| European newspapers have often been shielded by the same issues plaguing their counterparts in North America. State subsidies often keep an unprofitable companies afloat, while advertising revenue continues to dwindle. In France, newspapers received €800 million in state subsidies and tax breaks last year, while tiny Greece boasted about 70 newspapers before the crisis, many fed by ads from state-owned companies. The system of government subsidies for European newspapers is starting to crumble, as the Euro Zone crisis gains momentum. Last year, France's La Tribune became weekly, while the owner of Spain's El Pais is near insolvent. Dozens of publications in Spain and Greece have folded. In Italy, general advertising spending hit a twenty year low in 2012 and state subsidies have dropped 60% since 2006, while sales of Italian newspapers are down 22% in the last five years. According to an Oxford University study, only 5% of Italian readers have home subscriptions to newspapers in general, compared with 25% in the U.S. The lack of government funding is prompting the newspaper companies to go digital, but they are very unprepared for this new frontier because they relied on handouts for so long. Writers are being forced to write for the physical and digital brands at the same time, effectively doubling their workflow. The Wall Street Journal mentioned that “In France, newspapers also have had to play catch-up online, given that overall circulation is down by nearly a third in four years and direct government subsidies to the press are projected to slide 29% by 2015 from their 2010 peak. Le Monde only began merging its online and offline newsrooms last year, after a group of investors—including a tech tycoon—bought control of the paper in a bid to save it from bankruptcy. The problem: Le Monde's website had been owned until late 2011 in a separate joint venture. Now things are speeding up online. Le Monde says it has 120,000 paying online subscribers, and last year clawed to a narrow operating profit.” The one bright spot in Europe right now is Germany, where newspaper companies often have never received government subsidies and had to remain autonomously profitable. Revenue is down just 10% since 2008, according to the Association of German Newspaper Publishers. Two-thirds of German adults still read print newspapers regularly, and a number of publishers have adopted online paywalls. At Axel Springer AG, Germany's biggest newspaper company and publisher of mass-market tabloid Bild, digital revenue overtook domestic print revenue last year for the first time, helping the company record its highest profit ever in 2012. European newspapers in Greece, France, and Italy are in big trouble. The big ones are all owned by wealthy owners more interested in power than profits. State subsidies are drying up and most are ill-prepared to capitalize on digital distribution. For the first time they are being forced to adopt online models and overwork their writing staff to simultaneously publish on both platforms. No one is really happy during this transitional period and the public needs to be educated on exactly what is happening before more newspaper companies fold under the pressure. Digital is the New Salvation for European Newspapers is a post from: E-Reader News |
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Digital is the New Salvation for European Newspapers
Valiant Puts 8-Bit Video on the Cover of a Print Comic
| We mentioned Valiant the other day, because ComiXology is having a big 99-cent sale on their comics this weekend, to help readers prep for their big Unity crossover event. Valiant Entertainment is the second coming of a publisher that was, in its time, one of the real innovators in the comics industry, and the new kids (some of whom are actually the old kids doing a second act) have shown they have a trick or two up their sleeve. And this is a clever one: Scan the QR code on the front of the “tech variant” cover of their first crossover comic, Unity #1, and your smartphone will play an 8-bit video that sums up the history of the different characters in vintage video game style. The cover is above, and you can watch the video on their website as well. The video was produced by Cinefix’s 8-Bit Cinema. This isn’t the first time Valiant has added a digital something extra: The first issue of their first comic, X-O Manowar, had a variant with a QR code that played a speech by the main character, Aric of Dacia. The trick is that if you held your smartphone over the character’s mouth, it looked like he was speaking. They billed it as “the world’s first talking comic book cover.” The cover is a gimmick, of course, but the Valiant folks are pretty serious about their big crossover: They have lined up a stellar team of writer Matt Kindt (Mind MGMT, Red-Handed) and Doug Braithwaite (Journey into Mystery) for Unity, which makes it worth checking out anyway—the video cover is just the icing on the cake. Valiant Puts 8-Bit Video on the Cover of a Print Comic is a post from: E-Reader News |
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Modern Family Star Lends Voice Talent to Enhanced eBook on Food Allergies
| Emmy Award-winning actress Julie Bowen, a star of ABC’s comedy Modern Family, has lent her voice talent to the narration of an enhanced ebook aimed at educating readers on the dangers of deadly food allergies, especially in public schools. Bowen, who plays Claire Dunphy on the series, has a special focus on anaphylaxis awareness as she is the mother of a child with life-threatening food allergies. According to a press release, “As part of her work to support the Get Schooled in Anaphylaxis health initiative, Julie has lent her voice to narrate an online book to raise awareness of and preparedness for life-threatening allergic reactions, or anaphylaxis. This issue is personal for Julie because her oldest son is among the estimated one in 13 U.S. kids who live with a severe food allergy. “The e-book, titled The Adventures of Ana and Phyl: The Carnival, follows brother and sister duo Ana and Phyl Axis as they work with parents, teachers and other children to plan an allergy-friendly event at their school. Through the story, readers learn about the importance of avoiding people's allergens, knowing the signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis, having access to two epinephrine auto-injectors, and being prepared to respond if anaphylaxis occurs.” “As the mother of a child with life-threatening allergies, I know how important it is to talk frequently with my child and the people who care for him about this topic,” said Bowen, whose oldest son is allergic to peanuts, tree nuts and bee stings. “This e-book offers a great, new way to continue the conversation about the seriousness of anaphylaxis and the importance of avoiding known allergens. The Adventures of Ana and Phyl provides us all with a good reminder of the steps we need to take to be prepared if anaphylaxis occurs.” The ebook and other instructional materials are available for free, and serves a guide to help parents and educators understand how to speak to students about this condition. For a free copy, go to Anaphylaxis101.com.
Modern Family Star Lends Voice Talent to Enhanced eBook on Food Allergies is a post from: E-Reader News |
Goodreads Modifies User Terms to Prevent Author Bullying, Reviewers Outraged
| After the recent pivotal blowup of author bullying and harassment on book discovery website Goodreads, an issue that has apparently been ongoing but only within the last month received the global attention it now faces, leadership at the site made a startling announcement last night by finally stepping in and publishing guidelines that have been put into effect to prevent future conflict. The issue now is that reviewers have taken to the Goodreads announcement to voice their complaints over what they feel is censorship, criticizing Goodreads for not allowing them to continue with their negativity aimed at individuals, rather than books. In an announcement HERE, Director of Customer Care “Kara” makes the announcement that author attacks will no longer be allowed on Goodreads. Users are welcomed and encouraged to continue posting their honest feelings about books, but remarks, shelves, and posts about authors themselves will be deleted. This is welcome news to groups like StopTheGRBullies.com and a host of other authors who emerged during this recent news to share not only their stories of bullying, but also screen shots to back them up. Now, it’s the Goodreads community that is firing back at the website itself, claiming censorship and supporting the justification to target authors whom they believe are deserving of being ridiculed and threatened. The comments below Goodreads’ anti-bullying announcement are very telling of the type of behavior that was taking place, most of it aimed at authors. For the authors’ part, Goodreads posted author guidelines earlier this year, warning them of the potential for backlash if authors–who have not all been the proverbial saints, to be sure, but have engaged in ugly diatribe and specifically called out by name reviewers who did not like their books–comment on reviews of their works. Where authors were threatening a mass account cancellation to protest the bullying, many of the reader users who commented on the announcement are now threatening the same thing. And while much of this might seem like nothing more than petty playground behavior between children who honestly do not have a clear good guy or bad guy, keep in mind that several ebook retailers incorporate the Goodreads’ API into their sales pages, effectively posting book reviews that many in the Goodreads community knew to be false, and nothing more than an act of revenge against an author; real-world sales decisions have been made by consumers based on these reviews. There is no clear answer as to what Goodreads should or should not do with this scenario. Authors have called for stricter guidelines concerning user behavior, and reviewers have rightfully rebutted that the site is for readers, not for authors. Hopefully some sense of common support for both parties can be reached before the site becomes obsolete.
Goodreads Modifies User Terms to Prevent Author Bullying, Reviewers Outraged is a post from: E-Reader News |
SingTel Decides To Brings Curtains Down On Skoob
| SingTel has announced they are winding up their e-book business Skoob. The process is starting off on September 24th, which is when all sales from the store will come to an end; the entire store will cease to exist after November 5. This marks the closure of Singapore's second e-book store, coming within just months of MediaCorp closing down a similar venture, ilovebooks.com. SingTel didn't reveal any exact reasons to explain their move expect that they are keen to focus on other areas which they believe have a bigger growth potential. SingTel had earlier brought down shutters on its magazine app store, de!ite, last year, less than two years after its inception. Skoob (spelt Books backward) has had a fairly good run at the Google Play Store where it has earned a three star rating. However, increasing competition from the likes of global majors such as Amazon could be the reason behind Skoob's demise.
SingTel Decides To Brings Curtains Down On Skoob is a post from: E-Reader News |
Friday, September 20, 2013
Introduction to the Raspberry Pi: free online course in Spanish starts October 14th
| Universidad Galileo (Galileo University) in Guatemala have launched a free, Spanish language MOOC (Massive Open Online Course**) titled “Introducción a Raspberry Pi“. The University says (via my rubbish tourist Spanish, sorry):
The emphasis is on theory first, then demonstrations and ultimately the student is encouraged to reinforce their learning by first replicating and then improving what they’ve been shown. The course structure looks like this :
The content looks excellent and they’ve got a talented and experienced bunch of teachers on board. Interestingly, there are two routes through the course: a ‘light mode’ where you can learn the basics and an ‘advanced mode’ where studetns contribute weekly projects plus a final project. For the light mode you do not even need a Raspberry Pi! This is a stroke of genius: the fewer barriers to learning the better. We believe that this is the first ever Raspberry Pi specific MOOC and it certainly sets the bar for future courses. If Spanish is your first language and you would like to learn about the Raspberry Pi, what it can do and how to use it then is the ideal route. The course starts October 14th 2013 and registration is now open. Sign up here. — |
Random House Launches Curated Magazines on Flipboard
| Random House has partnered with Flipboard, the popular news and social media aggregation application, to become the first ever book publisher to curate content for the platform of 85 million users. The collaboration kicks off with two custom digital magazines. The first, curated by Margaret Atwood, is inspired by her new novel, MaddAddam and the second, by Westeros.org, explores the fictional worlds of George R. R. Martin. All of this new content is totally unique and Random House claims it has not been published before. Margaret Atwood's Flipboard magazine, MaddAddam's World based on her new novel, MaddAddam is filled with unique information, out-of-the-box ideas, and stunning images. "The magazine will enhance the experience of being immersed in the brilliantly imagined world that Margaret Atwood has created in the trilogy," says Judy Jacoby, vice president, director of advertising and promotion at Doubleday. "For readers who are new to the trilogy, it can be an intriguing introduction; for readers who have completed the trilogy and don’t want it to end…it doesn’t have to!" The World of Ice and Fire magazine on Flipboard provides a centralized hub that explores all things related to George R.R. Martin. "George R.R. Martin has such a passionate fan base, an official Flipboard magazine is the perfect venue for fans to stay current on news as well as sample excerpts of GRRM’s work that they might not yet be familiar with," said Scott Shannon, publisher of digital content at Random House. The magazine is curated by Westeros.org, known and respected experts on George R.R. Martin's works, blessed by the author and Random House. Magazine readers can expect to learn more about the Song of Ice and Fire series, which began with A Game of Thrones, as well as the author's other projects in fiction, comics, gaming, and collectibles. Random House is doing something very unique with Flipboard and drawing attention to their eBook properties. Lee Child and Dean Koontz have been doing something similar with releasing free content that is basically short-form to get people excited about their full length novels. People often go with free and this will give them a chance to learn about the two worlds the authors have crafted and perhaps actually buy them, if they like what they see on Flipboard. "We are always looking for innovative ways to connect with readers around the topics that matter to them," says Amanda Close, senior vice president, digital marketplace development at Random House. "Flipboard provides a powerful platform for authors to create absorbing experiences for readers with their magazines. We are excited to reach a new audience on Flipboard and facilitate deeper discussion about books across social media." Random House Launches Curated Magazines on Flipboard is a post from: E-Reader News |
Icarus Announces Illumina HD e-Reader
| Icarus has been quietly making a name for themselves in offering very high quality products with tremendous PDF support. The company has just announced a brand new Illumina HD e-Reader that we will be reviewing next week. The Illumina HD features a six inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1024×758 pixels. It has a front-light built into the bottom of the bezel and will basically allow you to read in the dark. Although it has a fully interactive screen, Icarus has added physical page turn buttons and control buttons. This means if you like to manually hit your settings and home menu, you are good to go. Underneath the hood is a 1 GHZ processor and 512 MB of RAM. You will have 4 GB of internal storage and you can boost it up to 32 GB via the Micro SD. Modern day e-readers have done away with audio functionality and the average person can’t even listen to audiobooks anymore. Icarus has added a 3.5mm headphone jack and support for Flac, AAC, mp3, Wav, WMA, and OGG. This e-Reader is going to hit the market next week for around $100 euros. Icarus Announces Illumina HD e-Reader is a post from: E-Reader News |
Adobe, MPA Come Together on Standardization of Digital Advertising Metrics
| As digital magazines optimized for tablet and smartphone reading continue to enjoy a surge in growth, publishers still have to concern themselves with being able to accurately demonstrate to their advertisers that readers can–and do–interact with their ads. Adobe, the creators of the flagship Digital Publishing Suite that a wide variety of publishers use to create their digital editions, announced this week that it has collaborated with a team of industry professionals to build a standard for advertising metrics. According to a press release, “The standardization of initial audience and engagement metrics was accomplished in collaboration with leading magazine publishers, MPA – The Association of Magazine Media, Adobe and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As). Adobe's implementation was audited by the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM, formerly known as the Audit Bureau of Circulations). The methodology will empower accurate and consistent industry-wide benchmarking for publishers, a significant first step toward developing a measurement model that will help drive increased digital advertising spend and continued confidence in ad buys.” Lynly Schambers, Group Product Marketing Manager of Digital Publishing at Adobe, spoke to Good e-Reader about why a move towards this type of consistent measurement standard is so important to the publishing industry. “People want to consume content like their favorite magazines [on these devices]. The reason publishers are interested in digital editions is it offers them advertising opportunities, and they want brands and marketers to follow them onto these global devices. There’s even more opportunity to facilitate more of these ad-buying transactions. On the flip side, marketers want to take advantage of these targeted ad-buying opportunities.” As digital editions continue grow in popularity, a “measurement environment” becomes all the more important. It’s not enough to make content available on tablets, it needs to be the right kind of content for each reader. Marketers need to understand who is reading the digital versions of publishers’ works so that they can ensure their advertising budgets are being wisely spent on targeted consumers and that they match the content’s readers. Until now, there has been no standard for measuring the analytics within digital advertising, so marketers basically had to make educated guesses on the potential effectiveness of their latest campaigns. By working together with these publishing entities, “the methodology will empower accurate and consistent industry-wide benchmarking for publishers, a significant first step toward developing a measurement model that will help drive increased digital advertising spending and continued confidence in ad buys…The metrics enable publishers to measure the total number of tablet readers per issue, total number of sessions per issue, average amount of time spent per reader per issue, and average number of sessions per reader per issue.” “The task force came up with the recommended measurement approach,” continued Schambers, “and basically the task force said the metrics have to be understandable from a business perspective.”
Adobe, MPA Come Together on Standardization of Digital Advertising Metrics is a post from: E-Reader News |
Pottermore Announces Former Sony VP as New CEO
| JK Rowling’s innovative Pottermore company, which oversees the interactive website, the sale of the entire Harry Potter ebook collection, and maintains a partnership with the Sony Wonderbook game based on the world of Harry Potter, announced yesterday its replacement for former CEO Charlie Redmayne. Susan Jurevics, formerly a Senior Vice President at Sony, said in a press release, “I am delighted to be joining Pottermore, a business I know well already, to take it into the next exciting stage of its development. A world of new opportunities is opening up and Pottermore will be there at the forefront of digital innovation. I'd like to thank Julian Thomas for taking the helm in the interim and I look forward to working with him, the fantastic team now in place at Pottermore, J.K. Rowling, and the team at The Blair Partnership.” Rowling is undeniably one of the most well-appointed authors when it comes to taking ownership of both her career and her content. Retaining the digital rights to her multi-book boy wizard series at a time when no one predicted the current popularity of e-reading afforded her the opportunity to maintain complete control over the digital rights, even as her publisher remains the rights’ holder for the print editions. This foresight allowed her company to be the exclusive seller of the ebooks, distributing them for unheard of royalties through major online retail platforms. Whoever heads up the entire Pottermore company, fans and users can rest assured that only more innovation will come from the team effort of Rowling and her staff.
Pottermore Announces Former Sony VP as New CEO is a post from: E-Reader News |
OverDrive’s Digital BookMobile on Hand at the National Book Festival
| This weekend’s National Book Festival, taking place once again in Washington, DC and hosted by the Library of Congress, will once again feature OverDrive‘s Digital Bookmobile in the company’s ongoing effort to put ebooks front and center in readers’ lives. While the book event will showcase so much that US publishing has to offer to a global community of readers, OverDrive, one of the world’s leading digital content providers to schools and libraries, will demonstrate the power of ebook lending to the thousands of festival attendees. According to a press release on the event, “The Digital Bookmobile launched in August 2008 and since then has traveled 110,000 miles across North America, hosting 655 events at libraries and schools and welcoming 135,000 visitors. It will be open to the public throughout the National Book Festival, rain or shine, from 10 am to 5:30 pm on Saturday, September 21, and 12 noon to 5:30 pm on Sunday, September 22.” Some of the celebrated authors who will be in attendance at this year’s event, its thirteenth annual staging since it was first coordinated by then-First Lady Laura Bush in 2000, include Khaled Hosseini, Margaret Atwood, Katherine Applegate, Rick Atkinson, Veronica Roth, Holly Black, Jamaica Kincaid, Joyce Carol Oates, and more. For more information on the National Book Festival, go to loc.gov/bookfest; to see more images and learn more about future stops for the OverDrive Digital Bookmobile, checkout digitalbookmobile.com.
OverDrive’s Digital BookMobile on Hand at the National Book Festival is a post from: E-Reader News |
Bookeen Announces New eBook Readers: Cybook Odyssey Frontlight and Cybook Ocean
| For those of you that live in Europe, there will be two new choices for ebook readers this fall from Bookeen, makers of the France-based Cybook brand of ereaders. The most intriguing of the two is the Cybook Ocean. What’s unique about it is that it’s the first Cybook ereader to have an 8″ screen. […] |
Qualcomm Pulls the Plug on the Toq
| The smartwatch segment is just beginning to take shape, though it seems we are already about to witness the first casualty: Qualcomm Toq devices. Qulcomm's entry in the smartwatch arena has been much talked about, but the company has stated they are pulling the plug on the device which they claim was never meant to be offered on a commercial basis. Rather, Qualcomm's President of Southeast Asia and Pacific John Stefanac revealed the Toq was meant to be a technology demonstrator. Qualcomm has always stated that the Toq will be a limited edition device and it remains to be seen how many of these will actually be produced. There have been quite a few smartwatches launched in the last few weeks, but the Toq stood out with its superior battery life that is said to last even up to 96 hours. That's not all, for the color display remains always on and visible even in bright light condition, which are some of the qualities that are extremely desirable of a device that claims to be superior to conventional watches. The Toq is also compatible with Android devices running version 4.0.3 and above. Qualcomm had also announced during IFA that an iOS compatible version will be launched soon, but now it’s not certain if not sure if Qualcomm will follow through with that. Qualcomm didn’t have a good experience with its Mirasol e-paper tech, as the tablet and e-reader devices failed to make it big in the market. The company has since changed its focus to smartphone and wearable devices and is keen to re-invent along this line, something borne out of its showcase at the SID Display Week 2013. The smart wearable segment comprising of smartwatches or Google Glass holds a lot of promise and Qualcomm, with its expertise in e-paper, does stand a good chance of excelling there.
Qualcomm Pulls the Plug on the Toq is a post from: E-Reader News |
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Split Screen e-Ink Phone Cases Might just Catch on
| e-Readers are one of those types of technology that is relatively fringe in nature and has saw its growth stymied by the rise of tablets. E-Ink Holdings, is the company primarily responsible for 90% of all e-Paper technology currently being employed. Last quarter they lost $33 million dollars and has been in constant decline for the past year. What can turn the e-paper industry around and have a greater market appeal? The answer is relatively easy, split screen cases for phones. Plastic Logic and Pocketbook have been working together on a new high concept that will see production begin in October. It basically is a case of your phone, but instead of it being made of leather, its a e-Ink display panel. Built within the new Pocketbook app in development, you can switch your e-reading experience over to the e-ink display, instead of the LCD Screen. The two companies have announced that they are making a new model for the Apple iPhone. A recent Pew Research report stated that 91% of the United States population has a cell phone and 61% have verified it to me a smartphones. Major companies such as Barnes and Noble, Sony, Kobo and Amazon all make solid revenue by selling eBooks to phone owners. The main problem with reading on small LCD screens, is that you end up straining your eyes and often get distracted by the multimedia. Having a split screen e-ink panel, built into a highly functional case may just catch on. I think in the next year, these types of display screens will catch on, and we may see companies like Kobo offering mobile phone companies a subsidized case for new activations. I also see eBook credit being offered as a further incentive to lure readers into their particular ecosystem. Likely all the major players in the e-Reader and smartphone space are looking at this new technology as having high potential. Not a single unit has been sold yet, but something is compelling about a simple low-cost accessory that gives a full e-reading experience. Split Screen e-Ink Phone Cases Might just Catch on is a post from: E-Reader News |
Good e-Reader Radio – eBook Prices Falling, e-Ink cases for phones and iOS 7
| Welcome to another exciting edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show. Today Editor in Chief Michael Kozlowski is joined by Digital Book Worlds own Jeremy Greenfield. Today the two lads talk about a new report that tracks eBook sales for the first six months of 2013 and how the overall landscape has remained flat. Although, Kids eBooks have dramatically fallen since last year by almost 50% and they explain why. eBook prices overall have come down in price during the last few months and how will this effect sales or customers buying into the whole digital revolution? We firmly explain why this is happening and what you can expect for the next six months. Finally, Pocketbook and Plastic Logic have been making waves with a new e-Ink accessory for your iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S4. With 90% of Americans now owning a phone, is the time right for companies to invest in cases for them that will give you a quality e-reading experience? Good e-Reader Radio – eBook Prices Falling, e-Ink cases for phones and iOS 7 is a post from: E-Reader News |
eBook Sales Experience Miniscule Gains in 2013
| Many publishing experts all thought that 2013 would be the year that eBook sales would start to level off and cease the near double digit gains from years prior. The Association of American Publishers have just released their annual report that looks at the first six months of 2013. Overall, eBook sales have increased by a paltry 4.8% from $618 million in 2012 to $647 million in 2013. Children’s eBooks were hit the hardest and experienced the most noticeable drop in sales. Revenue was down to $83.7 million from $153.7 million in 2012, a decrease of 45.6%. Overall, digital kids books are down because there has not been a runaway hit like the Hunger Games for quite sometime. Also, the general public still has not embraced EPUB 3, which has a growing portfolio of interactive books and has a higher development cost. Publishers are starting to see more money trickle in from digital books with 27.8% of their overall revenue stemming from it. 1196 US publishers took part in the survey, which provides the most accurate reflection of eBook sales. eBook Sales Experience Miniscule Gains in 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Be a NOOBS v1.3 beta tester!
| Liz: Here’s a post from Rob Bishop. Read it thoroughly if you’d like to be a NOOBS v1.3 beta tester – and get downloading! Earlier in the year we released our New Out of Box Software (known as NOOBS), which was designed to make it easier to install operating systems for the Raspberry Pi without having to worry about manually imaging your SD card unless you explicitly wanted to. After a really positive response to this from the community, we've been working hard to make NOOBS even more powerful without compromising on its ease of use and intuitive interface. The ultimate aim for NOOBS is to make it simple for anyone to get going on a Pi – regardless of their level of prior knowledge. We hope to do this through providing intuitive options for setting up everything from language and keyboard layout through to getting your display working and installing an OS. NOOBS isn't about "dumbing down" the Pi: it's about unlocking its potential and making computing even more accessible by breaking down the effort barrier that stops people from ever getting started. I'm really pleased that today we are ready to show the work that we've been doing to move us closer to that aim, and can announce the beta release of the next version of NOOBS. Given that NOOBS is aimed at those who are complete beginners to both computing and the Pi, we know that it's imperative that the software is as reliable and robust as possible. This means that we need your help! In order to ensure that we only recommend stable, tested software to beginners, we're initially launching this release of NOOBS in beta to the community, and will continue to recommend using the v1.2.1 release for those new to the Pi. That's why the v1.3 beta release can only be downloaded using the links below, and why the v1.2.1 release is still shown at raspberrypi.org/downloads. Pending any major issues arising during this initial feedback period, we can then transition to using the v1.3 release as the default version that we recommend to all users. So, without further ado, here's a short description of the awesome new features to be found in NOOBS v1.3: - Multiple OSes can now be installed simultaneously and easily switched between at boot. Unlike BerryBoot, NOOBS allows each OS to use its own kernel meaning that non-Linux based OSes such as RISC OS are also supported. - OSes can now be installed via the internet from our central OS repository (located at downloads.raspberrypi.org). Note that this requires a wired Ethernet connection at present. - OSes are now available in multiple "flavours" – including a "Boot to Scratch" option for Raspbian at launch. Additional flavours adding support for features such as Google's Coder are also planned for the future. The ability to create different OS flavours means that OS maintainers can now provide tailored versions of their OSes that are designed to support a specific use case or user group. A great example of this is the "Boot to Scratch" option that provides a quick, easy and distraction-free route to running MIT's Scratch program on the Pi with minimal set-up or prior knowledge. - Creating a custom version of a NOOBS OS distribution that can be installed via NOOBS is now significantly easier (as is producing a NOOBS restorable backup of an existing OS install). This is due to NOOBS now populating partitions using compressed tarballs of filesystems rather than having to handle images directly. For instructions on how to do this please see: https://github.com/raspberrypi/noobs/blob/master/README.md. - The keyboard layout can now be set via the NOOBS interface in the same way that language selection is currently handled. - Language, keyboard and display mode settings now persist between subsequent NOOBS sessions and into installed OSes. This means that if, for example, you are wanting to set up a Pi to use to teach Primary school children in Germany while using a CRT monitor and German keyboard, you would simply boot into NOOBS, press "3" on your keyboard, select "Germany" from the language selector and then install "Boot to Scratch". This would result in your Pi booting directly into the German-language Scratch interface with the display being output via composite PAL – no complex configuration file editing required. About NOOBS v1.3
Only the latest version of each OS will ever be displayed meaning that you can be sure that you have installed the most up-to-date release of your selected OS. On any subsequent boot you can then press the SHIFT key to enter the NOOBS interface and easily reinstall your choice of OSes. The NOOBS interface provides the following functionality:
Note that all user settings (language, keyboard layout, display mode) will persist between reboots and will also be automatically passed to the installed OSes. This means that if you can see the NOOBS interface on your display device then you should be able to see the OS CLI/GUI when it boots too! We're very excited about this as it should make configuring the Pi to support your display device as easy as pressing 1,2,3 or 4 in the NOOBS interface rather than having to worry about changing config options. OS InstallationSimply select the checkbox next to each OS you want to install using either a mouse or keyboard (arrow keys to traverse the list, enter to toggle the selected OS’s checkbox), then click the “Install” icon (or press “i” on your keyboard) to install the selection. The icons shown on the right of the list indicate whether the OS is being installed from the SD card (SD card icon) or from the online OS repository (Ethernet icon). Online Help via Web Browser The built-in Arora web browser allows you to easily get help via the Raspberry Pi Forums (wired network connection required). Easy Config File Editor The built-in config file editor allows you to edit the config file of the OS currently highlighted in the OS list. This allows you to easily add licence keys to different OS installs through the same interface. Note that the output mode selected by the user through pressing one of number keys 1 to 4 (for HDMI preferred, HDMI VGA, Composite PAL and Composite NTSC respectively) will be automatically set in the config.txt files of your installed OSes. This means that you shouldn’t have to worry about manually changing your display settings to get your installed OS to display correctly on your display device. Installer Slideshow An installer slideshow guides you through your first steps with each OS while it installs. OS Boot Selector After multiple OSes have been installed, you can select which OS to boot through this selection window that is automatically displayed. NOOBS will remember your choice and boot this OS by default unless a different option has been selected within 10 seconds. Note that if only one OS is installed then the boot selector will not be displayed and the OS will be automatically booted. How to Download the NOOBS v1.3 Beta NOOBS v1.3 Beta (pre-packaged with OSes ready to install) – Larger download (1GB), works offline Download Link: http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/NOOBS/NOOBS_v1_3_BETA.zip NOOBS v1.3 Beta 'lite' (network OS installation only) – Smaller download (20MB), requires Ethernet connection to internet Download Link: http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/NOOBS/NOOBS_lite_v1_3_BETA.zip Note: There is a known issue with the network install failing in rare cases with an error message reporting that the disk is inaccessible. If this occurs please restart installation after a reboot and let us know that it occurred. We would ask for any testing feedback to be given via this forum thread. Please also feel free to ask questions concerning the new features in the comments below. As ever, please read the documentation before posting your question! If you're an OS maintainer and would like to see your OS included in our online repository please email me at rob.bishop@raspberrypi.org so that I can provide the necessary documentation. [Liz notes: huge thanks are due to Rob, who has been wearing his fingers to bloody nubbins to get NOOBS v1.3 ready. He's been busy writing the rest of this post and is far too elegant and self-effacing to point out all the work he's done, so I'll do it for him. Thanks Rob!] Special thanks go to all of the OS maintainers for working hard to support the new system, Floris Bos and those who helped with the alpha release testing. We also want to thank Liam and Pete at Mythic Beasts for helping us to make the network install functionality possible. |
New MOOC FutureLearn Launches in the UK
| Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, have been hailed as the future of education. Having initially gained widespread recognition with the launch of Khan Academy, MOOCs offer users a way to learn that can be as simple as brushing up on their skills or as involved as learning an entirely new subject. FutureLearn, new program controlled entirely by Open University, is making a wide variety of MOOCs available for free to anyone interested in learning the topics. While some, like those on different aspects of dentistry, might appeal only to a niche market of learners, others are farther reaching and have a greater impact on a larger audience, such as the brief courses on sustainability and climate change. According to their website, “Our aim is to connect learners from all over the globe with high quality educators, and with each other. We believe learning should be an enjoyable, social experience, with plenty of opportunities to discuss what you've studied, in order to make fresh discoveries and form new ideas…FutureLearn is in beta and the courses we’ll be running this year are all pilot courses. This allows us to shape and refine how it all works, using feedback and ideas from our learners. It is important to us to craft a high quality product which is tailored specifically to our learners' needs, so we want to spend the time listening.” While still in its early stages and only offering a short list of courses, FutureLearn has plans to incorporate new titles from professionals across a wide variety of fields soon.
New MOOC FutureLearn Launches in the UK is a post from: E-Reader News |
OverDrive Media Console iOS 7 crash resolutions
| Apple released iOS 7 yesterday and many Apple users may have upgraded their device(s) or will be upgrading in the near future.
When an existing OverDrive Media Console (OMC) user upgrades to iOS 7, the app will fail when trying to open a DRM-protected eBook. New or first time users of OMC are unaffected by this issue meaning that if you download the app for the first time post-iOS7 update you will not experience this issue.
We are resolving the issue but in the meantime, here are immediate remedies for users:
1) Re-authenticate the app with your existing or a new Adobe ID. Refer to the iOS section of this Help article for assistance. (Recommended)
2) Uninstall and re-install OMC which will also require the user to re-authorize with Adobe. IMPORTANT NOTE: A re-install will clear a user’s bookshelf, history, and app settings.
Audiobook users won’t notice that anything is different unless they attempt to download parts of audiobooks they already downloaded to OMC before upgrading to iOS 7. A user will receive an error message informing them to download the title again.
We encourage you to share this information with your users via email, Facebook or Twitter. Please be sure to follow our Digital Library Blog for the latest updates.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Adam Sockel is a Marketing Communications Specialist with OverDrive
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Hidden In Plain Sight: 3 Steps To Identifying Transferrable Skills And Expanding Your Job Search
Think you don't have all the necessary skills for a new job or career change? Think again. Check out this guide to find out what your resume might be missing.  |