07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Here it is again, our weekly roundup! Enjoy!

E-books - News

• Did Paperback Digital go out of business?
• LG.Philips LCD: Hi-res 14.3-inch flexible color display
• EU forcing DRM interoperability

E-book Devices - Sony Portable Reader

• Free $50 Credit at Sony Ebook Store

E-book Devices - Amazon Kindle

• Feedbook delivers one-click Kindle downloads

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Complete works of Charles Dickens now available in MobileRead's e-book section!

05:52 AM by Kingston in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

Sony is a huge electronics company and produces hundreds if not thousands of electronic devices. They have a history of entering a new market and then pulling out or downsizing a division so that there is minimal support once the niche market matures and Sonys place in a niche market becomes clear.

I have a couple of old Sony TiVos gathering dust. I bought ReplayTV after the Sony TiVo and it still works great after all these years. Neither company has made a DVR in several years.

Sony originated the minidisc format, and I got into it about 6-7 years ago. At that time there were around 12 or so Sony minidisc recorder/players to choose from. Now, at least in the American market, a buyer is limited to one model only.

Anyone remember WebTV? I am looking at a Sony WebTV gathering dust on top of my old Sony 32 inch console.

The point of all this blather is that you folk supporting Sony ereader products are doomed by history. Amazon has the muscle and the wherewithall to make their product a success. Not to mention the much greater variety of books to choose from. And the ultimate 'killer app'..much lower book prices.

Sony just can't provide the content that Amazon can, and they will eventually bow out due to market pressures. Sony is like RCA or any other huge company. They just want to see profits in the bottom line.With Amazon gobbling their market share the Sony reader will be gathering dust in 10 years or less along with my Sony TiVo and Sony WebTV.

Yes they will continue to support the old readers, but you can bet your booties that Sony will be a fond memory in the ereader sweepstakes within 5-7 years.

I am a Kindle owner and was only vaguely familiar with the Sony reader before entering the ebook world. It seems to be a great product from what I have read and has a few features the version 1 Kindle lacks such as enhanced grayscale and formatting capabilities not to mention the ever-commented-upon PDF capability. I might even have bought one if the software were Mac compatible (why it's not is beyond me).

Bottom line: Sony's ereader division is a tiny portion of this great companies revenue. Bezos and Amazon have a much greater stake in making the Kindle a long term winner. Sony can bow out gracefully in a few years, just as they did with their TiVo and WebTV. They will probably offer a Reader for years to come, but don't expect them to fight a losing battle against Amazon when it is not in Sony's best financial interest to do so.

I have been on the wrong side of format wars before. Remember Sony Betamax? Yup, I used it for years and have hundreds of tapes stored away. Maybe Kindle is not the "best" reader out there ( I am a Kindle owner and think so!) but the format which makes the most noise in publicity and ease of use will just naturally survive. Darwin's Natural Selection.

I hope you Sony owners don't take post as an insult. Just an historical review. I got plenty upset when it became apparent that my beloved Betamax was not going to survive against the more popular VHS format. It's still a "better" VCR, for what it's worth. But it is a museum piece, whereas VHS is still around almost 30 years later.

08:25 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Amazon Kindle

The Kindle is a great piece of hardware. It's ink is easy on the eyes and you can download books from Amazon's Web site wherever there's a cell phone signal. And the Kindle is getting even better if you use it with Feedbooks's extensive Kindle Download Guide. The guide is essentially a Mobipocket e-book that contains a list of public domain and creative commons books available for direct download from Feedbooks - for free! Simple load the guide onto your Kindle device, select a name of the book in the list and your Kindle will initiate the download. How could it be any easier?

For more information about this wonderful Feedbooks feature join our ongoing discussion.

07:42 AM by Hadrien in E-Book General | News

Today, the European Commission announced a plan to create a single, European-wide market for online music, films, and video games. It's even pushing for content owners to get their collective act together and produce a truly interoperable, consumer-friendly DRM system.

Source: Ars Technica

06:04 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

E-paper with high resolution seems to be in vogue these days. If you're going to be at this year's Consumer Electronics Show don't miss the "world's highest resolution" 14.3-inch flexible color e-paper presented by LG.Philips LCD. It's 14.3-inch in size (that's nearly an A4 paper) with a "never before seen resolution" of 1280x800 pixels. Did we mention that it's bendable and can be viewed from a full 180 degrees? Sure, we didn't expect anything less. Add to it some color (16.7 million colors in fact), and you'll have the perfect tool to make the perfect e-book reader.

Now, before you get too excited and trash your old e-reader, remember that this is what we might expect in the future but not any time soon. LG.Philips LCD mentions in the same press release that for 2008 they are going to launch their mono flexible e-paper in B5 size. Quite a downer compared to the head-spinning display above.

[via MR members grimo1re and Mycropht, and Korea Times]

02:34 PM by NatCh in Miscellaneous | Announcements

We here at MobileRead are very pleased to announce that, thanks to the diligent efforts of our own HarryT, we now have the complete works of Charles Dickens available in MobileRead's e-book section.

According to HarryT's comments, this includes everything except "a few items of Dickens' journalism, letters, etc, which are not available in electronic format."

It should be noted that several others have posted various portions of Dickens' works, and we do not mean to diminish their efforts in the least.

However we felt this accomplishment worthy of mention because it represents Dickens' entire electronically available works formatted to a common standard by a single individual which gives them a nice feeling of continuity.

Please join me in offering HarryT a word of appreciation and encouragement for his time and effort in putting this together for us.

04:11 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Their homepage has been replaced with an out of business sign.We have a report from one forum member that their purchasing system has been disabled for several weeks. The former customers of Paperback Digital would deeply appreciate it if someone would explain what happened. Please feel free to respond to this thread.

03:07 PM by fakehate in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

This is from a post at slickdeals.net

For those with an account in the Ebook Store from Sony (for the Sony Reader), do the following:

1) Log into your account
2) Click on 'Account' on the top right
3) Click on 'Redeem A Code'
4) Enter code "HOLIDAYGIFT" (case sensitive)

Voila, $50 in your account for free books. I think this is for users who purchased directly from Borders Books, but it seems to work for everybody (Costco, direct from Sony, etc). I purchased from a different store, and this worked on top of the $50 coupon that I received.

Edit: This Gift Code will also work with a newly opened account. If you've never registered your Reader, now is a great time to do it.