| The cost implications that come with finding yourself able to buy a computer for $25 are significant for all of us, but they can make a real difference to the way cash-strapped researchers do things. We’re seeing a surprising number of university departments around the world using the Pi for the sort of tasks you’d previously have pointed a PC at, with very gratifying results. I had email from Lorna, who manages some of our social media, about a video she’d been sent yesterday. “It’s about crabs,” she said. “The seaside kind.” (Just as well, or I wouldn’t have been able to publish it.) David Soriano, who is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh-Bradford, has been using a webcam controlled by a Pi to monitor fiddler crabs which are being offered thermal polypeptides, rich in the amino acid tyrosine. Tyrosine starts the pathway to melanin pigment production in the crab, and David’s watching for colour changes that result from it. This is a long video, at 15 minutes, but it’s very interesting, as David describes the setup and some of the crabs’ behaviour. David is also studying the effects of certain chemical agents on the American Cockroach with the help of a Pi. Cockroaches are much less cute than fiddler crabs, so I won’t embed the video here, but you can watch it on YouTube. Meanwhile, over in France at Aix-Marseille Université, Sebastiaan Mathôt, a post-doc at the Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, has been running his graphical experiment builder, OpenSesame, on the Pi.  Eben took part in a university psychology experiment once. The results, somewhat surprisingly, demonstrated that he had a closer relationship with Superman than he did with God. Sebastiaan is testing the Pi for use in psychological experiments, and has found it very suitable. He found a few milliseconds’ inaccuracy in some measurements, but says:
You can find out more about his setup on his blog; it’s well worth a read. The biologists are in on it too: click the picture below to visit the University of St Andrews in Scotland, whose Centre for Biological Diversity have written a Raspberry Pi phylogeny reconstruction program, so students can look at the relationship between phylogeny and evolution on a Pi. Daniel Barker, from St Andrews, said:
If you’d like to learn more (undergrad-level biology is a whole new world to a lot of us), Daniel came and posted some more explanation on our forums last year. Come and take a look. Of course, you don’t need to be at a university to use a Pi to research something. Yesterday I spotted a brand new Twitter feed, fully automated with a Pi, dedicated to capturing an image of the Beijing sky every 15 minutes. Zhe Wu, who works at delicious.com, is collecting the visual data and will be using it to analyse changes in the condition of the city’s air. There’s not a lot of data to process yet; the images only started being collected yesterday. But we’re looking forward to seeing what he does with them. You can view the stream of pictures on Twitter.  Pictures of the Beijing sky today. It’s looking a bit less smoggy today than it did on my last trip! Back in the UK, we’re seeing some pretty extraordinary research work coming out of schools too. The winners of the 16-18 section of the recent PA Consulting Awards competition, challenging schoolchildren to “make the world a better place” with a Pi, were Alyssa Dayan and Tom Hartley from Westminster School, whose Air Pi we’ve mentioned here before briefly; it’s a very sophisticated, very well implemented project we thought we should talk about some more. Air Pi is, say Alyssa and Tom, “an automatic air quality & weather monitoring device powered by a Raspberry Pi, capable of displaying, recording and uploading information about temperature, humidity, air pressure, light levels, UV levels, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and smoke level to the internet.” It’s cheap, it’s modular, it’s open: we love it. Here are Alyssa and Tom, who will explain a bit more about the project and what’s being done with it. There’s a lot more information on the AirPi website – head over and have a look. You can set one up yourself for as little as £50 (including the Pi), and AirPis are already being used to monitor air quality as far away as India. Are you using a Pi for research? Let us know in the comments. |
Thursday, April 25, 2013
The Raspberry Pi in scientific research
A Little Competition for Smashwords?
| When the free ebook distribution platform Smashwords was created, critics claimed that it was nothing more than a portal for lousy ebooks to flood the market while supporters countered that it was the first genuine concept in stripping away the artificial barriers to publication. The founder, Mark Coker, stated quite freely that if a horrible ebook–horrible in terms of the writing, the formatting, or both–was published, the readers would be the ones to decide not to buy it. But for Coker’s vision, book publishing was for everyone who wanted to invest their time and talent in the process. A few million ebooks later, Smashwords is a widely-respected and highly-profitable company that has launched a number of authors and has had a surprising number of titles distributed through their platform reach the bestseller lists. It has developed partnerships with the major online retailers to distribute vetted books to those retail marketplaces with the click of a button, and its model continues to be popular with authors, both indie and traditionally published. Now, a new company has arrived a little late on the digital publishing scene and claims to be the solution to the problems created by Smashwords. Draft2Digital, who issued a press release stating that it was the “long-awaited alternative to Smashwords,” offers… exactly the same service. Without indicating what was so frustrating about Smashwords that its company is the “long-awaited alternative,” Draft2Digital does provide a little healthy competition in the free ebook uploading marketplace, while still distributing the book to the typical retailers. Draft2Digital does claim to be working on allowing authors to choose CreateSpace as one of its distribution options, which is alarming; by its own FAQ admission, “e-books and print books are fundamentally different media,” yet the site also states that a Word document can be formatted as an ePub within minutes, and that same uploaded file can be formatted for CreateSpace exactly the same way. However, Draft2Digital admits that the paperback edition of a one-click upload is “a one-size-fits-all format for CreateSpace” will not contain things like headers or footers, or the options to select the page size. As for the sticky ePub-vs-MOBI issue of uploading an ebook to both Barnes and Noble and Amazon, Draft2Digital states that it allows authors to upload a Word document without having to use that pesky “style guide” found on Smashwords and that their people will convert it to an ePub within minutes, regardless of the formatting used in the Word document. According to Draft2Digital, “Our conversion process creates a high-quality epub for us to distribute to the sales channels you choose. But that’s only the beginning of D2D’s service. Once you’ve uploaded your document, you’ll be able to download it as a .mobi file for Kindle reading.” That doesn’t entirely explain how the ebook is distributed and sold to Kindle customers, but the site states that Amazon is one of the vendors authors can select. Without having been able to locate specific titles created and distributed by Draft2Digital for comparison purposes, the major concern with the model is how “easy” they claim this process to be. eBook formatting is by no means an easy process, at least not if the author wants a professional-quality, non-frustrating-to-read edition. Formatting a Word document for professional-quality print-on-demand is equally time consuming and requires some know-how. And openly stating the authors no longer need to stick to the technical conventions of Smashwords’ style guide creates dangerous ground for ebook quality. Overall, competition is generally a good thing because it causes all of the companies involved to up their games and ensure that they are providing the best possible service to their customers. But that only works in everyone’s favor if the end result is actually a superior product and experience.
A Little Competition for Smashwords? is a post from: E-Reader News |
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
53 Million People Choose Good e-Reader
| When Good e-Reader first burst onto the scene in 2009, the e-reader landscape was very different than what we see today. Amazon had been releasing Kindles for a few years and along with Sony’s e-readers were the only devices in retail. We saw the rise of Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and many other companies, as they experimented with electronic books and e-readers. Since our launch date 53,804,252 people have read our publication or visited the App Store we launched last year. e-Readers and ebooks have come a long way since we first started. At the time, something was very compelling about having a library of thousands of books in your pocket. I have always been a reader, learning how to read at 3 with those old Star Wars read along records, and I was hooked ever since. When we started, there were no iPads, no tablets to speak of, e-readers were very fringe, and most libraries’ entire digital strategy was PDF files. We have seen the rise of digital libraries, digital magazines, digital newspapers, the onslaught of self-publishing, and the companies that have risen up to fill voids in the market. We now see e-readers in every single major store and many publishers are seeing 24% of their entire revenue stream stem from digital. The entire Good e-Reader team is very happy with the way the industry has grown up in a short period of time, and companies that only have been in business for a few years are being sold for billions of dollars. It is very exciting for us to see the rise of an entirely new industry and we’ve been in the game long before 95% of the online publications even knew what an e-reader or tablet was. We have had a fun time traveling the entire world covering digital books, e-readers, tablets, and digital publishing news. I have been lucky enough to visit Taiwan, London, Germany, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Seattle, and many other cities and countries covering the news. It was always very important to our entire team to not just parrot the news, but make the news. Be there live on the scene, getting the essential stories, conducting interviews, and talking with the movers and shakers of the publishing world. We take great pride in being the most beloved and respected news sources in the world that focus on digital reading. We have produced over 675 YOUTUBE videos and our entire channel has millions of hours already watched. We have launched an eBook Lending Site, an App Store, a Cloud eBook Storage Locker, and purchased a local company to provide schools and the general public with e-readers. We are also proud to sponsor great companies like the IDPF in determining the future course of ebooks and digital formats. We are heavily invested in the digital realm and are here to stay. I would like to thank everyone in the industry that has granted us an interview and to the many friends of our website. It is very exciting for us to meet old friends at all of the events we visit, and it feels like you all are family. I would also like to thank our loyal readers, some of whom have been with us since the very beginning. Our entire staff has been doing a great job maturing as writers and globetrotting in search for the latest scoop. 53 Million People Choose Good e-Reader is a post from: E-Reader News |
Top Five Literary Fiction eBooks for the Mainstream Reader
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The best books challenge us to think critically and look at the world in a new way. But I admit it; as much as I love a well-written story, my attention drifts when the plot fails to develop along with the characters. I want a little action, a little intrigue or just a hint of the fantastical. So, there's nothing I love more than the rare book that combines complex characters and beautiful prose with captivating storylines.
Here are five of my favorite titles uniting the best elements of popular genre fiction with the power of great literature for a variety of audiences. Share your picks in the comments!
"The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak This is the book I give as a gift to friends and family. I love this book. The story and characters are fascinating, but I'm absolutely in awe of Markus Zusak's writing style.
"Skellig" by David Almond I read somewhere that Skellig was one of J.K. Rowling's favorite books for children — high praise in my mind — but I was still caught off-guard by the brilliant magic realism.
"The Paris Wife" by Paula McLain Before The Paris Wife was published, I had the chance to attend a workshop with Paula McLain, who taught at my college, in a creative writing class. Needless to say, it was awesome and I've been following her career ever since.
"When You Reach Me" by Rebecca Stead Rebecca Stead strikes the perfect balance between science fiction and the real world. Plus, one of my all-time favorite books, Madaleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time," served as inspiration and is referenced throughout the story.
"The People of Forever Are Not Afraid" by Shani Boianjiu A quick glance at the reviews for this title will motivate anyone to pick it up. I'm a fan of coming-of-age novels, and this is among the best in contemporary fiction.
Honorable Mention to "The Burgess Boys" by Elizabeth Strout While I haven't read Elizabeth Strout's new novel yet, the critical acclaim it's receiving has catapulted it to the top of my to-read list.
You'll find all of the titles listed above on discount as One Book, One Community Reads in Content Reserve through June 30, 2013.
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Change.org Petition to Require Amazon to Pay Tax Delivered to British PM
| British booksellers have taken to the internet for help in spreading a petition to ask the Prime Minister to take swift action against Amazon for not paying the same taxes that the independent bookshops do. A Change.org petition started by Frances and Keith Smith has received over 150,000 signatures so far, with the backing of some authors and a member of the British Parliament. Currently, Amazon and several other large corporations can avoid paying certain taxes by basing their operations in Luxembourg, despite doing business online through dedicated sales pages. This complaint is in addition to the sentiment that Amazon hires employees in the UK and pays such a low wage to those people that they receive tax credits from the government, allowing Amazon to benefit again at the hands of the tax payers. The Smiths, bookshop owners since 2004 who now own two locations, started a petition in order to ask David Cameron to enact change to correct what they feel is a situation that allows a much bigger entity to benefit over the smaller businesses unfairly. The petition that they hoped would receive a few thousand signatures has been more than they could have hoped for and has been now delivered to 10 Downing Street. According to the Smith’s petition, “Times are tough and getting tougher. We face unrelenting pressure from huge online retailers undercutting prices, in particular Amazon, and it’s pushing businesses like ours to the brink. But what’s even worse is that Amazon, despite making sales of £3.3 BILLION in the UK last year, does not pay any UK corporation tax on the profits from those sales. In my book, that is not a level playing field and leaves independent retailers like us struggling to compete just because we do the right thing.” For their part, whether or not this petition has any effect on tax laws, the Smiths can at least be comforted by the fact that this is obviously an issue that consumers have taken notice of. For their part, it is now up to the consumers to speak with their wallets when deciding to support a local bookseller or an online discount retailer.
Change.org Petition to Require Amazon to Pay Tax Delivered to British PM is a post from: E-Reader News |
Pocketbook Announces Two new e-Readers
| Pocketbook has been very quiet the last calender year, while the company restructured themselves on a business level. Today in Russia, Pocketbook announced two new e-Readers and a tablet. They are betting on an color e-ink alternative to the Jetrbook Color and a new six inch device. The most exciting device they announced today was the PocketBook Color Lux. It features a full color e-Ink Triton 2 display, with a resolution of 800 × 600 pixels. It has a seven inch screen, which is the only e-Reader in the world with this type of display. Commonly, most eBook Readers have a six inch screen, the extra screen real estate should make reading PDF files a bit easier. PocketBook Color Lux can connect up to the internet via Wi-Fi, has 4 GB internal memory and can be enhanced further with the Micro SD card up to 32GB. It has a Freescale 800 MHZ processor, and 256 MB of RAM. The second e-Reader to be announced was a six inch Pocketbook Touch 2. It features the same HD e-Ink Pearl display found on the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Glo. The exact resolution is 1024×758 and has a front-lit display, that is optimal for reading in the dark. It also has 256 MB of RAM, 4 GB of internal memory and SD card support for up to 32 GB of memory. Battery life should be good up to 7,000 page turns. It also has an audio jack, so you can listen to audiobooks and music. The final device to be announced today, is an Android tablet named the Pocketbook Surfpad 2. It has a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1280×800. It has 8 GB of internal memory and support for a Micro SD card. I am happy to report that it has a dual-core 1.5 GHZ processor and 1 GB of RAM. It also is Google certified, which means you can connect up to the official Google Play market. Pocketbook has risen from the ashes and announced three compelling products. The brand, still means something in eastern Europe, but sees poor visibility in the North American market. Stay tuned for full hands on reviews of their entire lineup in the next few weeks. Pocketbook Announces Two new e-Readers is a post from: E-Reader News |
Skype to be released on Blackberry Q10 May 1st
| Skype is one of the most sought after apps for the new BB10 operating system and we now have an official date on when it will arrive. Skype me be bundled into the new firmware debuting on the Blackberry Q10 on May 1st, when it launches in Canada! Skype for BlackBerry 10 is now available in BlackBerry World, but only for the BlackBerry Q10 and Dev Alpha C. The Z10 will get it in the next few weeks when the new firmware is released. The Playbook will likely never see a native Skype application, but the new models with BB10, out this summer, will have it as a launch title. Skype on the Blackberry 10 operating system has been something of a holy grail for most avid users. There is still many notable big name apps that are lacking in the latest offering from Blackberry, most notably Instagram and Netflix. For now, you can get the Android versions of these apps on the Good e-Reader App Store. Skype to be released on Blackberry Q10 May 1st is a post from: E-Reader News |
Rogers Gives Thousands of Kindle Paperwhites Away with New Promotion
| Rogers Wireless unveiled a massive campaign that has taken over print, television and online advertising in Canada. The company is giving away a Amazon Paperwhite e-Reader, many customers have been emailing us for clarification on the offer, and we have some news! Rogers has told Good e-Reader Exclusively that “We're excited to offer innovative promotions to our customers giving them access to new technology and devices, including the recent Kindle Paperwhite 3G e-Reader offer. We've seen great interest and thousands of our customers will be rewarded with a Kindle Paperwhite 3G e-Reader.” They also clarified on what devices and plans are available for the promotion, telling us that “Customers would need to activate a new line on a 3-year talk, text and internet plan with a min. $55 monthly service fee. So, they could activate an iPhone, HTC One or Sony Xperia ZL on a 3-year talk, text and internet plan with a min. $55 monthly service fee to be eligible.” So there you have it folks! The online and television advertisements really don’t say what devices or how you can take advantage of the offer, merely telling patrons to call or visit the store. We now know that all smartphones are eligible as long as you activate a new line on a 3-year term with a $55 plan, you'll be eligible. It also seems apparent, that over 2,000 e-Readers have been given away and there is more to come before the promotion ends. Rogers Gives Thousands of Kindle Paperwhites Away with New Promotion is a post from: E-Reader News |
Kobo Aura HD eReader Available at a Number of Canadian Stores Tomorrow
| The Kobo Aura HD is a new e-Reader that was almost a year in development. One of the big hyping factors is the 1440×1080 resolution with 265 DPI. This e-reader is seriously the best in the business with its high-definition display. The Kindle Fire HD 7 has 1280×800 and the Nook HD has 1440×900. Starting tomorrow this device will be available at a number of Canadian retailers to purchase. Starting April 25th in Canada, the Aura HD will be available at Indigo, Chapters, Coles, Best Buy, Future Shop, Staples and the Source. The price is poised to start at around $169.99 and normally comes with a one year warranty. If anything starts to go wrong with the device, keep your receipt and bring it back to the store. I recommend buying it from Chapters, as they often have the best return policy and normally swap devices out for you with little to no questions asked. Kobo Aura HD eReader Available at a Number of Canadian Stores Tomorrow is a post from: E-Reader News |
2013 Pulitzer Prize Winning eBooks
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The 2013 Pulitzer Prize Winners have been announced and now is the time to build your collection with these award-winning books! The winners and selected finalists featured below are available for purchase in Content Reserve. For our value shoppers, the Fiction and General Nonfiction winning eBooks are both currently priced under $15 (USD)!
FICTION - “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson
In 2012, there was no winner for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction so Johnson's "The Orphan Master's Son" is the first to win the award since 2011's "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan.
Also nominated as a finalist in the Fiction category this year: ”What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” by Nathan Englander
HISTORY - “Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam” by Fredrik Logevall
Also nominated as a finalist in the History category this year:
POETRY - “Stag’s Leap” by Sharon Olds
Also nominated as a finalist in the Poetry category this year: “Collected Poems” by Jack Gilbert
GENERAL NONFICTION - “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America” by Gilbert King
Also nominated as a finalist in the General Nonfiction category: “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” by Katherine Boo
BIOGRAPHY - “The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo” by Tom Reiss
For these acclaimed titles and more, log in to Content Reserve or contact our Collection Development Team.
Title availability may vary by geographic region.
Melissa Marin is a Marketing Specialist at OverDrive.  |
Txtr Opens 5 New eBook Stores
| Berlin Germany based txtr has just unveiled five new ebook Stores in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, and Canada. Expanding into English speaking countries seems to be a huge priority, since txtr already has stores all over Europe. txtr has launched in Australia with books from Hachette, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Pan Macmillan, as well as leading independent publisher Allen & Unwin. In South Africa, txtr provides access to best-selling titles from US and UK-based publishers as well as over a thousand titles from New Holland Publishing and Random House Struik. In all seven countries, the txtr stores offer a choice of well over half-a-million English-language titles. For example 660,000 titles are available on au.txtr.com and over 720,000 titles are available on gb.txtr.com. txtr’s Vice President of Content & eCommerce Anne-Sophie Lanier says, "The rapid expansion of txtr's operations bears testimony to the flexibility of the txtr e-reading platform. Our track record in rolling out new local content catalogs as well as localized shopping and reading experiences is unparalleled." txtr now has ebook stores in 17 different countries and the company’s technology powers the 3M Cloud Library service. All of these new stores are available via the Android platform, the web, and iOS. Hopefully, when its Beagle e-Reader is officially on sale, all of this content may sway a few people to buy one. Txtr Opens 5 New eBook Stores is a post from: E-Reader News |
University of Cambridge Computer Lab 75th anniversary
| We’re celebrating today: it’s the 75th anniversary of the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory. From its beginnings in 1938 as the Mathematical Laboratory, it’s provided the foundations for much of our computing history; Raspberry Pi is only one of hundreds of successful business set up by academics and alumni, and we’re very proud to be associated with the Lab.  The old Mathematical Lab, on the New Museums Site in the centre of Cambridge  The University of Cambridge Computer Lab today: the William Gates Building. Things have changed in computing since the Mathematical Laboratory’s early days. Just before our wedding, when Eben was writing up his PhD and we were living in university housing, the wife of one a very old, very decorated gentlemen took me by the elbow with startlingly strong fingers after a dinner, and proffered a dire warning. “You need to understand that life will not be easy if you marry a computer scientist, especially early in your marriage; you won’t always come first. When we were young marrieds, John would disappear for hours in the middle of the night to cool that damned machine for his supervisor.” It turns out that “that damned machine” was EDSAC. (My advice to “young marrieds”: if you can’t beat them, join them.)  EDSAC1 in the 1940s, with Maurice Wilkes and William Renwick. It’s thanks to work done in that laboratory that you’re holding a Raspberry Pi now that doesn’t need cooling at all, let alone in the middle of the night; ARM, whose technology is in the Pi’s processor, was originally a spinoff from the Computer Lab. The Lab’s anniversary announcement says:
We’re a bit overwhelmed to find ourselves discussed in such august company. Eben’s one of the (ha) Distinguished Speakers at today’s celebrations; tomorrow it’s back to normal, but for today we’re enjoying an incredible feeling of taking part in history, and a sense of the extraordinary pace we’ve been moving at for the last 75 years. Congratulations to everybody at the Lab, past, present and future. Here’s to the next 75 years – let’s make them good ones! |
DPLA Gets a Boost of Content from University of Georgia
| When the Digital Public Library of America launched last week, it brought millions of pieces of content from major universities, museums, and library collections together for public perusal. But what about the historically vital content that currently languishes in back rooms of small, regional libraries or historic societies? One such growing collection that was incorporated into the DPLA came from the University of Georgia’s massive archives, which chronicle the history of the state. According to Jean Cleveland of AthensPatch.com, these pieces of history are now available to DPLA users and feature some historic insights. Included in the collection were more than five million photographs from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s archives, including photos dating back to when the two newspapers were separate, along with photos from smaller local newspapers that were absorbed by the JC. Also included is a 1734 drawing of Savannah, the first city established in Georgia. Historically notable movie clips are also included, such as a 1919 clip of African-American employees playing a game of baseball, and the interview of Marion King in the hospital following her beating by police while pregnant for visiting protesters in jail. What made the incorporation of Georgia’s content feasible was the forward-thinking nature of library collections in the state. Patrons and researchers in Georgia have already enjoyed the use of its own state digital library, GALILEO, and the state’s digital library was selected as one of seven hubs around the country from which to support the DPLA. “We are so pleased to contribute to this national effort and to make more of the record of Georgia's history and culture available online," said Toby Graham, UGA's deputy university librarian and director of the Digital Library of Georgia, to AthensPatch. To date, more than sixty different state collections have contributed digital content to the DPLA, which aims to bring local archives to the public across the country for free and searchable access. “The launch of the Digital Public Library of America is particularly significant for communities—it provides them with the technology and resources to see their local history preserved and use it to build a fresh perspective that will eventually shape their futures," said Jorge Martinez, vice president and chief technology officer at the Knight Foundation, to Cleveland. "It is also an opportunity to spur greater community engagement and make a body of rich local heritage accessible to the entire world." The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation donated one million dollars to the DPLA in order to fund the regional hubs that will support the digitization of archived content.
DPLA Gets a Boost of Content from University of Georgia is a post from: E-Reader News |
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
eBooks only Account for 1% of all Published Works in Vietnam
| The Vietnamese publishing industry has its work cut out for themselves when it comes to digital publishing. A new report has surfaced that electronic books only account for 1% of the entire publishing sector. The main barriers preventing adoption is retail visibility for e-Readers, Piracy and barriers of copyright. When it comes to the retail sphere, there is simply no e-readers around. In all the local electronics stores, they're ridiculously hard to find. Merchants don't think customers don't want e-readers and customers aren't buying them. There is only one single store in all of Vietnam that sells e-Readers, Phuong Nam Cultural Joint Stock Corporation in Saigon. Most people have to order them on EBAY or travel abroad. Often when you buy an e-reader in a retail environment in Vietnam and its capital Hanoi, you will get a gift. Retailers often give a DVD with thousands of pirated ebooks that are dug up from forums and other file sharing websites to give people something to instantly read. The majority of people purchasing these often opt for the gift, knowing that these books might not be legal. Publishers are beginning to petition the government to declare a war on piracy to make the digital shift worth it. Publishers in Vietnam are at a crossroads, they need to shift to digital but are showing disdain for how prevalent piracy really is. "If we don't publish ebooks, our publications still would appear on a lot of websites and forms, from which people can download the publications free of charge, even though with lower quality than the printing versions. But if we publish ebooks, they would be unlocked just 15 minutes after the publishing moments, at with the same high quality," said Nguyen Xuan Minh from Nha Nam Publication Company. With the rampant piracy, low worker income and the unavailability of e-Readers to buy, it is no wonder why eBooks only account for 1% of all published works. eBooks only Account for 1% of all Published Works in Vietnam is a post from: E-Reader News |
Audible Unveils Free Audiobook Windows Campaign
| Audible is probably the definitive service for purchasing audiobooks. The company is owned by Amazon and often runs a series of promotions that give away free content. Today, Microsoft has announced that Windows and Windows Phone 8 users can get a free audiobook using the native app. This is open to new users to Audible only, so existing members will not be able to participate. You would figure with a free audiobook promotion you might be able to pick and choose what you want. This is certainly not the case with this one! There are only three free audio editions available, American Sniper, The Great Gatsby and The Power Trip. This new promotion is only available for US residents, so again, users in Canada, get the shaft. You only have until May 13th to take advantage of the offer. Obviously, this is not the most compelling freebie promotion Audible has ever run, but if you have a hankering for something to listen to while commuting, now is your chance! Audible Unveils Free Audiobook Windows Campaign is a post from: E-Reader News |
OverDrive Around the World: Chinese Publishers & Chinese Content
| I've always wanted to travel the world. I want to fill my passport with stamps from across the globe, eat exotic food and hold a monkey. I'm probably not going to reach those goals anytime soon but it's nice to live viciously through OverDrive—whose worldly presence would make even Anthony Bourdain jealous.
We've even touched down in China! Our current selection of Chinese content is pretty impressive—everything from cuisine to culture to intriguing children's literature. It also boasts a wealth of English language titles that have been translated to Chinese, allowing your library to reach even more users. OverDrive is committed to thinking globally and we hope our libraries will extend our initiative. Add some multi-cultural titles to your collection today! Here are some Chinese publishers, just to name a few, to get you started!
Cloudary Corporation: This publisher has everything you need to beef up your Chinese collection. Covering the heavy hitters like Romance, Fantasy and Juvenile Fiction, you will be able to find something for all the readers out there! Here's a great place to start, 我在星光下等你 (I'll Wait for You in the Star Lights), a big hit among Young Adult audiences.
ZHE JIANG PUBLISHING UNITED GROUP: I love the jacket covers featured in this collection because most of the artwork is hand panted. In this collection you will find hundreds of different children's titles to choose from and if the bright colors were enough to distract this 25 year old, I'm sure it will go over really well with your younger readers. Here's my favorite: 红帆船抒情童话：早安天使 (Chinese fairy tale: Good morning angel), which also happens to be the recipient of the 2002 Bing Xin prize for children's literature.
Get out there and explore Content Reserve for even more options!
Christina Bernecker is an Account Specialist for OverDrive.  |
HarperCollins Promotes Enhanced eBooks with New Website
| Many of the top publishers are battling the maelstrom of self-published authors and fickle public sentiment. The average customer only knows what they buy on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Kobo. Enhanced eBooks are the big buzz word for the last few years and brings a slew of multimedia enhancements to your reading experience. In order to built more public awareness on what enhanced eBooks, HarperCollins has just launched a new website to educate the public and draw attention to some of the best works. Some books featured on the page right now are American Gods, The Pioneer Woman Cooks, Telegraph Avenue, Prague Winter and more! Visit the page to watch a great video that features authors such as Michael Chabon and Colin Powell discussing their enhanced e-Books. The new website is available for anyone to take a gander at HERE. There are also a number of previews that you can download right to your device, to see what all of the hype is all about. The vast majority of the publishing world refer to EPUB 3, KF8, HTML5 and other formats as enhanced eBooks. HarperCollins is bucking the trend and referring them as Deluxe E-Books, which obviously confuses people and further fragments the publishing industry. The fragmentation of the next generation of eBooks is one of the main aspects that will be discussed at the upcoming IDPF conference, Digital Books, right before Book Expo America. HarperCollins Promotes Enhanced eBooks with New Website is a post from: E-Reader News |
New York Times Removes Digital Videos from Paywall
| The New York Times announced today that they are removing all videos on their website from their Paywall. In the past, you could only watch 10 per month, before you had to pay a monthly fee to watch videos and read articles. Now, it is possible to watch unlimited content, without ever having to pay. The New York Times Paywall system has been live in some form or another since 2011. The shift to giving people enough free content and then making them pay, was a savvy one. In the last quarter circulation revenue rose 16.1% to $257.8 million mainly because of growth in digital subscriptions. They currently have a digital subscription base of 640,000 and seems to be increasing by double digit figures every quarter. The majority of digital subscribers use the website and various apps for mobile/tablets to catch up on the days news. The New York Times basically dangles a few free stories to rope people into paying, but there are common ways in the internet browser to bypass it. The shift to free videos, will put more eyes on one of the few global newspaper brands and hopefully increase the digital subscription rate. New York Times Removes Digital Videos from Paywall is a post from: E-Reader News |
Hackspace security system
| NESIT is the New England Society of Information and Technology in Connecticut, and they have a made a security system for their hackspace that gives us terrible feelings of envy. Their old RFID door lock, powered by an Arduino, was getting old and came bundled with some problems: it didn’t allow for easy modifications to the database of users (the old setup wrote user information straight to the Arduino’s eeprom), couldn’t output video, and would have been expensive to hook up to the network; running its server all the time would have cost about $200 in electricity over a year. Running a Pi for a year costs about $3. So Will, one of the hackspace members, set to work getting a Pi interfacing with an RFID reader, and finding some housing for the whole setup. It had to be secure, lockable and robust: somehow he squirreled up an old outdoor telephone network box made of heavy-duty plastic, which he cleaned up, using a Dremel to modify the door of the box so it could accommodate an LCD screen originally intended for a car reversing system.  Before…  …after. Note glistening result of elbow grease application.  Guts Will really went to town on this build. He could have stopped there, but has also made sure that the system will tweet when someone enters or leaves. It also monitors temperature, can be controlled from his phone, sends an email alert if someone tries to tamper with the case, and detects motion: if it spots someone walking past, it’ll play a short video about the hackspace. NESIT’s put details of the build online, and have made this video of the system in action. We note that the “beep” you’re using doubles as an excellent cat-scarer, Will; I have the scratches to prove it. |
How to Connect iPad Retina Display to a PC
| Ever wondered what it would be like when a regular retina display of an iPad is connected to a PC? Or if such a thing is at all possible in the first place? Well, here is a cool guy named Andrzej who has been able to pull off the feat. The entire operation is quite simple and cheap, though will still require the expertise of a computer geek. It’s just $70 to accomplish the task. Quite predictably, the retina LCD display costs the most at $55. The only other expense incurred was that for Molex 502250-5191 connector, a pair of which costs just $14 and is required for connecting the FPC of the panel to a PCB. Coming to the specifics, the LCD panel manufactured by LG came with an eDisplay Port, which made things simpler in that these are compatible with the conventional Display Port found on almost all the modern video adapters. The only other piece required was a PCB, which is an extremely basic piece and is homemade. The only issue was that of manually soldering the pieces and this proved to be a bit tricky thanks to the tiny connector pins on the FPC that needed to be connected with the DP cable wires. Turn to emeryhacks for the complete details. What is achieved in the end does make it worth all the effort. For what you get is glitch free performance even at the full resolution of 2180 x 1536 pixels.
How to Connect iPad Retina Display to a PC is a post from: E-Reader News |
