| The Kobo Arc 10 HD is the first 10 inch tablet that Kobo has released. One of the benefits of such a large and high-resolution display is the way it can handle complex PDF documents. Today, we test one that has a series of images and text. We document what type of experience you can expect with the Kobo and if its right e-reader for you, if PDF’s are important. One of the things that were evident in the 10 HD is that it actually does not ship with a built in PDF viewer or a mainstream one like Adobe Reader. Instead, you have to use the default Office app, that really does not give PDF files justice. You will want to download one with versatility like Repligo Reader. Overall, the Arc 10 has high resolution and a large screen area to read PDF Files. Sometimes you will encounter aspect ratio problems, that will give you a series of black negative space on the top and bottom of the document. This will insure you will always have to pinch and zoom to find that optimal viewing perspective or remain perpetually zoomed in.
Video: How do PDF Files Look on the Kobo Arc 10 HD? is a post from: E-Reader News |
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Video: How do PDF Files Look on the Kobo Arc 10 HD?
The PDF Experience on the Apple iPad Air
| Today, Good e-Reader News brings you a solid video that documents the entire PDF experience on the Apple iPad Air. Peter and Michael show off the type of features that are available using the stock iBooks app. The iPad Air does a very good job at handling PDF files. You can load them on yourself by plugging the Air into your PC and firing up iTunes. You can hit File/Import File and search your computer for your PDF Files. Next, you want to navigate to the Books tab and make sure the new PDF’s you are adding have a checkmark next to them, and then hit sync. Alternatively, you can use the Safari web browser to find free PDF files online. When you click on them to download a little notification prompt will be under the website navigation bar, asking you if you want to open the file up with iBooks. The iBooks experience for PDF files is actually way better than how Barnes and Noble and Amazon handle things. You can search for text within the entire document and actually look words up in the dictionary. These are two features that lack with the competition. In this video, you can get a sense on the things you can do, and can’t do with PDF files and iBooks.
The PDF Experience on the Apple iPad Air is a post from: E-Reader News |
Digital Comics Best-Sellers for January 20 2014
| Readers prefer the uncensored version of Miracleman, Attack on Titan makes the Kindle chart, and where’s that second issue of Injustice: Year Two? Here’s my look at this week’s digital comics best-sellers, as of Sunday evening. 1. All-New X-Men #21 There are a couple of quirky things in this week’s comiXology list. One is that Miracleman comic, which I explained earlier. The readers seem to be voting for the mature-rated edition, unsurprisingly. The second is Injustice: Year Two #1 showing up on the list for the second week in a row; it’s supposed to be a weekly comic, but there doesn’t seem to have been a new issue this week—the release date for issue #1 was January 7. And the Walking Dead lumber back in for a second week on the top ten. Marvel wins the week with five of the top ten; DC has four, and The Walking Dead is an Image title. 1. Hyperbole and a Half No, Big Nate, what you smell are the zombies right behind you! Seriously, the Kindle list is nothing if not eclectic this week, with Allie Brosh’s comic-ish Hyperbole and a Half leading the pack, followed by Tom Taylor’s Superman-as-dystopian-dictator story Injustice: Year Two and a marked-down X-Men graphic novel. The first volume of Attack on Titan pops up, I think for the first time, and it’s interesting that it’s vol. 1 and not the latest volume, but that’s good as it means new readers are picking it up. 1. Naruto, vol. 64 With Barnes & Noble, I don’t so much check the list as check to see if it varied at all from last week’s list. The only change this week is that Batman ’66 and vol. 2 of The Walking Dead changed places. iBooks 1. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #15 That elusive second issue of Injustice: Year Two shows up in the iBookstore—as a pre-order. It looks like folks are picking up the first issue of the first season as well, maybe to catch up. Other than that, it’s ponies and zombies, ponies and zombies. Digital Comics Best-Sellers for January 20 2014 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Marvel Censors Miracleman for Some Digital Readers
| Someone at Marvel Comics decided that their new edition of Miracleman needed to be censored for digital release—but apparently not everyone is on board with that. Last week, Marvel released the first of a planned series of reprints of the Alan Moore/Neil Gaiman run of Miracleman. Miracleman itself has a tangled history, having started off in the early 1950s as Marvelman, a British knockoff of Captain Marvel (which was, confusingly, published by Fawcett Comics, not Marvel). That comic, created by Mick Anglo, ran for ten years and never seems to have stretched the boundaries of the standard superhero comic. In 1982, however, Alan Moore picked it up and created a much darker superhero story, something that is common now but was groundbreaking at the time. This series was picked up in the U.S. by Eclipse Comics, and the name was changed to Miracleman for U.S. readers. Moore wrote the first 16 issues, and then Neil Gaiman took over, working with artist Mark Buckingham (who would later illustrate Fables). Gaiman and Buckingham planned to do three six-issue story arcs, but Eclipse Comics went bankrupt and the last issue to be published was #24. (Miracleman #25 was completed, except for coloring, but has not been published in full.) Many, many lawsuits later, Marvel has ended up with the rights to the story and is republishing the Moore/Gaiman issues, with plans for Gaiman and Buckingham to finish their planned series. And along the way Alan Moore got pissed off and asked his name be taken off the comic, so the official credit is simply “the original writer.” Got that? OK, welcome to this week’s puzzlement: Despite its hefty price tag of $5.99 for a single issue (with, admittedly, a lot of bonus content), Miracleman does not come with a download code for a free digital version, something that has become pretty standard with Marvel comics. What gives? Marvel editor Tom Brevoort explained on Formspring:
What exactly is he talking about? My initial thought was that the original was too spicy for the bluenoses at Apple, so Marvel had to produce a cleaned-up edition to be sold in-app at comiXology. However, the uncut version, which bears the awkward title Miracleman: Parental Advisory Edition #1, is available in the comiXology iPad app as well as the Android app and the website. This version is rated 17+. The censored version, Miracleman: Mass Market Edition #1, seems to only be available on the Marvel digital comics store—I couldn’t find it on comiXology. This seems backwards, as you would expect that (1) Marvel would be publishing the most authentic version of their own comic and (2) ComiXology would be selling the 12+ version in their iOS app because of Apple’s content restrictions. Instead, it’s the other way around. Eh, whatever. According to Bleeding Cool, the difference between the two versions is that a character has a bare butt in one version and is wearing underpants in the other. Presumably the two editions will diverge more as the series goes on and the story gets more intense. The real story here is that the changes give Marvel an excuse not to include that free download code, which makes the comic more expensive, especially for readers who regularly defray the cost of their comics by selling the download codes on the black market. (Via Comicbook.com.) Marvel Censors Miracleman for Some Digital Readers is a post from: E-Reader News |
eBook Review: Cinderella Spinderella by Mark Binder
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When you’re up for a digital book innovation award at the Digital Book World Conference and Expo and you lose out to the powerhouse that is Scholastic, Inc., that’s still pretty impressive. Fortunately for Light Publications and their ebook Cinderella Spinderella, what makes their book great isn’t just the full-color illustrations, audio read-aloud, realistic page turn, or any of the other typical things we’ve come to expect from enhanced ebooks. What makes this title so great is how much thought and effort the creators put into the actual representation of the story. Exhibit A: Cinderella is in a wheelchair, something that her evil stepsisters laugh at her for. Then the fairy godmother–who is actually a homeless woman–shows up and dresses Cinderella in a magical black garbage bag. Exhibit B: When Cinderella does get to go to the ball, obviously…well…she can’t dance, at least not on those ridiculously impractical glass slippers. But the prince is so intrigued by her that they sit and play cards all night, talking and getting to know each other (no silent staring into each others’ eyes and not speaking…looking at you, Disney). Exhibit C (and the most profound thing of all): With the download of this one book, the reader gets to pick Cinderella’s and the prince’s ethnicities, a fact that makes me prouder of Light Publications than I have been of any other digital publisher in a long time. Along with other bonus features, this book is an educator’s dream and is sure to delight any reader. The need to download the book to a computer or laptop first and then transfer it over to the phone or tablet was a minor annoyance, a factor that hopefully the creators will take into consideration down the road. But overall, the book and its 25 possible story versions was pure genius that speaks to readers of any background. Cinderella Spinderella is available at lightpublications.com/dropcard.
eBook Review: Cinderella Spinderella by Mark Binder is a post from: E-Reader News |
How Vampires Sparked the Digital Revolution
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When Good e-Reader first launched its Indie Author Initiative in 2010 to highlight the stories of authors who opted to try out this “new fangled” self-publishing option, the first author interviewed was Solomon Inkwell, whose own publishing experience mirrored that of many other writers who found themselves in Inkwell’s situation. The author queried his very first agent with the requisite letter and three-chapter sample of his book, Vickie Van Helsing. The first agent did the unheard of and personally called Inkwell, gushing with praise for the sample. But then he said the ominous words that shaped publishing for this author: “But vampires are out…what else ya got?” Essentially, the agent loved everything about Inkwell’s writing, but knew he couldn’t pitch another vampire story to publishers. The end result was that the agent told Inkwell to give him a call if he ever wrote another book, and the phone call was over. As Inkwell explained in the interview, “The traditional publishing industry might be done with vampires, but the readers are not.” He self-published the title to comfortable success. Inkwell was far from alone, both in the writing and the publishing of vampire fiction. While critics have argued that the Twilight series sparked a brief wave of interest in paranormal romance, the genre has actually been around for decades. Fans have been enamored of mysterious creatures and the humans who love them for quite some time, and thanks to self-publishing, they didn’t fade into the oblivion of marketability. As digital self-publishing was in its infancy, the paranormal fiction writers–the same ones who had the door slammed in their faces by agents and publishers not for their lack of writing ability or quality titles but because of the supposition that there were enough books with these subject matters–were perhaps the first to flock to the option. These same authors were also the first to give rise to the ultimate success, both monetarily and stigma-wise, with names like Amanda Hocking and Barbara Freethy posting inexpensive ebooks that sated their readers’ thirst for blood…make that, stories. Interestingly, the genre is possibly even stronger than ever now that self-publishing has reached almost every global market and companies who assist authors with their book needs have risen to help them get their work to market. As authors and readers fueled the self-publishing “craze” with their intense interest in these titles, the result has been a stronger publishing option for nearly every genre. The industry and the authors have vampires to thank for it.
How Vampires Sparked the Digital Revolution is a post from: E-Reader News |
Video Tour of E Ink at CES 2014
| Every year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Charbax from ARMdevices.net posts a detailed video showing the current state of E Ink and the projects the company is working on for the future. The first device shown in the video is Sony’s new DPT-S1 Reader with a 13.3″ Mobius display that is designed […] |
A Look at Boeye’s New Android E Ink eReader (Video)
| Earlier this month Charbax from ARMdevices.net posted one of his patented videos from the HKTDC Electronics Fair in Hong Kong showing an Android-powered E Ink ereader from a Shenzhen-based electronics company called Boeye. The Boeye Android ereader is yet another device that will likely never be available in the United States (you can thank Amazon […] |
Daily Deals & Freebies – January 19th 2014
| Extra Kindle Deals Free Coupon for Select Kindle Books for $0.99 Each – Amazon Local Deal – Expires Jan 24th The Big Deal: Kindle Books Up to 85% Off – Now through February 2nd Kindle Countdown Deals – Limited-time discounts on Kindle-exclusive ebooks Kindle Daily Deals Amazon’s main Daily Deal is a bit different today. […] |
Hardcore Readers Prefer to Buy Books from Kobo and Amazon
| The eBook market has blossomed over the course of the last four years. In the United States nearly 8.5 million adults, 18% of the population, have bought at least one e-book. There are hundreds of bookstores that sell electronic books online, some are very niche specific and others sell everything under the sun. Good e-Reader Research is reporting today that Amazon and Kobo are basically tied as being the online bookstore of choice for hardcore readers. Good e-Reader conducted a one month research project where we polled 250 people about their favorite online bookstore of choice. Good e-Reader users tend to be savvy, well educated and not afraid of new technologies. These are basically the hardcore users that often buy 50-100 books a year and often have more than one e-reader in the household. Amazon and Kobo were tied with 35.34% of the overall votes and these two stores have the largest international footprint. They exist in over 30 different countries and offer millions of titles. Kobo has a much larger library of titles, with over 3.6 million available, they are also easier for people to buy books from. One of the advantages these two companies have is their extensive portfolio of e-readers and tablets to facilitate reading. The Kindle Fire and Kobo Arc line of Android devices are perfect for reading newspapers, magazines, comics, kids, cookbooks and content that shines in living color. Hardcore Fiction and Non-Fiction readers tend to gravitate more towards the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Aura. It is no surprise that Kobo and Amazon are basically tied, as they do offer the more extensive library of content, whether you are using one of their devices or install the app on your iPad. Barnes and Noble might be seeing a 30% decline on their hardware and eBook sales during the past holiday season, but they they do have user loyalty. 10.04% of our readers prefer to buy their Nook Books, but 99% of the participants originated from the US. This is the core market where the Nations largest bookseller sells tablets and e ink readers in hundreds of retail locations. Their ecosystem is fairly well developed and they offer self-published titles under the Nook Press banner and full color content optimized for the Nook HD. The sole new device of 2013 was the Nook Glowlight, which tends to be your best friend for binge reading. The Nook hardware is basically only relevant in the US and UK, but their ecosystem has expanded recently. If you are a Windows 8 tablet owner or like to read on your computer, Microsoft has aided the international expansion into over 32 different countries over the last year. Sadly, Android and iOS readers have to be based in the US/UK to buy books online. Most other bookstores only had a few people claiming to use it on a regular basis. Sony had 6.02% of the vote, Google with 4.42%, Smashwords at 2.41% and Wattpad with 2.01%. There were 11 people, that made up 4.42% of the vote that mentioned iBooks, the library, Bookeen and others. Hardcore Readers Prefer to Buy Books from Kobo and Amazon is a post from: E-Reader News |
Baker and Taylor Appoints George Coe as New CEO
| Baker & Taylor, one of the largest distributor of books and eBooks has appointed longtime executive George Coe as the company's new Chief Executive Officer and President. Coe brings a ton of experience with him to the table and has been with the company since 2000. He has served as President of Baker & Taylor's Library & Education division, playing a seminal role in the development of Axis 360 program. Axis 360 is their library distribution service and they are 3rd major player in the USA by market share with Overdrive and 3M leading the pack. Mr. Coe will replace Arnie Wight, who retired January 15 after a distinguished 34-year career with the company. Mr. Wight will assume the role of Non-Executive Chairman of the Board and will also work as a consultant for Baker & Taylor to support the leadership transition and the execution of strategic plans. "Baker & Taylor is the leading provider of books, media, technological products and services to customers throughout the world, and I look forward to working with our excellent team to continue to enhance Baker & Taylor's innovative solutions for our retail, library and education customers." Coe continues, "I am proud to lead Baker & Taylor at a time when exciting changes are taking place in all of the markets we serve." Baker and Taylor Appoints George Coe as New CEO is a post from: E-Reader News |
Pocketbook Announces New 614 e-Reader
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The Pocketbook 614 is using an E Ink Pearl screen with a resolution of 1024 by 758 pixels. It has a 1 GHz single core processor and 256 MB of RAM. There is 4 GB of internal memory and a SD card to enhance it up to 32 GB. It has a WIFI connection in order to connect up to the Pocketbook open source bookstore. The company has told us that their store does not get a ton of traction and instead they basically rely on Russians inclination to pirate books like there is no tomorrow. Pocketbook makes pirating eBooks rather easy with their support for a multitude of formats. It will handle CHM, DJVU, DOC, DOCX, EPUB, FB2, FB2.ZIP, HTML, PDF, PRC, RTF, TCR, and TXT. There is no word yet on if this is a touchscreen device, but given that there are no manual page turn buttons and a single home button, I would assume it has a touchscreen display. It will be available in the next few months and retail for $119 US. Pocketbook Announces New 614 e-Reader is a post from: E-Reader News |
