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

Gosh we've talked a lot this week. Here's your weekly round up of MobileRead's events.

E-Books - News

• Random House to Sell Books by the Chapter
• Adobe DE 1.5 Beta
• Readius Hands-on Video

E-Book Devices - iRex iLiad

• Integrated FBReader 0.8.14 with ePub and Registry Support

E-Book Devices - Amazon Kindle

• Free Women & Money for the Kindle

12:54 PM by Kingston in E-Book Readers | Amazon Kindle

The new Suze Orman book is a free download for Kindle users until 5 PM today.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...plog_item_link

or http://tinyurl.com/yop27x ]

Here's Amazon's explanation:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK30B227N6UJIQS

10:35 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Our good friends over at JKOnTheRun know someone who is attending the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Their podcasting-partner-in-crime, Matt Miller took the time to post a video on Youtube.

It's not the best quality camera work, but it's good enough.

Thanks, guys.
http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkonther...on-with-r.html

10:00 AM by Hadrien in E-Book General | News

Adobe released the first beta for Adobe DE 1.5: http://blogs.adobe.com/digitaleditions/

Download: Adobe Labs

You can find plenty of epub files to test Adobe DE 1.5 at: http://www.feedbooks.com

The key feature of Digital Editions 1.5 is the addition of new DRM support that provides "content portability" across computers and devices that you authorize with your Adobe ID.
Note: You should be aware that this beta release includes an enhanced version of DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection. If you plan on using Digital Editions for mission critical work, please consider using Digital Editions 1.0.

Key features of the enhanced DRM include:
- Conversion of user's content to a "Named Authorization" license, enabling them to be backed up, copied and read on other computers or devices
- Authorization of end users' DRM protected content with an Adobe ID
- Writing the secure license into the document
- Existing content is migrated to the new system and newly downloaded content is automatically converted when it is downloaded
- Content portability applies to both PDF and EPUB documents
- Resulting documents can be copied just like any other file
- Documents can be opened on any computer or device which has been authorized by the owner
- The number of machines that can be authorized is controlled by the amount set by the Authorization server (up to 6 computers and 6 devices)
- We have added functionality within Digital Editions 1.5 to support mobile devices. At this time we are working hard on rolling out support for the actual devices which work with Digital Editions, which should become available later this year.
- The number of machines on which a document can be viewed is limited by the number of authorized machines, unless the document has been limited to a single machine by the publisher

Note that authorization with an Adobe ID will not be required in the final release of 1.5, but is strongly recommended. If you do not authorize your computer, your content will, as in Digital Editions 1.0, be locked to the computer to which is was downloaded. This first Beta release does not actually offer the option to use the old-style "anonymous" mode of use, but the next Beta and the final release version will. But Adobe feels very strongly that all users will be best served by authorizing their computers. Adobe does not use the ID for any purpose other than providing the portability by identifying you and your books. The ID is not used for any other purpose, public or private.

Publishers and vendors should note that this release does not alter the fulfillment of ebooks so existing ecommerce workflows are not affected.

In addition to the DRM enhancement, this release of Digital Editions also
- Adds support for Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard)
- Fixes a bug in which double-byte (e.g. Asian, some European) users could not use Digital Editions
- Improved PDF support, including more complete support for the Adobe transparency model and support for named pages
- Page map support in EPUB so that there is a mapping between the reflowed screens and the paper copy of a book
- Adds support for multiple books per ETD fulfillment
- Miscellaneous user interface improvements and bug fixes

09:51 AM by Adam B. in More E-Book Readers | iRex

It's been about 6 months since my last port of FBReader. The talented FBReader developers have done a lot. The most important addition is the support for ePub books. You can view the full changelog at FBReader.org.

I, myself, have done a lot of things different for this release as well.

• I've removed the FBReader toolbar, and thus, disabled the internal library.
  • This was mostly done to speed up porting time. With the library removed, much less needed to be done to the code of the program to port it.
  • All refreshes are done internally. No hacked libX11 is used!

• By default, FBReader will add supported file extensions to the registry
  • This makes FBReader act like any other viewer on the iLiad.
  • FBReader settings and configuration will be saved to /mnt/settings so a software update should not erase them.

• The installer no longer requires a memory card, and will be installed to internal memory.
  • The internal memory of the iLiad has 7.8MB free after installing FBReader. It should not interfere with anything else installed internally.

Based on a support thread I made, file extensions supported are:

• chm
• rtf
• oeb
• opf
• epub
• fb2
• tcr

Because the toolbar is gone, most of the important functions can now be accessed by the hardware buttons:

• Upper Left/Quit Button
  • Will cancel out of TOC screen, and will quit when inside the book.

• Page Bar Forward
  • Short Press
    • Next Page

  • Long Press
    • Redo

• Page Bar Backward
  • Short Press
    • Previous Page

  • Long Press
    • Undo

• Up Arrow
  • Short Press
    • Previous TOC Section

  • Long Press
    • Increase Font Size

• Dot or "Enter" Button
  • Short Press
    • Show Table of Contents

  • Long Press
    • Rotate Page

• Down Arrow
  • Short Press
    • Next TOC Section

  • Long Press
    • Decrease Font Size

Installation of this is simple. You'll need firmware 2.12 and Developer Shell access. Unzip the file, and copy anywhere on your iLiad. You will need to restart your iLiad when it prompts you. After you've restarted, you can delete the installation directory.

There will be no icon to run FBReader, you'll need to select a book from the contentlister with one of the file extensions listed above.
Supported books will have a valid icon.

08:35 AM by Gaurnim in E-Book General | News

According to this article on Reuters, Random House plans to sell some books online by the chapter.

The article is rather short, so I'll quote it entirely here:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Random House Publishing Group, the world's largest book publisher, is planning to test selling individual chapters of a popular book to gauge reader demand, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Random House, a unit of German media giant Bertelsmann (BERT.UL), will sell the six chapters and epilogue of "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die" for $2.99 each according to the report.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Quentin Bryar)

URL :
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...technologyNews

I would say that the price is not very attractive, it amounts to something like 21$ for the whole book if I get it right ...

08:13 AM by obelix in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

Autorun SUDOKU game.

http://www.msh-tools.com/ebook/sudoku.html

Get archive at www.msh-tools.com/ebook/sudoku.zip , unpack to the root folder of the card. Insert card to the Reader.

1. Disclaimer. Use it on your own risk. However, this game does not modify firmware. In the worst case scenario the Reader can be "frozen" (for example, if the card is removed while playing). In this case press "reset" at the back and do "switch off" and "switch on".

2. The "hacks" applied to the Reader (PRS-500) can redirect the keys. Currently Sudoku should play on the unmodified Readers and the Readers where joystick is redefined to move to the next page (on "right" click). Advanced users can easily modify autorun.xml (the part where movements (keys) are defined) in accordance with the "hacks". What functions used in the "hacks" can be realized from the source of the hack builder.

In the feature I can modify the code to read "applicationStart.xml" when starting to automatically recognize current settings for the keys. Or some other way.

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

Another week, another steady stream of mobile goodness here on MobileRead. Our authentic roundup of what's been going on:

E-Books - News

• Sony Vending Machines (Kiosks)

E-Books - Elsewhere on the Net

• Free Firefly novel "My Own Kind of Freedom"
• Free e-book: My Digital Generation

E-Book Devices - iRex iLiad

• iRex iLiad Firmware 2.12 released

E-Book Devices - Amazon Kindle

• How would you change Amazon's Kindle?
• New Cases for the Kindle

Mobile Devices - Handhelds and Smartphones

• Apple Announces New Iphone & Ipod

Miscellaneous - Lounge

• 20 things you (probably) didn't know about Science Fiction