| Bluefire has released a desktop reader program for Windows computers. The app supports ePub and PDF files and works with Adobe DRM, both the old and new Adobe DRM. Bluefire has made a name for itself with reading apps for iOS and Android. They were one of the first to offer support for DRM’d ebooks, […] |
Monday, July 14, 2014
Bluefire Releases New Reader App for Windows PC
Kobo added to Affiliate Partnership Program for U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia
| Have you taken advantage of the benefits offered through our WIN Affiliate Program? Now is the perfect time to get started, with the exciting new addition of Kobo as an affiliate partner.Thousands of libraries are already participating in this free, opt-in service. You can offer your library patrons the option to purchase an eBook for their personal collection through your library website, whether you carry that book in your catalog or not (through the Recommend to Library catalog).
With the addition of Kobo, if a customer wants to purchase a personal copy of the title – perhaps because the waiting list is too long, or they want permanent access to the eBook – they will simply click "Buy it Now" and be taken to Kobo to purchase the title. Titles purchased via Kobo are for personal use only and cannot be donated to the library's collection. An 8% affiliate credit of the total purchase amount will be credited back to your library to use toward your digital collection development. (The 8% affiliate fee is subject to change in 2015 per Kobo.) It gets even better – Kobo has generously offered to help your library increase your potential revenue through this affiliate program by providing an additional 5 dollars (in your library's native currency) per new customer your library refers to Kobo. The customer must be new to Kobo; existing Kobo customers do not qualify. Raise awareness by promoting the links to retailers on your website and in your newsletters. It's a win-win for everyone. And now with Kobo added to the retailer affiliates, customers have even more options. For more information on the WIN Catalog and to add it to your digital library website, contact your OverDrive Account Specialist today. You can find contact information specific to your account on the Support tab at OverDrive Marketplace.
 |
A percentage of the entire sale generated through the WIN Affiliate (not just the sale of a single title) is credited back to the referring library as an affiliate fee in the form of OverDrive content credit. If your library opts to participate in the affiliate program, a "Buy it Now" button will be added to titles in your library's digital collection that are also available at Kobo or other participating affiliate retail partners. Note: Affiliate retailers may vary by geographical location.Kobo Glo, Aura and Aura HD Updated to Firmware 3.5.0
| Kobo has issued a new software update, version 3.5.0, for the Kobo Glo, Kobo Aura, and Kobo Aura HD. They’ve also updated the Kobo PC desktop software to version 3.9.0. Kobo always releases their software updates gradually in different parts of the world. Since I live in the US I never seem to get updates […] |
Readers Gravitate Away from Free eBooks
| During the e-reader boom period from 2009 until 2013 many people got switched onto digital. Online bookstores did record business and many new entrants came to the market, offering their own self-publishing systems. One of the tools that authors employed to get their book out there was giving it away for free. Whether they made it free for a short period of time or did it from the beginning, people downloaded it in droves. New research is suggesting that giving your eBook away for free might not be effective anymore. Apple owned iBooks was the focus of a recent case study and the data said that for every one book purchased, 39 were downloaded for free. In prior years the gulf between free and paid was even more pronounced. In 2012 it was at a 91:1 ratio and in 2012 100:1. The digital book market is certainly not sick — it’s growing robustly. Overall, online book sales were up in 2013 by 3.8% for total sales of $1.3 billion. Self-Published authors are beginning to realize that the concept of free is declining. It is no longer effective to give it away for free and expect a ravenous flock of readers will devour it. After all, even Microsoft is giving away 300 free eBooks, and they hardly have any downloads. If free is no longer working, what are the price points that are most effective for sales? The report revealed that $2.99 and $3.99 were a popular price point. Readers Gravitate Away from Free eBooks is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Sunday, July 13, 2014
New product launch! Introducing Raspberry Pi Model B+
| Meet your new favourite piece of hardware. In the two years since we launched the current Raspberry Pi Model B, we’ve often talked about our intention to do one more hardware revision to incorporate the numerous small improvements people have been asking for. This isn’t a ”Raspberry Pi 2”, but rather the final evolution of the original Raspberry Pi. Today, I’m very pleased to be able to announce the immediate availability, at $35 – it’s still the same price, of what we’re calling the Raspberry Pi Model B+.  You’re a handsome devil. What’s your name? (Click to enlarge!) The Model B+ uses the same BCM2835 application processor as the Model B. It runs the same software, and still has 512MB RAM; but James and the team have made the following key improvements:
If you’re interested in precise measurements, or want to find out what the new GPIO does, check out the diagrams below.  Mechanical specs: you’ll want to look at these if you’re building cases or other housing. Click to enlarge.  GPIO diagram – there’s a lot more to play with now! Click to enlarge. We think you’re going to love Model B+, but to ensure continuity of supply for our industrial customers we’ll be keeping Model B in production for as long as there’s demand for it. The B+ is available from this morning from many of the regular Raspberry Pi stockists. If you want to go direct to our two main manufacturing partners, you’ll find it at Farnell/element14/Newark here, and at RS/Allied Components here. A few of our friends got their hands on a Model B+ on Friday, and have been playing with it over the weekend. Here’s what they had to say:
|
eBook Review: The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor
|
I adore well-done historical fiction, and as a particular favorite category, I never get tired of Titanic stories. There is so much to be said and learned, because essentially the ship carried–and lost–more than 1,500 different stories. It would be a treasure to know them all. In Gaynor’s title, the story of the Titanic is almost a side plot of its own as the real story is of Maggie Murphy’s personal loss, not on the ill-fated voyage, but at leaving her real love behind in Ireland. After surviving the disaster, she moves forward in the way that only a young woman of the early twentieth century could: she put it behind her and never spoke of it again. Interwoven with Murphy’s story is that of her own granddaughter, who suffers her own brand of loss seventy years later. Together, they work to heal the hurts of the past by ripping them open and hoping for new enlightenment. For everywhere that the story was touching and well-written, there were equally important places where the accuracy just wasn’t there and the reading level was very middle grade. It was a fun book, even in spite of its fluff, and I was able to concede that there are stockpiles of in-depth, well-researched non-fiction and fiction titles about the Titanic. This one seemed to have the Titanic as more of a backdrop of the book, which is fine if readers aren’t expecting James Cameron’s level of detail and accuracy. The Girl Who Came Home is available now. eBook Review: The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor is a post from: Good e-Reader |
The Stigma Around Erotica Continues
|
There are a number of odd characteristics at play with criticism of erotica. First, it’s really nothing new. The fact that title like Grey can be purchased in Walmart are certainly different, but erotic literature has been around and available to those who knew where to find it for literally thousands of years. What may be more astonishing–and therefore upending–to literary critics is that women are now the top-selling authors by far on a number of book retailers’ sites and self-publishing platforms, including Smashwords and Kobo, largely due to the popularity of romance and erotica. Names like EL James are often found beside Bella Andre, Barbara Freethy, and HM Ward, just to name a few, and these women command many of the highest grossing spots at the moment. Adding to the confusion for vocal wet blankets is the fact that romance writers and fans can no longer be lumped into the stereotype of the discontented, underappreciated housewife who sits in her modest home and devours these stories as a means of escape. According to an article for Pacific-Standard, Hilary A Hallett revealed that more men than ever are reading erotica, and that 42% of romance fans have at least a bachelor’s degree, which is higher than the average of 30% of women nationally who hold the college degree. However, Hallett points out that despite the income potential of the fans and the bestseller status of the female writers of the genre, it continues to be an overwhelmingly male population of critics who callously dismiss the genre and its readers. And with the income potential of both female authors and self-published authors on the rise, it’s no wonder that mainstays of the industry are looking for ways to dismiss and discredit the popularity of a model which they don’t understand and cannot fathom appreciating. The Stigma Around Erotica Continues is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Sony Digital Paper e-Reader Now Available at William S. Hein & Co
| The Sony Digital Paper e-Reader is trying to find a place in the professional business world. This device is 13.3 inches and costs over $1,000, billed as a replacement for paper. It is primarily available via Amazon, but also with Entertainment and Legal firms. Today, Sony has announced that they have inked a deal with William S. Hein & Co. William S. Hein & Co., Inc. is a digital legal publishing company of original legal publications including legal dictionaries, reference works, legislative histories, classroom texts, and various other publications. Hein's online product, HeinOnline, is a subscription-based database that provides access to more than 100 million pages of legal history available in a fully-searchable, image-based format. HeinOnline provides exact full-page images of documents in the PDF format, allowing viewers to see all charts, graphs, tables, pictures, handwritten notes, photographs, and footnotes exactly as they originally appeared in print. Following Sony’s announcements at the American Bar Association Tech Show in March, the Hollywood IT Summit in April, and now at AALL, Sony continues to investigate and develop new markets for Digital Paper in collaboration with publishing and technology companies that serve sectors still burdened with paper and are obvious beneficiaries of Digital Paper. The only core market that Sony is neglecting is the average consumer. Good e-Reader will be having the Sony Digital Paper in their review studios next week and comparing it against other large screen devices on the market. We originally broke the story on this e-reader during SID Display Week 2013 in Vancouver, you can check out video and pictures HERE.
Sony Digital Paper e-Reader Now Available at William S. Hein & Co is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Good e-Reader Now Has 2400 Blackberry Playbook Apps
| Good e-Reader has been supporting the Blackberry Playbook since the OS first got an Android emulator, three years ago. We have made it our mission to provide better quality apps and better support than Blackberry World. We are proud to announce that we now have over 2,400 Apps, fully compatible with the Playbook and Blackberry 10. Why choose Good e-Reader and go through the rigamarole of learning how to sideload apps? Well, Instagram, Vine, Soundcloud, Starbucks, Skype, Google Maps, Kindle, Whatapp did not exist for the Playbook until we made them available our site. We accept apps from developers directly, and we also run popular Android apps through our own proprietary tools. This allows us to repackage apps for Blackberry and allow anyone to download them for free. Good e-Reader has also pioneered the first public tool that allows users to upload an Android (APK) file and easily convert it to a Blackberry friendly (BAR) file. Blackberrys own tools to do this is needless complicated and necessitates downloading a bunch of bulky software. Hitting the 2,400 app milestone is a big deal for the entire Good e-Reader App Team. For every app we upload, we test 30 others, which amounts to a copious amount of time. This is primarily why we have only 2,400 apps, and over 32,000 Android Apps. The main reason why there is not a huge app selection on Blackberry World and Good e-Reader is because of the outdated Android emulator. It is only running 2.3, which disqualifies many of the more modern apps that utilize complex libraries or Google framework. Join in on the fun today and check out our app selection, you will not be disappointed. You can install the software needed to load in the apps you download and watch extensive video documentation HERE. Good e-Reader Now Has 2400 Blackberry Playbook Apps is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Into the Dead for Amazon Fire TV Review
| The Amazon Fire TV has been out for a few months and there are not very many solid Zombie style games. Into the Dead is likely the best of the bunch and today Peter of Good e-Reader takes a look on how the experience plays out and using the Amazon Gamepad. Into the Dead throws you into the gruesome world of the zombie apocalypse where there are no second chances. Do what you have to in order to stay alive, keep moving as fast as you can, and protect yourself by any means necessary. When the Dead are rising, run! The whole point of this game is to run into an ever increasing horde of zombies. You can either dodge them or kill them to get by, but you never stop running and never run away from them. You can find weapons in supply crates. Or you can start with a gun, but it’s gonna cost you. You can buy a head start that starts you at 1500 meters. You can have a dog with you, he will kill zombies for you, and cries when you die. You can buy extra ammunition, and more supply crates. There are 3 modes,, Classic, Hardcore, massacre. In classic you run for your life, in hardcore it’s hardcore. In massacre you kill as many zombies as you can. You can compare your score with friends, overall a great game, with temple run aspects, and you change your weapons and zombie looks!
Into the Dead for Amazon Fire TV Review is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Hands on Review of the Onyx InkPhone
| Onyx has released the first single screen smartphone that uses the same type of e-Ink technology found on your Kindle or Kobo. This would allow for a glare free experience while using it in direct sunlight and provides longer battery life than the iPhone. The overall design of the phone is small and lightweight, primarily due to the Mobius screen technology that both Sony and e-Ink co-developed. This gives you higher resolution and a thinner display panel. Is the Onyx InkPhone merely a gimmick or does it offer us a glimpse of the future of smartphones? Hardware The Onyx InkPhone features a 4.3 inch screen that uses e-Ink instead of the standard LCD, LED or AMOLED found in most mainstream devices. The core display technology is e-Ink Mobius, which was co-developed by Sony. The essence of this screen is to provide a more lightweight panel, higher resolution and faster page turns. Unlike most e-readers the InkPhone has a capacitive touchscreen and the display panel is flush with the bezel. If you have ever used a Tolino Vision or Kobo Aura you would know it is much easier to interact with the screen in this manner. This phone allows you to read in the dark via the front-lit display. The main difference between this and your iPhone is the light emits from the bottom of the bezel and splashes evenly across the screen. The iPhone and all other phones on the market have light that is emitting from behind the screen, into your eyes. The hardware specs are fairly woeful which provide an abysmally slow experience in navigation, menus and anything that involves typing. It has a single core Mediatek MT6515M Cortex A9 1.0 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM and 512MB of storage space. I installed Google Maps, Kindle, Viz Manga, Digg, Facebook and Twitter and already maxed out on available memory. This resulted in the unit being placed in a standby mode and would not boot up until I pulled the battery and put it back in. There is a built in mono speaker and a 3.55 headphone jack built into the phone. The audio is fairly woeful and does not give you a wide array of peaks. When you plug in a set of headphones the sound is equally terrible. I think it comes down to the built in audio system being very dated. People who dig taking selfies will be irked by the fact there is no camera. This will obviously prevent most apps that take advantage of camera being unable to work. One of the redeeming factors is that you should garner 2 weeks of battery life with ultra light use. An e-Ink phone on paper sounds like the natural evolution of the technology that originated from dedicated e-readers. In execution however the 512 MB of RAM and 512MB of storage is not enough to give users a robust experience. However, you can put a MicroSD card to enhance it, but most apps do not give the option to install to the SD. Software The InkPhone is running Android 2.3 and has a customized homescreen aimed at readers. It shows the last few books you have opened up or loaded on the device via the Mini USB cable. When you hit the home button you hit the vanilla Android experience with all of the preinstalled icons and all the apps you install. An older version of the Google Play store is loaded on the phone, giving users the option to install content that is compatible with an older version of Android. Sadly, many of the apps we installed simply won’t work. There seems to be a problem with GPS which makes turn by turn apps unviable. Even things like Google Maps or Street View fail to work. Also, any apps that rely on animations will not work effectively either. Most apps are designed for smartphones and tablets that have solid specs. Developers often add in animated page turns, peaking what’s on the next page or use visual enhancements to flair up the overall design. They are also designed to show off color, since modern tablets can easily handle millions of them. By default the InkPhone does not allow you to move icons from the apps category to your home page. You cannot hold your finger down on an app and have any options to make a shortcut or move it around. Everything is mostly locked into position. You can install a 3rd party Launcher, but most of them do not support an older version of Android because of integration of Google Now and cameras. Scrolling to your various menus, accessing settings or opening apps is an exercise in patience. It took me over 30 seconds to type in your standard 10 digit phone number, because you cannot quickly type. You have to enter a digit, pause, enter it again and so on. This makes text messaging via Whatsapp or entering a WIFI password as a tedious endeavor. Primary any kind of data entry is hindered by the e-Ink screen, which simply isn’t as responsive as any smartphone made in the last ten years. You can increase the speed in which you can enter data, open apps or access your menu by a feature called A2. By default it is turned on and gives you high resolution. If you turn it off, all of the graphics are scaled down by 90% which makes everything pixelated and off-putting. Things tend to be more responsive in this manner, but it is a absolutely huge trade off. Reading Experience The Onyx phone simply does not really allow you to run any type of apps that take advantage of GPS or involved in animations. Kindle, Kobo, Digg, Wattpad, Marvel Comics, Manga Box and all others provide a lackluster experience. Once you turn a page you have wait over seven seconds for it to occur. During this time it the page slowly turns, each frame being visible and severely discombobulating. If you are buying this phone to act as an e-reader you can install certain apps that allow you disable animations or do not have any to begin with. Aldiko, Moon+ Reader and Cool-er are three examples of apps that work really well. The InkPhone has a stock reader app that allows you to turn pages by hitting the volume up and down button and also swipe via the touchscreen. It gives you many cool options to change the font type, line spacing , margins and font size. This app is really responsive and recommended to read PDF files and EPUBS. The one drawback of the built in e-reading app is the Text to Speech function. It simply does not work and is in a broken state. When you initialize it it highlights random bodies of text from page to page, not going in any particular order. It might scan the 1st and last paragraph of page one and do something completely different in subsequent ones. It also goes without saying that despite the fact it looks like it is working there is no audio. Finally, there are dictionaries and translations you can download, but most of them are 150 to 240MB in size which almost takes up the 512MB of internal storage it has. Wrap Up Onyx first unveiled this phone at SID Display Week 2013 in Vancouver BC. The first demo model had a very touch friendly UI and everything was super quick and responsive. I absolutely could not wait until they had a commcerially viable model and when news broke that it was to have Google Play, I was going to abandon by Blackberry and iPhone and just go with e-Ink. Sadly, this phone is woefully inept in its current form and provides too many barriers for wide customer adoption. People want a responsive phone with lots of customization options and very high hardware specs. People want to shoot video, take pictures, install apps and have good audio. The Onyx provides none of this and should be avoided at all costs, unless you are an early adopter or have a penichet for pain. PROS Two week Battery Life CONS Will not play Video or Games
Hands on Review of the Onyx InkPhone is a post from: Good e-Reader |
MTV Buys 10 Episodes of Terry Brooks Shannara
| Terry Brooks has written over 17 novels in his wildly popular Shannara series. It bean with The Sword of Shannara in 1977 and has continued through Witch Wraith which was released in July 2013. Due to the success of Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings MTV has purchased 10 episodes of Shannara. Jonathan Liebesman has signed on to direct the first two hours of the series, to be shepherded by showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough. Liebesman gives some credibility with his recently work on "Battle Los Angeles," "Wrath of the Titans" and the upcoming reboot of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." The books — originally set up as a feature film at Warner Bros — are set in our world, thousands of years after the destruction of our civilization. The story centers on the Shannara family, whose descendants are empowered with ancient magic and whose adventures continuously reshape the future of the world. Producers plan to base the show's first season on The Elfstones Of Shannara, the second title in the series and credited with setting the series' place in the fantasy world. It is interesting they are starting on the second book first. It might prove to be the best call as the first season will feature an intense plot about the elves’ magic failing and the evil Dagda Mor trying to return to the world. Terry Brooks said in a statement “I've been dreaming about seeing these books adapted properly for thirty-five years, and now its really happening. So let's all celebrate dreams coming true. I will continue to keep you all posted as things progress.” MTV Buys 10 Episodes of Terry Brooks Shannara is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Blinkbox Books Gives Free eBook Copies of To Kill a Mockingbird
| Supermarket chain Tesco has been one of the breakouts in the eBook arena with their Blinkbox Books platform. The company has perfectly leveraged their points cards, scanned during checkout, to give big discounts on popular books. To Kill a Mockingbird has finally been converted into an eBook and Blinkbox is giving away 1,000 copies of it for free. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is getting prime placement on the web version of the Blinkbox Books website and also within the app. The supermarket is also running a small internal campaign to promote the bookstore and free eBook to their shoppers. Harper Lee and her publisher are getting compensated at the normal rate for each free digital sale. When all 1,000 copies of the book are downloaded, the title will revert back to the normal price of £4.99. Blinkbox said in a statement “It's easy for people to resent books they’ve been 'forced' to study at school, but equally it can be where we first discover our favourite novels, authors and characters. So with teachers telling you to read it, then politicians telling you not to, we say never mind all that: read it for you, and for the love of a good book,” Blinkbox Books Gives Free eBook Copies of To Kill a Mockingbird is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Sony Adds 3rd US Partner to Distribute Sony DPT-S1 PDF Reader
| Yesterday Sony announced a new partnership with William S. Hein & Company to bring the Sony DPT-S1 PDF Reader to the law community in the academic, government, and enterprise sectors. This new partnership is a natural fit for Sony’s Digital Paper Reader. The Hein Company specializes in publishing digital legal materials such as legal dictionaries, […] |
UK Society of Authors: Traditional Publishing No Longer in Authors’ Best Interests
|
But one organization in the UK, the Society of Authors, has stated in an interview with its head Nicola Solomon that the validity of the traditional publishers is questionable and goes so far as to state the traditional publishing as a whole is no longer the most viable option for authors. As Solomon said in an article in The Guardian, current contract terms are often unfair and it is no longer the most sustainable model. The UK has long experienced a greater level of transparency in terms of actual sales figures than the US market, and several authors have come forward to outline exactly what they’ve earned from the sales of their books. In the US, authors are contractually barred from discussing their sales, and even indie authors can violate the terms of service for ebook retailers’ platforms if they speak out about their earnings. As UK authors aren’t legally bound to stay quiet, several authors told The Guardian how small their actual book earnings were under the traditional publishing model, which led Solomon to make the point that the traditional industry is not working in authors’ best interests. Authors’ income is actually decreasing, while publishers continue to post high revenues. But the most telling point in the article is this one: “Self-publishing, meanwhile, is becoming an increasingly attractive option for writers, according to the [ALCS] survey, which found that just over 25% of writers had published something themselves. Writers were investing a mean of £2,470 in publishing their own work, with the median investment at £500, and typically recouping their investment plus 40%. Eighty-six per cent of those who had self-published said they would do so again.” Unfortunately, there are still a number of organizations who loudly further the belief that self-publishing is neither accepted nor viable, and therefore caution authors away from the income potential of indie authorship. Data from the AuthorEarnings.com reports and the ALCS survey will hopefully help authors understand that there are many options open to them, and that all of them have their merits. UK Society of Authors: Traditional Publishing No Longer in Authors’ Best Interests is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Netronix E Ink Smartwatch Works with Android and iOS (Video)
| Netronix has a new smartwatch in the works that features a flexible 1.73-inch E Ink display, with a resolution of 320 x 240 (that’s 231 pixels per inch). Generally I don’t follow smartwatches because I don’t see ebook reading devolving to that state any time soon—let’s face it, it wouldn’t be very much fun to […] |
Advice to Indie Authors: Don’t Overlook Kobo
|
While KDP Select is right for some books and not suited for others, one of the unfortunate truths about self-publishing is that many authors make it as far as uploading to KDP, then don’t go any further. In some cases, their ebooks are even available only through Amazon, and yet are not enrolled in the exclusive program and therefore not receiving those incentives. Mostly through a lack of awareness of other opportunities and difficulties authors faced in trying to create accounts on other sites, many indie ebooks simply languish alone on KDP. While sites like Barnes and Noble’s NookPress and ebook distributor Smashwords make headlines through their blogs and travel by word of mouth, too many authors are overlooking the opportunities that Kobo’s Writing Life platform has to offer. While perhaps not the household name that Amazon is, the two-year-old platform lets indie authors take advantage of the many benefits that any book on the Kobo platform can have. Kobo recently released some quasi-specific data on its catalog of self-published titles, showing the 250,000 or so ebooks were currently listed through the KWL platform, uploaded by more than 30,000 authors from 157 countries. These books, which encompass a spectrum of nearly 70 languages, run the gamut of genres, although data showed that romance/erotica, thriller, and fantasy were the top-selling categories. One of the chief areas that authors are missing out on by skipping over Kobo is the international reach the company has. Despite all the attention given to Amazon and Barnes and Noble, even the “empire” and the “mainstay” don’t have the global reach that Kobo has, with a market presence in nearly 200 countries, as well as an agreement with the American Booksellers Association to allow independent booksellers sell e-reader devices and ebooks.
Advice to Indie Authors: Don’t Overlook Kobo is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Tinder Updated For Wearables
| The great news is that you can now cross ‘finding a date’ off the list of tasks you wished you could complete from the comfort and convenience of your wrist. Tinder has released an update that optimizes their addictive dating app for use on wearable devices –so you can now find the next love of your life (anonymously) from nearly any device you choose. With Tinder loaded up on your wearable device, picture after picture will be displayed as you green-light or red-light each one –tapping to read brief bios for each potential choice. Initial feedback indicates that the app works well, if not a little slow. Wearable apps are the new pink these days, with development houses big and small rushing to be the first-to-market with their ideas. This effort was stifled by Google up until this week (when a workaround was released) for paid wearable apps –users could see them in Google Play, but they couldn’t actually install them. No matter for Tinder as it comes with a $0 price-tag, so if you haven’t yet swiped left and right in an effort to find your next perfect match, download Tinder now!
Tinder Updated For Wearables is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Friday, July 11, 2014
Amazon Circumvents French Ban Free Shipping for Books
| Amazon has found itself in hot water in France, as government authorities were ready to hit the company with hefty fines. This stems from a new law that was signed by France’s ruling Socialist Party and the opposition UMP Party that banned online retailers from shipping discounted books for free. It comes in the form of an amendment to a 32-year-old law that sets the value of new books at fixed prices. Instead of fighting it out with the French government, Amazon has bowed to pressure and will no longer ship books for free. Amazon has increased the cost of shipping books by one centime. This is basically sending books out for only a penny, which satisfies the new laws but circumvents the spirit of it. Culture minister Aurelie Filippetti has previously singled out Amazon, saying that it "destroys" bookshops. “Once they are in a dominant position and will have crushed our network of bookshops, they will bring prices back up,” she told a conference of booksellers last year. France is highly protective of its bookshops, enshrining measures to preserve them in law since 1981 when discounts above 5% were banned to prevent big chains from using bulk orders to undercut smaller independent bookshops. France has 3,500 bookshops compared to just 1,000 in the U.K., of which roughly 700 are independent. Amazon Circumvents French Ban Free Shipping for Books is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Russia Slams Marvel Comics as a Propaganda of Violence
| A Russian state company that distributes comic and graphic novels of Marvel has asked a federal media watchdog to investigate Marvel for denigrating Soviet symbols and amounting to “propaganda of a cult of violence.” Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor has agreed to investigate the books and is considering giving the publisher an official warning, two of which within a year is grounds for revocation of its license, the Ekho Moskvy news outlet reported. The specific comic in question is The Avengers, issue #1 poised to be released in August 2014. It was designed for middle school age children and Russian officials are concerned over the use of Soviet symbols, the presentation of the characters as Russian service personnel, and the incitement of violence and cruelty," the press and mass media agency wrote in its letter. According to Izvestia, the request was likely filed because one of the characters, Vanguard (Krasnogvardeets in the Russian version), has the Soviet symbol – the hammer and sickle – on his breastplate. Vanguard is affiliated with the Winter Guard: three human mutants and a bear, a group of superheroes based in Russia. When the Avengers ask who they are, Vanguard answers: "We are servicemen for the Russian Federation." Marvel’s own site makes it clear that his real name is Nikolai Krylenko and his alias is Great Beast. He apparently joined the “KGB-sponsored Soviet Super-Soldiers and a “staunch communist.” Is it possible that a Marvel Ban could be employed in Russia? Comic books could be considered art in many circles and acquiescing to demands could compromise the artist process and could open the floodgates for more vanilla stories. Russia Slams Marvel Comics as a Propaganda of Violence is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)