10:50 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

The e-paper buzz is now too loud to ignore. Shiny Shiny's Shiny Susi had the opportunity to spend some quality time with the Polymer Vision Readius device during the 3GSM exhibit. You can see it in action in this video at Tech Digest.

Also, we are hoping to get more live photos in our hands and have them posted in this thread.

Thanks to zuiderling for the link.

06:18 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

They claim to be the world's largest distributor of digital magazines, but that didn't stop the management of Zinio from selling the company and cashing in. From the press release:

Zinio Systems Inc., the leading digital publishing and distribution platform for magazines and books, announced today that it has been acquired by Gilvest LP, an investment entity owned by entrepreneur and renowned businessman David H. Gilmour and managed by Doug Carlson. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Mr. Gilmour and Mr. Carlson have a successful track record in growing small businesses and will provide new capital to help fund technology advancements to support Zinio's continued growth.

In case you wonder, Mr. Gilmour is the right guy on the picture receiving the Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence.

Related: Demand for downloads of digital magazines surges

10:40 AM by Steven Lyle Jordan in E-Book General | News

Mark your calendars, and prepare to be a part of history, culture, and literature... March 4-10 2007 is Read an E-book Week, and it's a year not to be missed! This year, I am joining award-winning author Rita Toews in supporting and promoting Read an E-book Week 2007.

As I've worked on this project, even I have been surprised by the number of e-book authors and e-book sellers out there, available to even a cursory search. I've passed the word on to over 300 sites myself, and there are hundreds more out there. Not bad for a format that many people don't believe will ever make it beside books, or don't even know about!

The e-book is already following the path that the paperback book blazed a century ago, from lowly and illegitimate roots, to a place of respect beside hardback books. And during Read an E-book Week, we’re going to help it along by encouraging e-book readers, authors and publishers to pitch in. Please visit http://www.domokos.com/readebookweek.html to find out more about Read an E-book Week, including background on the e-book revolution, planned activities in 2007, and tips from Rita and me on things you can do to support e-books!

(Rita Toews created Read an E-book Week in 2002. She has written and co-authored award-winning children’s books, crime novels and historical dramas, available through www.domokos.com.)

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

John Biggs shot the first photo of the Polymer Vision Readius presented at the 3GSM congress in Barcelona this year. The Readius, aka Cellular Book, aka librofonino, has a flexible 5-inch e-paper display capable of displaying 16 grey levels. Most likely it's going to be exclusively available in Italy later this year.

Let's cross fingers for more photos to pop up soon.

Related: Rollup screen e-reader device for 2007

05:43 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

If you happen to be in the New York City neighborhood on May 9th, you can catch the Digital Book 2007 conference at the McGraw-Hill Auditorium. Hosted by the International Digital Publishing Forum, it will give you an opportunity to learn more about "the latest reading devices and software, digital textbooks and curricula, publisher's digital repositories, and web book and library search."

Price for registration is $179 (or $89, if you are an IDPF member).

10:20 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

As many of you know we are working on a weekly newsletter for you to read on your favorite e-book reader. It's pretty much work in progress and I invite you to take a first look and share your opinion. You can download it from here:

• https://www.mobileread.com/newsletter...tter-iliad.pdf (PDF, iLiad version)
• https://www.mobileread.com/newsletter...etter-sony.pdf (PDF, Sony version)
• https://www.mobileread.com/newsletter...sony-adobe.pdf (PDF, Sony version)
• https://www.mobileread.com/newsletter...er-sony-gs.pdf (PDF, Sony version)
• https://www.mobileread.com/newsletter/newsletter.html (HTML, you can convert it into any format you like)

Notice that I've uploaded various PDF versions for the Sony Reader. The first was created with htmldoc, the second with Adobe Distiller, and the third with Ghostscript. None of the three offers an optimal solution (yet):

htmldoc produces what I call "inefficient" PDF files, which can severely slow down page turns on slow devices (such as the Sony Reader). You can try this for yourself when you flip pages, especially as you're approaching the end of the document.

Adobe Distiller produces the by far best PDF files, highly optimized for speed. It may have to do with the "optimized for fast Web viewing" switch (only?) available in Distiller, which cleans up the internal structure of a PDF file to allow for faster page-by-page viewing. Alas, Adobe Distiller is not suitable as we need an automated console solution based on Linux.

Ghostscript produces "better" PDF files than htmldoc, but for some unknown reason, internal hyperlinks would not work with the PDF viewer of the Sony Reader. You can try this phenomenon also by opening the PDF file in the Sony Connect desktop software and clicking on one of the internal links in the document's table of contents.

The Adobe Distiller and Ghostscript PDF files were produced via Postscript through html2ps.

At this point, I am pretty much fed up with PDF. For the same reason, I decided that we will also offer the newsletter in HTML format that you can use with your own conversion tools to convert the newsletter into any other format. For instance, I found it to work pretty well with iSiloX.

Lastly, iRex iLiad users will be able to receive the final weekly newsletter through iRex iDS.

Happy reading!

07:00 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-book Devices, Future E-Book Devices
Rollup screen e-reader device for 2007
Programmable Tatoos

E-book Devices, iRex iLiad
M-edge adds more cases for e-reader devices

E-book Devices, Sony Portable Reader
First Sony Reader Update Available!

E-books, Content
OpticBook 3600 Book Scanner Review - Part I

E-books, News
There ain't no Harry Potter magic in e-books
NY Times owner - Print version irrelevant or gone in 5 years
Give a Sony Reader to Jessica Rowling and help Médecins Sans Frontières

Mobile Devices, Handhelds and Smartphones
RapidReader for PalmOS, Windows, Mac and Symbian

09:20 PM by nekokami in E-Book General | News

Note: due to valid concerns expressed by several people about giving such a gift directly to a minor, the proposal now is to give it directly to Ms. Rowling, but with the suggestion that she shares it with any children she chooses, so she can see their reactions.

Hi folks,

As we all know, none of the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling are legally available in e-book format. Whether due to concerns about piracy, a desire to have her books read on paper, or both, Rowling and her publishers have declined to authorize electronic editions. Some publishers seem to believe that e-books just won't work for the juvenile market. Yet, as we also know, enthusiastic fans generally make e-book versions of each installment in the series available shortly after the paper edition is published -- sometimes within 24 hours. And other authors have successfully sold e-boks that are often compared with Rowling's: Christopher Paolini, Phillip Pullman, Susan Cooper, etc.

I believe that most readers who download unauthorized editions would happily pay for legitimate e-book versions. I also believe that Ms. Rowling may not have had a chance to experience the new technologies available for enjoying e-books, most particularly E Ink. Finally, I believe that contrary to the opinions of those publishers quoted above, kids could be quite willing to read e-books. They're just waiting for the right device to hit the market -- and perhaps, for someone to lead the way.

Hence my proposal. Jessica Rowling, J.K. Rowling's daughter, turns 14 on July 28, 2007. I suggest we take up a collection using Amazon Honor System (or a similar tool) to buy Jessica a Sony Reader and load it up with books we think she'll like -- a combination of public domain classics and contemporary works. Just to increase the coolness factor, I suggest we create a custom cover for the Reader using one of the colored covers sold by Sony and an embroidered patch (see below for mockup). And to encourage people to participate, I suggest we make this a fundraiser for Médecins Sans Frontières, an organization I know Rowling has supported in the past. If, for some reason, insufficient funds are collected to reach our goal of the purchase of the reader and books, all funds would be donated to MSF. If, as I hope, we exceed the amount required for this project, all additional funds would be donated to MSF.

Suggestions for books we might include on the Reader have been discussed elsewhere, and I will summarize here:

The Oz series: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_author/96
Grimm's Fairy Tales: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/187
The Arabian Nights: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/208
A Christmas Carol: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/59
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/22
Treasure Island: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/97
Works by Jane Austen, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, and E. Nesbit (known favorite authors of Ms. Rowling)

Eragon and Eldest by Christopher Paolini, the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman, the Dark is Rising cycle by Susan Cooper, the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix, and/or the works of Meg Cabot. Other suggestions are welcome.

If there is at least some interest here, I will also publicize this fundraiser in other Harry Potter related areas, e.g. the Harry Potter for Grownups email list, http://mugglenet.com, and http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org. These have been successful venues for muggle fundraisers in the past, and I think we could get a lot of support.