Wednesday, March 25, 2015

“Fairy Tail of the Dead” Special Airing Manga & Anime In Same Week

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Fairy Tail’s creator Hiro Mashima is well known among his fans for putting out a lot of content. Not only does he write the weekly series, but the monthly spinoff Fairy Tail: Zero, and many omake chapters along the way. Just this week, one of said omake chapters ran in Weekly Shōnen Magazine, titled Fairy Tail of the Dead Meeeeeeeeen. Now, an announcement has passed that the omake chapter will be the subject of March 28’s Fairy Tail anime episode.

The odd title of the omake comes from the content. The plot is set in motion by the notorious Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki, notorious for his face and his habit of shouting “Men!” in a very long, drawn-out way. Ichiya also enjoys inventing perfumes. One of these perfumes spills into the drainage, travelling to Fairy Tail’s home town, infecting everyone who smells it. The result causes the inhaler’s face to be replaced with Ichiya’s. To put it simply: it’s a zombie apocalypse with Ichiya’s face instead zombies. Between zombies and Ichiya, it’s hard to tell which is more frightening.

Fairy Tail’s anime has been stockpiling omakes and filler episodes in the past month, killing time before moving on to the next big arc. The Tartarus arc is set to begin on April 4th, although due to episode’s title “The Morning Of A New Adventure,” it is also confirmed that the smaller Sun Village arc will be completed first. The Sun Village arc acts as a prelude to Tartarus, one of the deepest, darkest, and dead-parents filled arcs Fairy Tail has to offer.

Crunchyroll streams the anime as it airs. Funimation streams it and provides a well-received English dub. Be sure to check out this comedic episode when it comes, and appreciate it – with what’s coming next, it may be a while before Fairy Tail makes you laugh.

“Fairy Tail of the Dead” Special Airing Manga & Anime In Same Week is a post from: Good e-Reader

The Canadian Newspaper Industry is Consolidating

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The Canadian Competition Bureau has given the green light for Postmedia to buy 173 newspapers from Sun Media publications. This will make Postmedia the largest newspaper conglomerate in Canada.

The decision by the Competition Bureau was seen by industry watchers as recognition of how rapidly and significantly the media industry has evolved in the last two decades. If this deal was trying to get done ten years ago, there would have been public outcries. Now everything is basically just attained with a quick Google Search.

Ambarish Chandra, a professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management who has studied the effects of newspaper mergers, said the Competition Bureaus' decision makes sense. "The bureau is more likely to let mergers go through in industries that are seen as struggling, where growth seems to be slow or uncertain for the future. That's essentially what we see with traditional newspapers," Mr. Chandra said. "I'm not surprised that there's not really an outcry."

Postmedia got a massive discount on the Sun Media purchase and with the added capital these newspapers bring in, will alleviate some of the financial burden.

The big question from a consumers point of view, is what will change? Will the Sun Media properties continue to have new apps developed for them, or will their be a unified digital newspaper service, much akin to Pressreader? Will they fully embrace a digital paywall system to offset online advertising? Only time will tell.

The Canadian Newspaper Industry is Consolidating is a post from: Good e-Reader

Pocketbook Unveils New B2B Enterprise

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Pocketbook is best known for their distinct brand of European e-readers and the company is now getting involved in B2B solutions. Dubbed the Pocketbook Cloud, they are positioning themselves to offer a complete e-reading solution.

Many e-readers these days do not have a built in bookstore for customers to make purchases.  The PocketBook B2B Cloud Solution offers a white label development and customization of an e-book store or a recommendation online service. This option enables to integrate partner's brand, content and even color theme. Also PocketBook proposes development of a fully-customized reading application with partner's content both for Android and iOS. An e-reading application developed by PocketBook provides an extreme level of e-reading comfort with its multiple formats support, variety of settings and communication opportunities such as creating and sharing notes.

PocketBook B2B Cloud Solution ensures partners with a wide range of opportunities to increase sales. The opportunity of purchasing from mobile devices will become the new convenient way of content sales. The push notification messages with content recommendations sent to e-readers, stand as an efficient promotion tool.

This solution is free to businesses looking to get involved in the e-reader space and use Pocketbooks solution.


Pocketbook Unveils New B2B Enterprise is a post from: Good e-Reader

Amazon Mulling a Crunchyroll Acquisition

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Crunchyroll is the current market leader for anime, Korean drama and manga. The company has seen exponential growth in paid subscriptions in the last five years and they have generated close to $2.5 million in 2014. A source close to the situation has told Good e-Reader that Amazon is mulling over an acquisition of the company in order to create a brand new anime section on Amazon Instant Video.

The online media service Crunchyroll has over 400,000 reported paid subscribers as of late November 2014 — doubling its total in about one and a half years. Crunchyroll previously announced that it had over 200,000 subscribers at Tokyo International Anime Fair in March 2013. It reported 100,000 subscribers in September 2012, and TV Tokyo reported that Crunchyroll had 70,000 subscribers in November 2011.

Currently Amazon has a very paltry anime selection on Instant Video and they don’t have a dedicated section for it. Most of their content is movies and it is intermixed with other genres, making it hard to find. In contrast, Hulu+ and Netflix both have large catalogs and they both have television episodes so people can stay current in whatever season they are watching.

Crunchyroll has the largest collection of anime in North America and they have built a ravenous following because they have anime on their system one day after it debuts in Japan. They also have one of the most polished apps in the business, with support for most gaming console, streaming media boxes, Android and iOS. They are a big proponent of of discovery, which they manage to do very well.

Negotiations are said to be in the early stages and Amazon is the only company that is actively courting Crunchyroll.

Amazon Mulling a Crunchyroll Acquisition is a post from: Good e-Reader

Soon You Can Use Amazon Fire TV in Hotels and Dorm Rooms

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How many times have you been in a hotel or dorm room recently and wished you had easy access to services like Netflix? It seems like getting your set top box or dongle online should be an easy task, but it can be tricky with many of these locations only providing Internet access that requires web authentication. Thankfully, Amazon understands our pain and is updating their Fire TV and Fire TV stick devices such that they can be used in these environments!

When you are used to lugging around a laptop to serve this function, this news will provide a sizable smile –of course, many of us already choose to travel with tablets (which are convenient to carry, but if we use them to watch our favourite movies or televisions shows they are monopolized by that function while also being difficult to share with an entire room).

It goes without saying that you will have access to any beloved Amazon content (like your Prime Music playlists), but it should be noted that if you plug in your full-fledged Fire TV console box you will also be able to access USB storage (for apps and games) and Bluetooth support (think headphones, handy if you share hotel rooms with lighter sleepers or children who shouldn’t be listening in).

The update will be available soon, which gives you time to order your Amazon Fire TV devices if you’ve been holding out thus far.

Soon You Can Use Amazon Fire TV in Hotels and Dorm Rooms is a post from: Good e-Reader

Mad Men read alikes

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If you're like most of the OverDrive team, you're excited to watch the conclusion of the award-winning show "Mad Men," but perhaps not entirely ready to leave the characters behind just yet. Lucky for you, we have some great lists of books to keep that "Mad Men" spirit alive.

The Receptionist dives right into the 1950s and 60s heyday at The New Yorker, chockfull of lunchtime cocktails, extramarital affairs, bohemian times in Greenwich Village and other things you'll just have to read to believe.

Lady Chatterley's Lover is a classic story surrounded by plenty of controversy. Plus, this book is a favorite read of Joan and the other secretaries at Sterling Cooper.

Learn about the complications of the corporate game with Truth in Advertising by John Kenney or for the feminine perspective, check out The Group by Mary McCarthy.

These books should get you in the spirit of "Mad Men" or help you come to terms with the end of the show. Check out Don Draper's reading list or recommended reads for "Mad Men" fans.

The final seven episodes of "Mad Men" premiere on Sunday, April 5.

Emma Kanagaki is a Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive

Go Set a Watchman e-Book Cover Revealed

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Harper Lee of To Kill a Mockingbird fame has a new book being published July 14th. The e-book cover art has just been unveiled today, giving us a sense on how it will look when its publicly released.

Go Set a Watchman follows an adult Scout Finch who travels from New York to Maycomb, Alabama, to visit her father, Atticus Finch, 20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird.According to the publisher, Scout “is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father’s attitude toward society and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.” Go Set a Watchman includes many of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird.

Go Set a Watchman e-Book Cover Revealed is a post from: Good e-Reader

Kindle Voyage vs Onyx Boox M96 Comparison Review (+Video)

Today I wanted to put together a comparison review between two of my favorite ebook readers, the Kindle Voyage and Onyx Boox M96, to show how each has it’s own set of unique features, and how the devices are at two opposite ends of the ebook reader spectrum, both in terms of hardware and software. […]

No Game, No Life English Dub Released in July

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Aschente! Sentai Filmworks has announced on Tuesday that it will be releasing Sectiong23 Films No Game, No Life. The DVD will have included the English dub as well as the original Japanese audio.

The series will ship on July 28th on DVD for US $59.98 and on Blu-ray for US $69.98. There will also be a No Game No Life Limited Edition DVD/Blu-Ray set that will be going for US $128.98.The Limited Edition will come with episodes 1-12 plus a CD, a poster, 9 stickers, 6 postcards, a foil card, a certificate of authenticity card and playing cards, all included in a chipboard art box!

Dub fans have a reason to rejoice, though, as Section23 confirmed has announced the English dub, there are no details as to who the cast or crew are yet, but we will just have to wait and see!

Never seen No Game, No Life? No problem! The anime and manga follow two siblings, Shiro and Sora who have become a legendary internet duo known as Blank. Famed for their incredible game playing skills, they one day receive an invitation to play a simple game of chess. After winning the game, the mysterious person they played against,they are whisked away to a whole new world where all forms of confrontations are dealt with by wagering treasures and playing games.

I highly recommend this anime as the art style and animation is absolutely beautiful and really gives it that ethereal feel. If you want to get a sneak peak of the anime, Sentai Filmworks has recently released a small trailer clip for the anime and you can also head on over to Crunchyroll to view it as well!

No Game, No Life English Dub Released in July is a post from: Good e-Reader

More Amazon Drone Delivery Woes, FAA Too Slow to Keep Up

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Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos initially unveiled the plans for Amazon’s Prime Air drone delivery service as a way to keep up with the speed of business. Unfortunately, as with all government agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration moves at the speed of the proverbial turtle wading through peanut butter.

The crux of the problem seems to be that the design and proposal Amazon submitted for FAA approval–approval that arrived just last week–is now so far outdated that the retailer isn’t even testing with it anymore. Noteworthy is the fact that the proposal was simply for regulatory permission to test the drone, not actually fulfill consumers’ orders with it.

One of the other frustrating factors in this issue is that Amazon has been able to conduct drone delivery tests in other international markets, something that the FAA is quick to point out is an unfair comparison. In statements on this issue, officials from the FAA have pointed out the vast difference in air traffic congestion in the US versus other countries, which is somewhat easy to believe given the geographical size of the country, the sheer numbers of commercial flights per day, and the lack of a solidly reliable and convenient train network.

Amazon planned to use the drone delivery service over a variety of lower distances, but the original FAA proposal required a direct line of sight between the drone operator and the vehicle, something which pretty much defeats the purpose of the drone. This would basically require a truck driver to pull over on the side of the road, take a package from the back of the truck, and fly it by remote control airplane to someone’s doorstep. One other proposal from the FAA will require a commercial drone to fly no higher than 500 feet. As remote drone operation is already a reality and five hundred feet can propose a problem for city or earth structure operation, Amazon has obviously taken issue with these measures as well.

More Amazon Drone Delivery Woes, FAA Too Slow to Keep Up is a post from: Good e-Reader