07:25 AM by kacir in E-Book General | News

Lost in another thread I have come across Walkbook, an interesting e-reader device available in countries of the European Union. Meaning we do not have to pay exorbitant import taxes anymore just to get an e-book reader with an 800x600 6" screen. Now we can pay the (slightly-less) exorbitant Value Added Tax instead ;-)

Walkbook claims to be "OEM partner of Jinke products", opening their EU office in Paris / France by the end of this month. So we are eagerly awaiting a working "Buy now" link.

PS: Unfortunately the site only works in one of my three installed Windows browsers. Please, dear walkbook.net operators/administrators, if you read this, make the site accessible to people who can't use (or can't stand) Flash animation.

04:34 PM by slayda in E-Book General | News

An article on ZDnet may be of interest for those worried about DRM. It seems that Media Rights Technologies think that Apple, Microsoft & others are violating our rights.

A California company that makes technology designed to prevent ripping of digital audio streams has accused Apple, Microsoft, RealNetworks and Adobe Systems of violating federal copyright law by "actively avoiding" use of its products.

Media Rights Technologies and its digital radio subsidiary BlueBeat.com said in a press release Thursday that it had issued cease and desist letters to the high-tech titans. It argues that the companies have manufactured billions of copies of Windows Vista, Adobe Flash Player, Real Player and Apple's iTunes and iPod "without regard for the DMCA or the rights of American intellectual property owners."

02:48 PM by Steven Lyle Jordan in E-Book General | News

Literary news is full of Philip Roth, author of "Portnoy's Complaint" and many other novels, winning the first ever PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, a $40,000 prize named for the late Nobel laureate and one of Roth's closest friends and literary heroes.

However, when listening to this news bit on the radio this morning, my ears pricked up when Roth was recorded saying, "(I regret that) the age of the book is coming to an end." (I've found no further info on this quote, or anything else said around it. Maybe someone can track down the entire statement somewhere.)

Sour grapes? Just an old man resistant to change? What do you think?

02:39 PM by vranghel in E-Book General | News

A very interesting podcast with with Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive, Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg, and Michael Keller of Stanford's library (Keller is working with Google on its library scanning project).

The main topics of the podcast includes Google's effort of digitising the world's major University and many suggestions of how Google can make their book search more approachable and more accesible to both individuals and scholars, and also available in bulk.

Encyclopedia of Life / Digital Libraries [via BoingBoing]

07:47 AM by tribble in E-Book General | News

From here:

LG.Philips LCD [NYSE: LPL, KRX: 034220], a leading innovator of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) technology, announced today that it developed the world’s first 14.1-inch flexible color E-paper display, equivalent in size to an A4 sheet of paper. This is a second breakthrough in E-paper for LG.Philips LCD, which introduced the world’s first 14.1-inch black and white flexible E-paper display in May 2006.

The 14.1-inch flexible color E-paper uses electronic ink from E-Ink Corp. to produce a maximum of 4,096 colors. It can be viewed from a full 180 degrees, so that images always appear crisp, even when the display is bent.

Just saw this, thought you are interested

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

Have something interesting to say about mobile computing or reading? Join our forums and share your view on topics like the ones discussed at MobileRead this past week...

E-book Devices, eREAD STAReBOOK
eRead's STAReBOOK goes to New Zealand

E-book Devices, HanLin eBook
New E Ink reader hits the streets: lBook eReader V3

E-book Devices, iRex iLiad
Andrew Marr reluctantly impressed by the iLiad

E-book Devices, Sony Portable Reader
Sony Reader featured on Daily Gizwiz podcast
New Sony Reader Ads: "Why give Mom one book...?"
Sony Reader - how to change its contrast ratio
Engadget award goes to the Sony Reader

E-books, News
USB Flash Drive Worm: I Suppose it Was Only a Matter of time
50-inch e-paper devices by 2013, says market researcher
E Ink launches next-gen electronic ink: Vizplex
NYC presentation: Sony Reader for the visually handicapped
Adobe's Bill McCoy: "The Future Is Here."
Petition Amazon to enable customer votes for e-book conversions
Bill Gates says "Reading is going to go completely online."

Mobile Devices, Handhelds and Smartphones
Cell phone with game controller wings

09:04 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

The results are in of this year's Engadget awards for the "most excellent gadgets and consumer technologies." The Sony Reader (drum roll please) won the Editors' Choice award as handheld of the year. In the Readers' (reader as in voter) Choice category, the Reader got beaten into second place by the Sony VAIO UX280P.

The most prestigious award went to the the Nintendo Wii as gadget of the year (both Editors' and Readers'). The Golden Raspberry went to Microsoft's Zune player and Sony's exploding batteries.

List of all winners: Link

Related: Vote for the Sony Reader!

07:44 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

Just because Bill Gates says something is so, doesn't mean it is. But like him or not, when Bill Gates makes a prediction, people listen. This time we get to hear some of his thoughts about e-books. Quillblog refers to a collection of quotes on the topic from a speech, and I think it's quite fair to say he's bullish on e-books.

Here is one example... "Reading is going to go completely online. We believe that as we get the smaller form factor, the screen has gotten good enough. Why is reading online better? It's up to date, you can navigate, you can follow links. The ads in the online reading are completely targeted as opposed to just being run-of-print, where many of the readers will find them completely irrelevant. The ads can be in new and richer formats. In fact the only drawbacks of the digital form are the things associated with the device: how big is it, heavy is it, how many hours of power does it have, how much do I have to spend to buy it? But those are things that once you achieve that threshold, in terms of the convenience and the cost, then you see a dramatic change in behavior. Today, for people who read newspapers and magazines, even the most avid PC user probably still does quite a bit of reading on print. As the device moves down in size and simplicity, that will change, and so somewhere in the next five-year period we'll hit that transition point, and things will be even more dramatic than they are today."

In many ways, the hardware is getting very close to being reasonably priced, easy to use and sufficient quality to be wondering how close the tipping point is. But DRM and format wars still continue to drain the life out of the industry. Five years? Maybe. I hope so!

From QuillBlog.