sale of their books outside the United States". So I went and verified that.

Case scenario:
Author: Terry Pratchet
Book: The Wee Free Men (Story of Discworld)
Publisher: Harper Collins
Marked U.S. Only on the Sony bookstore.

I went directly to Harper Collins web site, in the ebooks section, and guess what? I bought the book! (mind you, not in LRF, but I fixed that, thanks to ConvertLIT and Calibre)... and cheaper than what Sony would have charged me!

So the truth is: Sony doesn't want to sell some books outside the United States, not the publishers! Now, why is that, do you think? I can't figure it out myself... money is money, right?

01:56 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

We're a bit heavy-hearted to report the news, but it appears that recent e-paper sales aren't as rosy as some analysts and industry insiders like us to believe (while others are a bit more conservative). Details are sketchy at this point, but Digitimes reports that last month, PVI has suffered from a drop in revenues by more than thirty percent, which is at least partly caused by "weakened e-paper orders from the US." Meanwhile a display competitor confirmed that "the weak economy is expected to continue, dampening demand in the US market."

So what does this exactly mean? Granted, e-book readers are not exactly low-budget, but is it possible that the current economic downtrend has already a negative impact on e-book reader sales? Is it a coincidence that just two weeks ago, Amazon dropped the price of its Kindle reader?

09:14 AM by igorsk in E-Book General | News

Vladimir Levchenko of the MUK company (makers of the lBook - Ukrainian version of Jinke's Hanlin) was quite sceptical of the much touted Evan Schnittman's estimate on Kindle and Reader shipments. He provided his own numbers, reportedly directly from his talks with PVI management.

Currently PVI produces around 20000* screens per month. Yield is about 63-68% - a very low number. Half of the defective screens is recycled, another half is sold at a $15-$20 discount.
These numbers are much closer to reality.
From the start of production and until April 2008 Lenovo** has shipped approximately 55000 Kindles.

* it's not clear if the number is total production or only screens that passed QA.
** he says Lenovo is part of the FoxConn/HonHai conglomerate.

Well, I'd take this with a grain of salt (he's been wrong in some of his claims before), but these numbers are much more beleivable to me.

05:40 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Earlier this year Tara Brabazon, a professor at the University of Brighton, argued that the Internet is producing a generation of students who survive on a diet of unreliable information. "Google is filling, but it does not necessarily offer nutritional content," she said. Google, white bread for the mind?

Nicholas Carr, a former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, goes one step further, questioning whether Google is in fact making us stupid.

I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”

Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,” he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. “I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.”

Full article (careful, long read )

I admit I am an Internet junkie. Man, I wish it was different. Ten years ago, I went to the library and studied dusty books to seek knowledge. Back then, the mere act of doing research was by itself a rewarding experience for me. Today, I enter a single keyword in Google or Wikipedia, and seconds later, answers pop up (hopefully condensed in a few words). Good answers? I don't know. I am afraid Mr. Carr is right: something has changed, and I don't think this something has made me any smarter.

[via Infothought Blog]

02:42 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Alright, let's take this all with a grain of salt, but analysts at research firm iSuppli are projecting that the market for flexible displays will grow to US $2.8 billion by 2013. Digitimes writes:

Due to the arrival of Polymer Vision's Readius pocket-sized e-reader and other such products, iSuppli forecasts the total flexible display market will reach US$2.8 billion by 2013, a 35-times expansion from about US$80 million in 2007.

The article cites a 4-inch flexible AMOLED display by LG Display and Universal Display, E Ink's flexible electrophoretic bi-stable displays (as already used in a few wristwatches), Polymer Vision's "soon-to-be-in-the-market" Readius (of which a 65k colors prototype is supposedly also available), and PVI's Flexi-e technology.

All drool-worthy inventions, but let's hope that we can soon enjoy these with our hands rather than just write about them.