02:23 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | Reading Recommendations

Some books are just so good that people need to know about them and read them. The kind of book that you stay up all night to read, and then you immediately go out and buy another book from that author because you just can't get enough. You know, the kind that makes you want to grab strangers on the street and emphatically say to them, "You must read this book!"

As a public service, and to prevent you from grabbing strangers on the street, this is now the opening post of a discussion thread designed to provide a place to share your good fortune when you've read an e-book that we all should know about. Just add your comment to join the discussion. Whether it's a free book or expensive. Fiction or non-fiction. Serious or fun. Even science fiction. (Actually, that's probably the favorite genre of gadget fans!)

Or, if you recently had the displeasure of reading a book that you don't recommend, feel free to play the critic here also. If you're a book reader, you probably know what I mean ab out reading a book you don't like. Common sense would say that you should put it down if you don't like the beginning. But we book readers are not always the most logical of people. Sometimes it's hard to put a book down even when you don't like it. I suppose we always have hope it will suddenly become good, and no matter how uninteresting, we just have to find out what happens to those imaginary characters that we don't even care about!

Be sure to tell us something about what kind of book it is, and why you liked it so much and what device you read it on. All the more if you used one of those new-fangled e-ink readers. Even simple instructions for acquiring and converting, if appropriate. Plus, if you like, a link to an online store page from a site like Amazon, Fictionwise, or eReader is fine also (but set up just to generate sales partner revenues), and will allow us quick access to a review.

Important note: No ads from authors and booksellers please! They will probably be moderated anyway. This is a casual thread intended for the fun and pleasure of all of us ordinary readers.

Many thanks to yvanleterrible for the suggestion.

04:07 AM by CommanderROR in More E-Book Readers | HanLin eBook

Our valued member TaKir just told me that there is a review of the Hanlin V8 (Russian version) online now. You can find it here.

It's all in Russian, but maybe a babelfish translation or some friend from Russia can provide a translation for us English-speaking folks.

10:11 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

That's the question that publisher Joe Wikert is asking - "Would you pay money to read blogs?"

While he realizes that the obvious answer is "Of course not!", he points out that there might be circumstances that it would be worth a few dollars a year to get some content that you really want to read. Now, as a publisher, I'm sure he tends to find paying for content more palatable than the general public, but does he have a point?

Using his example, if you are a sports fan, would you pay $5-$10 per year to be able to read the blogs of your favorite sports writer or athlete? Or pick your favorite five personalities in the world... would you pay to read what they have to say?

Off the top of my head, I can think of three reasons why I think this model it will only work on a very limited basis:

1) There will always be free alternatives. And if there is plenty of good stuff to read, why pay for additional content if you are already satiated? If it's really good stuff, maybe. But I don't think it will generate a mass market of buyers happy to shell out the bucks. The desire to be heard will guarantee that there will always be good free content. People, especially notable people, are more likely to be motivated by sharing their message than making a few bucks.

2) Nobody likes to give over their financial information on the web, and people love things that are free. It's a definite barrier to sales. Why do you think micro payment systems are so difficult to make work, despite the great enthusiasm during the dot com boom? Partly because people don't want to pay for something they believe should be free. But mostly because they don't want to fork over their financial information even if the cost of something is only, say, a penny a year. It's not the penny, it's the principle in people's minds that the web "should be free" and the hassle and risks associated with any kind of payment system. It's a virtual hoop that a lot of people won't jump through.

3) There are alternative revenue systems available. Namely, advertising. If you can offer the content to readers for free, paid for by advertising instead of readers, it's likely to draw a larger and happier audience. Could pay content live alongside the free content until it takes over like cable TV has dominated broadcast stations over the air? Maybe, but I don't think it will get there in general. At least not until there is a universal payment system that everyone is comfortable with. At that point, I hope pay content on the web will not dominate, even for blogs.

As always, time will tell. For now, I don't think I'm ready to pay for blog content. Can I imagine content I'd be willing to pay for? Yeah. Would I actually pay for it? I honestly don't know because this is such a vague scenario right now. I'd have to answer with the consultant's favorite phrase - "It depends!" So despite my three points against, at the end of the day I have to admit that Joe Wikert brings up a really valid scenario for consideration.

06:52 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

Contrary to popular belief of freshmen everywhere, university professors are generally not there because they are great teachers. The top universities encourage good teaching, but they are focused on getting great reserachers. In the past, that was probably more in order to advance learning, but now it's also important in order to be able to fetch the revenues available as research grants.

So how does the work of a professor get judged? One significant way is to look at the research that's been published in academic journals. Especially the ones with the best reputations, who only publish the best work. They judge submissions by a "peer review" process where experts in the field look at the submission and determine whether it is worthy, or maybe provide input to the author necessary to bring it up to the publishers standards.

There are a lot of electronic versions of academic journals already, and libraries often find that the electronic versions are more used than the print versions because of the search capabilities. But we don't see large scale leaps into electronic publishing only. Now MediaCommons is making an effort to go that extra step to the electronic publishing world by bringing the whole peer review process along for the ride, hoping that the electronic journal will gain the same respect in the academic community as paper journals.

Personally, I think it will take better reader systems and permanently accessible formats to encourage the industry to completely let go of paper content. But eventually it will not be a technology issue. It's really a content issue. We just don't see it yet.

From arstechnica.com.

06:38 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

You've seen those flipbooks before... basically a stack of cards with animated images on them. They come to life when you flip the pages in rapid succession from from to back. It's an old-fashioned, low-tech movie.

Well, it turns out that it's not really very hard to make them, and you can use your own printer and an .avi video file to create a movie on a stack of business cards. The "secret" is Flipbook Printer for Windows. Or, if you are on Mac, try Movie Flipper.

From lifehacker.com.

06:31 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The news today brings a couple of interesting items that bring together two items that don't normally go together - mobile devices and water...

• Water Powered Mobile Phones [cellular-news.com] Two Japanese companies, DoCoMo and Aquafairy, are getting together to make a "water based micro fuel cell" that they hope to sell for use in mobile phones. The basic idea is that the recharger will turn water into the hydrogen that powers the fuel cell. Specifically, "The fuel cell is the smallest in the world with power output of 2 watts. The recharger combines DoCoMo's recharger technology with Aquafairy's thin film power unit technology and catalyst for producing hydrogen from water."

• A waterproof Palm-powered PDA [teleread.org] Generally, if you're going to get a ruggedized device, you'll pay steeply for it, and the specs will seem to be from devices several years old. Here's one more device that can stand up to the elements and keep on going. It's a $399 device, with only a 160x160 monochrome display, and a 33MHz Dragonball-VZ processor, and the ancient PalmOS 4.1.2. Yet, as TeleRead points out, it just might provide a device that can be an e-book reader around water. Personally, however, I'd rather just grab a case such as this pouch or something slightly more robust.

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

Here are the highlights from the past seven days of MobileRead:

Announcements
Welcome CommanderROR to our team!

Elsewhere on the Net
Palm Addicts meet-ups in NYC this weekend
This week's discounts on e-books

iRex iLiad
Happy iRex iLiad users around the Globe

Lounge
Skype protocol cracked for real?
Why Dr. Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) may be wrong and right about click fraud

Others
Flexible display technology progress demonstrated by HP

Palm OS
PalmOS Cobalt going to be released?

Sony Reader
Sony Reader video review at PCMag.com

01:48 PM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | iRex

It took a while for invites to trickle out (with help from CommanderROR), and then a little while longer for orders to be processed and packages to be sent out, yet finally the first iLiad devices have arrived at their new homes. Just in time our member Falk "tribble" had the grant idea to set up the Happy iLiad Frappr Map. If your iLiad has arrived, put yourself on the map and watch a happy community grow.

Also check out our freely-editable Wiki which has a list of those of us who ordered the iLiad and who have it either already received or are still waiting for it to arrive.