| This week we have a great selection of productivity and games for you to check out for both Blackberry 10 and Google Android. One of the most exciting events of the past week was the ability to load Android files directly on your BB10 device using our TUTORIAL. XBOX One Smartglass for Android - Xbox One SmartGlass is the perfect companion app for your Xbox One, both in your living room and on the go. Connect and control your Xbox One. Stay connected with the games and gamers you like. Add a new dimension to your console entertainment with the mobile device you already own. Avengers Alliance for Android - Team up with the Avengers, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and S.H.I.E.L.D. to harness the power of ISO-8 before Dr. Doom, Loki, and the world's most powerful villains beat you to it. Recruit your favorite Marvel Heroes, gear up and Assemble in this new game! Black Friday by Slickdeals for Android and BB10 - Get the most up-to-date deals and ad scans for all your favorite stores in real time with the new Slickdeals Black Friday App. These deals are contributed by our community and our team of deal editors, who vote, rank, sort, and verify the deals so you can find the best savings. Harness the power of the community to save you time and money. Todoist: To-Do List, Task List for BB10 – The perfect to-do list app is there wherever you need it: on your Android phone, Android tablet, desktop, browser, Gmail, and more. Join over 900,000 loyal users who are getting things done with Todoist – the leading todo list and personal task manager for Android! Jenga Me for BB10 – Jenga is a test of ability and brain thinking of the game, in the game , players alternate tower from blocks. Extracting a building block and make it into a balanced tower, to create a paragraph does not increase, more and more lost. Battlefield 4 Commander for Android – Jump into the heart of the action with BATTLEFIELD 4™ Commander – the exclusive companion app to your BATTLEFIELD 4™ experience. Deliver critical intelligence, deploy war assets, and manage squad-based team play all from the palm of your hand! Sheep Happens for Android – The sheepocalypse is coming! Sheep Happens is a chaotic endless runner where you must maneuver around other runners, obstacles, and sheep falling from the sky as you chase down the swindling Hermes. Collect coins to spend in the shop and upgrade your gear or buy fashionable and powerful hats. Challenge friends to endure the chaos the longest and post the best run. Disney Infinity: Action! for Android – USE THE POWER OF IMAGINATION TO BRING DISNEY INFINITY CHARACTERS TO LIFE! CREATE YOUR OWN MOVIES STARRING JACK SKELLINGTON, MR. INCREDIBLE, SULLEY, JACK SPARROW AND YOU! Branches for Twitter for Android – Branches offers a unique Twitter reading experience. Tweets by the same author over a period of time are grouped in a single branch. Follow anyone on Twitter without fear of resulting in a noisy timeline. Flipagram for Android – Bring Moments to Life with Flipagram. Create beautiful short video stories using your Instagram and Gallery photos, set to music you love! Top 10 Blackberry 10 and Android Apps of the Week – November 27th 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Top 10 Blackberry 10 and Android Apps of the Week – November 27th 2013
Self-Published Bestsellers Available for Holiday Reading
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For romance fans, the top three titles are Trouble by Samantha Towle (#1), A Little Christmas Romance by HM Ward (#2), and Jake Undone by Penelope Ward (#3). Two titles by Caisey Quinn, both from the Keep Me Still series, came in at number five (Hold Us Close) and number seven (Keep Me Still). Not surprisingly given the sheer volume of content that fans of the genre consume, numbers eight and ten on the self-published bestseller list from Amazon were also romance titles, Christmas on Main Street by E. Ayers and Western Kisses by Carré White. Two thriller titles, The Atlantis Gene: A Thriller (The Origin Mystery, Book 1) by A.G. Riddle and 9 Killer Thrillers by Russell Blake, finished the top ten on Amazon in the sixth and ninth spots, respectively. According to GalleyCat’s research, the following titles earned the top ten spots on Smashwords for the past week: 1. Principles for Written English, Workbook 1 by Maggie Sokolik 2. Fifty Ways to Practice Writing: Tips for ESL/EFL Students by Dorothy Zemach 3. Unattainable by Madeline Sheehan 4. The Great Convergence byJoseph Lallo 5. The Battle of Verril by Joseph Lallo 6. Why Do Dramas Do That? Part 1by Dimension Four 7. Nine Goblins by T Kingfisher 8. Butterflies in Honey (Growing Pains #3) by K.F. Breene 9. Enhancing Performance: Mental Training for Coaches, Athletes, and Parents by Dan Yarmey 10. Attainment (Book 3.5 in The Temptation Series) by K.M. Golland
Self-Published Bestsellers Available for Holiday Reading is a post from: E-Reader News |
NewspaperDirect Rebrands Themselves as PressReader
| If you are into digital newspapers you are likely familiar with PressReader. The company has over 3,000 newspapers in over 80 different countries and has dedicated reading apps for iOS, Android, Windows 8 and Blackberry. The apps have always simply been known as PressReader and today the company is undergoing a rebranding campaign to gravitate away from Newspaper Direct and simply be known as PressReader. PressReader is mainly known on the consumer level by offering a monthly subscription to read all of the newspapers you want. If a subscription isn’t your thing it is quite easy to just buy them on a singular basis. PressReaders success can be attributed to preserving the traditional printed newspaper experience in digital format. You have your Sunday funnies, crosswords, obituaries, localized adverts, and trading corner. Many people find its easier to gravitate towards the digital medium that mirrors print. This is PressReader's core strength: not to simply give you a PDF, but to add its own twists to each issue. Users have the ability to augment text sizes, comment on articles, Tweet, or just strip away all of the CSS elements to give you raw text, which is easier on the eyes on smaller screen devices. One feature about the app that many people are really digging is called “smartflow.” It basically allows you to endlessly scroll from article to article by simply using the standard page turn mechanism. When you are done reading an article the next one is immediately visible and often starts as the one you are currently reading is done. Most newspapers only show you the article you clicked on and then forces you to exit the story and pick a new one out. PressReader continues to focus on the average end users that are hungry for news, but has been quite aggressive about getting their content distribution system into hotels, cruise ships and airlines. In recent weeks they signed a deal with Trump Hotels to have newspapers available to their guests on any device they have. They also got River Cruises to give customers a chance to read their local paper when trailblazing all over Europe. The name change makes sense, the vast majority of iOS, Android and Blackberry users have always thought their name was PressReader anyways, because its the name of their flagship app. They have updated their main corporate website and it actually looks fairly slick with HTML5 and CSS3 elements. Their entire fleet of apps will be similarly updated in Q1 2013 and will give readers a better experience. NewspaperDirect Rebrands Themselves as PressReader is a post from: E-Reader News |
Barnes and Noble Announces Dramatic Price Cuts for Nook Tablets for Black Friday
| Barnes and Noble is certainly no stranger to price cuts on their entire line of Nook e-Readers and Tablets. They have been slashing them in the US and UK for the last nine months and the company announced today new discounts. Gearing up for Black Friday, which kicks off the holiday shipping season you will be able to pick up a number of their devices for next to nothing. The first major deal is $50 off the NOOK HD Tablets(8GB/16GB), Originally starting at $129 Now Only $79/99 on Black Friday at BN.com. If an e-reader is your thing you can save $40 off the NOOK Simple Touch, originally $79 now only $39. Barnes and Noble Announces Dramatic Price Cuts for Nook Tablets for Black Friday is a post from: E-Reader News |
Voxburner: Teens Still Prefer Print
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While this isn’t news, having first been revealed at the onset of device penetration, the study does demonstrate that the majority of readers ages sixteen to mid-twenties still prefer old fashioned paper for their pleasure reading. Part of the reason has always been attributed to the way this demographic views its electronic devices, specifically for social interaction like phone calls, text messaging, and social media, but now a new reason comes into play. With so much government attention and funding going towards creating the so-called 21st Century Learners and with the nearly 100% widespread adoption of the Common Core in the US which requires focused technology instruction, high school students are now using those same devices for academic purposes in greater numbers than before. Coupled with the social aspect of the technology, many teens want to keep their personal choice reading separate from both their school lives and their social lives. One final reason may be the emotional aspect to the nostalgia. It’s no secret that, taken as a whole, young adult readers become very invested in the characters they come to care about, and the link between paper and an emotional investment is a strong one for many teens. Interestingly, it seems as though books were the only area where physical wins out over digital, as music, movies, and magazines were all preferred in e-versions by the majority.
Voxburner: Teens Still Prefer Print is a post from: E-Reader News |
An OverDrive update regarding the reported security breach of Adobe data
| As widely reported, Adobe confirmed that they suffered a security breach of customer data on their servers. The company posted information at their blog here: http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2013/10/important-customer-security-announcement.html
Adobe has confirmed that OverDrive school and library users with activated Adobe eBook accounts may have been affected. Here is information that they have provided.
If you have any additional questions or seek specific advice for your team or users, please feel free to contact our Support team via the Support tab in OverDrive Marketplace.
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Amazon Cracks Down on Bogus Keywords
| A growing number of self-published authors are receiving ominous emails from ebook distributor Amazon, warning them that their books are about to be removed from the website if action isn’t taken immediately. The warning–which some authors claim they did not actually receive before their titles were removed from sale–pertains to authors who’ve used titles of other books in the keyword searches for their titles. Authors who have attempted to garner more searchability for their books have resorted to including titles like “Fifty Shades of Grey” or “Gone Girl” in the keywords for their books, hoping that potential readers stumble across their book listings. This practice is also in place by the traditional publishing industry, and apparently the ruling applies to those titles as well. Warnings to traditionally published authors have even been posted on message boards, encouraging them to contact their publishers as these authors do not upload their own titles or establish their keywords. Interestingly, comments from authors on sites like The Passive Voice and Author Marketing Experts have demonstrated that self-published authors, at least ones who see themselves as professionals, are siding with Amazon on this rule, with many pointing out that it is not a new rule, and it is also bad business practice to piggyback one’s work off the marketing clout of another author, especially without permission. What is not yet clear is whether or not an author can list his own title in the keyword search for a sequel, for example. I do know from personal experience, having received this warning email from Amazon myself, that if authors can justify the reason for including a title as a keyword, Amazon will review it and make its decision. One of the keywords for one of my own young adult novels contains the title of a very well-known literary classic, and I pointed out my justification for this inclusion to Amazon in a reply email. The result was that Amazon sided with me and allowed the keyword to stay in place. While this rule is not new, the greater crackdown on authors abusing it may very well stem from Amazon’s efforts to ensure that books are matched appropriately throughout their site by keyword. This move may help avoid more fiascoes like the recent erotica-in-the-children’s-section issue, in which books were wrongfully put in front of young readers based on erroneous metadata and keywords.
Amazon Cracks Down on Bogus Keywords is a post from: E-Reader News |
Carrie Anne Philbin’s Adventures in Raspberry Pi
| We are huge, giant, enormous fans of Carrie Anne Philbin. Carrie Anne’s a pioneering computing teacher, whose Geek Gurl Diaries YouTube series we can’t say enough good things about. (If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do when you’ve finished reading this post.) Carrie Anne has been busy this year: as well as working full-time as a teacher and producing Geek Gurl Diaries, she’s created a scheme of work for Sonic Pi; she’s been active on the DfE Computing expert panel which reviews the new Computing curriculum in the UK; and she’s working as vice-chair of #include for Computing at School. She won Talk Talk’s London Digital Hero award, and somehow she’s also fitted in the time to write what we think is hands down the best Raspberry Pi book for young people we’ve seen yet. Carrie Anne says that this book is for any young person who’s interested in making things happen using computing. Inside, you’ll find nine projects (alongside stickers, achievements and more), which will take you from a standing start to a point where you’ll be breezing through projects like writing your first programs, shaping the Minecraft universe using Minecraft Pi, designing and building your own role-playing game, writing and playing your own music…and making electronic switches out of marshmallows. It’s a beautifully produced book, full of ideas and clear direction, with a real sense of Carrie Anne’s personality jumping off every page. These projects come out of real activities Carrie Anne has worked through with real kids; they’re tried and tested – and they’re fun, too. You’ll find hints and tips to help you along the way. There’s plenty of extra material online to supplement the book, along with lots of recommendations for further reading. Adventures in Raspberry Pi is aimed at 11-15-year-olds, but younger kids whose parents have time for a little supervision (if you’re one of those parents, you won’t need any programming experience, because Carrie Anne’s done that work for you) will also find it a tidy fit. We’re really excited about this book. You can find it on Amazon for preorder at a discount price at the moment, for release on December 5, but if you can’t wait that long, we already have copies available here at the Raspberry Pi Swag Store (full price, I’m afraid – but every purchase you make goes to support our charitable work in computing education). I’m buying a few copies for kids I know for Christmas. I hope you will too. |
Apple iPad Market Share Projected to Shrink in 2014
| Research firm Canalys has predicted the rise of tablet PCs to continue unabated in 2014, by which time it could be seen emerging as a level player vis-à-vis the notebooks and desktop PCs. Canalys has pegged the rise in tablet shipments to settle around the 50 percent mark of all PC shipment, with the desktops and notebooks together making up the rest of PC shipments. Of the latter two, it is again the notebook devices that are expected to hold a greater sway of the market than desktops, signaling a shift in user preference towards systems that are portable and handy. To put the above perspective in figures, it is 285 million tablet devices that are expected to be shipped in 2014, compared to 192 million notebooks and 98 million desktops. Canalys also predicted a continued upward trajectory for tablet PCs and has projected its shipment to increase to 396 million by 2017. While the above should be sweet news for tablet makers, it is predicted to be not quite so for Apple that could be seen losing its dominant position to Android toting devices in 2014. Apple's market share could drop down to 30 percent while Android tablet will grow to make 65 percent of the market. Microsoft will have to remain contend with just 5 percent of the tablet market in 2014. Apple has just upped its ante in the tablet segment with the new iPad Air and iPad Mini with Retina Display and both have received extremely positive response so far. However, the entire Apple tablet strategy is centered around premium offerings which appeal to the high value consumers. This in turn has ensured it remain highly profitable so far as tablet devices are concerned, with the California company making dollops of money not only from sale of its tablet but from the entire tablet ecosystem. As such, a further shrinkage of its market share by a few more percentage points should be of little worry for Apple. In contrast, the Android tablet strategy is based on low cost devices with some of the best selling Android tablets typically priced well below the $300 mark. For instance the new Kindle Fire or the Nexus 7 range starts at $229, several notches below the $299 that the cheapest first gen iPad Mini sells for. Also, the Android app market has to cater to those who buy the relatively cheaper tablet devices and are also flooded with more affordably priced apps. This makes it imperative for the Android tablet makers to have volumes on their side to remain profitable. As for Microsoft, they have just started the tablet journey and it could still be some years before it gets to a position to pose a strong challenge to either Google or Apple. Its iPad Pro 2 has received some positive reviews though could be of little trouble to the iPad given the cross-segment position it is slotted at.
Apple iPad Market Share Projected to Shrink in 2014 is a post from: E-Reader News |
