| I came across an interesting trick at MobileRead the other day for Kobo’s line of E Ink ebook readers—the Kobo Glo, Kobo Mini, Kobo Touch, and Kobo Aura HD—to get them to display white text on a black background instead of the usual black text on a white(ish) background. It’s a straightforward trick that doesn’t [...] |
Friday, July 5, 2013
How to Enable Night Mode (White Text, Black Background) on Kobo eReaders
Sony Launches New Affiliate Program for eBooks
| The Sony Reader Store is redoubling its efforts to stay relevant by offering a slew of new features. The company has developed a new enhanced ebook section that is aimed at children and has a number of multimedia features. It also launched an online book club and a number of book discovery programs to make shopping easier. Today, Sony has officially announced its first ever ebook affiliate program that will give people a chance to make money on digital sales. Sony has worked on a new commission that will pay 6% on every ebook sold. It has partnered with Commission Junction for the physical logistics and payouts. This is the first time Sony has ever launched a program like this and the company is betting on extra sales stemming from book reviewers and internet blogs. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. eBook commissions tend not to earn much monetary revenue for website owners, unless you have a copious amount of web traffic. This is more about people advertising on Sony’s behalf and including the company on their list of ebooks. In the past, people tended to just do business with Kobo, Amazon, and B&N. This is normally why links only pointed to those sites, and if anyone bought anything, the website owner would get a few cents. Currently, Sony is poised to release its new PRS-T3 e-Reader, which is around six inches. It is also going to be ushering out its 13.3 inch e-Reader, that is geared towards schools. Sony Launches New Affiliate Program for eBooks is a post from: E-Reader News |
Ahhh! Zombies!
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Will you be prepared when the zombie apocalypse happens? I will – I happen to like my brains intact! And after tuning in for the last season of The Walking Dead, I'm still feeling queasy. Like most people, I have been acutely aware of the recent outbreak of zombie films, books, and TV shows that have been extremely popular worldwide. Even the CDC has an official page that discusses "Zombie Preparedness". (http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm) See? I can't make this stuff up.
Are we all terrified of being turned into mindless flesh eating ghouls? Perhaps. I think Freud would have a thing or two to say about our current obsession, whatever the motive, fear or entertainment. For me, zombie stories tap into our basic survival instincts. After all, many of the stories deal with that very topic – survival. From questions about basic survival such as, why is a crossbow a better choice than a firearm for protection, what do you do when the water supplies are contaminated to the more philosophical, "can zombies think or what can we learn from them?", zombie stories have taken our interest in the undead to a new level. Here are some of the current "zombified" titles available from OverDrive:
*Click on the titles names to preview these eBooks!*
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks "The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result."
The Zen of Zombie: Better Living through the Undead, Scott Kenemore "Do you struggle out of bed each morning and sway lifelessly across the room, mouth agape, arms hanging slack, murmuring unintelligibly? Well, take heart: you’re not alone! But these other staggering, limp, perpetually drowsy folks just happen to be zombies—and it turns out they can teach us a lot about enjoying life. And only here, between the covers of this book, will you learn their secrets to happiness. Learn how to slow down and move at your own pace, become your own boss, and just devour those irritating people who get in your way."
From Wayne Simmons comes a well-paced, terrifying, frighteningly real zombie horror story. Whatever people's motives for loving all things zombie, there is little denying that its popular and quite entertaining! And according to the CDC zombie preparedness has real world applications, even if the zombie apocalypse is just a thing of fantasy. I'm not taking any chances though – I've already signed up for archery lessons.
Kate Seivertson is a Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive  |
Sony Getting More Serious About eBook Business, Now Paying 6% Commission on Sales, Offering More Discounts
| A couple of days ago an interesting email turned up in my inbox. A representative from Sony’s affiliate program with Commission Junction notified me of Sony’s new affiliate program for ebooks. For the first time ever Sony is now offering a 6% commission on the sale of ebooks from the Sony Reader Store. Up until [...] |
PrivateEyePi – a DIY home alarm system
| A big thank you to Recantha for spotting this one: PrivateEyePi is a project that went straight on my “I MUST make one of these” list when I saw it. Right now, that list includes an aerial Pi and camera board with the IR filter removed to take pictures of Iron Age sites in inaccessible bits of Cornish moorland; an Airplay-alike MagicPlay receiver; a garden irrigator and an Ambilight clone for the TV. I need a holiday so I can work on all this stuff – there just aren’t enough hours in the day. PrivateEyePi is an open, configurable, automatable home alarm system that you can build and program yourself. Its maker (identified only as “Gadjet Nut”) has documented the whole system minutely and provides parts lists and pricing; wiring schematics; and all the code you’ll need. You can use motion detectors, or switches attached to doors, or a mixture of the two. There are instructions on adding cameras to the setup, and you can even add a temperature gauge to check on whether your central heating’s working when you’re away. You’ll be able to monitor everything via your computer or smart phone.
Click on the images to visit the PrivateEyePi project, and let us know if you decide to hack your own alarm system together. A word of warning here: your home contents insurer may not recognise an alarm system you have made yourself under the terms of your insurance agreement – if you’re going to use this in earnest (and there is no reason why you should not – it’ll do the same job as an expensive, off-the-shelf alarm), it’s best to check first that it won’t affect your premiums. And if you’re disconnecting existing alarm equipment, be aware that in some places there are laws which require you to have a licensed electrician do the work for you. |
Overdrive Shows Off Library Media Station at ALA 2013
| Overdrive is currently the largest digital ebook company that facilitates the loaning of content to libraries. At the American Library Association 2013 conference in Chicago, the company showed off its new Library Media Station. The Overdrive Media Station is a touchscreen terminal that users can browse the library’s ebook, audiobook, music, and video collection. The terminal itself features Overdrive Read, which is its HTML5 technology that allows users to read samples and listen to audio right on the terminal. There are QR codes and an entry for your email address, so it can quickly send you the link to download the full copy of any type of content you want to borrow. The Media Station in this video, features an “all in one” PC, but libraries can use their own touchscreen computers if they have licensing deals with other hardware companies. David Burleigh of Overdrive told me that “Libraries can purchase the optimized 27 inch touchscreen computer from us, or use their own. If they decide they want their IT department to deploy different computers, we will work with our partners to insure everything works properly.” The one great thing about this Media Station is that libraries have a great deal of flexibility in showcasing their collections. They can create their own sections on the main home screen for genres they want to promote. This can be anything from Young Adult to the recent Best Sellers they have added. Of course, there are branding options to showcase the libraries’ logos and taglines. You might notice in this video that we show you the new streaming video service. Overdrive is quietly testing this in beta, and has not announced anything official about the program yet. What we do know is that Overdrive signed a deal with Paramount Pictures for hundreds of movies. Overdrive has four other deals in play and will eventually roll out PPV events. Overdrive Shows Off Library Media Station at ALA 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
What Do You Think of Amazon Purchasing GoodReads?
| When Amazon announced it purchased ebook community website GoodReads, it polarized many hardcore readers. There was a large segment of users that thought that their darling website would transform into something they wouldn’t want to use anymore. Other people were excited about the possibility of the eventual incorporation of many of the websites features into next iteration of Kindle e-Readers. Last month we ran a survey that asked the question, “What do you think of Amazon Purchasing GoodReads?” 452 users cast their vote, giving us a great indication of how people are feeling about the whole issue. According to our data, the vast majority of people really hate the news (26.99%) and think its bad for readers (37.69%). 17% of readers are excited about the prospect of the GoodReads API or some aspects of the service built into future Kindle products (17.1%). Finally, only a paltry 14% were excited about the news and are celebrating the move. At Book Expo America 2013, we spoke to the head of the Amazon Kindle eBook division and Otis Chandler. Neither party had concrete information on what the future of GoodReads will be. My impression is that it will take around six months or longer to wrestle with the internal decision on what to do with the technology. What Do You Think of Amazon Purchasing GoodReads? is a post from: E-Reader News |
Miami Vice, Punky Brewster to Storm Your E-Reader
| If you pine for the days of big hair, shoulder pads, and Don Johnson’s pastel linen jackets, rejoice! The St. Louis-based digital publisher Lions Gate has announced a partnership with NBCUniversal that will bring five classic TV shows back as digital comics: Airwolf, Knight Rider, Miami Vice, Punky Brewster, and Saved by the Bell. Enterprising comics publishers have been drawing in the fans of canceled TV series (generally a small group for TV but a large group for comics) with comics sequels for a while now, from Dark Horse’s revival of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to DC’s digital-first Smallville, and in February, IDW announced it would publish a line of comics based on Cartoon Network properties. Lion Forge jumps onto the bandwagon with a quintet of digital comics series that will bring back some iconic properties. The writing team all seem to have more experience with television and film than comics: Joelle Sellner, who has written a number of animated shows including Teen Titans and an Olsen Twins cartoon, as well as comics for IDW and Marvel; Jonathan London, a film writer and director who hosts the Geekscape podcast; Geoffrey Thorne, who began his career as an actor and then became a writer, and whose credits include scripts for Leverage, and Ben 10 and Star Trek novels as well as a couple of comics; and David Gorden, writer of the Lion Forge comic Catalyst Prime: Accel. The visuals will be handled by Lion Forge artists Jason Johnson (Wetworks) Carl Reed, and Lorenzo Lizana. The comics will start coming out in the fall and winter of this year and will be available via Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and iBooks. Miami Vice, Punky Brewster to Storm Your E-Reader is a post from: E-Reader News |
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Digital Comic Review: Batman ’66 #1
| DC launched its new DC2 line of digital comics this week with the first issue of Batman ’66, an all-ages Batman comic based on the 1960s TV series. That show was known for its high camp, and the comic is actually a bit subdued, but it does feature one of the best supervillains, The Riddler. Writer Jeff Parker and artist Jonathan Case eschew the dark side of Batman in this all-ages comic and present a cheery, over-the-top little story with no brooding or mutilations. The story is simple: Commissioner Gordon is being awarded a valuable golden statuette in recognition of his department’s good work, and in the middle of the ceremony, The Riddler zooms through in an advertising plane with a riddle on the banner, steals the statuette, and releases laughing-gas bombs that slow everyone down so his confederates can steal their wallets and jewels. Batman gives chase, hooking his batarang on the tail of the plane, and a struggle ensues. I won’t give away the ending, but suffice it to say, the way is paved for the next issue. The DC2 comics take advantage of a number of digital techniques, such as having a new word balloon or a massive sound effect appear when the reader swipes the page. Thus, while 95 “pages” for 99 cents seems like a good deal, many of those pages are the same with one added element. DC isn’t breaking new ground here; Mark Waid has been using similar techniques on his Thrillbent digital comics site for a while now, and he and Stuart Immonen put them to good use in Marvel’s Avengers Vs. X-Men Infinite comics as well. The story is a bit thin, with a prolonged action scene (Batman and the plane) taking up a lot of the screens, but it’s a fun read nonetheless. That’s largely due to Case’s Warholesque art, which uses Ben Day dots, neon colors, and massive sound effects in a mix that perfectly evokes the era and the show. The inking is done in a heavy line that looks like it was put down with a brush, and then doubled with a line of brilliant blue that electrifies and energizes the scene. DC does plan to produce print editions of these comics, so the story can’t be carried by digital tricks alone. And in fact, that’s not what’s happening here. While it’s cool to see the word balloons drop in one at a time (not as cool as it was two years ago, admittedly), it’s easy to see that the print version will simply show all the balloons at once on a single page, and that will be fine. In other words, it’s hard to see what digital is adding to this particular comic. Still, you could do a lot worse for 99 cents, and it’s always fun to see The Riddler back in action again. Digital Comic Review: Batman ’66 #1 is a post from: E-Reader News |
American Pi Hackspace Tour, part the second
| Rob Bishop, our developer-evangelist, spent some of last summer visiting US hackspaces, giving Raspberry Pi talks and demonstrations. Because there was only a short time we could spare him for, there were large parts of the country that he wasn’t able to visit – and you let us know you weren’t happy about that. So this summer, Rob is going to be visiting the parts of the USA that you shouted most loudly from: namely the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest. He’s put together a preliminary map, showing a proposed route (not yet set in stone) and the locations of hackspaces across the country. Click this image to visit the interactive map. The green line is Rob’s route, and green pins are proposed stops: blue blobs are hackspaces.  Click the map to visit a larger version Rob will be in-country from around 5th-25th August; we’ll confirm dates later when we’ve drilled the route down a bit more. If you live somewhere on or close to this proposed route, and you’d like a visit at your hackspace or makespace, please leave a comment and we’ll see what we can do. Rob will not be able to visit grade schools, but he may decide to fit in some university visits. Once he’s got feedback from you in the comments, he’ll confirm dates with the individual venues. Like last year’s Raspberry Roadtrip, these events will consist of a talk, Q&A, live demos and (hopefully) some kind of competition for best Raspberry Pi hack. And if you’re somewhere we haven’t covered yet, don’t despair: Eben and I are also planning a smaller hackspace tour, after last year’s romp through NYC, DC, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. It’ll take in some more of the southern states and send us up through Texas in September, after Linuxcon in New Orleans (where Eben is keynoting). We’ll have more details nearer the time. |
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
HP Slate 7 Android Tablet Review
| The HP Slate 7 is the company’s first tablet offering since the ill-fated HP TouchPad. This is a mid-range device that has hit the market for $180.00 in the US and Canada. The hyping factors about this tablet include the fact it comes with Beats Audio, though it is largely average with most of its specs. How does it stack up against the competition and is it a worthy investment? Hardware The HP Slate 7 features a gunmetal aluminum body on the sides and back of the tablet. The front is done all in black, which certainly doesn’t make it stand out in the crowd. It features a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1024×600. It certainly won’t win any awards with the quality of the screen, but average users probably won’t mind. Underneath the hood is a ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz, paired with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. You can enhance the memory further via the Micro SD card, up to 32 GB. There are only a few physical buttons, such as a volume and power button. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top that is used for your Beats Audio. HP is really marketing this device as an official Beats device, but it is relegated to headphones via the internal audio. It does not give you the same type of Beats experience as you would find on the HTC One. This warrants you purchasing $300-$400 headphones to get the most out of your tablet. One of the redeeming factors is the side facing stereo speakers, which give you fairly good sound quality. We tested it side by side with the Kindle Fire HD 7 with Dolby Surround Sound and the iPad Mini, and the Slate 7 fell by the wayside. Software The HP Slate 7 ships with Android 4.1.1 and there is no word if it will receive any further upgrades as time goes on. Google has given HP its blessing, so this device is fully certified and comes bundled with Chrome, Gmail, Google+, and all of your other apps. Currently there are a few hundred thousand apps in the Google Play market place, so you should have no shortage of content. This is about as vanilla as you can get with an Android tablet. The only bloatware that ships on it is an HP E-Print app. Everything else is an official Google app or stock Android. This will appeal to people who love to mess with their device or don’t want to deal with proprietary user-interfaces, such as Samsung. Most of your common apps and games should load fairly quickly with the 1.6 GHZ dual-core processor, but the resolution is punishing. Over the course of this review we put the Nook HD+, Kindle Fire HD 7, and iPad Mini alongside it to see if we can spot any differences. Apps tended to load the slowest on the Slate 7 and the graphics quality also lacked. Reading Experience The HP Slate 7 is priced fairly reasonably, which makes it a Good e-Reader! During our review we loaded in Marvel Comics, PressReader, Zinio, and the Amazon Kindle app. The overall reading experience was fairly lackluster when it came to image heavy content, such as magazines. Colors tended to be more washed out and there was a bunch of negative space on the top and bottom of the screen. Most Android tablets have ceased making physical navigation buttons and decided to go with software driven experience. When you are within most reading applications you still have a blank space where the Back, Home, and Settings buttons would be, even though there is nothing there. There is also blank space at the top of the screen, where it meets the bezel. This may not seem like a big deal, but if you put this side by side with most other 7 inch tablets, it becomes one. The HP Slate 7 is best suited for newspapers, comic books, and normal ebooks. Most comic books are suited for print and their digital editions look perfectly fine. I loaded in a few Marvel Comics and one of the downsides is the lack of effective screen real-estate. It has the same issues with negative space as everything else does. You won’t really get an awesome comic book reading experience unless you have a Retina iPad, where special HD editions are made available. eBooks tend to shine the most on the HP Slate 7! We had a few apps we loaded in our labs and found the overall experience to be average. You can make notes, annotations, and look words up in the dictionary. It certainly won’t give you the same type of e-reading experience as you would find in a dedicated tablet that is geared towards it. Devices such as the Kindle Fire, Nook, and Kobo Arc all have discovery features built right into it, which makes finding new books quick and simple. Wrap Up In the end, this is a woefully average tablet with nothing of note to write home about. Most people might say, Beats Audio, sign me up! Unfortunately, it is relegated to only being available for super expensive headphones, which defeats the purchase of buying a cheap tablet. I would not recommend this device, as it lacks any compelling factors to make it stand out in a crowded marketplace. Sure, it has a vanilla Android experience, but so does half of them currently available. The only people that might be satisfied with the Slate 7 are first time tablet owners, who don’t know any better. CONS Rating 4/10 HP Slate 7 Android Tablet Review is a post from: E-Reader News |
Zinio Will Soon Offer Back Issues of Magazines to Libraries
| Zinio is one of the leading digital magazine resellers in the entire world. It has dedicated apps for Android, Blackberry, iOS, and Windows 8. The company currently offers 6,000 magazines in thirty-three languages and twenty-nine currencies. One of the its least promoted services is hooking libraries up with digital magazines as an alternative to print. The company will soon be launching a back issue feature, allowing libraries to collect and offer previous digital editions. Zinio, in conjunction with Recorded Books, will soon offer libraries a chance to allow readers to read previous magazine issues. This will provide libraries with the incentive they need to migrate their magazine collection over to digital. Normally, old magazines have a fairly short shelf life, with normal wear and tear. In the past, if you bought magazines from Zinio as a library, you could not access old content. This will soon change in the next few months and any magazine you buy will stay in your permanent collection. Recorded Books is Zinio’s main library distributor, and it works on Zinio’s behalf to market the digital magazine service. This company has been around since 1979 and has a storied history in dealing with libraries. You might say, Recorded Books has a lot of connections. Zinio Will Soon Offer Back Issues of Magazines to Libraries is a post from: E-Reader News |
B&N Slashes Nook Tablet Prices in the UK to Promote Reading Festival
| Barnes & Noble has further slashed the prices of its NOOK tablet range, just weeks after announcing the company is departing from the tablet business. The latest round of price cuts are only relevant in the UK, however, and are promoted in celebration of the Reading Festival to encourage literacy in the UK. The NOOK range starts at £99, which will fetch you the 7 inch Nook HD with 8 GB of storage. The same with 16 GB will now cost £129. Similarly, the bigger NOOK HD+ offering a 9 inch display will now cost £149, and £179 for the 16 and 32 GB versions of the tablet. “To celebrate the free Get Reading festival and to help make digital reading more affordable across the UK, we have reduced prices on our award-winning NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ tablets for a limited time,” said Jim Hilt, Managing Director, Barnes & Noble in a company press release before also adding, “We are committed to promoting the cause of literacy and we hope that families from all over the UK come to the Get Reading festival on 13th of July for a fantastic day of events featuring some top authors and celebrities.” The Get Reading campaign is the result of a partnership between London Evening Standard and NOOK to ensure readers get all the opportunities they need to get along with their reading. Towards this, B&N is also doling out a thousand of its NOOK Simple Touch e-Readers to the Beanstalk literacy charity. The latter in turn trains reading helpers who go to schools to help kids take up reading. The current offer is open only until the 13th July, which is when the Get Reading festival comes to an end, marked by a reading festival to be held at the Trafalgar Square in London. However, while B&N’s commitment at promoting reading remains commendable, what also can be stated is that the company is using the above event as means to clear existing stocks. It’s a fire sale all right and reminds us of the $99 TouchPad. It remains to be seen if the NOOK tablet can match the TouchPad with the response they get. B&N Slashes Nook Tablet Prices in the UK to Promote Reading Festival is a post from: E-Reader News |
Born on the 4th of July
| The creation of anything unique and beautiful is never simple. Each year, on the 4th of July Americans celebrate the flawed perfection that is our country. On this national holiday, our minds are filled with visions of battle victories, flags flying, and young soldiers coming home, but we must also acknowledge the toil, strife and sadness that often accompany the creation of a nation. So when you join family, friends and neighbors on this 4th of July, imagine those who came before you who united in the cause for country, a place of their own and believed in something revolutionary.
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis was a national bestseller and the 1997 National Book Award Winner. "In American Sphinx, Ellis sifts the facts shrewdly from the legends and the rumors, treading a path between vilification and hero worship in order to formulate a plausible portrait of the man who still today hovers over the political scene today.”- Publisher Summary
The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story by Lily Koppel is a current bestseller and has been in the spotlight for six weeks. "The Astronaut Wives Club tells the real story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest heroes in American history. Together with the other wives they formed the Astronaut Wives Club, meeting regularly to provide support, friendship, and entertainment while their husbands raced to the moon."- Publisher Summary
The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflections by Tom Brokaw is a follow up to his bestseller, The Greatest Generation. Brokaw shares the letters, stories and positive responses he received after the publication of his book by the same name. "I first began to appreciate fully all we owed the World War II generation while I was covering the fortieth and fiftieth anniversaries of D-Day for NBC News. When I wrote in The Greatest Generation about the men and women who came out of the Depression, who won great victories and made lasting sacrifices in World War II and then returned home to begin building the world we have today–the people I called the Greatest Generation–it was my way of saying thank you. I felt that this tribute was long overdue, but I was not prepared for the avalanche of letters and responses touched off by that book."- Tom Brokaw, news anchor Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic is a personal memoir of his experience in the Vietnam War and his role as an anti-Vietnam War advocate in the years that followed. Kovic's story inspired the 1989 film adaptation by the same name. The film was directed by Oliver Stone, a Vietnam Veteran himself, and starred Tom Cruise as the wheelchair bound soldier. "As relevant as ever, this book is an education. Ron is a true American, and his great heart and hard-won wisdom shine through these pages." —Oliver Stone, filmmaker
Renee Lienhard is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive  |
Digital Magazines From Zinio Now Available for Free Through Public Libraries
| I’ve got some good news for anyone who enjoys reading digital magazines. Borrowing ebooks for free from public libraries using OverDrive has always been a great way to legally read ebooks for free, and now thanks to a new partnership between Zinio and Recorded Books you can get digital copies of dozens of magazines for [...] |
Bend Gordon’s ear
| Gordon Hollingworth, our Director of Software, is saddened that I called him out for being camera-shy the other day. So he’s offered to star in a new feature, which we’ll make a regular happening here if readers (that’s you!) like the idea. If you have a question about the Pi you’d like Gordon and his whiteboard to answer (we’ve hung it up properly and bought in pens of many colours just for the occasion), please leave a comment below. We’ll select a few of the most interesting ones and film Gordon’s responses next week. |
Sites That Save You Money
Need to tighten the belt a little? Here are a few sites that may help you meet your monthly budget |
Smashwords, Publisher’s Weekly Team Up on Monthly Bestseller List
| As ebook discovery draws more focus and more readers and authors speak out about the need for guidance in finding new great reads, several companies are making a concerted effort to highlight some books that are doing well in terms of sales and overall traffic. Ebook distribution platform Smashwords and publishing industry news mainstay Publisher’s Weekly have collaborated on a new bestseller list project that will spread the word about titles on a monthly basis. Today, Publisher’s Weekly printed the first monthly bestseller list aggregated from sales that were distributed by Smashwords, and will continue to publish the list in an on-going format. Today’s list highlights the books who were top sellers through Smashwords in May 2013. The list includes titles by authors J. S. Scott, Abbi Glines, Kirsty Moseley, Katy Evans, J.M. Stone, Melody Grace, Shayne Parkinson, Pamela Ann, Mia Dymond, Katie Ashley, Quinn Loftis, Madeline Sheehan, Meek Mill, Colleen Hoover, Jon Acuff, and Chanda Hahn. According to a post by Smashwords’ CEO Mark Coker, “This will be an ongoing feature. I’m excited by where we and PW can take this list in the future, and how it will help shine a bright and deserving light on the 60,000+ amazingly talented writers who publish and distribute with Smashwords. Stay tuned for the our bestseller lists for June, July and beyond!” While the monthly Smashwords bestseller list will include the top twenty-five ranked books from across its distribution network, Publisher’s Weekly will print the top ten titles in its publication. The post this morning went on to include some helpful hints for authors whose work may not be enjoying the discovery that they had originally hoped.
Smashwords, Publisher’s Weekly Team Up on Monthly Bestseller List is a post from: E-Reader News |
Podcast: New and Featured Content for July
| Did you know that we're constantly expanding the OverDrive Marketplace catalog by adding high-quality publishers to our ranks? You can keep on top of these new additions by following our collection highlights podcasts on OverDrive's Learning Center. Tune in monthly to hear all about content from newly added publishers, as well as some hidden gems you may have missed—it's the perfect way to window-shop for your collection and stay on top of Marketplace developments, all in 15 minutes or less.
Our July podcast is chock-full of this summer's new and featured publishers, with content that includes graphic novels, test prep aids, exquisite picture books, teen fantasy reads, comedy videos, and popular eBooks about spirituality and religion. Access July's podcast from our Learning Center to see what's new in OverDrive Marketplace, and to get a sneak peek at what's coming soon.
Carrie Smith is a Technical Writer at OverDrive.  |
Chess. Bare metal assembly language chess.
| Pootling around the Raspberry Pi forums late last night, I found something that rightfully shouldn’t exist. It’s a two-player chess game for the Pi – nothing so unusual there – written in assembly language, with no OS. Which is highly unusual. Xu Ji, one of the three Imperial College students who wrote this piece of…bravura showing-off, had this to say in the forums:
It really does, too. Here are Xu Ji, Bora Mollamustafaoglu and Gun Pinyo, giving a storming demo. We hope you got top marks for this, guys: you totally deserve it. If you’d like to learn more about assembly language, we highly recommend that you get your Pi out and start working through Baking Pi, a course developed last year by Alex Chadwick at the University of Cambridge, which will take you from knowing nothing at all to being able to build a simple operating system on the Pi. You can read more about Baking Pi here. |
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