Friday, May 15, 2015

Uber France Now Offers Thousands of Free Digital Newspapers

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Uber France has partnered up with PressReader to offer thousands of free digital newspapers and magazines. This new deal is set to kick off during the Cannes Film Festival from May 13 to 24.

Riders can access more than 3,700 newspapers and magazines from PressReader on any smartphone, tablet or laptop. They can choose from popular titles like The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Vogue France, The Washington Post, GQ, and Le Film Français, the popular industry magazine updated daily during the film festival. Finally, they can download their favorite titles for later reading.

The partnership between PressReader and Uber will launch at the high-profile Cannes Film Festival to a truly international audience of filmmakers, stars, and industry professionals.

"Our new partnership with Uber is yet another example of the many exciting initiatives we're launching here at PressReader," said Igor Smirnoff, chief commercial officer at PressReader. "PressReader is already a part of your travel experience when you fly, stay at a hotel, or go on a cruise. With Uber, we're proud to bring an exciting new amenity to the ground transportation industry."

Access instructions are available in Uber cars located in Cannes for the duration of the festival.

Uber France Now Offers Thousands of Free Digital Newspapers is a post from: Good e-Reader

New Lenovo Tab 2 A10, A8 and A7 Tablets – Good Value Picks

Lenovo added some new Android tablets to their “A” series this past month with a “Tab 2″ designation. There are two 7-inch models and a 10-inch model. An 8-inch model is coming soon as well. The tablets seem to be flying under the radar lately as they haven’t been getting much press, but they look […]

BookGorilla Sends Daily Alerts for Free and Discounted Kindle Books

If you’re looking for a new way to find best-selling Kindle ebooks for free or on sale, BookGorilla is a service that sends out a daily email alert highlighting popular deals and free titles. You can choose to receive alerts from over 200 specific Kindle ebook categories, including genres and sub-genres, or just bestsellers. You […]

Digital Publishing Brings Censorship Woes to Iran

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To industry insiders and readers alike, there are a few mainstay events that serve as household names. Events like BookExpo America, the London Book Fair, and the Frankfurt Book Fair are widely known, but it’s easy to overlook the various other international events and book fairs where book publication rights are sold, debut authors exhibited, and other business conducted that brings new titles to market.

As the Tehran Book Fair continues on throughout this week, ebooks, digital publishing, and self-publishing are creating a host of problems for the country’s censors, as an article in the Guardian has outlined. While publishers cannot even display titles from their event booths that haven’t been vetted by the censors, a separate world of book publishing is happening outside of the organized event, one that has readers flocking to digital reading.

According to Saeed Kamali Dehghan, “Iran is among the top 10 most censored countries, next to Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and China. However, the digital age is creating a new challenge to Iran's censorship apparatus. An increasing number of writers and translators are turning to the internet to publish their work, instead of going through the tormenting line-by-line scrutiny required for print publication. A rise in paper prices has concomitantly driven more readers to buy ebooks. State TV has started labelling digital books as a new threat that should be taken seriously.”

This wouldn’t be the first time that online media has been credited with enacting change against centuries’ old ideas and regimes. The rise of social media has long been credited with the Arab Spring movement, and sites like Twitter have actually come under legal attack within countries like Turkey for their ability to connect individuals in ways that the government disapproved of.

It’s surprising how quickly some of the tools that evolved slowly over the course of several years in the US and other markets have taken off seemingly overnight to help self-published authors in the Middle East. Digital-first and ebook-only publishers are already providing services to authors whose books would never make it past the censors, and crowdfunding of books has already produced several titles.

Digital publishing has long been hailed as a force for good in terms of protecting rare and out of print titles, providing low-cost learning opportunities for markets that can’t afford printed texts, and even providing a publishing outlet for voices that have otherwise never reached readers. Now, the effects of online publication are making a difference in places with literally no other option.

Digital Publishing Brings Censorship Woes to Iran is a post from: Good e-Reader

Light Novel “A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako’s Feet” Anime Green-Lit for Fall 2015

New Canvas

The official website for the new television adaption of the mystery light novel series A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako’s Feet (Sakurako-san no Ashimoto no wa Shitai ga Umatteiru) revealed on Friday that the new series will premier this fall. Along with the announcement of the release date, the official website has also announced its main production staff, it’s first key visual of the series’ two protagonist, Sakurako Kujo and Shotaro Tatewaki.

Makoto Kato, the episode director for Aldnoah.Zero and Btooooom!, is directing the series at studio Troyca, Makoto Bessho (Attack on Titan) will be handling the series composition and Michio Sato (Viper’s Creed, Tenchi Muyo GXP) will be designing the characters as well as act as chief animation director.

The light novel series is written by Shiori Ōta and illustrated by Tetsuo, and was first debuted in 2013and Kadokawa published the seventh novel in February. The series currently has more than a whopping 600,000 copies in print! Along with the new anime series, the mystery series as also inspired an online radio drama that starred Yuuki Kaji as Shotaro and Ami Koshimizu as Sakurako.

The series follows Shotaro Tatewaki and girlfriend Sakurako Kujyo. Shotaro is a normal high school student with a serious demeanor but loves nothing more than showing off his lovely girlfriend. Sakurako is an extraordinarily beautiful woman in her mid 20’s who has a passion and love for ‘beautiful bones’. The two live in the city of Asahikawa in Hokkaido and seem to often get involved in various incidents regarding bones.

I’m always looking for a good mystery themed anime so I’m really looking forward to seeing more development on this project. If the plot summary above sounded good to you, you can go ahead and check out the official website for more updates!

Light Novel “A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako’s Feet” Anime Green-Lit for Fall 2015 is a post from: Good e-Reader

Keep your students reading all summer long!

It's finally that time of year! Sweet Summer Time. While the summer is best served hot and under the sun, we at OverDrive like ours with a little reading on the side. Here are a few tips to keep your students reading all summer long:

  • sdlchampions_lighterbackpack2_360Curate collections and see results: Many of your students will be looking for free content for their devices for road trips and relaxing beach days. Feature a variety of titles using curated collections of eBooks, audiobooks and streaming videos on your homepage. You could even feature a 'Summer Reading' Collection! Learn more here.
  • Engage your readers with new, always available content: OverDrive is proud to partner with the SYNC program, which offers two free Young Adult audiobooks each week that users get to keep. Additionally, get ready for OverDrive's exciting new initiative for students, OverDrive Summer Read. Stay tuned for more details.
  • Promote your Digital Library: We have ready to download marketing resources in the Partner Portal, including fresh new web graphics! Add these to your school or library websites to promote traffic to your digital library all summer long.
  • Update your school's information: Be sure to update and verify your school's information to display in the OverDrive app and at com to connect readers with your website and social media accounts. In OverDrive Marketplace, select your school name in the upper-right corner, then select school information to get started.​

Boredom is not an option when there is reading to be done!

 

Christina Samek is a Launch Specialist II on the School Partner Services team with OverDrive.

Recommended Lists for May

May is always a very exciting month here at the OverDrive headquarters in Cleveland. Spring is officially here and it seems like there is always an occasion to commemorate or celebrate.

The events and observances of May also make for great library programming! For your convenience, we have created some collections. Check out these fun and exciting lists below and hopefully you'll find some titles that you'd like to add to your OverDrive site.

When you click the link below, it will show up as a Marketplace search result and you'll be able to easily add them to a cart.

May The 4th Be With You – Star Wars Reads
Mother's Day Reads
National Mental Health Awareness Month
Jewish American Heritage Month
Memorial Day Reads
Cinco de Mayo Reads
National Pet Month

As always, your Collection Development Specialist is available to help create any recommended lists. Email collectionteam@overdrive.com for more information today!

Some titles are metered access and may have limited regional or platform availability. Check OverDrive Marketplace to find what is available for you.

Rachel Kray is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive

Modulo: a simple, modular solution for building electronic devices

We came across the excellent Modulo on Kickstarter recently. Modulo is a "modular solution for building powerful electronic devices" and consists of a cluster of smart modules such as sensors, motor drivers and displays that slide into a solid base unit.

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It abstracts all the jumbliness of building electronics from scratch and lets you concentrate on concepts, design and programming cool stuff.

Once you've built your project you can program it in Python on the Pi. It also plays nice with Arduino and Spark (now Particle).

Poseidon, a robotic landscape watering system. Using Modulo and a Pi it delivers just the right amount of water based on the weather forecast.

Poseidon, a robotic landscape watering system. Using Modulo and a Pi it delivers just the right amount of water based on the weather forecast.

The Raspberry Pi crew met the Modulo team at MakerCon this week and were, of course, challenged to Modulo Pong. Eben won 26-14 (I completely made that up based on a recurring dream in which the score is always the same and Eben is dressed as a giant ping pong ball.)

Modulo controlled Pong

Modulo controlled Pong

We like Modulo a lot. It's smart, funky and a great way to get into digital creativity. Also, it has "Knob kit" and a tea brewing robot and it would be very un-British of us on both counts if we didn't let that influence us.

Modulo has already reached its primary Kickstarter goal but is now aiming for sufficient funding to make Modulo a sustainable concern. Take a look if, like us, you’d like to see this happen.

The post Modulo: a simple, modular solution for building electronic devices appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Free Kobo E-books Now Available on Southwest

Kobo has teamed up with Southwest Airlines to offer free e-books to travelers who want to read digitally.  Simply connect up your e-reader, smartphone or tablet to the entertainment portal via WIFI and you can read as many titles as you want.  When you land, and aren’t done reading, there is information available on how to buy a specific title.

Most of the current KoboSouthwestNewLivery catalog is available and is heavily curated by Southwest to promote bestselling titles, but the ubiquitous disposable literary trash such as Tom Clancy is also available.

What types of publishers are participating in this Southwest/Kobo partnership? Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, Kensington, S&S, HarperCollins, Open Road Media, Bauer Communications, and others. Basically if you want to read it, it will be available.

Over the course of the last few years there is a mad rush by airports, media and airline companies to offer e-books as an incentive to fly with them. Earlier in the week BookShout, HarperCollins, and American Express announced a new project to give readers free access to hundreds of e-book titles while passing the time at the airport. Meanwhile last December Jetblue partnered up with HarperCollins to provide an e-book experience, but its not free reading like Kobo.

Free Kobo E-books Now Available on Southwest is a post from: Good e-Reader