04:14 AM by f00l in E-Book General | News

Amazon has cut the price of its Kindle reader to $359 from $399. Must have happened at midnight PDT. Was $40 more just a few hours ago. I guess the 6 month "new" factor has worn off. :>

Amazon honored some sort of low-price agreement, so recent purchasers might be due for a refund.

And: Happy shopping, everyone who's been holding out.

01:52 PM by Azayzel in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

I've been waiting for this one since I heard the announcement, it sounded intresting and was right up my alley. Cory Doctorow has made it one of his missions to promote himself and eBooks by offering his books in free digital format. You can find most of his works at his website after the link.

Synopsis of book and why Mr. Doctorow offers his works for free can be found here - http://craphound.com/littlebrother/about/#freedownload/

Book download in various formats here - http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

Two thumbs up!

Now off to read!

Editor's Note: Thanks also to Sammy McLoughlin for reminding us about this today. He has posted the information for his Palm audience at Palm Addicts.

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

My goodness, is it Sunday again? Well, for those of you who've missed the highs and lows of MobileRead over the past seven days, this is your one-way ticket to catch up:

E-Books - News and Commentary

• How many e-books do readers purchase?
• Sony Japan to focus on ebooks for cell phones
• Amazon sued by POD publisher
• Hachette prepares for Sony Reader launch in France
• PVI adds twist to e-paper with force-sensing technology
• Now THIS is epaper!

E-Book Devices - iRex iLiad

• Offline Wikipedia on the Iliad

E-Book Devices - Bookeen Cybook Gen3

• Bookeen presentation lends insight into Cybook Gen4

E-Book Devices - Amazon Kindle

• Amazon Kindle projections overrated?

Miscellaneous - Feedback

• MobileRead Reorganization - Part I (ambiguous sections)

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• 5,000 E-Books: Let's celebrate!

06:31 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Feedback

As part of our commitment to improving MobileRead, I'd like to invite everyone to help us overhaul our forum organization.

To begin with, we will focus on solving ambiguous sections.

Q: Is it just me or do you also find it sometimes difficult to pick the right section when you want to say something about e-books in general?

Okay, let's have a look at the following sections:

• E-Books/News
  - originally to discuss news and trends related to e-books. Includes technology, publishing, and DRM news.

• E-Books/Elsewhere on the Net
  - originally to share links and information to other websites related to e-books. Includes hot e-book deals and free e-book resources.

• E-Book Devices/Future E-Book Devices
  - originally to discuss e-book readers that are not yet released but have received already plenty of news coverage.

• Mobile Devices/General Talk
  - originally to discuss news and trends related to mobile devices in general. Includes topics on cell phones and mobile reading.

• Miscellaneous/Lounge
  - originally to discuss anything fun not directly related to e-books.

Proposals:

I think E-Books/Elsewhere on the Net should be renamed into E-Books/Deals, Freebies, and Other Resources to clarify that this section is not meant for discussing news appearing on other sites.

I also think that E-Books/News and Mobile Devices/General Talk should be consolidated into a single section, named E-Books/News and Talk. Mobile Devices is a relict of the past when handhelds were still our main focus.

E-Book Devices/Future E-Book Devices should probably remain as it is as a catch-all category for new e-book readers that don't have their own forum section yet.

Miscellaneous/Lounge, of course, must remain because it's fun. I don't think it needs any changes.

---

What do you think about my suggestions? Also, are there other section labels/organizations that you may find ambiguous at times?

Please post your opinion here because ultimately we'll make the decisions based on your feedback.

Thanks!!!!!

Note: This is the first part of our forum reorganization. Let's focus on the topic. We will continue with other aspects of the forum once this part is resolved.

09:08 AM by mcramer in E-Book General | News

Epson unveiled a 13.4-inch (A4-size) electronic paper at SID 2008, in Los Angeles, the US. Its pixel count is 3104 × 4128 and definition is as high as 385ppi.

Link

Now this would handle A4 PDF's very nicely

11:19 AM by Adam B. in More E-Book Readers | iRex

Mobileread member amirshim has created a method for browsing Wikipedia on the iLiad without being connected to the internet. His solution features a mini dump of Wikipedia, however, a full version is possible as well, with a bit more work.

You can find instructions for setting it up yourself on his project page.

I've created a package out of it that you can simply download, unzip, and copy to a memory card for your iLiad. You can find that installer here. (beware 54MB File)

Join the ongoing discussion in this thread.

08:32 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Amazon Kindle

We've spent the last couple days thinking this over, and as much as we'd like to agree with analysts on the rosy future of the Kindle (and e-books in general), we cannot ignore the nay-sayers, put-down, it's been done before, commenters. So also Scott Berry of SeekingAlpha, who attributes the bank analysts' euphoria to them being crack smokers (and stock manipulators).

Citi’s Mahaney has even gone so far as to suggest 3% of Amazon’s revenue (about $750M) will come from Kindles within 2 years. Worse yet, he assumes a sales ramp roughly half of the original iPod. Frankly, he’s smoking crack.

If Eliot Spitzer hadn’t brought an end to the practice some years ago (cough, cough), I’d almost think these two were trying to drum up business for their investment banks. Instead it’s probably something much more innocent, like say pumping the stock for the traders.

Note, he also believes that end users don't need e-book readers. So whom do you want to believe -- analysts or Mr. Berry?

05:27 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Here's a very cool development from PVI, who must have been super-productive in the last few months. Imagine you could navigate your e-book reader with the tip of your finger without crafting the sensitive E Ink display out of its material. Well, it seems you don't have to wait much longer. PVI has partnered with a company called F-Origin (of which it owns a 20 percent stake) to incorporate zTouch, a proprietary touch screen technology, into E Ink display panels:

The functionality and flexibility in design provided by zTouch is the perfect solution for ebooks and other products that utilize PVI's ePaper displays. zTouch enables users to control book navigation and numerous management functions, such as turning pages, making selections or simply making edits or comments via touch and through gestures and hand writing recognition. The ease of use and high-functionality of zTouch are an ideal match for eBooks by PVI.

PVI has some more details about the underlying technology:

When a user touches the display, proprietary software calculates the location and intensity of the touch with input from the sensors. There is no additional layer of materials on top of he display as there is in traditional touch technologies; as such, there is no impact to the reflective qualities of the display. This technology requires no ITO (the most fragile component in traditional touch panels), hence exhibits superior robustness. Unlike capacitive touch panels which requires the touch medium be conductive (such as a finger), this force sensing technology works with either stylus or fingers.

Disregarding the problem of greasy fingers for a moment (...), do you think this technology could improve your reading experience? Join the ongoing discussion.

Thanks to athlonkmf and Ebook lover for the news.