Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2 vs Kindle Voyage

wrapup

The Kindle Voyage builds upon the software and design principles of the Paperwhite line of e-readers. Today, we evaluate if it makes enough sense to upgrade from the second generation Kindle Paperwhite over to the Voyage.

The Voyage has superior resolution and DPI compared to the Kindle Paperwhite, but how does this play out in real world conditions? We show off the eBook and PDF experience to give you a sense on how the same content looks, side by side.


Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2 vs Kindle Voyage is a post from: Good e-Reader

The Longest Journey Finds Its Way to iOS

longest-journey-ios

If you like games that are equal parts book, movie, and game… The Longest Journey is something to be excited about. Described as being an interactive and beautifully created universe, The Longest Journey is told from the perspective of a young art student named April Ryan who possesses the power to pass between worlds (like others are able to pass between being awake and asleep).

Feel free to get yourself addicted to this franchise. Developed by Ragnar Tornquist and his team at development house, Red Thread Games, The Longest Journey: Dreamfall Chapters sequel was recently brought to computer and console gaming platforms by way of a tremendously successful Kickstarter campaign (they set out to raise $850,000, and ended up with over $1.5 million) –so chances are good that mobile games won’t have seen the last of these characters!

The Longest Journey Remastered has already been available for iOS users in New Zealand with an $8.99 price-tag, but there are plans for a North American release very soon. If you are ready for a real iOS gaming adventure, prepare to purchase and download The Longest Journey Remastered from the Apple App Store.

The Longest Journey Finds Its Way to iOS is a post from: Good e-Reader

Deep Loot Brings Old-School Gaming Charm to Android

deep-loot

The developers of Deep Loot describe the game as being about “swimming, digging and fighting your way through an infinitely explorable ocean to discover lost ruins, plunder hidden treasures and earn some chunky paychecks!” In reality, for those of us who used to spend their quarters in old-school arcades, Deep Loot is a trip down memory lane (even though it didn’t technically exist back then).

On the surface, the app is pretty simple: your friends push your pixelated self off of the boat, and you start searching for treasure. As you collect unique artifacts and complete challenges, you can upgrade your equipment and stay under-water longer.

Adding to the game is the unique musical score (comprised of 8 original tracks) that play in the background as you reminisce about how video games used to look (in a completely enchanting and charming way).

If you’d like to do a little deep sea diving on your Android device, download Deep Loot and give your luck a try.

Deep Loot Brings Old-School Gaming Charm to Android is a post from: Good e-Reader

Pi Talks at PyConUK

You may remember our Education team attended PyConUK in Coventry last month. We ran the Education Track, which involved giving workshops to teachers and running a Raspberry Jam day for kids at the weekend. We also gave talks on the main developer track of the conference.

Carrie Anne gave a fantastic keynote entitled Miss Adventures in Raspberry Pi wherein she spoke of her journey through teaching the new computing curriculum with Raspberry Pi, attending PyConUK the last two years, being hired by the Foundation, and everything she’s done in her role as Education Pioneer.

See the keynote slides here

I also gave my talk PyPi (not that one) – Python on the Raspberry Pi showing interesting Pi projects that use Python and demonstrating what you can do with a Pi that you can’t on other computers.

See the talk slides here

Alex gave his talk Teaching children to program Python with the Pyland game - a project Alex led over the summer with a group of interns at the Computer Lab.

See the talk slides here

The conference ended with a sprint day where Alex led a team building and testing Pyland and adding challenges, and I worked with a group of developers porting Minecraft Pi to Python 3.

If you missed it last week, we posted Annabel’s Goblin Detector, a Father-daughter project the 8 year old demonstrated at PyConUK while enjoying the Raspberry Jam day.

Kindle Voyage and New $79 Kindle Don’t Support Active Content (Games and Apps)

I’ve got some bad news for those of you that use Kindle Active Content, the games and apps designed specially for E Ink Kindle ebook readers. Amazon has decided to drop support for Kindle Active Content on newer Kindle models. In fact neither the Kindle Voyage or the new touchscreen Kindle support Active Content at […]

Amazon Decreases Review Times on New eBooks

ibooks

Apple has dispatched an email to authors who publish through iBooks, informing them on a number of new policy changes. The first, is to decrease the amount of time that the editorial staff approves for new titles for inclusion into the Apple Bookstore, it went from ten days to one business change. The second should really help authors in giving out  free copies of their digital book for review, with 250 promo codes.

Apple has revised the iBooks experience with the advent of iOS 8 and the new line of iPhone 6 smartphones. It is far easier to purchase and discover new content with the UI changes on the bottom of the screen. In the past, the store itself, was buried in sub-menus at the top of the screen, now it is more intuitive.

One of the big new initiatives on the iBooks app is the curation  and editorial content. There is now more seasonal and topical lists that abide by cool themes. Oh, and one of the biggest cleanups was removing Breakout Books, which was sourced by Smashwords. Indie authors have been booted off from the platform, in order to help readers find more quality content. In the future, you will soon be able to get book recommendations before and after purchases with technology leveraged by Booklamp, a company Apple bought a few months ago.

Amazon Decreases Review Times on New eBooks is a post from: Good e-Reader