11:25 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Until now, creating e-books in the recently introduced ePub format (which is poised to become the next open e-book standard) has not been exact science but more of a trial and error process. This may change now that Piotr Kula, a Berkeley student who spent his summer intern at Adobe, has documented the necessary steps to create ePub documents with the convenience of Adobe InDesign.

First installment of the documentation: Link.

[via Adobe Blogs]

Related: Adobe Digital Editions 1.0 released

11:05 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

SciFi Tech's Stephen Schleicher had a closer look at the Sony Reader and he concludes (rightly so we'd like to say) that the Reader is a pretty nice piece of electronics.

WHAT'S COOL
Great form factor, lightweight, and runs circles around other e-readers on the market. Users can convert most traditional text formats for use on the device.

WHAT'S LAME
No color display - making graphic novels, many e-magazines, and pictures worthless to users. DRM-laden books from online store may stifle adoption.

FINAL MARK: B
Certainly the best e-reader out there, but the minor flaws bring the true usefulness and cool factor down several notches.

Jump here to read the full review.

Related: Other Reader reviews

10:40 AM by Alexander Turcic in Sony Reader | Sony Reader Dev Corner

The Sony Reader is getting better and better -- especially since hacker genius igorsk has unlocked its flashing process. Care to change the joystick's functionality? Tired of the original icon set? Fear not. Our friend diabloNL has put up a list of available hacks (most of which he made by himself) that allow you to customize the Sony Reader to your liking.

While it's pretty save to apply these hacks, if you are new to the game, make sure to read Bob's excellent step-by-step guide first.

09:53 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | HanLin eBook

While this doesn't mark the first time that we've caught wind of the HanLin (aka lBook) eReader V3, MobileReader miyami is probably among the first e-book aficionados here who put his hands around it. He was also kind enough to shoot some real life (i.e. non-photoshopped) photos for us.

Is it just me or does the interface look remarkably similar to the one of the Sony Reader? Well, no one got hurt here. And, just like the upcoming Cybook Gen3, the V3 is equipped with E Ink's superior Vizplex e-paper technology which promises faster refreshes and a better contrast than previous E Ink devices (this video gives you an idea).

Find the photos and the ongoing discussion here; for specs, check out this older thread.

04:27 PM by sea2stars in E-Book General | News

HarperCollins offers digital book content for iPhone.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Publisher HarperCollins said on Wednesday it would make samples from 14 new book titles available for Apple Inc's Web-browsing iPhone in a new effort to extend publishing into digital formats.

Most of the new books will debut in August and September, with the iPhone-compatible versions available at HarperCollins mobile Web site.

Books available for sampling on the iPhone include "The Burnt House" by Faye Kellerman, "Now and Forever" by Ray Bradbury and "Obama" by David Mendell.

HarperCollins' "Browse Inside" applications allows readers to sample pages of its books on the Web. The company began to build up its digital warehouse of published material in 2006 with digital technology firm LibreDigital and now has 10,000 titles available.

iPhone subscribers will be able to view the first 10 pages of chapters one and two of the select group of new books in what HarperCollins described as a pilot program.

After sampling the stories, customers can choose to buy or pre-order the book from retailers through the mobile application.

HarperCollins is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg, with additional reporting by Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay in Bangalore)

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Source Story

05:16 AM by CommanderROR in iRex | iRex Developer's Corner

Greetings Everybody!

Since iRex has now provided quite a few developers and users with the "Reflash from CF" package and will provide it to the mainstream with the next (2.11) release, it is time to start thinking about more deep-down modifications for the Iliad.

iRex has actually gone ahead and asked on their own forum whether anyone would be willing to work on a Linux 2.6 Kernel Port for the Iliad.
Our most beloved () developer Adam B. has already started a thread on this here in the Developers Section and Antartica has stated willingness to give it a try...
Since there have been only a few responses to either topic so far I decided to give this a place on the frontpage and call out to all Linux Developers out there:

If you are willing and able to help with porting the 2.6 Kernel to the Iliad, then now is the time to join the fray and earn a place in the Iliad Hall-of-Fame!

Please use the two threads linked above if you want to help and/or give encouragement to the developers.
Thanks!

09:42 AM by Adam B. in More E-Book Readers | iRex

I've ported GPE Calendar, Contacts, and Todo for the iLiad. Since they share so many libraries, I've included them in a single package. GPE does not have any sync abilities that I'm aware of, so you won't be able to keep it updated with your PC. But, it's a step in the right direction.

It's a standard installer, unzip it to your memory card (not internal memory, as that will have unexpected effects), and run on the iLiad.

06:30 PM by Hadrien in iRex | iRex Developer's Corner

We've been working on an application for the iLiad and Feedbooks.com that will have the following features:

• Download directly the feeds/sudokus/newspapers that you subscribed
• Search & download all of the books available on Feedbooks
• Get personal recommendations based on your downloads/favorites
• Select between the iLiad template or your custom settings for the overall look of the PDF files

Here's a few screenshots of the work in progress.
We're currently developing the application on Linux, but a skilled iLiad programmer, Adam B., will handle the port.