| Generally BlackBerry doesn’t get to see the big name apps hitting their platform, but knock-offs and look-a-likes are very common. Timber is in good company, joining the ranks of iGrann, Whine, Snap2Chat and Spo2fy. No matter, BlackBerry users will be excited that a third party Tinder client is available from BlackBerry World. Developed by Nemory Studios, Timber gives BlackBerry users the ability to participate in “a fun new way to connect with new and interesting people around you.” The interface behaves exactly as it does in Tinder: you get the chance to view other users of the app who have signed up (and are in close proximity to you), if you like them you swipe to the right, if you aren’t so keen then swipe to the left. A mutual match (meaning the user chose you as well) will pair you up to begin chatting –and the sky is the limit! Just like Tinder, Timber requires that you have a Facebook account. The app is free to download, but if you prefer to browse potential matches add-free, you will have to fork over $1.99.
Timber App Brings Tinder to BlackBerry 10 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Timber App Brings Tinder to BlackBerry 10
Nook GlowLight Arrives in the UK a Day Late and a Dollar Short
| Barnes and Noble, the self-proclaimed leading retailer of “content, digital media and educational products”, made a surprise announcement today. Apparently the Nook GlowLight still exists and has finally made its way to the United Kingdom. It turns out that Barnes and Noble is still using old school wooden boats with oars and sails to transport […] |
KittenGroomer/CIRClean – data security for journalists and activists
| Liz: Rachel Rayns, our Creative Producer, makes a habit of finding interesting people for us to talk to. She works with the creative industries on supporting their work with the Pi, and introducing people who aren’t the usual maths/physics suspects to computing – and while she does that, she discovers some really amazing projects. We recently sent Rachel from Pi Towers to chair the panel at Makerversity on The New Hardware Revolution, where she met Maya Bonkowski, an interaction designer and security specialist. Maya, as it turns out, is a perfect embodiment of the sort of thing we mean when we talk about hardware revolutions. She’s been working with investigative journalists and hackers on a project called that’s called CIRClean in some incarnations and KittenGroomer in others, which sanitises USB sticks of malware and turns untrusted documents into clean, readable text. There’s a real need for this kind of application: if you’re an activist under threat from security forces, or if you’re an investigative journalist working with people who need to keep their data secure and off networks (especially in places with heavy penalties for criticising government), the USB stick is a vital tool – but it’s also a tool that’s very susceptible to malware. Maya subsequently sent me a very long email about what they’re doing. It’s so interesting that I’ve reproduced it in its entirety below (with her permission). Over to Maya. Right, so where to begin. Background: Being a journalist in some parts of the world can be a rather serious and hazardous health condition. When the Syrian uprising began and the internet and mobile networks were turned off, all that was left were satellite phones. For a while, anyway. Until making a phone call became hazardous to the village with sat phone call signals being triangulated, possibly attracting an immediately subsequent carpet bombing. Everybody loves kittens. Because kittens are loveable. But sometimes kittens need a new home, and then it becomes our job of finding a loving home for that kitten. Sometimes, unfortunately, homeless kittens will have all sorts of nasties and things that will itch and go bump in the night. They may take some work, but everyone loves kittens and they’re worth it. What’s with the kittens? If you have a fact that guys with guns will shoot you in the face for even knowing about, then talking about kittens is possibly a far safer lifestyle choice. In the Beginning: My friend Quinn Norton, an OpSec/Journo who covers Anonymous and Occupy for WIRED magazine, launches into a rant: “So here’s my problem. Somebody gives me a USB key with something on it and I can’t f******* do anything with it. Nothing. It’s f****** useless and really I’ve got nothing.” More shouty ranty problem explanations followed. The three main attack vectors against data security, and the sort of thing that makes Quinn’s work hard, are email attachments, unsecured (or poorly secured) LANs and USB keys. Apparently, enough dirty nasty things can be done at the block device level of plugging in a USB key, never mind such high level things as an infected document or program. But, you really really want to know what’s on the key. Let’s say a north-African Royal Family has a chunk of the country’s annual budget allocated to them as a block percentage without any details. Someone’s promised you the full detail version of the budget including an itemised breakdown of the Royal Family spend. (Meet in this alley at night, and I’ll hand it to you through your open car window as you slowly drive by in the rain. Sadly, that one turned out to be a dud.) The problem:
The solution: Extracting data from unknown data formats presents its own issues – MSOffice documents are the potential black plague carriers of data. PDFs files can be crafted to kill your system BIOS and brick your machine. Image files carry their own implications. But there are enough ways of translating and extracting data out of problem formats and putting them into functionally benign formats. This is the easy part. But you still need a place to do all this. So, there was this vision making the rounds in 2011/12 about creating an inexpensive computing platform that anyone anywhere in the world could use. You could hook it up to a TV and presto: you have a computer and can learn about computers. It could be anywhere and inexpensive enough to actually be anywhere, not just in a company office space. It could be in class rooms. It could be in private homes. It could be in your backpack. “Oh this? It’s a Raspberry Pi – it’s a cheap computer that enables anyone to get into computing. Would you like to see what it can do?” Right, so the rPi vision as I saw it was: get these things everywhere to enable people without Macbook (or even anything near chromebook) budgets to get into computing. Get Africa computing. Get poor villages computing. Get students connected to the interwebs. Get it out there. Oh, and by the way, create an internationally available stable and consistent platform. And as a side effect of all of that, provide a plausibly deniable platform available anywhere. (Thank you!) As it was in Autumn 2012, Raspbian had nearly everything needed software-wise. The installation of OpenOffice took care of a lot of the bulk of data format translations, and X was already installed (iirc) so it had a place to run. Because why would you have a word processor installed if you didn’t have a place to run it? Even if you only ever intend to run office apps in headless mode. Next you want to make it do something on its own under controlled circumstances. The way it works is that you plug the key of questionable lineage into the top USB port. Then supply a clean/blank USB key and plug that into the bottom USB port. Then you turn it on and wait. A couple of scripts buried as far down into the startup sequence as I could manage (and still have them work) trigger a number of things (or not):
If the system decides that the only things connected are 2 USB storage devices and then to clean data from one USB stick to the other, it recursively runs through all the files, directories (and treat archive files as directories, so unpack and process everything in them too), and partitions through the various document processing routines, writing clean data to the other USB stick. This was the basis for the first prototype system. I’d recently received my first 256MB B model, and some cursing and swearing later it worked. It was even slower than the 512MB B model. The Original Name: “KittenGroomer” Apparently OpSec and InfoSec types spend or have spent too much time anywhere near 4chan; and while less questionable names where being explored around declawing, bathing, trimming and so on, the *Sec community branded it “KittenGroomer” within about 20 minutes of its conceptual birth and it stuck. The Journo/OpSec friend started promoting it before I’d opened the editor on the first Bash script. Before the project shifted from being “SEEKRIT!!” to open public visibility, a 4chan-inspired idea to ensure that you had a legit KittenGroomer was to stick a holographic PedoBear sticker across the SD card slot and the SD card. Never happened. The prototype got a lot of attention from different people pretty quickly and it wasn’t long before someone working for the Computer Incident and Response Centre of Luxembourg (CIRCL) took some interest. In early December 2012, I put the first prototype in a bubble wrap envelope and mailed off. (They didn’t have any rPi’s yet.) A decision was made to de-SEEKRIT the KittenGroomer and eventually was presented to the Luxembourg minister responsible for information security. Some budget was allocated to refining the KittenGroomer and it became an official CIRCL project. There was talk of commercialising the project. Raf (the person at CIRCL I sent it to) put a stop to the commercialisation. It must always remain freely available. I never did get the trip to Luxembourg to meet the Minister. OpenOffice was replaced with LibreOffice. (LO was forked from OO, then it was discovered that 25% of OO code did nothing, and was subsequently cut out – hopefully taking some security issues as well). A fast library used to convert PDFs into HMTL was reworked to work on armv6/7 (and even safely tested against some carefully caveated super nasty BIOS crushing PDFs Raf keeps under heavy lock and key). I haven’t had much time to contribute in a while, but last October-ish we added audio as a status indicator so you don’t need a screen (we never did properly sort out the power management properly to keep the hdmi output from turning off). While it’s working it now plays 8bit 80s(ish) midi tunes until it’s done and shuts the system down. I curated the tunes so that they’re more or less in that curious/painful/delightful/odd/indeterminate aural appreciation space. The Nyan cat theme song was a request. That’s all I have to say about that selection. What’s happened with it: The KittenGroomer has been to a number of cryptofests, Raspberry Jams and the like, and has generally been well received. A number of seminars for journalists have been held and there are now KittenGroomer-equipped journalists out there. There might be a venture to package up and sell ready-to-go KittenGroomers (which I just found out about this morning). There’s still a lot of work that can/should be done on it. The CIRCL project page: http://circl.lu/projects/CIRCLean/ and their git repo: https://github.com/CIRCL/Circlean The main (Raf’s) git repo: https://github.com/Rafiot/KittenGroomer There’s more to come I’m sure. There’s already an otherwise clean Pizza Express napkin with a thorough sketch all over it. |
New U.S. Rules Make Inflight Calls Unlikely
| One of the hottest topics out there is whether we will be able to actively use our smartphones in airplanes while they are mid-flight. While some signs seemed to indicate that luxury was coming soon, it now appears that the United States Department of Transportation (DoT) is working to establish rules that would not allow you to receive or place phone calls while on a plane. These rules wouldn’t change the fact that text messaging, email, and surfing the web are allowed on most flights. It appears the ban on voice calls is related more so to the disruptive nature of phone calls in enclosed spaces. It is expected that the DoT is preparing a notice of proposed rulemaking that will leave the issue open for review until February of next year. The FCC is also involved, having been the agency that first suggested the rules against using these devices during flights were archaic and should be reversed. While Internet access on smartphones and tablets does make it easier to pass the time while traveling, I miss the days when air travel meant a momentary break from the responsibilities that seem to accompany carrying a telephone and the Internet in your pocket.
New U.S. Rules Make Inflight Calls Unlikely is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Barnes and Noble Launches Nook Glowlight in the UK
| Barnes and Noble has just launched their Nook Glowlight e-Reader in the UK for £89. It will be available this week at Argos, Currys/PC World, John Lewis, Sainsbury’s, ASDA and bookshop chain Foyles. The United Kingdom has been a priority with Barnes and Noble since they first entered the market in 2012. They have been selling the Nook Simple Touch and the Simple Touch Reader with glowlight as their flagship devices. The new Nook Glowlight was unveiled late last year in the US and the frontlit display underwent a radical transformation. The big selling factor is the fact the display not does suffer from the pale blue hue that was evident on the NST. This marks the first occasion that the Nook Glowlight is available outside of the US. The Nations largest bookseller does not plan to release a new e-reader this year in the United States, so they can afford to allocate more units overseas. The only new devices planned are two new Android tablets that are co-developed with Samsung. Barnes and Noble Launches Nook Glowlight in the UK is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Exclusive: Sony Japan Confirms they are Abandoning e-Reader Development
| There has been rumors lately surrounding the future of Sony e-Readers. Various European tech blogs have been reporting that an unknown rep from Sony Europe said they are abandoning development of future consumer readers. Good e-Reader now has official confirmation from Sony Japan to set the record straight. I spoke with Noriko Shoji, Products & Technology PR Section, Corporate Communications at Sony Japan today. He said in an exclusive statement “As announced in February this year for North America and in May for Europe and Australia, Sony's Reader Store customers in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Austria and Australia transferred to the Kobo eBookstore. For the hardware, final production of the current Reader model (PRS-T3) was made at the end of May. The product will continue to be available until inventory supplies last, which differs by country. (There are some countries where the sales have already ended.) Please note that the PRS-T3 was not introduced in the US market. In Japan, where we have our Reader Store business, we will continue to sell the current model for the time being, in order for customers to enjoy content from Reader Store with our products.” Noriko then uttered some shocking news, “We do not have plans to develop a successor Reader model at this time.” We now have Sony officially on record that they are not going to be making any new e-readers and have officially stopped manufacturing their Sony PRS-T3 device. Instead, they are shifting focus into the B2B sector via the Digital Paper (DPS-S1). Exclusive: Sony Japan Confirms they are Abandoning e-Reader Development is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Outdoor Reading Test – Sony PRS-T2 e-Reader
| Today we bring you another beloved installment of the Good e-Reader Outdoor Reading Test! How exactly does the Sony PRS-T2 handle reading in direct sunlight? What are the benefits of an e-paper display vs an LCD? This video should give you a clear indication on how the entire line of PRS-T1, PRS-T2 and PRS-T3 e-readers function in the light. Towards the end of the video we bring in a Sony Experia 2 smartphone to provide a little bit of juxtaposition.
Outdoor Reading Test – Sony PRS-T2 e-Reader is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Why Print Books Declined in 2013
| eBooks have grown to be a billion dollar business and now accounts for 27% of all book sales in the US. Print books are still holding their own and have only declined slightly in 2013 at a paltry 1%. The decrease in tangible book sales is partly attributed to less books being printed. Bowker reports that 304,912 books were produced by traditional publishers in 2013 compared to 309,957 in 2012. The non-traditional publishing sector was hit the hardest due to the rise of public domain and indie authors switching to digital. The print industries output for 2013 was projected at 1,108,183 titles, a decrease of 46% from its production of 2,042,840 titles in 2012 and a dramatic reverse from its 55% growth in 2012 over 2011. It is very interesting to see the multitude of factors that make up that 1% decline in the print industry. Public domain titles such as Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice and Moby Dick are all available for free online, but in the stores they range from $5-$29 a pop. Why Print Books Declined in 2013 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Now available: two highly requested features for holds
| On August 4, OverDrive introduced two new features designed to make it even easier for your users to borrow and enjoy in-demand titles from your digital collection. First, we're pleased to announce that users can now turn on automatic borrowing for titles they've placed on hold. When a user places a hold, they'll now see the option to have that title automatically borrowed for them as soon as it becomes available. With automatic borrowing, not only will your users no longer have to worry about missing hold pickup windows, but your library will most likely fill more holds, thus boosting circulations in your digital collection. You can learn more about automatic borrowing for holds in this help article.  The second feature that's just been added to library sites is the ability to suspend a hold. When a user suspends a hold, they'll continue to move up the waiting list for that title, but the system won't fill their hold until their suspension period is over. For example, if a user is getting close to the top of a waiting list for a popular title, but they're in the middle of reading another book, they might want to suspend their hold to make sure that they won't receive the new title until they're ready for it. You can learn more about suspending a hold here.  We hope that you and your users take advantage of these new features and enjoy the added conveniences surrounding placing holds in your digital collection. Carrie Smith is a Technical Writer at OverDrive.  |
Bookeen Partners with Saraiva Bookstore for a Pair of e-Readers
| Bookeen has announced a new partnership with one of the largest bookstores in Brazil. Saraiva is launching the Saraiva Lev and Saraiva Lev Luz that will connect to their integrated online bookstore. The Cybook Odyssey and Cybook Odyssey HD are the two new devices that will be repurposed and rebranded for the Brazilian launch. Both are really solid and sell moderately well in Europe. Both of these e-readers were designed with with the ability to key in a link to the bookstore of your choice in the settings menu. By default both of them will connect up to the Saraiva digital bookstore. Saraiva is mainly known as a bookstore that specializes in educational material. They are one of the largest schoolbook and textbook companies and provides solutions for primary and high schools, as well as digital content for the educational market, such as distance learning, cooperative learning and library subscription services. Saraiva currently offers 15,000 eBook titles in Portuguese and 250,000 in other languages. One of the most popular ways that people have consuming the content is via the Saraiva Reader app for Android and iOS. It was originally launched in 2010 and has had over 1.6 million downloads. The Cybook Odyssey HD, rebranded as the Saraiva Lev Luz, is likely the better of the two e-readers. It features a six inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1024×758 pixels. It uses the same type of XGA technology found on the Kobo Glo and Kindle Paperwhite. You can read in the dark with the built in frontlight and unlike an LCD display this e-paper is better on the eyes. Underneath the hood is an 800 MHZ Texas Instruments Cortex A8 processor and 128 MB of RAM. Michael Dahan, CEO at Bookeen: "We are delighted to partner with Saraiva, a true leader in reading. We brought our experience and technology in a very constructive collaboration. With this launch, I believe Saraiva provides the best e-reading solution on the market and Saraiva customers will discover in the stores how the Saraiva Lev offer is competitive." Bookeen Partners with Saraiva Bookstore for a Pair of e-Readers is a post from: Good e-Reader |
The MagPi issue 26 – out now!
| August’s MagPi, the magazine for the Raspberry Pi community written by the Raspberry Pi community, is out now. As always, it covers the whole spectrum of Pi users, from absolute beginners to people looking for challenges; and as always, it’s a free download. This month you’ll find a continuation of the robot series that kicked off last month, adding voice control, facial recognition and speech to your home-made friend. There’s a fun persistence of vision (POV) magic wand project, an in-depth introduction to the new Model B+, and a great example of a dynamic art application for total beginners. Our favourite project this month is Mashberry, a home brewery project which you can control using a TV remote. There’s lots more too: click on the image above (or here) to read the latest issue. The MagPi team are always looking for volunteers to help produce the magazine: there’s a lot involved in getting a monthly publication ready beyond the writing and proofing. They’re always looking for writers and proofreaders, but if you’re interested in the production side of things in particular – that’s layout, typesetting, graphical work and testing – they’d especially love you to get in touch. If you can help, email editor@themagpi.com, or comment on their Facebook |
Macmillan frontlist titles now live for U.S. and Canadian public libraries
| The full frontlist catalog from Macmillan Publishers is now live in OverDrive Marketplace for U.S. and Canadian public libraries. As previously announced, this is an expansion of their March 2013 eBook lending pilot, which included Macmillan eBooks published 12 or more months ago. With addition of the frontlist catalog, OverDrive libraries now have access to over 10,000+ titles, including What I Know For Sure by Oprah Winfrey, Beating Goliath by Art Briles, and Landline by Rainbow Rowell. These new additions carry the same terms as current Macmillan titles: 52 checkouts or two years, whichever comes first. The frontlist catalog is priced $60.00 USD and backlist content $40.00 USD. As a reminder, Macmillan titles can be purchased by standalone libraries and consortia members who use OverDrive Advantage. You can view the complete lending terms here.  |
Monday, August 4, 2014
Podcast: New e-Readers for 2014 and Sony Updates
| Welcome to the Monday edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today the show centers on all of the latest news from the past week. There has been a TON of e-reader news coming out with new devices being announced and slated to be released in the next few months. I will give you a preview of the new Kindle, Nook, Icarus, Pocketbook and other major brands. In addition, Sony is refocusing their efforts on business devices with the advent of the Digital Paper e-reader. Podcast: New e-Readers for 2014 and Sony Updates is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Netronix Demos new e-Reader with Wacom Technology
| Netronix may not be a household name, but they are responsible for manufacturing popular e-readers such as Kobo. The company is currently demoing a number of new units that may allure other companies that are involved in this sector. One of them is a 6.8 inch device that runs Android and has support for a Wacom pen, which should appeal to people looking to edit and make notes on PDF documents. The new 6.8 inch e-reader is looking fairly amazing with a staggering resolution of 1440 x 1080. Underneath the hood is a Freescale i.MX6 Solo Lite ARM Cortex-A9 processor, and running a fairly modern version of Android 4.1. This yet unnamed e-reader is using the same shell as the Kobo Aura HD, which is also 6.8 inches. The addition of Wacom technology will likely distinguish this device in consumer market, now that Sony is exclusively focusing on the business segment with their 13.3 inch Digital Paper. ARM Devices reports “"Wacom is working on collaborative solutions for Wacom enabled E Ink e-readers like this one. If they do it right, I think Google should get involved, this could make it a really big new market for the E Ink based devices with touch for productive collaboration in education and enterprise. Netronix also has different other E Ink Android devices, secondary displays, large ones, and even an E Ink Smartwatch"
Netronix Demos new e-Reader with Wacom Technology is a post from: Good e-Reader |
84% of Publishers Plan to make eBooks in 2014
| Publishers and self-publishers are having a love affair with eBooks. Ever since Amazon announced that digital editions were selling at a 3:1 ratio over print books, people took notice. A new report states that 84% of publishers will be making eBooks this year and 62% stated that eBook quality was the most paramount concern. Big and medium sized publishers are in an advantageous position with in-house tools that make digitizing a book fairly easy. For everyone else, there is seldom an off-the-shelf solution to generate a proper table of contents, use industry standard fonts, employ proper margins or convert it from one format to another. All publishers need to insure their books are formatted correctly in order to not alienate readers. The survey results highlight many of the concerns that publishers have with going digital. It takes about what online bookstore people have the most success with and what formats are most popular.
84% of Publishers Plan to make eBooks in 2014 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
O’Reilly Buys Back Ownership of Safari Books Online
| O’Reilly Media, which originally developed Safari Books Online, is now the sole owner of the company, after purchasing Pearson’s 50% stake in the former joint venture. Safari will not have to consult an equity stake partner anymore and will be able to fast track any type of development they want to pursue. Safari, launched 13 years ago with 600 titles, is an online content platform success story. Today, the company’s more than 1,000,000 active users can choose from over 25,000 books and 10,000 hours of video training from 200 publishers and other content providers. While Safari initially focused on technology content, it now covers business and design topics, as well. How is Safari different from other online bookstores? They have been pioneering the online subscription model for a very long time. They also have videos, short form content, and evolving manuscripts from O’Reilly Media and other publishers including Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall, Peachpit, John Wiley & Sons, Microsoft Press, Adobe Press, Cisco Press, Manning Publications, Packt, SAS Publishing, IBM Press, FT Press and Focal Press. You could say that Safari is known for having a high degree of geek cred, but certainly won’t appeal to your average Hunger Games reader. Many people use Safari because they have a ton of obscure content that is not available anymore else. If you are unable to find any results on Google, try Safari, they normally have it. O’Reilly Buys Back Ownership of Safari Books Online is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Microsoft Claims Samsung Stopped Making Patent License Payments
| Samsung should take note that Microsoft doesn’t fool around when patent license payments arrive late. Microsoft asserts that they have hundreds of patents that are required for any manufacturer making Android phones: Samsung included. Corporate Vice President & Deputy General Counsel for Microsoft, David Howard, spoke toward the lawsuit, stating that: “Today’s legal action is simply to enforce our contract with Samsung. We don’t take lightly filing a legal action, especially against a company with which we’ve enjoyed a long and productive partnership.” He also noted that: “After spending months trying to resolve our disagreement, Samsung has made clear in a series of letters and discussions that we have a fundamental disagreement as to the meaning of our contract.” With Microsoft earning between $1B and $2B in patent license revenue made from royalties, this business is one of their most profitable. This is especially true when you consider Howard’s comments on the dominance and success of Samsung’s current phone business:
Of course, this is just Microsoft’s side of the story; things should get more interesting once Samsung weighs in.
Microsoft Claims Samsung Stopped Making Patent License Payments is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New and popular content for schools
| Happy August, everyone! While July did fly by, don't let the great new content that was added for purchase in Marketplace fly by as well. We have created lists for the newest and most popular content that was added this past month that your students and users are sure to enjoy. Check out these new and exciting titles and hopefully you'll find some that you’d like to add to your OverDrive collection. When you click the link below, it will show up as a Marketplace search result and you'll be able to easily add them to a cart. New Adult – High School Appropriate If you would like more suggestions, your Collection Development Specialist is available to help create recommended lists. Email collectionteam@overdrive.com for more information today! *Some titles may have limited regional or platform availability.
Rachel Kray is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive.
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Ben’s USA Tour Dates
| Today I fly to New York to start my Raspberry Pi USA Tour! Thanks to everyone who submitted a request for me to speak for them while on my USA Tour. I’ve adjusted my route according to where most of the requests were located, and I’ve been organising dates with those who contacted me. I’m travelling from New York City to Salt Lake City over two weeks, stopping at a different town each day. Most days I’ll either be speaking at an event or going in to a school or other organisation. Most events will be open to the public. The dates and towns are as follows: Tue 05 Aug – New York City, NY See my tour page for the full list of events with details and links to sign up. The page will be updated as information comes in, so if I’m coming to a place near you, keep checking back for details. If I’m passing through your area then come and see me speak or get in touch to see if we can meet up! Liz adds: Ben is currently at the airport, where, according to Twitter, he is trying to be humorous by signing on to the WiFi network as Edward Snowden. If we don’t get a call asking us to come and bail him out within the next couple of hours we’ll assume he made it onto his plane. |
Corning Experiences a Decline in Sales
| Corning is the display screen company that is very well known for their Gorilla Glass. It has been synonymous with smartphones and tablets and used for higher durability and resistance to the rigors of daily use. Corning has overestimated the market and is seeing a lack of demand for their technology. According to the Wall Street Journal “Gorilla Glass has faced headwinds, with sales falling 17% last year as Corning worked through an inventory overhang after a bad bet on touch-screen laptops. ” Overall, Corning reported a profit of $169 million, down from $638 million a year earlier. The worldwide tablet grew 11.0% year over year in the second quarter of 2014 with shipments reaching 49.3 million units according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation . Apple is currently one of Corning’s largest customers and they have reported shipping 13.3 million iPads during the third fiscal quarter of 2014, compared to 14.6 million in the year-ago quarter. When it comes down to public perception, Corning is basically known for their Gorilla Glass. What most people don’t know, is that this represents only 11% of their entire revenue stream and the majority from LCD televisions. That business jumped 62% year over year, while revenue from other specialty materials was merely flat. There has been lots of buzz in the industry about Apple’s move into developing sapphire glass in conjunction with GT Advanced Technologies last November. Speculation is running rampant that their future devices will employ this ultra lightweight and scratch resistant technology into future products. Many experts cite shortages of the new material and that current plants cannot accommodate the demand of a massive launch. Apple alone plans for 80 million iPhone 6 models this year. Corning will be a safe bet for the tablet industry for another few years. The market is maturing and less people are buying new devices or upgrading. We have seen similar trends plague the e-reader industry in recent years. Corning Experiences a Decline in Sales is a post from: Good e-Reader |
