Amazon Unveils PDF Preview Pane on New Paperwhite Update

Amazon has just released a new firmware update for the second generation Kindle Paperwhite.  One of the big enhancements is for the PDF experience and now users will see a small preview pane on the top lefthand corner. This helps orient you when you are pinching and zooming, to insure you know were you are in the document. When you buy physical books from Amazon, you normally have to wait a few days for it to be shipped out. Now, whenever you purchase a book, the sample eBook version will be automatically added to your library, so you can read the first few chapters. Finally, Amazon has unveiled cross platform syncing on the last page read. This has been on their Android and iOS apps for sometime, but is now available additionally on the Paperwhite 2. Amazon Unveils PDF Preview Pane on New Paperwhite Update is a post from: Good e-Reader

URL: http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/amazon-unveils-pdf-preview-pane-on-new-paperwhite-update?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=amazon-unveils-pdf-preview-pane-on-new-paperwhite-update

Art Showcase: Escape III

Hey all! It’s Rachel again. I have another amazing Art Showcase for you. This time Neil Mendoza explains how he and Anthony Goh brought these animated bird sculptures to life with the help of a Raspberry Pi, some Arduinos and lots of old mobile phone parts. I really love this one XD – read right to the bottom if you want to see the birds in action. Over to Neil… Mobile phones are ubiquitous in today’s society, but often their use has unintended consequences, intruding into and changing social situations, distancing people in in real life by dragging them into the digital world.  They are also a massive source of electronic waste.  A few years ago this inspired Anthony Goh and me (Neil Mendoza) to create an installation that takes cast-off devices and suggests an alternate reality in which these unwanted phones and noises become something beautiful, giving them a new life by creating an experience that people can share together in person.  The Barbican recently asked commissioned us to create a new flock of birds for their awesome Digital Revolution exhibition.  Here's a little tech breakdown of how they work. In previous versions, the birds were independent, but this time we decided to have a Raspberry Pi at the heart of the installation controlling them all.  This gave us the most flexibility to animate them independently or choreographed them together. The exhibition is travelling so we wanted the installation to be as easy to set up as possible to so we decided to make each bird talk to the Raspberry Pi over ethernet.  This means that communications are reliable over long distances and each bird is self-contained and only needs a power and data cable connected to it. The next challenge to overcome was to figure out how to call a bird.  In previous incarnations, each bird included a functioning mobile phone that you could call.  However, as there is no reception in the gallery, we decided to include a different era of phone junk and make people call the birds with a rotary phone from the 1940s.  The system looks something like this… To make the phone feel phoney, the receiver is connected to a serial mp3 player, controlled by an Arduino that plays the appropriate audio depending on the state of the installation, e.g. dialling tone, bird song etc.  The Arduino also reads numbers that from the rotary dial and if one of the birds' numbers is dialled it sends it over ethernet to the Raspberry Pi. The iBirdBrain app running on the Raspberry Pi is written in openFrameworks.  When iBirdBrain receives a number from the phone, it wakes the appropriate bird up and tells it to move randomly.  It then picks an animation created using James George's ofxTimeline and plays it with some added randomness.  The current state of each part of the bird is sent every frame over ethernet as a three byte message: Byte 1: Type, e.g. 's' for servo Byte 2: Data 1, e.g. servo index Byte 3: Data 2, e.g. servo angle So the status of the app could be seen quickly without needing to SSH into the Pi we decided to use a PiTFT screen.  To begin with we rendered the OpenGL output of the app to the PiTFT screen, however as the screen runs at 20 FPS this created an unnecessary bottleneck.  In the end, we decided to set the screen up so that it would render the console output from the openFrameworks app.  After that, the app ran at a solid 60 FPS.  Outputting a '\r' character to the console goes back to the beginning of the line, so I used this to create a constantly updating console output that didn't scroll, e.g.: cout << '\r' << statusMessage; The birds themselves each contain an Arduino.  They speak ethernet using an ENC28J60 ethernet module and this library.  To start with I used TCP but running a TCP stack along with all the other stuff we were asking the bird to do, proved a little too much for its little brain so we moved to using UDP as it requires less memory and processor cycles.  An ID for each bird was programmed into the EEPROM of the Arduino.  That way, there only needed to be one firmware for all the birds, the birds themselves would then set all of their data, IP address, peripherals etc based on their ID. Each bird has multiple parts that are controlled by the Arduino, servos for the wings and heads, piezo sounders, Neopixels and a screen for the face. Escape III is on display at Digital Revolution until 14th September at the Barbican in London – I’m so excited, I’m going next week! If you can’t make it, you can see the birds here:

URL: http://www.raspberrypi.org/art-showcase-escape-iii-anthony-goh-neil-mendoza/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=art-showcase-escape-iii-anthony-goh-neil-mendoza

Authors United to Issue New Directive to Amazon

As Hachette, Amazon, and the laundry list of household name authors who make up the faux-power group Authors United continue to battle and make headlines over the contract dispute, there’s another major player who’s caught in the crossfire of the whole mess: the readers. While critics and supporters on both sides argue over the costs of doing business, the power of capitalism, even the poor contract terms that many traditionally published authors face, the sad fact is that the readers are being left out of much of the discussion. How the contract agreement–whenever it may come about–affects book pricing will directly impact consumers and their ability to continue to purchase books. Unfortunately, Authors United, the group of authors who penned an open letter to Amazon asking the retailer to resolve the issue and agree to terms, has now threatened to call on its readers to help stand their ground, despite Amazon’s offer to give Hachette’s authors 100% of the sale price of their books until the matter is concluded. AU has now written a second letter stating that it will write another letter…then post that letter in a full-page ad in the New York Times. Through author Douglas Preston, AU has made the following bold statement: “We have many loyal and committed readers. They listen when we speak. That represents power; perhaps even enough power to face down one of the world’s largest corporations.” The level of arrogance required to state that AU can use its own reader fans in its fight to increase the price of books for those very fans is astounding, as this is one of the biggest shows of us-versus-them in publishing to be made public in quite some time. Hopefully these authors will quickly come to understand that if it weren’t for Amazon, many of those readers couldn’t even afford to be their fans. Authors United to Issue New Directive to Amazon is a post from: Good e-Reader

URL: http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/authors-united-to-issue-new-directive-to-amazon?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=authors-united-to-issue-new-directive-to-amazon

The OverDrive Challenge results are in!

The results are in, and we're happy to announce and congratulate the libraries that participated in the OverDrive Challenge and increased circulation in the month of June by 25% or more from their previous best month on record. 25%-49% increase: Moore Memorial Public Library Monash Public Library Service Speer Memorial Library St. Albert Public Library Massanutten Regional Library Yukon Public Libraries Westmoreland eBook Network Medway Council Monterey County Free Libraries Geelong Regional Library Nassau County Public Library Shasta Public Libraries Lake County Library System Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Mid North Coast Library Service Apache County Library District Municipal Library Consortium of St. Louis County Union County Public Library County of Brant Public Library Markham Public Library Anderson County Library Central Rappahannock Regional Library Jeffersonville Township Public Library Lake County Public Library Download and Go 50%+ increase: Hempstead County Library Hancock County Library System Town of Los Gatos Public Library Corona Public Library Beaver County Library System Downey City Library Elkhart Public Library Holroyd City Council Libraries York County Library Ajax Public Library Watsonville Public Library Grace A. Dow Memorial Library Bartholomew County Public Library York Libraries City of Santa Clarita Public Library Anaheim Public Library North Texas Independent Digital Consortium Lafourche Parish Public Library Rotherham Libraries A big congratulations goes out to our grand prize winner, Rotherham Libraries in the United Kingdom, for increasing circulation well over 100% – more than any other library that participated. Finally, we're happy to announce that Debbie S. from Kansas City Public Library is the winner drawn at random of a Google Nexus tablet. While not everyone who signed up for the OverDrive Challenge hit the 25% goal or higher, many libraries had their highest circulating month ever during June. We'd like to congratulate everyone who participated in the OverDrive Challenge and wish you continued success with the growth of your digital library checkouts. Next week in the blog we'll feature some of the unique strategies used to boost circulation from our winning libraries. Looking for ways to raise awareness of your digital collection? Make sure to visit the Partner Portal for free marketing and training resources, available 24/7.   Melissa Marin is a Marketing Specialist at OverDrive.

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DigitalDistributionBlogOverdrive/~3/G1znHTpiA6w/

Amazon Rolls Out Beta of KDP Pricing Support

New information and knowledge have come to light thanks to the efforts of a core group of individuals; author Hugh Howey and his mathematical number cruncher Data Guy have released exhaustive information through the Author Earnings reports designed to help authors make informed decisions concerning their publishing. Rather than fight the Author Earnings efforts and information with their collective heads in the sand, Amazon seems to be reading and incorporating the information into tools for their authors. In the public beta of a new feature, KDP Pricing Support, Amazon has opened a new toolbox for authors to better understand their book pricing and the impact is has on their overall sales. Amazon’s new tool gives authors who wish to use the free service a snapshot of where similar books are performing and at which price points, thereby recommending a price for their titles. Authors are then given the option to one-click to institute that price for their books. It’s interesting to note that when a Good e-Reader staffer tested the new service, it was discovered that some of the author’s titles were priced as much as seven dollars US lower than the typical book performing at peak sales for that category; other titles were already priced at the recommended $2.99. None of the authors’ books were priced higher than the service’s recommendation, a characteristic that is common among self-published authors who tend to underprice their content. The tool is available for all KDP authors to try out by clicking on the button in the “Rights and Pricing” section of their dashboards, and Amazon has stated that the beta period is open to all users in an attempt to help them uncover which features authors rely on. Books that are not enrolled in Amazon’s exclusive KDP Select program are still eligible for the service, and more information can be found HERE. Amazon Rolls Out Beta of KDP Pricing Support is a post from: Good e-Reader

URL: http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/amazon-rolls-out-beta-of-kdp-pricing-support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=amazon-rolls-out-beta-of-kdp-pricing-support

Wattpad Announces Creative Commons Agreement

Copyright is a hotly contested issue facing both authors and the publishing industry, as rights holders work to strike a balance between safeguarding content and sharing it across a variety of platforms to reach as many readers as possible. In the era of digital publishing, ebook piracy, and open sharing authoring platforms, some industry response has been to tighten the reins even further to combat the over-inflated perceived threat of content loss. Wattpad, a site which makes discovery possible through more than 30 million reader memberships, is designed specifically for authors to write and post content, then for readers to share that content with their own followers. But one of the chief questions plaguing the concept often comes from new authors to the site: is it safe? In response, Wattpad announced this week that it has developed Open Stories, a Creative Commons option that authors can choose to let their work reach as many readers as possible while allowing those readers to be a part of the process. According to Wattpad’s announcement on this new option, “The biggest question facing new writers today isn’t how to protect their work; it’s how to find a readership for it,” said Cory Doctorow, science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger. "It makes complete sense that so many Wattpad writers are gravitating toward Creative Commons licenses: by giving others permission to share your writing, you can open doors to new audiences and new creative opportunities. “Cory Doctorow has shared five stories on Wattpad under CC licenses, including New York Times best-selling novels Homeland and Little Brother. Today, to coincide with the roll out of CC 4.0, he will share his first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, on Wattpad. Creative Commons is gaining more and more ground as content owners begin to more fully understand the changes that have taken place, largely due to technology and advances in the internet and social media. The original system of licensing permissions to read and share content don’t lend themselves well to the digital publishing age, and CC is working to address the necessary protections while still allowing the freedom of discovery. "From day one Wattpad has been about self-expression and creativity. With the integration of CC 4.0 creators from around the world will be able to search millions of stories on Wattpad and use them for their own artistic pursuits," said Co-founder and CEO of Wattpad Allen Lau. "Licensing creative works under CC 4.0 makes total sense in today's remixing culture." Wattpad Announces Creative Commons Agreement is a post from: Good e-Reader

URL: http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/wattpad-announces-creative-commons-agreement?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wattpad-announces-creative-commons-agreement

First Quarter Digital Sales on the Rise

The PA Digital Sales Monitor, new report from the UK-based Publishers’ Association, showed that ebook sales are on the rise for the first quarter of 2014. This report, which showed a 10.5% increase in digital sales, comes at a time when the debate around ebooks and their viability from different angles is starting to make waves again. According to a press release issued on the first quarter sales, “The growth in sales was also spread across all recorded categories. In the consumer sector digital sales of fiction increased 8%, with a 10% rise in sales of adult non-fiction. Digital sales of children's titles meanwhile enjoyed a particularly strong performance, with a 33% rise. “In the educational/professional sector the largest growth was seen in Scientific Technical and Medical (STM) books, where sales increased by 16%, however, there were also strong performances by schools/English Language Teaching (ELT) sales which grew 14%, and social sciences/humanities which saw an 11% rise.” eBooks as a viable source of industry revenue for both traditional publishing and indie has been called into question in the past, especially given the fact that critics love to indicate the plateau that ebooks seem to have hit with readers. While their growth had seemed to slow in recent years, they remained steady with e-reading fans. This growth indicates a forward movement in the format, giving even more credence to the disputes currently taking place between retailers and publishers regarding sales agreements, and between publishers and their authors over royalties. Richard Mollet, Chief Executive of the Publishers Association, said, “The Publishers Association Digital Sales Monitor shows the continuing development and growth of digital publishing in the UK. Increases in digital sales in both consumer and non-consumer sectors shows how publishing as an industry has embraced digital technology and continued its strong track record of innovation and service delivery." First Quarter Digital Sales on the Rise is a post from: Good e-Reader

URL: http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/first-quarter-digital-sales-on-the-rise?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=first-quarter-digital-sales-on-the-rise

What If book tour!

My book, What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, comes out September 2nd (pre-order on Amazon!), and I’m excited to announce that I’ll be going on a book tour! Here’s the event list: Thursday, September 4 CAMBRIDGE, MA Harvard Book Store at Brattle Theatre 40 Brattle St. 6:00pm (Seating is limited) Tickets: $26 tickets on sale August 12 at 9am ET, includes one book, one seat. More details: http://www.harvard.com/event/ randall_munroe/ Pre-order a limited number of signed copies of What If? from Harvard Book Store. Friday, September 5 NEW YORK, NY Barnes & Noble – Union Square 33 E 17th St. 7:00pm Open event, seating is first come first serve. More details: http://store-locator. barnesandnoble.com/event/84245 Tuesday, September 9 SEATTLE, WA Town Hall Seattle 1119 8th Ave. 7:30pm Seating is limited Tickets: $5, one seat More details: http://www.townhallseattle. org/randall-munroe-answering- what-if/ Wednesday, September 10 SAN FRANCISCO, CA The Booksmith at Public Works 161 Erie St. 7:30pm Seating is limited Tickets: $34 includes one book, one seat; $20 general admission The bar at Public Works will be serving drinks before, during, and after the program. This event is necessarily limited to people 21 and older. More details: http://www.brownpapertickets. com/event/772183 Thursday, September 11 BERKELEY, CA Berkeley Arts & Lectures at the Hillside Club 2286 Cedar St. 7:30pm Seating is limited Tickets: $10 with student ID; $15 general admission More details: http://www.brownpapertickets. com/event/772197 Friday, September 12 Google+ Hangout On Air moderated by Hank Green Location: Online/Various 3:30pm PT/ 6:30pm ET Note: Anyone can view the Hangout live on YouTube (Friday, 9/12, 3:30pm PT), but only 4-6 xkcd readers will be selected using this form  to participate and ask questions within the Hangout itself. Apply for a chance to participate in the Hangout by Monday, August 25. Link to Hangout and more info to come! Sunday, September 14 LOS ANGELES, CA Live Talks LA An afternoon with Randall Munroe William Turner Gallery Bergamot Arts Station 2525 Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica 4:30pm Seating is limited Tickets: $43 includes one book, one reserved seat; $20 general admission More details: http://livetalksla.org/blog/ 2014/07/13/september-14- randall-munroe/ Hope to see you there!

URL: http://blog.xkcd.com/2014/07/22/what-if-book-tour/