07:06 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

eBooks.com has a 20% discount till the end of this months on e-books in any of these categories:

• Business
• Suspense Fiction
• Religion
• Social Science
• Study Aids

Use the coupon code Categorysalecp at the payment details page to claim the discount.

06:39 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Bookeen

In what appears to be the day of corporate blogs, Paris-based Bookeen too has just started to blog own their own.

We finally decided to have our own blog to give all the information concerning our developments but also to discuss directly with you and get your feedback and your thoughts about what is going on in the ebook world.

Bookeen is about to launch their highly-anticipated Cybook Gen3 e-reader, which is similar to the current Sony Reader in size, but comes with a newer E Ink screen and adds support for Mobipocket e-books.

Thanks to Egghead for the tip!

Related: Cybook Gen3 samples getting ready, First sample units arrived - review by Friday or Monday

06:26 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | iRex

Netherlands-based Philips spin-off iRex Technologies is getting a new cash injection worth EUR 6 million to continue developing next-generation e-book readers.

"This new funding brings in the opportunity to support our ambitious growth plans. The E-reader market is moving rapidly, with global sales doubling annually. Our product has been recognized as the best on the market and we intend to extend our lead by investing significant resources in developing an even more powerful next generation of E-readers," said Hans Brons, CEO of iRex Technologies.

Also, iRex has jumped on the blogging bandwagon by launching their own corporate blog which could help the company to approach current and potential customers in a more chatty, open and casual way. I.e. let's cut the B2B talk.

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

In case you've missed any MobileRead news from this week, here is our usual roundup:

E-books - News

• Borders online bookstore beta
• They Just Don't Get It!
• Borders and Sony expand Reader agreement
• Falling in Love with E-books -- Harlequin does the full "e"

E-books - Content

• Feedbooks to support ePub format

E-books - Book Recommendations

• As the Mirror Cracks by Steve Jordan

E-book Devices - Sony Portable Reader

• Sony Connect Store and Borders: is this the beginning of a Beautiful Friendship?

Mobile Devices - Handhelds and Smartphones

• What's on my Treo smart phone? Not just e-books.

Mobile Devices - Others

• Intel Lorado notebook showcased at IDF 2007

Miscellaneous - Lounge

• Harvard bookstore: Book prices are ours!

03:21 PM by jasonkchapman in E-Book General | News

According to Publishers Weekly, romance publisher Harlequin will now be releasing e-book versions of all of their titles simultaneously with the paper versions. That's 120 titles per month.

Okay, okay. So most of the people here don't read romance novels. That's not important. Those who do tend to be voracious readers. They also tend to be well outside of both the SF and gadgeteer profiles, two groups that have already embraced e-books. I see this as an important sign of the e-book industry dipping into the mainstream market.

Harlequin also seems to "get it". They're including both MobiPocket and Sony formats, and the e-books will be "priced slightly lower" than the paper versions.

12:01 PM by NatCh in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

By now it's old news (two whole days) that Borders and Sony have hammered out an alliance in e-reading, combining their respective developing on-line presences to create a new e-book source (in addition to Borders' new on-line paper book sales point).

One of the things we, as an e-reading community, have been concerned about is what sort of long-term commitment Sony might have to this whole e-reader/e-book thing. So I thought I'd share what I'm thinking on the matter, taking into account recent developments, news and rumors.

Let's see, in addition to this Borders/ConnStore alliance, we have unusually reliable rumors of a follow on model in the PRS line, not a total make-over, more of an incremental move. We also have a full up press release from Adobe which contains the tidbit that Sony "has committed to embed Adobe Digital Editions technology into its portable reader product line."

Buried in the actual press release about the new BordConnStore, is the morsel that they are now up to 20k books -- most likely the ConnStore's present holdings, as Borders doesn't have any e-books that we know about. This then implies that the ConnStore has doubled its holdings since the launch, which is pretty impressive, considering the fact that we know they have lost some titles along the way. And the ConnStore itself has improved drastically in function over the last year -- in fact, it seems to me that it has improved markedly since Sony dropped the music part of it a few months ago.

So, to summarize: .epub support announcement, doubled available title count, significant ConnStore functional improvements, new on-line alliance with Borders, new PRS model next month.

These all seem to me to add up to a fairly good indication that Sony plans to stick with this e-reading stuff ....

(As an aside, I note here, that they have, as they implied they would about this time last year, been pretty "hands off" when it's come to user hacks -- that doesn't really fit the present topic, but I find it gratifying, and interesting)

On the counter-indication side, we have ... well, I guess we have that they have been doing only a very limited marketing campaign (certainly you can't call it a "blitz"). That they've only released two firmware updates in eleven months (on a device that was eminently functional out of the box). That they're closing the music part of Connect, while leaving the e-book part intact.

Call me a skeptic, but none of those strike me as all that compelling negative evidence.

Okay, here's where I get speculative on you. I see two very large companies coming together to bring an e-book store into the world (to join an existing e-reading device). Both parent corporations have great name recognition, and both have excellent contacts and influence within the publishing community. It looks to me like they're moving in a direction that should strengthen .epub's already strong position (by virtue of its being an Adobe product) as a contender for a 'standard' e-book delivery format. It further seems to me that we're seeing a lot of new resources put into this joint effort. I don't see that as pointing toward Sony bailing on e-books or e-readers anytime soon.

At the same time, it should be noted that Amazon is doing more or less the same thing that Sony and Borders are doing together, but all on its own (I say on its own because they didn't partner with Mobi, they bought them, and they're bringing out their own e-reading hardware), and we've got fairly strong rumors that Mobi expects to support .epub as well.

Where will all this go? How fast will it get there? Are we finally seeing the tectonic shift that will start the e-book revolution?

I don't know, but whatever all this ends up meaning, I think I'm comfortable predicting that it will shake things up, and I'm optimistic that the results will be good for the e-reading world.

Now it's y'all's turn. What did I miss? Where am I wrong? And what should I be thinking.

12:05 PM by Steven Lyle Jordan in E-Book General | Reading Recommendations

Allow me to announce the release of my latest novel, As the Mirror Cracks.

Set in a world just a few steps ahead of our own, As the Mirror Cracks tells the story about the discovery of a plot to destroy an internationally-popular virtual reality space. Yeah, yeah, "So what," you say... but this is not just a virtual space... it has become thoroughly integrated into the world's economy, making its potential destruction a worldwide financial crisis! It's a race to save the Mirror, led by a small group of citizens, and their incredibly colorful Mirror avatars, or "reflections."

As the Mirror Cracks is now available at SteveJordanBooks.com. As always, the e-book is $2.50, available in multiple formats, and with NO DRM to sour the e-book-reading process! Enjoy!

Editorial Note: Let me add that Steve is a very active and valued member of MobileRead. His stance on DRM is much appreciated. But most importantly, he's a great writer. I have read several of his books, and I intend to go buy this one as well. Let's show the world that even a small online e-book publisher can do well by embracing a DRM-free philosophy!

09:01 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

If you just so happen to be stopping in the San Francisco area today and feel like checking this out, Intel has been showcasing the Intel Lorado at the Intel Developer Forum 2007.

Like the previously introduced Intel Metro, the Lorado is a concept PC of an ultra-ultra-thin and ultra-ultra-light notebook equipped with futuristic features to make a geek's head spin. Most fascinating without any doubt is the E Ink-based screen embedded on the outside top cover; it can be used with Microsoft Vista's SideShow technology to quickly access e-mails, photos, contact and calendar entries (and of course anything else SideShow might offer in the future).

Check out AnandTech for more photos.

Thanks to dugbug for sending in the news!