| Greetings everyone! Today we take a look at two large screen tablets that are being primarily billed as e-readers. The Barnes and Noble Nook HD+ has been on the market for over a year and has enjoyed modest success. The inclusion of Google Play and the $149 price tag is fairly compelling. We compare this model against the brand new Kobo Arc 10 HD and put both devices through the paces. In this video we focus on the e-reading experience and take a look at eBooks, magazines, newspapers and comics. As an added bonus we evaluate resolution and speaker quality with a barrage of audio/video tests. If you are thinking about upgrading or purchasing either of these for the first time, this is a must watch video.
Kobo Arc 10 HD vs Barnes and Noble Nook HD+ is a post from: E-Reader News |
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Kobo Arc 10 HD vs Barnes and Noble Nook HD+
E Ink Records a Quarterly Profit as e-Reader Sales Increase
| e Ink Holdings, the company chiefly responsible for developing the screen technology found on Kindles, Kobos and Nook e-Readers just released their financial earnings from the last quarter. The company has garnered over 15.5 million in profit, which is a bright turnaround from recent quarters where they last over 33 million. e Ink has turned their fortunes around with digital signage and major vendors are turning to them for their low-powered needs. E Ink invested millions into research in development and developed a number of new technologies such as Carta, Regal and Mobius. They recently shuttered their corporate headquarters and RND centers, electing to put everyone under one roof. e-Readers still represent the lions share of the companies profit and their customers are confident about the growing popularity of e-readers ahead of the Christmas season, as a survey by the US Pew Research Center showed an increase in e-reader penetration from 19% to 24% this year, with the trend likely to spread to other parts of the globe. New devices such as the Paperwhite 2, Kobo Aura and Nook Glowlight 2 are predicted to sell very well in international markets. All eyes are on the new Flexible Sony e-Reader due to be released in Japan on December 3rd. This stems from a year long partnership between Sony and e Ink who worked on the technology together. Aside from all the new hardware coming out, e Ink is is bullish about digital signage, smartwatches, phones, luggage tags and price displays in the local grocery store. There isn’t much profit from this yet, but their goal is to have 1% of the worldwide signage market by next year. E Ink Records a Quarterly Profit as e-Reader Sales Increase is a post from: E-Reader News |
ComiXology Adds Classics Illustrated to the Lineup
| ComiXology continues its march toward world domination by adding Classics Illustrated comics to its lineup. The first 15 issues went live today, and soon comiXology will have the full lineup of 120 issues. Classics Illustrated comics have actually been available digitally for some time via Nook, but interestingly, comiXology is pricing them a dollar cheaper, at $3.99 instead of the Nook price of $4.99 for most comics (Classics Illustrated Junior titles are $1.99 on both platforms). Both the comiXology and the Nook deals are partnerships with Trajectory, Inc., which bills itself as a “global eBook production and distribution platform.” Launched in 1941 under the name “Classic Comics” (the name was changed in 1947), Classics Illustrated was one of those earnest efforts to get children to read “good literature” by starting them off with comics and hoping they continue in that direction. The problem, of course, is that the (relatively) action-packed comics versions of The Last of the Mohicans or Gulliver’s Travels are a lot more palatable to a ten-year-old than the dense prose of James Fenimore Cooper or the 18th-century satire of Jonathan Swift. I myself, although a big reader, had a lot of trouble making the transition, but when I did read the originals, later in life, the mental pictures I carried with me were all formed by the artists of Classics Illustrated. I was also surprised at how much longer the originals were than the comics, which were severely constrained by their 48-page format. The last comic in the original run of the series was Faust, which was published in 1962, but the comics didn’t go away. In the 1990s, First Comics bought the rights to the line and published a slew of new comics by noted artists such as Gahan Wilson and Peter Kuper. Then in the 2000s, things got even more confusing, as Papercutz picked up some of the First titles and also commissioned more new comics, plus they are publishing some French adaptations of classic titles as well. (What would Mark Twain say about a French-produced, manga-influenced graphic novel adaptation of Tom Sawyer?) Meanwhile, the Canadian publisher Jack Lake reprinted some of the original comics, especially in the Classics Illustrated Junior line. ComiXology brings us back to the basics with the original Classics Illustrated and Classics Illustrated Junior comics, digitally restored and ready to read. ComiXology Adds Classics Illustrated to the Lineup is a post from: E-Reader News |
Top 10 Android and BB10 Apps of the Week – November 13th 2013
| Every week thousands of new apps are released for Android and its hard to keep track of the best ones. Most people just stick to their small pool of apps and here at Good e-Reader its important to broaden your horizons. All of these apps are available from the Good e-Reader BB10 and Android App Store. We just updated our client, squashing major bugs and adding a litany of new functionality. You can download the client HERE or from Google Play HERE. Tank Battles for Android – Get ready for Tank Battles! This is General McTankerson, the greatest tank commander in the world, speaking! Many have come to my island for the Tank Battles Tournament, but only one can be crowned the Tank King. Will it be you? Roll out and let the Tank Battles begin! Customize your tank, enter the battlefield and destroy your opponents! Tank Battles delivers one of the most exciting multiplayer experiences ever, as well as challenging solo missions – for FREE! The tanks are fast and easy to maneuver, so you'll become a master tank commander in no time! Meltdown for Android – A run and gun based commando game. You basically get new guns and shoot your way through a ton of levels. Dayframe for Android and Blackberry 10 – Dayframe works with your favorite photo sharing services to provide a ongoing slideshow of friends, family, and interests. Browse and share photos between Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Google+, Dropbox, Flickr, Twitter, 500px, and more. Movember Mobile for Android and Blackberry 10 – Redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up specifically for Android devices, the Movember Mobile app gives Mo Bros and Mo Sistas across the globe all the tools they need to track and manage their Movember campaign on the go! Mo Bros and Mo Sistas who have already signed up at movember.com to be a member of Generation Moustache can sign straight into the app. Not registered yet? Not a problem. Sign up through the app to lead or join a team, or you can even go it alone. Topiclay for Android and Blackberry 10 - Topiclay is a brand-new news app that helps you find articles about topics you are interested in from the news sources you love. It displays a short excerpt from the article and enables you to easily click through to the original website that posted the article to enjoy the full story. ARC Squadron: Redux for Android - An evil race known as the Guardians is taking over the universe, ravaging planets, and killing all peaceful life forms. You are the galaxy’s only hope for salvation. As an elite pilot serving in the ARC Squadron, you are tasked to take on the Guardians in head-to-head combat and bring down their empire. With simple one-touch controls, you can shoot, blast, and annihilate enemy forces to hunt down each of the nine Guardian lords and destroy them once and for all. The ultimate battle for the galaxy is nigh. Are you on board? CLIFFHANGER for Android and Blackberry 10 - Cliffhanger is an app designed especially for TV fans, with specific attention to simplicity and a user-friendly design. This app will help you keep track of your content, let you know when & where it is available, mark episodes as watched and even add calendar events. Enjoy exploring upcoming & previous episodes using our intuitive design, backed by Trakt.tv and IMDb databases. Crunchyroll Manga for Android and BB10 - The Crunchyroll Manga app provides users with unlimited access to a variety of the hottest manga emerging from Japan! As soon as it hits newsstands in Japan, Crunchyroll Manga users can read the latest from hit titles like Attack on Titan, Fairy Tail, and Space Brothers. Star Wars: Tiny Death Star for Android – From Disney Mobile, in partnership with LucasArts and Nimblebit, the makers of Tiny Tower, comes an all-new mobile game about everyone's favorite space station, STAR WARS: TINY DEATH STAR! Amidst a civil war in a galaxy far, far away, the Emperor is building a Death Star level by level, and he needs your help. Intergalactic war is expensive, and space stations are, too. Do you have any idea how much it costs to build one the size of a moon? Live life on the dark side, and join Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader on a mission to attract Galactic bitizens, run intergalactic businesses, and build an all-new Death Star! With that hard-earned money, fund the Empire's evil schemes to defeat the Rebels and conquer the galaxy once and for all! Westbound for Android – Your wagon train has broken down on its way out west! Now you’re stranded in a canyon for the winter with a motley crew of strangers. It’s time to build a new home and turn it into your own beautiful western town! Saddle up your horse and come along! Treasure, mystery, and romance await as you mine the hidden canyon, discover ancient treasures, and establish a booming settlement! Be warned! There are notorious outlaws on the loose! Top 10 Android and BB10 Apps of the Week – November 13th 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Kobo Mini Gets a Price Drop – Is it Being Phased Out?
| Somewhere along the line, and it wasn’t too recently because I can recall seeing it a few weeks ago, the Kobo Mini received what appears to be a permanent price drop down from $79 to $59. That’s the price listed on Kobo’s website, anyway. And there’s no indication that it’s on sale. $59 is also […] |
Native American Heritage Month: A celebration
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November is Native American Heritage Month. Tribal nations throughout the United States are celebrating their heritage with unique and historical traditions. This year's celebratory theme is Guiding Our Destiny With Heritage and Tradition as set by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. So let your mind and heart be drawn to the stories and voices of our nation's first inhabitants, the Native Americans.
The full list of titles is available in Marketplace.
Renee Lienhard is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive.
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Agatha Christie’s “Lost” Work, Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly, Sold as eBook
| Here is a surprise waiting for Agatha Christie fans. One of her works, Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly, which was considered lost, is now being sold in ebook format. Written in 1954, the book depicts her immortal creation, Hercule Poirot, making his way through what is described as a parlor game of murder. The book was written to help raise funds for her church to have stained glass windows installed. Many of Agatha Christie's novels have already been digitized and are being sold by various ebook stores around the world. These continue to be most sought after even decades after they were first written.
Agatha Christie’s “Lost” Work, Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly, Sold as eBook is a post from: E-Reader News |
Read A Book SA And Vodacom Join Hands to Promote eBook Reading in SA
| Vodacom, the mobile service provider with a pan-African presence, is partnering with Read A Book South Africa to promote the cause of reading in the country. This is of vital significance in a region where just 15 percent of the population enjoys access to a proper library. Vodacom plans to implement the program by installing an ereader app in the 45 tablet devices that will be available freely in the 9 Vodacom ICT resource centers. The ebooks that would be made available belong to the following genres: African literature, History, Business and Entrepreneurship, Fiction and so on. Speaking about the development, CEO of Read A Book SA Tebogo Ditshego said: “According to the South African Books Development Council, only 15% of South Africans have access to a nearby library. This initiative will play a role in addressing this problem by creating access to literature for the communities around Vodacom’s ICT centres nationwide. The tablets will be updated with reading material regularly to ensure that visitors have constant access to new reading material.”
Read A Book SA And Vodacom Join Hands to Promote eBook Reading in SA is a post from: E-Reader News |
Calvin and Hobbes Comic Strips Now Available as eBooks
| Here’s a bit of good news for fans of the popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. The antics of Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, have officially been released in ebook form. Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes daily comic strip was published for 10 years from 1985 to 1995. The ebooks don’t quite encompass the […] |
FM Stream: broadcasting local radio to the internet
| The Raspberry Pi is being used increasingly in professional products and industrial applications, and this one from Artica and partners is one of most impressive yet. I can’t better their own description of FM Stream as "a beautiful, low cost, carrier grade rack of FM tuners, IP/Internet encoders and broadcasters, using nothing but RaspberryPis, Arduinos, clever electronics, neat mechanics, a shiny aluminium case and lots of passion."  FM Stream — shiny AND useful As well as being clever and beautiful, FM Stream does something extraordinarily useful – it takes radio signals from local radio stations and broadcasts them over the internet. It’s designed to be used with no technical experience: just plug an aerial in one end, the internet in the other and off it goes, technomagically turning local into global.  At the heart of things — a Raspberry Pi There’s a huge amount of hardware and expertise at work here, much of which is detailed in Artica’s blog. On a simpler level it’s fantastic to see the Raspberry Pi at the heart of such a beautifully engineered and useful product. For a taste of what the FM streamer can do, have listen to this FM station in Luanda, Angola. We’ve been listening to it all afternoon and can highly recommend it — It’s funky. |
Digital Magazine Awards Finalists Include Nine Apps from Aquafadas
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Bande à Part UBM Design Central ePals Media Science and Nature Magazine of the Year Mondadori Prisma Creative Media Lufthansa Cargo AG / PRH Hamburg Kommunikation GmbH "The advantage of using the Aquafadas Digital Publishing System comes from the clear and understandable interface,” explained editor and honoree Anne-Claire Cieutat in a press release, “which provides our production team with a smooth workflow that doesn't get in the way of the final product. It allows us to combine images, sounds, videos, slideshows, and more. This near-infinite amount of possible combinations allows for a new approach to reading, watching, and listening for the Bande à Part audience."
Digital Magazine Awards Finalists Include Nine Apps from Aquafadas is a post from: E-Reader News |
Amazon’s New Model Might Make It Unstoppable
| As if brick-and-mortar bookstores didn’t have enough to worry about, Amazon has introduced a whole new way to rise above the rest and lure customers: Sunday delivery. Rolling out in two major cities and slated for more cities in 2014, the online retailer announced it will offer seven-day-a-week delivery, basically eliminating any concerns about timely arrival of products that consumers may have. Amazon certainly isn’t alone in the concept, as both Google and eBay have similar offerings for their customers in limited geographical markets. But an article by Mark Rogowsky for Forbes demonstrates that Amazon’s new delivery structure, when paired with the estimated more than ten million Prime members who receive free two-day shipping as only one of the perks of their memberships, stands to take down a number of retailers now that consumers can get all of their shopping done online on a Friday and receive those items before returning to work on Monday. What will other retailers have to do in order to compete with this new offer? First, finding a more convenient option, such as Google’s partnering with a number of other retailers to deliver their products to customers’ doors, but more importantly, taking a stab at the $79 per year membership fee to join Amazon Prime. That fee doesn’t seem to have deterred anyone, though, as Amazon announced that millions of new customers had joined in the last few months alone, as well as disclosed that Prime members bought nearly twice as much product as non-members, proving that Prime members are enjoying their benefits.
Amazon’s New Model Might Make It Unstoppable is a post from: E-Reader News |
Apple iPad Air VS. Kobo Arc 10 HD
| Welcome to another Good e-Reader Video Comparison. Today we take a look at the new Apple iPad Air and the Kobo Arc 10 HD! Both of these devices reflect the very latest and greatest in large screen displays and bring completely different ecosystems to the table. Today we take a look at the eBook, magazine, comic, newspaper experience. The iPad Air and Kobo Arc 10 HD make very fine e-readers and we put them in a series of side by side comparisons to give you a sense on how they perform. If you like to watch movies or listen to audiobooks, as an added bonus we show you how they perform with content from Netflix. The Kobo Arc 10 HD features a stunning 10-inch capacitive touchscreen with ten point multitouch. It has one of the best resolutions in the business with 2560×1600 pixels. To give you a sense of how great it is, the Apple iPad Air is only capable of displaying 2048 × 1536 pixels. The Kobo has the advance of a 1.8 GHZ Quadcore processor, whereas the Air only has a dualcore. Really, both devices just blaze along fine. The big difference is not the hardware but software ecosystem. Aside from Android vs iOS, the big advantage the Air has is the pushing of HD content, such as magazines and comic books. We all hear about the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem, but what does that really mean in this comparison? Comixology pushes out HD comics for the iPad 3, 4 and 5. This is due the resolution staying the same and its easier to optimize your tablet content when you know what size screen everyone has. Android on the other hand has a ton of different screen sizes and its hard to really take advantage of the pixels. So basically you have the iPad Air with lower resolution actually having most graphic based content look better.
Apple iPad Air VS. Kobo Arc 10 HD is a post from: E-Reader News |
Amazon Starts selling eBooks, e-Readers and Apps in Australia
| Amazon has just opened up shop in Australia and customers will be able to purchase eBooks and apps. Starting today, if you have the Kindle Fire you will be able to purchase paid apps and download free ones. There is also a copious amount of eBooks available including Australian best sellers and hundreds of thousands of titles that are exclusive to Kindle. You can read local customer reviews and purchase eBooks in Australian Dollars. Existing customers in Australia who already purchased content from the UK or the main US website are in for a rude awakening. If you currently have magazine or newspaper subscriptions, they will be cancelled and you will receive a pro-rated refund. If you have purchased Audiobooks from Audible.com, you will no longer be able to access those from your Kindle Fire device. However, you can continue to access your audiobooks by downloading them from Audible.com on a supported device. If you are a new customer to the Amazon ecosystem you should not have much trouble accessing eBooks, audiobooks and apps. The one drawback is that you will unable to purchase music or video. Due to restrictions with movie and music companies, Amazon hardly offers anyone outside the US with the ability to get this type of content. One of the big drawbacks is the book prices. One reader had a quick peek at the top sellers list in the launch shop, Allegiant is $11.99, while on the US Kindle store it’s $6.99. The Rosie Project: equivalently priced. Hard Luck: $9.99 Aus, $7.47 US. The Luminaries: equivalent. Vicious Circle: $17.99 AUD, $12.59 US. Doctor Sleep: $19.99 AUD, $7.64 US. A Game of Thrones: $4.99 AU, $2.90 US. The Signature of All Things: equivalent. Just One Evil Act: $19.99 vs $6.59. The Book Thief: $12.99 vs $2.90. Amazon Starts selling eBooks, e-Readers and Apps in Australia is a post from: E-Reader News |
