| One of Amazon’s greatest strengths has been the massive expansion of their warehouses and fulfillment centers all over the world. They are spread out geographically so when you order a product, its shipped from the nearest one in your State or one close by. Shipping out packages quickly and effectively has won the Seattle based company acclaim and one of the benefits of a $79 per year Prime membership is free two day shipping. In the near future, customers may get packages 30 minutes after ordering them with their futuristic program called Prime Air. Amazon is employing a new fleet of aerial drones that are similar to the quad helicopters we see on the consumer level. The intention is to have the drone pick up a package at a fulfillment center and navigate the city or country via advanced GPS, right to your door. CEO Jeff Bezos channeled the showman spirit of Steve Jobs when announcing this new initiative to the show 60 minutes. ”The hardest challenge in making this happen is demonstrating to the standards of the FAA that this is a safe thing to do. This is years of additional work at this point,” Bezos said. Amazon is betting on the future of shopping to be delivered by drones. They fly above the city streets, do not get stuck in traffic and go right from the conveyer belt to your front door. ”I know this looks like science fiction — it’s not,” Bezos said. “It will work and it will happen. It’s going to be a lot of fun.” During the holiday season Amazon is processing over 300 orders a second. The drone based delivery could be operational by 2015, but it is firmly up to the FAA to approve for the use of drones in the public sector. Send in the Drones – Meet Amazon Air Prime is a post from: E-Reader News |
Monday, December 2, 2013
Send in the Drones – Meet Amazon Air Prime
Now available for public libraries: An eReading room just for kids
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OverDrive is offering a new service for public library partners to give young readers a place of their own. Now there's an option to incorporate an eReading Room for kids and/or teens as an extension of your digital library website. Kids and teens can browse, sample, place holds and borrow eBooks and other media appropriate for their age range and reading level. Kids can spend as much time as they want clicking away and exploring without the worry of them stumbling upon mature content. See the first live eReading Room for kids at Kitsap Regional Library in Washington.
"eBooks are not just for adults, and we believe this site will help us highlight some of the great children's content that we have to offer," said Sharon Grant, Digital Branch Manager at Kitsap Regional Library. "More importantly, we believe this site will save people time because it effectively highlights books by reading levels, age groups and interests."
The eReading Room is a safe environment for children, independent of the larger digital collection, yet easily accessible and fully integrated – seamlessly working with your existing catalog. OverDrive offers clean, friendly, simple design options and the choice of including juvenile and/or young adult fiction and nonfiction titles. All titles in the eReading Room are also cataloged by reading level, ATOS scores, and other reading metrics to help parents and teachers select titles to aid in literacy campaigns. Adults and kids can sample titles in OverDrive Read prior to checking out a title.
The checkout and hold experience is the same as with the existing site, so when the kids are ready to graduate to the next level, they'll already be seasoned users of the website's tools and navigation. We will also provide you with promotional graphics and print-ready materials to promote the eReading Room. You can even name the eReading Room anything you choose, such as the same name for the kids' section in your physical library branch.
Ready to get started? The kids' eReading room is available now, so contact your Collection Development Specialist to learn more.
Heather Tunstall is the Public Relations Specialist at OverDrive.
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Sunday, December 1, 2013
Digital Comics Best-Sellers for December 1, 2013
| Image Comics elbows DC aside in this week’s comiXology chart, with a bit of help from a half-price sale, but Kindle readers are bullish on DC’s new 52 graphic novels. 1. The Walking Dead #117 There are a couple of interesting things going on with comiXology’s best-seller list this week. The first nine titles are all new comics that came out this week, but number 10 is one of those Image graphic novels that was on sale over the weekend (the sale lasts till midnight on Monday, so you still have time to grab it). Further down the list, the first volume of Saga is at number 11, and another sale title, the Avengers vs. X-Men collected edition (a steal at $19.99) is at number 14. The other thing that is truly striking is that there isn’t a single DC comic in the top ten; the highest ranked comic as of this writing is Damian: Son of Batman #4, at number 13. There were four Image titles (only one of which can be explained by the sale) and six Marvel titles. 1. The Sandman, vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes The Kindle top ten, on the other hand, is dominated by DC, with six titles, including the graphic novels that were on sale a few weeks ago and the first issue of Neil Gaiman’s new Sandman comic. That Ultimate Comics Wolverine vs. Hulk graphic novel is back at its regular price as well, after being on sale for weeks. 1. The Sandman: Overture #1 The top ten paid books for Nook are exactly the same as last week’s list, which was almost identical to the lists for the previous two weeks. The free books changed a bit, as folks took advantage of DC’s free digital-first comics—the top comic overall was Smallville #1. But either no one is buying comics for the Nook or they are buying them in exactly the same proportions week after week. Very curious. iBooks 1. The Walking Dead #117 The iBooks top ten also looks a lot like last week’s list, except that everything has been squeezed out by The Walking Dead and My Little Pony, the strange bedfellows of the iBookstore—and that Lady Mechanika comic, which is two years old, has mysteriously popped up in the #10 slot. Digital Comics Best-Sellers for December 1, 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
eBook Review: Sycamore Row by John Grisham
| Verdict: 5 Stars Fans of the author’s suspenseful legal thrillers will love this title that revisits one of the settings that made John Grisham a household name. Almost twenty-five years after the release of A Time to Kill, Grisham takes us back to Ford County and back into the fray of legal dramas. From the book’s description, “Seth Hubbard is a wealthy man dying of lung cancer. He trusts no one. Before he hangs himself from a sycamore tree, Hubbard leaves a new, handwritten will. It is an act that drags his adult children, his black maid, and Jake into a conflict as riveting and dramatic as the murder trial that made Brigance one of Ford County’s most notorious citizens, just three years earlier.” Critics of the book have argued that this one is “typical Grisham” and that it follows the plot lines that we’ve gotten really, really used to from him. Having said that, there are a couple of surprises in the book, as well as some unanswered questions from the first round that the author springs on us. The courtroom drama and masterful depictions of well-researched settings more than make up for any predictability in the plot, as does his handling of a fairly common plot line of an elderly dying man leaving his entire fortune to a random fringe character, in this case, his maid. Sycamore Row is available now in print, audiobook, and ebook.
eBook Review: Sycamore Row by John Grisham is a post from: E-Reader News |
Author Goes Digital…While Still Writing the Book
| According to a story in the New York Times, author Arnon Grunberg is going digital. But what makes his project unique is the fact that he’s going digital while he writes the book…and he’s doing it with electrodes attached to his head. Yes, rather than the typical story of an author–even a well-known and highly respected bestselling author like Grunberg–going digital with the publication process, Grunberg is part of an experiment he helped establish to monitor his brain activity while he writes his most recent novella. Even more sci-fi oriented, the first fifty readers of this project’s outcome will undergo the same electrode0based response recording while they read the finished novella. According to the article by Jennifer Schuessler, “Over the past two weeks, Mr. Grunberg has spent several hours a day writing his novella, while a battery of sensors and cameras tracked his brain waves, heart rate, galvanic skin response (an electrical measure of emotional arousal) and facial expressions. Next fall, when the book is published, some 50 ordinary people in the Netherlands will read it under similarly controlled circumstances, sensors and all.” The purpose of this futuristic undertaking? To try to discover the connection between creativity and the consumption of that creativity by readers. And while the researchers will work to figure out how the readers’ brains connected in various ways with the author’s work, Grunberg himself sees a more invasive approach to the project, likening this type of connection with the way retailers like Amazon invade on the reading experience via e-readers.
Author Goes Digital…While Still Writing the Book is a post from: E-Reader News |
Amazon Opens a Series of pop-up Stores in San Francisco
| Amazon has officially opened a series of pop-up stores in retail malls in San Francisco. This is the first time the online e-commerce giant opened a physical location. There are a number of Kindle e-Readers and Tablets on display to give transient shoppers the ability to play with the devices and buy them on the spot. Walmart, Target and a number of other big box retailers in the USA have dropped the entire line of Amazon branded devices because they did not want to become “showrooms” for the company. The only retailer to stock the Kindle is Best Buy, but Amazon is very concerned with the ability of customers to play around with the hardware. When you sell tablets in an online environment it is hard to get that tectonic visceral experience. An Amazon spokeswoman said the temporary stores are in a handful of malls as part of a marketing campaign. The majority of them are only in operation for two weeks. A few years ago we broke the news that Amazon had firm plans to open a retail store, once their new corporate headquarters was completed in Seattle. Architecture draft plans had a cafe and bookstore, where it is thought that the books Amazon publishes with their New York imprints will be available to purchase. It is unlikely we will see a full on retail store until 2015. Amazon Opens a Series of pop-up Stores in San Francisco is a post from: E-Reader News |
Digital Comics Gift Guide – 2013
| Comics fans tend to have strong feelings about the types of comics they like, and sometimes it can be hard to buy for them because it seems like they have everything. Never fear! Here’s the first part of our Digital Comics Gift Guide, featuring an array of gifts for comics fans who have everything, as well as those who are just getting started. Gift Cards and Gift Comics iTunes, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble gift cards will buy comics for iOS apps and iBooks, Kindle, and Nook, respectively, but comiXology is now offering gift cards as well. In addition, if you know a particular comic is on someone’s wish list, you can get it as a gift on comiXology or Viz Manga website: Just click on the gift-box icon next to the comic and they will take you through the steps from there. For Superhero Fans If you know someone who like to binge on comics, reading full runs of a story arc or a character at a time, a subscription to Marvel Unlimited will allow them to read thousands of comics without having to purchase and download each one. The library includes over 10,000 Marvel comics, starting from the very first issue and going up to as recently as six months ago, so it’s a great gift for newbies who want to catch up on 70 years of continuity as well as nostalgia freaks who want to read all the comics they had as a kid (and their mother threw away). This service was a bit clunky until they came out with an iOS app this year, which makes for a much more pleasant reading experience than flipping through the comics in a web browser and allows the user to download up to six issues at a time. Marvel makes gift-giving easy with a gift subscription option; the basic price is $69 for 12 months, and the Marvel Unlimited Plus package, which includes a shortbox, a variant print comic, and a figure, is $99. For Kids Here’s something similar for kids (and kids at heart): The Archie Unlimited service offers over 4,000 Archie comics, with a selection that is growing every week. Right now it’s only available as part of their iOS app, but they plan to expand to other platforms soon. For Manga Fans Manga readers are in a class by themselves. Crunchyroll has just launched a new manga service that allows readers unlimited access to streaming manga—right now there are only 12 titles, but the selection includes Attack on Titan and Fairy Tail, as well as Ken Akamatsu’s new series UQ Holder, and more series are on the way. The manga-only premium service is $4.95 a month, and Crunchyroll offers various other bundles, including anime, drama, and discounts on merchandise. They have both iOS and Android apps. The weekly digital magazine Shonen Jump brings the latest chapters of some of the world’s most popular manga, including Naruto and One Piece, to the small screen; new chapters are published in Shonen Jump the same week they come out in Japan. A year’s subscription (48 issues) is $25.99. Sparkler Monthly is a digital magazine of manga-style stories from the U.S. and Canada, aimed at teenage girls and young women (shoujo manga, for those in the know). The lineup includes Jen Lee Quick’s Off*Beat, which was originally published by Tokyopop. Gift subscriptions start at $5 for one month. Digital Comics Gift Guide – 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Review of the Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9
| Amazon has an extensive track record of releasing seven inch tablets, but has only ever released two 8.9 inch models. The Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is being billed as the definitive e-reader that excels at reading magazines, newspapers, eBooks and graphic novels. The entire Amazon ecosystem has a copious number of titles to keep you basically reading forever. Today, we look at the overall value of this new model and see whether or not you should upgrade from the first generation or pick one up for the first time. Hardware The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 features a 8.9 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 2560x1600p pixels with 339 ppi. The 7 inch HDX has a resolution of 1920×1200 at 323 PPI. Amazon is hyping up reduced glare, dynamic image contrast, and improved brightness for better viewing in any lighting conditions. Underneath the hood is a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor that is running at 2.2 GHZ and 2 GB of RAM. There is also a dedicated on-board graphics with the Adreno 330 graphics engine. All of these things combined will be one seriously powerful unit that will be able to tap into the extensive Amazon App Store and be able to run any app or game that you can throw at it. It will also be useful for viewing videos and movies as part of Amazon Video. Amazon has the speakers at the top of the device now and audiobooks/movies will sound really good with Dolby Audio. One of the most interesting aspects of the 8.9 inch is the frame, it is comprised of a single-piece of machined magnesium with a blend of glass and nylon molded onto the uni-body to create openings for the antennas and maximize signal strength without sacrificing sturdiness. The result is the lightest large-screen tablet—at just 13.2 ounces, it is 34% lighter than the previous generation large-screen Fire HD tablet. Battery life is fairly respectable with 11 hours of general usage and a low-powered mode if you just read. If you just read Kindle books you can glean 17 hours, which makes it a fairly solid e-reader. It can also take pictures with the rear facing 8 MP camera and shoot videos too. Software Amazon has upgraded their Android OS to version 4.2.2 and has skinned it with a new version of their proprietary entitled Mojito. What has really changed with the older model vs the newer iteration? There is an upgraded carousal that has higher resolution book covers, app icons and short cuts to your apps, videos and music files. Underneath that by swiping down is a new tray of icons that look very much akin to the vanilla Android experience. You can initiate Quiet Time, which eliminates the distractions and app notifications when you are reading. Finally, there is Mayday, which allows you to talk via the 720 P camera and duel-microphones to talk to a dedicated Amazon rep. They can walk you through anything you need to do, which is good for first time tablet users. Aside from all of these new enhancements, most things remain the same. Some of the most noticeable software elements include Kindle Freetime. Parents can make a dedicated profile for their child and establish books, apps, videos and music they have access to. They can also establish specific parameters of usage and configure the amount of time they can read, use apps and surf the internet. There is also a Freetime subscription platform to download a ton of kid apps and use them as much as they want for around $9.99 a month. One of the things I really liked was the way Amazon now handles pictures. In the past you could load pictures on your device via the USB cable that came with your device and then load in your own galleries. Now, you can connect up to your Facebook account and every single picture you have on your profile will be automatically added. If you have a smartphone, such an iPhone, you can enter your telephone number and click on a confirmation text. You can then sync over every single photo on your phone and store them. All photos once on your device are then stored in the Amazon cloud, and if you have other Kindle Fire tablets, everything will automatically be synced. The Fire HDX has a few drawbacks that center around its content and ecosystem. If you live outside the US and UK, you will be unable to watch any movies. You can buy them and download them to your unit, but you will get a pop-up saying that it is not available in your geographical region. You will need to purchase a VPN and an American Credit Card to bypass this, and Shop e-Readers offers them for a fairly affordable rate. Another drawback is the Amazon App Store. They don't really offer many of their competitors apps, so if you want to download comics you have to do it from the Kindle bookstore. Otherwise you will have to either side-load in your own apps or download an alternative app store like Good e-Reader. e-Reading Experience The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is a tablet that is primarily built for e-reading. Whether you are reading a standard eBook, listening to an audiobook, checking out the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine or keeping abreast of the latest news with the New York Times. The large screen display gives it an advantage of heavy graphic content than the seven inch version. Reading an eBook is fairly standard and Amazon has not broke any new ground in the way books show up or the type of options you have to augment the reading experience. You can change the font size quite easily or change the font entirely from a list of eight built in ones. The one new change i like the grey background that almost mirrors the standard background in a physical book. The Kindle Fire HD 3rd generation which also just came out as a bright white background, which hurts the eyes after long reading duration's. I actually found it easier to read on this model than any of the other Fire tablets. One feature I dig is the translation function which will automatically translate words in 12 different languages. You can hit the audio button and have a robot sounding voice translate a specific word or entire body of text that you have highlighted. One of the more popular aspects of dealing with Amazon is the synergy between Audible and Kindle. You can buy both the eBook and audiobook at once and have a slew of functionality that is available. You can listen to the audio edition while you are reading the book and the text is highlighted as the audio plays back. If you are reading the Kindle edition and turn the tablet off on the 3rd chapter, you can pick up where you left off on the audio edition on your phone while you are commuting. Not all eBooks and audiobooks work with Whispersync for Voice and Whispersync for Text, but the ones that do offer cool features. Newspapers for the most part are either dedicated apps or Kindle editions. The former don't have any design consistency and tend to all look completely different. You will have different options and a UI with the USA Today then you would with The Onion. The New York Times is a Kindle edition, which means you can have full control over your experience just like an eBook. Wrap Up The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is certainly one of the best large screen tablets on the market. This is a device you are primarily buying to participate in the Amazon ecosystem. I suggest purchasing a one year Prime membership and also a subscription to Kindle Freetime to give you lots of free audio/video content, free eBooks and apps and games for your kids. This tablet is really great, but only users in the US will be able to get the most out of it. International users will be able to buy apps, books, magazines, newspapers, graphic novels and most e-reading content. The video and television selection is non-existant if you say live in Canada. If you have the first generation 8.9, this is a solid upgrade if a faster processor and higher resolution mean a lot to you. If you tend to read just the standard eBook and watch the occasional movie, not so much. Rating: 8.5/10 Review of the Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Amazon Kindle HDX 7 vs Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9
| Amazon has two very high-definition tablets that fall into their new HDX product line. There is a seven inch version and one that is almost nine inches in size. They certainly have similar specs but how does the extra few inches influence the e-reading and multimedia experience? Today we put both models head to head to see what one comes out on-top. The Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 features a seven inch capacitive multi-touch screen with a resolution of 1920×1200 pixels. The resolution is a huge upgrade from the previous generation which only had 1280 x 800. HD videos on Netflix and HD comics from Comixology are the most noticeable improvements. Magazines actually don't see any improvements as the ones purchased from Amazon seem to be scaled down to be functional on their entire line of devices. In a direct comparison to the 3rd generation Kindle Fire, they looked exactly the same. Underneath the hood is a quad-core 2.2 GHZ processor and 2 GB of RAM. You have different models for storage and the entry level model has 16 GB of internal memory. When you take it out of the box for the first time there is only 8.8 GB of memory to play with and there is no expandable memory via SD. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 features a 8.9 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 2560x1600p pixels with 339 ppi. The 7 inch HDX has a resolution of 1920×1200 at 323 PPI. Amazon is hyping up reduced glare, dynamic image contrast, and improved brightness for better viewing in any lighting conditions. Underneath the hood is a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor that is running at 2.2 GHZ and 2 GB of RAM. There is also a dedicated on-board graphics with the Adreno 330 graphics engine. All of these things combined will be one seriously powerful unit that will be able to tap into the extensive Amazon App Store and be able to run any app or game that you can throw at it. It will also be useful for viewing videos and movies as part of Amazon Video. Amazon has the speakers at the top of the device now and audiobooks/movies will sound really good with Dolby Audio. Today we compare both models primarily as a vehicle to consume eBooks, magazines, newspapers and comic books. We also compare the audio/video experience with some HD content. Amazon Kindle HDX 7 vs Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Understanding the (Marvel Comics) Universe
| Marvel Comics have been around for 70 years, and during that time their universe of characters has been steadily growing and evolving; in a recent talk, Marvel vp of web and application development Peter Olson sketched out the dimensions: over 8,000 named characters, written and illustrated by 5,000 creators, appearing in 30,000 comics, 32 movies, and over 30 television shows. The very richness of the Marvel universe, however, is also the greatest barrier to entry for many people: So many characters, constantly changing not only over time but also across different titles—Spider-Man used to be Peter Parker in the Amazing Spider-Man comics (and he still is in the newspaper comic strip) but now the former villain Otto Octavius has taken him over in Superior Spider-Man, while Miles Morales wears the webs in Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man. Captain America was Steve Rogers, then he died and his sidekick Bucky Barnes took over, except that in the movie Captain America was Steve Rogers again. Like they say on Facebook, it’s complicated. That’s a barrier for new readers. The movies based on Marvel characters are among the top grossers at the box office, but it’s pretty much impossible for someone who has just seen the Avengers movie to pick up an Avengers comic and start reading. That’s the problem that Olsen is working on: Creating a massive data map of all Marvel characters. Right now, Wikipedia is the confused reader’s best friend, and if the article is up to date, it will give a pretty good sense of who the character is and what changes it has been through. But that’s a one-dimensional view. The beauty of Olsen’s database is that it maps out the characters and their relationships to one another, the types of stories, even the styles of the creators. That will allow readers not only to learn who the characters are, across time and different storylines, but also to find more comics that they will like: “Instead of waiting for Amazon-style "users also bought" data suggestions, Marvel wants to track relationships within its vast library. Like the teen superhero angle of Runaways? Try Young Avengers. But wait, you just want to see more stories drawn in the style of original Runaways artist Adrian Alphona? The Marvel graph database will find an answer based not only on book similarities but nuanced metadata, like writer or artist style. Better still, it'll do what the venerable ComicBookDatabase cannot: confidently propose a list of essential story arcs for the new fan.” And it will recommend movies and other media as well as just comics. This type of graph database has many possible applications outside of comics, but the tangled universe of Marvel continuity is certainly a great place to start. Understanding the (Marvel Comics) Universe is a post from: E-Reader News |
More Exciting Book Opportunities for Reading Shoppers
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A movement started by author Sherman Alexie and supported by IndieBound.org may surprise any fans of books who venture into bookstores today. Don’t be surprised if James Patterson rings up your purchases, or Mary Anne Kempher points to a title you’re looking for. Hundreds of authors have signed up to lend their support, not in terms of publicity or book signings, but just by volunteering on what will hopefully prove to be a profitable day for these small business owners. For those shoppers who plan to spend today bundled up inside and taking advantage of perks like discounts and free shipping on different retail websites, don’t forget to take a look at the Wordplay Shakespeare site, as the publisher of side-by-side translations of some of Shakespeare’s best loved titles will be gifting copies of the enhanced ebook for Macbeth in a random drawing to new subscribers to the newsletter. The sign-ups can be found HERE.
More Exciting Book Opportunities for Reading Shoppers is a post from: E-Reader News |
Friday, November 29, 2013
Video: Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9 vs Kobo Arc 10 HD
| Amazon has had more success with building a strong tablet brand then Kobo. One of the big strengths of the Seattle based company is packaging their ecosystem and delivering a unique Android experience. Today, we look at the two latest entrants to both companies product portfolios and see how they perform in real world tests. The Kobo Arc 10 HD features a stunning 10-inch capacitive touchscreen with ten point multitouch. It has one of the best resolutions in the business with 2560×1600 pixels. Meanwhile the new Amazon HDX tablet has the exact same resolution of the Kobo device, but packages it in a 8.9 inch screen. Both tablets have similar hardware specs, such as quad core processors and RAM. Aside from the hardware, both companies have been developing cool software enhancements that go the extra distance. Kobo has done “Beyond the Book” which basically gives you a rundown of the author, major characters and locations mentioned in the book. Amazon does X-Ray, which is a bit more polished, since its been around longer. It lists all of the major characters, how often they are referenced, and other does people, places and things. Kobo and Amazon bill their tablets as e-Readers, instead of general purpose editions like the iPad. In order to gauge what the better investment for your holiday dollars we put the HDX and HD models head to head to see what type of job they reading eBooks, magazines, newspapers, comic books and audio/video. Video: Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9 vs Kobo Arc 10 HD is a post from: E-Reader News |
Video: Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 vs Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9
| Amazon has been making tablets for a number of years and only has two of them that feature 8.9 inch screens. Today in another installment of the Good e-Reader Video Comparison Series, we look at both models to give you a sense on what they both bring to the table. There are a number of differences on the hardware level, with the latest generation Fire HDX having a faster processor and higher resolution. It also has a number of software enhancements such as Mayday, which gives you the ability to receive live help from an Amazon agent. Sure specs are great on paper, but it is all about real world performance. As you can see in the screen capture leading off this article, video on the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 looks very solid. In this video we mainly look at the e-reading experience and how the same content, side by side, performs. Peter looks at newspapers, magazines, comics, eBooks and even conducts an audio/video test. If you have the older model and are wondering if you should upgrade or not, this video is for you. Video: Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 vs Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Price Fixing Monitor Blasted by Apple for Legal Fee Extortion
| The Justice Department came down hard on Apple for the agency pricing model where it established they colluded with major publishers to create a fixed price for digital books. When everything was all said and done the court appointed a monitor to insure Apple was complying with the antitrust settlement. Today, Apple is blasting the monitor that is charging them $1,100 per hour and saying they had no choice in finding someone better. Former US Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich was the man selected by the courts to keep tabs on Apple. In the first two weeks of work, Bromwich invoiced the Mac-maker $138,432. That number includes not only his own hourly fee, but that of a number of legal assistants brought in to support the role, and a 15% "administrative surcharge" on top. Apple said they were left hamstrung with the choice of monitor, given the role was filled by judge Denise Cote. "Mr. Bromwich appears to be simply taking advantage of the fact that there is no competition here or, in his view, any ability on the part of Apple, the subject of his authority, to push back on his demands" Apple wrote, Bloomberg reports. One of the biggest complaints that Apple has is the fact Michael is apparently allowed to talk to Apple employees without counsel present, in addition to being able to report back to Justice Cote without Apple also being in the room. The Justice Department is yet to comment on the new complaint. Price Fixing Monitor Blasted by Apple for Legal Fee Extortion is a post from: E-Reader News |
Digital Comics Bargains for Black Friday
| Stay away from the mall this Black Friday and scoop up some digital deals for yourself—or your friends. Dark Horse has an amazing deal on Star Wars comics: A megabundle of over 150 single issues for $100. The bundle includes Brian Wood’s Star Wars (set in the world of the original movie), the kid-friendly Clone Wars, all three arcs of The Crimson Empire, and all sorts of Star Wars storylines that Dark Horse has spun out from the originals over the years. On Cyber Monday, Dark Horse will offer 50% off all comics on its web store only; just enter the promo code dhdcyber2013 when you check out. The sale is December 2 only, from midnight (PST) to midnight. ComiXology has a couple of sales that should match every taste. If you’re a superhero type, jump on the Avengers vs. X-Men sale, with a ton of single-issue comics for 99 cents each or the collected edition for $19.99 (that’s half price). The folks who are creating a real buzz in the comics world right now are Image, and comiXology’s Image sale lets you jump on to a bunch of different series with strong characters and original storylines: Saga, Great Pacific, It-Girl and the Atomics, The Manhattan Projects. All highly recommended, all available in graphic novel format, so you get a good chunk of story for $3.99 to $7.99. I can’t find a direct link, but scroll down comiXology’s sale page and you’ll also find a good sale on comics from Action Labs, a up-and-coming indy publisher. The deal of the day is the first volume of Princeless, their Eisner-nominated all-ages series, for $1.99. That’s a great digital comics gift for any kid who likes adventure and fantasy. And if you spent all your money at the mall, don’t despair: Both comiXology and Amazon are still offering the free DC digital-first comics through December 2. Manga fans should check out Digital Manga’s Blackout Week sale: Get 20% off all purchases on the eManga website by entering the promo code BLACKOUT at the checkout. For those who like their manga with a side of anime, Crunchyroll is offering a 12-month all-access pass for $69.99, which is half price. That gets you access to their full range of streaming manga, including Attack on Titan and Fairy Tail, as well as Digital Comics Bargains for Black Friday is a post from: E-Reader News |
OpenSprinkler Pi
| I’ve been meaning to write about this for ages: I hate watering the garden. I’ve met Ray, the Mind Behind, a couple of times now, I actually *own* one of these boards, and…I hate watering the garden. Did I mention that? If you hate watering the garden but enjoy messing around with computers, OpenSprinkler Pi is a no-brainer. It’s the cheapest and most configurable system of its type I’ve come across, it’s open source (and this means that Ray’s not the only person working on it – tools from the community like Rich Zimmerman’s Sprinklers_Pi software add features like weather control, so you can adjust your irrigation depending on your local weather forecast), and there’s a big community adding features all the time. You can read more at rayshobby.net, find links to a ton of code, and buy a board there too. We highly recommend you take a look; Ray’s a great guy, and we love what he’s doing with the Pi. |
Ad-Based Reading Service Readfy Launches in Beta
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But Dusseldorf-based Readfy is hoping their own brand of subscription reading will finally prove to be what readers want. What makes their model different? It’s free. Very similar in structure to the base level of 24Symbols lowest tier in their freemium structure, readers can access unlimited amounts of content in the Readfy catalog while seeing ads embedded in the ebooks. But as 24Symbols and even Amazon have found out, readers are not clamoring to tolerate ads in their reading spaces, even for a bargain. But unlike models that use the ad-embedded free model in order to encourage users to upgrade to an ad-free level, Readfy has no plans in its model to encourage signing up. What will prove to be difficult for the German company, however, is reconciling the readers’ interests, the authors’ interests, and the advertisers’ interests; to date, both publishers and advertisers have both been wary of how digital is going to produce verifiable revenue based on the user experience. One thing working in Readfy’s favor that other similar attempts did not have is timing. Readfy’s full launch, expected next year, comes at a time when reading consumers are already accustomed to social reading, sharing information on titles, and reading on smartphones, which means enjoying the portability more than the experience.
Ad-Based Reading Service Readfy Launches in Beta is a post from: E-Reader News |
Unboxing the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9
| Welcome to another Good e-Reader Unboxing Video! Today we check out the brand new Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9. This is the second tablet of this size the company has produced and has some very solid hardware compared to the first generation. We show you everything that comes in the box and power the unit on for the first time. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 features a 8.9 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 2560x1600p pixels with 339 ppi.Underneath the hood is a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor that is running at 2.2 GHZ and 2 GB of RAM. There is also a dedicated on-board graphics with the Adreno 330 graphics engine. All of these things combined will be one seriously powerful unit that will be able to tap into the extensive Amazon App Store and be able to run any app or game that you can throw at it. It will also be useful for viewing videos and movies as part of Amazon Video. Amazon has the speakers at the top of the device now and audiobooks/movies will sound really good with Dolby Audio. One of the most interesting aspects of the 8.9 inch is the frame, it is comprised of a single-piece of machined magnesium with a blend of glass and nylon molded onto the uni-body to create openings for the antennas and maximize signal strength without sacrificing sturdiness. The result is the lightest large-screen tablet—at just 13.2 ounces, it is 34% lighter than the previous generation large-screen Fire HD tablet. Unboxing the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Video: Nook HD+ vs Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9
| Welcome to another Good e-Reader Comparison Video! With the holidays right around the corner you can get the Nook HD+ for a solid price, normally around the $139 range. Its been out for almost a year now, whereas the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 just came out and has a premium cost of $379.99. If you are looking to purchase either of these two devices you won’t want to miss this video. Today in our comparison video we evaluate the core e-reading experience. We give you a sense of comics, newspapers, magazines, and eBooks perform. The Nook has the advantage with Google Play and the ability to download basically whatever you want. The Amazon App Store is a more curated experience and normally don’t stock apps that compete with any of their business interests. You are more or less locked into dealing with Amazon exclusively unless you know how to load in your own apps. The Nook is fairly agnostic with Google but if you want to buy content from B&N you will only be able to do it in the USA or UK. Video: Nook HD+ vs Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is a post from: E-Reader News |
McGraw-Hill Professional eBooks go live at OverDrive for public libraries
| Starting today, Black Friday, the entire McGraw-Hill Professional catalog of 5,000+ business, technical and educational reference titles are available.
McGraw-Hill Professional's full eBook catalog is now live for libraries worldwide. This catalog is one of the premier eBook collections for career, reference, IT and certification titles available on the market today. To celebrate this new offering, all 2012 and 2013 McGraw-Hill eBook releases, (more than 800 titles) will be discounted 30 percent for public library partners through the end of this year in OverDrive Marketplace.
Libraries will be able to offer 24/7 access to McGraw-Hill Professional digital titles in three broad categories: Business/Consumer, Science/Technical, and Test Prep/Education. Their proven reputation is highlighted with such notable collections as 5 Steps to a 5 AP (test prep series), Practice Makes Perfect (foreign language study), Schaum's Outline (study aid series), Mike Meyers' CompTIA (tech series), and Disney U: How Disney University Develops the World's Most Engaged, Loyal and Customer-Centric Employees. High-demand bestsellers include The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley; McGraw-Hill's 5 TEAS Practice Tests by Kathy Zahler; and Programming the Raspberry Pi: Getting Started in Python by Simon Monk.
The eBook collection for libraries includes over 1,000 recently released titles for researchers, business professionals, consumers, scientists, and students including test preparation titles for the ACT, SAT, MCAT or LSAT.
For more information on this partnership or to learn how to add McGraw-Hill Professional titles to your library catalog, contact sales@overdrive.com.
Heather Tunstall is the Public Relations Specialist for OverDrive.
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