| The entire publishing sector in Turkey is estimated to be over 2 billion dollars. According to data compiled from the Turkish Publishers Association’s website, eBook sales have increased by over 100% from 2011 to 2012 and the dramatic increase is reminiscent to the US market in in 2007. The Turkish eBook market is fairly paltry with total revenue equating to only 0.7% of the entire publishing sector. If you look at the most recent data available from 2012 only 2,928 eBook titles were published vs 42,626 traditionally published ones. Turkey's major online bookstore Idefixe first introduced Turkish e-books into the market in April 2010 and digital content now accounts for 11% of their annual sales. How will Turkish eBook market expand? Partly it is due to the sheer amount of smartphones and tablets that are now available. In smartphone sales, Turkey holds the 6th spot in Europe and tablet sales have overtaken laptops in July 2013. A recent Turkish government initiative in announcing tenders for technology giants like Apple to supply compulsory education students for over 15 million tablets for educational purposes. Companies like General Mobile, Vestel and Telpa Telekom have won smaller bids for hundreds of thousands of tablets. As smartphone and tablet usage increases it will prompt the publishing industry to make available their works in digital format. If they fail to capitalize on these trends early enough, the public will turn to piracy. In 2011, law enforcement agencies conducted large-scale raiding operations against printing houses suspected of producing pirated books and seized 2 million pirated school books, which demonstrates the severity of the problem. eBook Market in Turkey Expected to Expand is a post from: E-Reader News |
Saturday, January 11, 2014
eBook Market in Turkey Expected to Expand
Darth Maul’s ‘Clone Wars’ Story Will Be Completed—as a Comic
| Dark Horse may be losing the license for Star Wars comics at the end of this year, but publisher Mike Richardson promised they were going to give it their best effort right till the end, and it looks like that’s what they are doing: Lucasfilm has announced that the final arc of Darth Maul’s Clone Wars story will be told as a four-issue mini-series, published by Dark Horse. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an animated television series set in the world of Star Wars; the current version has been running since 2008, but last March, Lucasfilm announced that the series would come to an end, leaving some of the storylines unfinished. Dark Horse is picking up the thread with one of them, however. Dave Filoni, who was the showrunner for Clone Wars and now is the producer for Star Wars: Rebels, explained that the writers had done “substantial development” on the Darth Maul story when the TV series ended, so they suggested finishing the story in comics form. He continued: “The comics will be based on four finished scripts that were written for Season 6. These scripts came out of one of our story conferences with George Lucas. As they moved through the production pipeline, they became finalized scripts with a great deal of the actual design work completed. The designs you will see, the plot lines, and character development in these comic books are all coming directly from the TV production. I turned over all of the art to Dark Horse so they could create an accurate representation of what we were planning for the show.” The comic will be written by Star Wars comics veteran Jeremy Barlow, and the first issue will be out in April. Given the switch in media, Barlow says “We're making these as new-reader-friendly as possible, understanding that some folks will be coming to this series without prior knowledge of the television show.” Darth Maul’s ‘Clone Wars’ Story Will Be Completed—as a Comic is a post from: E-Reader News |
Samsung Galaxy Tab Round in the Works
| Samsung has been experimenting with curved displays for quite some time, although all of its efforts have culminated in just one product so far, the Galaxy Round, which is bent longitudinally along the central spine. That is going to change soon though, what with rumors (courtesy of MovePlayers) claiming Samsung is prepping a tablet version of it as well. Likely to be named Galaxy Tab Round, the tablet will incorporate the same curved build except that it will be felt across 7 or 8 inches of curved display. As for the benefits of having a curved display on smartphones and tablet devices, while many debate such a design, one obvious benefit of it is that the display has lesser chances of getting damaged since it is never exposed in its entirety, even when placed face down. The Galaxy Round does not exhibit the same levels of flexibility as the LG G Flex, which actually stretches and bends. However, a curved tablet will take up more space when needed to be stored in a bag than its conventional flat screen counterpart. Interestingly, curved 4K 3D TVs have been a major draw at CES 2014. Other details such as expected specifications, price, or a probable launch schedule are not yet available.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Round in the Works is a post from: E-Reader News |
Surface 3 to be Powered by Tegra K1 Chip, Surface Mini in the Works
| Microsoft has already made it known its intentions of being there for the long run in the computer hardware segment, which means there will be several generations of Surface devices and further diversification of the existing lineup. A recent leak from MFSTNerd further added strength to this view, claiming the next Surface 3 would be powered by the upcoming Tegra K1 chip that boasts of 192 GPU cores. Nvidia has revealed details of its upcoming chip at the CES, claiming it to be generations ahead of the existing chip lineup currently available. The chip is yet being worked upon, and should be ready before Surface 3 starts picking up steam. The earliest we can expect new Surface devices to be launched is towards the last quarter of 2014. Meanwhile, the leakster further added there is a smaller Surface device in the making. Purportedly named Surface Mini, the device is reported to come with a 7.5 inch display. This will put it in direct competition with the slew of 8 inch Windows 8.1 tablets that were launched in the last few months. However, as always, pricing will continue to be crucial to the success to the device. Even Surface tablets running Windows RT found enough buyers with its price slashed. As for the Surface 3 and its likelihood of it being powered by a Tegra K1 chip, while none of this can be confirmed as yet, what also can't be denied is that it has become imperative for Microsoft to ensure its next Surface devices packs in enough punch to ward off competition. Apple has already switched to 64 bit chips for latest iPad range while Samsung has promised to follow suit. For Microsoft, a high performance chip is necessary if it wishes to hold on to its forte, that of the segment where performance and battery efficiency are critical.
Surface 3 to be Powered by Tegra K1 Chip, Surface Mini in the Works is a post from: E-Reader News |
Pornographic Content Found in Nook Tablet in Children’s Area of B&N Store
| In what can be termed as a re-run of the pornography issue that had brought shame to several ebook stores months ago, a tablet in one of Barnes & Noble store at Texas was found to have X-rated material in it. To make things worse, the tablet at the Southlake store was situated in an area designated for kids, and a child as young as four was found viewing objectionable material on the tablet. “I’m beyond angry. My four-year-old son just saw pornography,” said Sarah Blauser, mother of the child. B&N officials apologized to the shoppers for the mishap. They further explained that while the Nook tablets does incorporate adequate parental controls to prevent such occurrences in real life, the tablets stationed in the Nook store weren't password protected. As such, anyone walking into the store has the liberty to access any sites using the demo tablet units, including those that can be considered inappropriate for children's viewing. An infuriated Blauser has embarked on a Facebook campaign warning others of the risks that the Nooks tablets can pose to the young minds in all B&N stores in the US.
Pornographic Content Found in Nook Tablet in Children’s Area of B&N Store is a post from: E-Reader News |
Amazon Sets Up Vending Machine to Sell Kindle Tablets And eReaders
| Amazon has hit upon a novel method of selling its wares – read Kindle tablets and ereaders as wel as related accessories – via vending machines set up at strategic locations. Named Kindle Kiosks, this would perhaps make the first attempt to sell tablet and ereaders via vending machines in the US. Such vending machines are yet to be commonplace though a few were spotted at some busy locations in the US, which includes some airports (one spotted at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas) along with a few malls. On offer include everything from the Kindle Fire HDX priced at $379 to accessories such as the power fast charger that retail for $20, with every other Kindle in between which include the Kindle paperwhite along with the 7 inch Kindle Fire as well. The move to set up vending machine can be considered to be in line with Amazon's keenness to set up a retail presence in the US. The online retail giant had earlier been seen setting up temporary pop-up stores in various malls with the aim to introduce some of their latest developments to the consumers. This includes a pop-up store set up in a San Francisco mall where the Kindle Paperwhite ereader was put on sale. One obvious advantage with such stores is that users got to play with the device a bit before they actually buy them. Best Buy is one such place where buyers can try out Kindle devices before purchasing them though others such as WalMart or Target have stopped carrying the Amazon tablet range.
Amazon Sets Up Vending Machine to Sell Kindle Tablets And eReaders is a post from: E-Reader News |
