| Sony is getting out of the consumer e-reader sector and focusing their efforts on devices aimed at businesses. The first commercially viable product is the new Digital Paper (DPT-S1) which is a super advanced PDF Reader. How viable is this new product for the corporate audience or end users? Today, Good e-Reader is proud to bring you the first true hands on review. Hardware The Sony Digital Paper features a 13.3 inch e-Ink Mobius e-paper screen with a resolution of 1200 by 1600. It was designed to give you a true A4 experience, displaying PDF files as they were originally intended. The lightweight nature of Mobius gives you amazing clarity in the fonts and pictures. It also one of the most lightweight products in its class, clocking in at .08 pounds. To give you some comparison, The Kindle DX has a 9.7 inch screen and weighs 0.91 pounds and the iPad Air is 1.3 pounds. The Digital Paper features a capacitive touchscreen display panel, which allows you to navigate menus, browse the internet or flip pages with your hands. The device really shines with the accompanied Stylus, which has advanced options for left and right handed people. The touchscreen panel is so amazing, that you can hold your wrist down on a document and it does not register as an interaction, provided the pen is actively touching the screen. This allows you to organically write on the Digital Paper, the same way you would write in your notebook. There is also a highlight button the stylus to allow you to quickly edit a document on the fly. Underneath the hood is a ARM Cortex A8 1GHZ single core processor and 4GB of internal memory. There is support for a MicroSD card to enhance the memory up to an additional 32GB. Battery life is superb with a 1270 mAh lithium ion, which should garner you over a month of constant use. The design of the Digital Paper is entirely unique and no e-reader has ever managed to pull off the practical sensibilities. It has a home, back and settings button that are not softkeys, but they have a bit of torque. By firmly pressing down, and hearing a small click, you know you interacted with a specific function. The settings menu does different things, depending on if you are reading a document or using the internet browser. There is a small power button on the right hand corner of the unit, on a small curved part of the bezel. The Sony DPT-S1 is beguiling to behold. Its lightweight nature allows you to hold it in one hand for long reading sessions. The clarity of the screen makes image heavy PDF documents really shine. Sony has really refined the role a stylus plays in their consumer side of e-readers, since their first touchscreen PRS-700 back in 2007. If you are heavily invested in PDF documents at work or in the home, this is a must purchase. Software The Digital Paper reader was designed with the express purpose of reading PDF documents. It is the first e-reader ever to show a document as it was intended to be read in glorious A4. There is no need to employ pinching or zooming to find that sweet spot, like the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite or Kobo Aura does. That is not to say you can’t pinch and zoom, you can, its just mostly unnecessary. There are times when you are browsing the web or want to show off how pretty an image looks by making it full screen. Due to its capacitive nature you can easily pinch and zoom using two fingers to make take up the entire screen. During this process the rendering engine kicks in, limiting the amount of e-ink refreshing that occurs. This is where the 1GHZ processor really shines because its all done with the ease of use of doing the same thing on a smartphone or tablet. The home screen comprises of your Last Read, Recently Added or Saved Workspaces. On the navigation bar are entries for Home, Documents, Notes, Workspace, Browser and Settings. Workspaces is the bread and butter of this device and bears a resemblance of the way browser tabs work on Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer. You can have many documents opened at once and jump between them by clicking on the tab. Lets say you are a lawyer working on a class action suit, likely you will have a pile of PDF documents that constantly need to be referenced. You can have 10 tabs opened at once for the interview phase and seamlessly jump between each one, taking notes and making highlights for key points. Workspaces can be saved and loaded, so you can jump between them with ease right from the menu. Editing a PDF document allows you to write with the stylus anywhere you want. You can make notes, highlights or annotations and quickly go back to reference any changes you made on the fly. Once you made a bunch of changes you can save the PDF, preserving all of your augments, so you can export it to your e-Reader, smartphone, tablet or work PC. When editing a PDF file, there are four different pen styles to select, from the very fine line to one that bears a resemblance to a marker. If you elect to take a note there are two main processes. One allows you to use the touchscreen keyboard to type in changes and the other incorporates the stylus to hand draw. I really dig the dedicated note taking app. It gives you a lined sheet of paper, similar to the ones we all used in grade school, complete with margin edges. You can doodle, draw or just write in text with the stylus and save these are independent files. The internet browser is your gateway to access PDF files via the internet or just kill some time on Twitter. It has options to disable pictures, Javascript and to disallow the saving of cookies. Most websites that have gifs or animations tend to load slow, due to the refresh issues that permeate all e-readers. e-Reading Experience The Digital Paper was designed to be a true PDF Reader with most of the RND efforts focusing on minimizing screen refreshing and advanced editing options. It does not have support for EPUB, MOBI, TEXT or DOC files, so it is quite limiting to read eBooks. Still, the advanced user will be able to easily download comics, manga, eBooks, magazines or newspapers in PDF form. If you have a collection of DRM-Free eBooks, from Project Gutenberg Pottermore or TOR you can easily use Calibre to convert your standard digital book from one format to another. We tested this during the review and comic books tend to look a bit dark, but eBooks actually worked amazing. Sony is clearly not hyping the fact this is an e-reader, but the functionality does exist to convert your existing collection and port it over. When you are reading an EPUB book converted to a PDF the large screen is a pure joy. There isn’t any options to make the text bigger or adjust the line spaces or margins like there are on the Nook, Kindle or Kobo, but there is no real need. By default, the text is readable by the naked eye, and you can employ zooming to make the fonts appear better. You can also highlight, take notes, or look words up on Google. The internet browser is your gateway to access your preexisting eBook collection on Dropbox, Evernote or Pocket. Most of the Read it Later services all allow you to even save your favorite blog in a PDF file, allowing you to reference it later. In addition, corporate clients are a big focus for Sony and there are advanced networking options to configure direct access to dedicated server or VPN. Once connected, new options appear when editing a document to automatically push your revised document to the central server. If many people have access to the same PDF File, it perseveres versioning, to make sure the newest document is always accessible. Wrap Up The Sony Digital Paper is simply the best e-reader made for editing PDF files. We did a head to head comparison against the iPad, Kindle DX, Icarus Excel and most other large screen e-readers and tablets on the market. This model blew them all away with response time and ease of use. It has a very small learning curve and is a perfect replacement for paper. I spoke with the team leads of the DPT-S1 earlier last week and they told me thousands of hours of development were made to make this reader a reality. They literally had full days of internal meetings where they would figure out how to shave off a millisecond of load time. The price on this model is quite high when compared to other consumer e-readers out there. The DPT-S1 is not positioned in a race to the bottom, to be the cheapest device out there and appeal to the largest demographic. Instead its solely aimed at entertainment, law firms, medical, transportation and other verticals. I was told “it is meant to be a replacement of paper and your second screen to your PC.” If you are heavily invested in PDF documents, this e-reader is the best one ever made. It is worthy the price of being both a large screen eBook reader and excels at its sole task, replacing paper. PROS CONS No support for EPUB, MOBI, DOC or TXT Rating: 10/10 Sony Digital Paper Review is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Sony Digital Paper Review
Click here to view the Marketplace cart of…
Click here to view the Marketplace cart of these titles and many more.
The Usual Suspects: Guaranteed Bestsellers
Fiction Ilona Andrews – Magic Breaks Number 7 in the Kate Daniels series, this one is the best one yet, according to reviews. Kate is a mercenary who makes her living cleaning up magical problems. Fans agree that this is urban fantasy as it should be written. An Amazon Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of the Month. Goodreads Can’t Wait Books of 2014 #13. Romantic Times Book Hankering 2014 Pick for Paranormal and Urban Fantasy.
Amy Bloom – Lucky Us By the author of Away, which was called a literary triumph by the New York Times. Two young half-sisters in 1940s America travel between Hollywood, Long Island, and London, as one dreams of becoming an actress. Bloom is a National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award nominee. 125,000 print run. An Amazon Best Book of the Month. Booklist starred review.
Jessie Burton – The Miniaturist In 1686 a very young woman arrives in Amsterdam to meet her new husband, but neither he, nor his sister, nor their house is welcoming. Critics loved it, calling it "haunting," "gripping," "magical." This title rocked the London Book Fair last year, and is now available in the US, where it was one of the hottest galleys at BEA and ALA.
Lev Grossman – The Magician's Land Critics agree that this final book in Grossman's trilogy is the best of all. The series has been called Harry Potter for adults, but it's more than that. It follows the adventures of a richly drawn young group of magicians as they grow from adolescence into adulthood and deal with the questions of humanity and identity. Best Fantasy Books Blog Most Anticipated Books of 2014. io9: All the Essential Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Coming in 2014. 150,000 print run. Booklist & Kirkus starred reviews.
Deborah Harkness – The Book of Life Last in the trilogy begun by A Discovery of Witches. A historian witch and a vampire scientist search for an alchemical manuscript coveted by many in the demon world.750,000 print run! Goodreads Can’t Wait Books of 2014 #26. An Amazon Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Book of the Month.
Emma Healey – Elizabeth Is Missing Maud Horsham knows that she is slipping into dementia, but when a moving van takes away her best friend's belongings and Maud can't contact her, she is forced into the role of detective because no one will listen to her insistence that something has happened to her friend. Flavorwire: 25 Women Poised to Lead the Culture in 2014. An Amazon Best Mystery, Thriller and Suspense Book of the Month. BookPage Best Books of the Month. Booklist starred review.
Kevin Hearne – Shattered Atticus O'Sullivan is the last living druid, and he has walked the earth for nearly two thousand years. In this, Book 7 of the Iron Druid Chronicles urban fantasy series, Atticus thaws a long frozen arch druid who is a father figure of sorts, and his apprentice has finally become a full druid herself. Now the three must face the Norse god Loki in an epic battle. Best Fantasy Books Blog Most Anticipated Books of 2014. An Amazon Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Book of the Month.
Rebecca Makkai – The Hundred-Year House Gothic, charming, witty, mischievously funny, this book begins in 1999 and rewinds back to 1900 as a young couple, living in the carriage house of their family's estate, dig through the records of an artist colony that once existed there, but are hampered by the ghost of the woman's great grandmother, who is determined not to let them find the truth. The Millions’ Great 2014 Preview. Makkai has had pieces in Best American Short Stories for four years running. Booklist, Library Journal & Publishers Weekly starred reviews.
Jamie McGuire – Beautiful Oblivion Third in the bestselling new adult Maddox Brothers series. Trenton Maddox, the king of Eastern State University, comes home after a tragic accident to try to come to grips with his guilt. Fiercely independent Camille Camlin is sure she can keep their relationship platonic, since after all, she grew up as the baby sister of four rowdy boys and knows how to handle men. 600,000 print run. An Amazon Best Romance of the Month. The beautiful cover will help this book.
Liane Moriarty – Big Little Lies At the beach town's public school trivia night, strong cocktails cause a fight, and someone falls off the balcony and dies. Was it really an accident? Flash back six months, and we see the cast of characters at the kindergarten open house. But all is not as it seems—don't we all tell lies? Hot galley at BEA. An Amazon Best Book of the Month. Kirkus starred review.
Haruki Murakami – Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage Tsukuru Tazaki is one of a group of university friends who get together at every holiday. Suddenly, the others say they never want to see him again and he knows why. But Tsukuru doesn't know why. Over the years he tries to make new friends and wonders what happened, but he finally decides to seek the truth when he turns 35. The Millions’ Great 2014 Preview. Sold a million copies in Japan in its first week. The Atlantic: Books to Read in 2014. Huffington Post: 30 Books You Need to Read in 2014. 250,000 print run. Kirkus starred review.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips – Heroes Are My Weakness A down-on-her-luck actress arrives at cottage on a secluded island in the middle of a snowstorm only to find that the occupant of the main house which overlooks the cottage is the writer of horror fiction who betrayed her when she was just a teenager. He knows a dozen ways to kill people with his bare hands. Can she trust him? Has he changed? 200,000 print run. Romantic Times: Book Hankering 2014 – Romance. Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Booklist & Library Journal starred reviews.
Sherryl Woods – Swan Point A new entry in the heartwarming Sweet Magnolias series. In Serenity, SC, Adelia Hernandez moves herself and her four children into an old fixer upper to start a new life after a divorce. Greg Franklin has returned to Serenity after leaving years ago with the reputation of troublemaker. His mom was the town slut, and he responded to the gossip by fighting. But now, after a lot of therapy, he's back to make amends. The group of women who call themselves the Sweet Magnolias are determined to match them up, but Adelia's priority is her children, who are still reeling from the divorce. 100,000 print run.
Nonfiction Maya Angelou – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Yes…this classic title is now available in eBook for the first time.
Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald – The Real Cost of Fracking Bamberger, a veterinarian, and Oswald, a pharmacologist, combine their expertise to show how contamination at drilling sites translates into ill health and heartbreak for families and their animals. Kirkus starred review.
Vicki Croke – Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II When Japan invaded Burma in 1942, Billy Williams, who had been there since 1920, joined the British armed forces, operating behind the lines with his elephants to build bridges, transport people, and deliver supplies. When the Japanese put a price on his head, he led a risky expedition over the mountains to India with a bedraggled group of refugees and his elephants. Part biography, part war epic, and part wildlife adventure.
John W. Dean – The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It Just in time for the 40th anniversary of Nixon's resignation,John Dean, Nixon's legal counsel who testified against him at the Watergate hearings, puts together a chronology to show what Nixon knew and when—and says he has the answer to what was on the eighteen and a half minutes of missing tape recordings. 100,000 print run.
Paul Finebaum – My Conference Can Beat Your Conference: Why the SEC Still Rules College Football ESPN radio show anchor Finebaum has a survey of Southeastern Conference football, saying it has “the most decadent football stadiums…the most obscene operating budgets…the kind of personal scandals that give TMZ a reason to live…the most obnoxiously large marching bands,” but is also the center of the college football universe.
Roxane Gay – Bad Feminist: Essays Gay, author of the acclaimed novel An Untamed State, is an up and coming young cultural critic. Here, in a collection of essays, she takes on topics like the trivialization of literature written by women, her love/hate reaction to Fifty Shades of Grey, and the complexities of race and gender in pop culture.
Matt Higgins – Bird Dream: Adventures at the Extremes of Human Flight An account of the most treacherous extreme sport on earth—BASE jumping—which means jumping off of a Building, an Antenna, a Span, to land on Earth…oh, and you do it with just a "wing-suit" which makes you look a little like a flying squirrel. This book covers the history of the sport and some of its most flamboyant characters. Kirkus & Library Journal starred reviews.
Ben Macintyre – A Spy among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal 2013 marked the 50th anniversary of British spy Kim Philby's defection to Moscow, and resulted in the release of many new documents. Macintyre made good use of those newly available files to tell the story of Philby, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain's counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War—while he was secretly working for the enemy. An Amazon Best Biography & Memoir of the Month. 250,000 print run.
Hampton Sides – In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette In 1879, the steamship USS Jeannette, on an attempt to reach the North Pole, became trapped in ice for two years, and then when it was suddenly released, it was crushed by the ice pack and sank. George W. De Long and his crew quickly abandoned ship and began a horrible 1,000 mile trek over the ice toward Siberia. Highlighted in a USA Today article asking booksellers for great books of summer. 150,000 print run. Kirkus & Publishers Weekly starred reviews.
Click here to view the Marketplace cart of these titles and many more.
*Geographical rights may vary by title.  |
An image-processing robot for RoboCup Junior
| Helen: Today we’re delighted to have a guest post from 17-year-old student Arne Baeyens, aka Robotanicus, who has form in designing prize-winning robots. His latest, designed for the line-following challenge of a local competition, is rather impressive. Over to Arne… Two months ago, the 24th of May, I participated in the RoboCup Junior competition Flanders, category 'Advanced Rescue'. With a Raspberry Pi, of course – I used a model B running Raspbian. Instead of using reflectance sensors to determine the position of the line, I used the Pi Camera to capture a video stream and applied computer vision algorithms to follow the line. My robot wasn't the fastest but I obtained the third place. A short video of the robot in action: In this category of the RCJ competition the robot has to follow a black line and to avoid obstacles. The T-junctions are marked by green fields to indicate the shortest trajectory. The final goal is to push a can out of the green field.    This is not my first robot for the RCJ competition. In 2013 I won the competition with a robot with the Dwengo board as control unit. It used reflectance and home-made colour sensors. The Dwengo board uses the popular pic18f4550 microcontroller and has amongst other functionalities a motor driver, a 2×16 char screen and a big, 40pin extension connector. The Dwengo board is, like the RPi, designed for educational purposes, with projects in Argentina and India. As the Dwengo board is a good companion for the Raspberry Pi, I decided to combine both boards in my new robot. While the Pi does high-level image processing, the microcontroller controls the robot. The Raspberry Pi was programmed in C++ using the OpenCV libraries, the wiringPi library (from Gordon Henderson) and the RaspiCam openCV interface library (from Pierre Raufast and improved by Emil Valkov). I overclocked the Pi to 1GHz to get a frame rate of 12 to 14 fps. Using a camera has some big advantages: first of all, you don't have that bunch of sensors mounted close to the ground that are interfering with obstacles and deranged by irregularities. The second benefit is that you can see what is in front of the robot without having to build a swinging sensor arm. So, you have information about the actual position of the robot above the line but also on the position of the line in front, allowing calculation of curvature of the line. In short, following the line is much more controllable. By using edge detection rather than greyscale thresholding, the program is virtually immune for shadows and grey zones in the image. If the line would have had less hairpin bends and I would have had a bit more time, I would have implemented a speed regulating algorithm on the base of the curvature of the line. This is surely something that would improve the performance of the robot. I also used the camera to detect and track the green direction fields at a T-junction where the robot has to take the right direction. I used a simple colour blob tracking algorithm for this. A short video of what the robot thinks: Please note that in reality the robot goes a little bit slower following the line. Different steps of the image processing Image acquired by the camera (with some lines and points already added): The RPi converts the colour image to a greyscale image. Then the pixel values on a horizontal line in the image are extracted and put into an array. This array is visualized by putting the values in a graph (also with openCV): From the first array, a second is calculated by taking the difference from two successive values. In other words, we calculate the derivative: An iterating loop then searches for the highest and lowest value in the array. To have the horizontal relative position of the line in the array, the two position values—on the horizontal x axis in the graphed image—are averaged. The position is put in memory for the next horizontal scan with a new image. This makes that the scan line does not have to span the whole image but only about a third of it. The scan line moves horizontally with the centre about above the line. But this is not enough for accurate tracking. From the calculated line position, circles following the line are constructed, each using the same method (but with much more trigonometry calculations as the scan lines are curved). For the second circle, not only the line position but also the line angle is used. Thanks to using functions, adding a circle is a matter of two short lines of code. The colour tracking is done by colour conversion to HSV, thresholding and then blob tracking, like explained in this excellent video. The colour tracking slows the line following down by a few fps but this is acceptable.   As seen in the video, afterwards all the scan lines and some info points are plotted on the input image so we can see what the robot 'thinks'. And then? After the Raspberry Pi has found the line, it sends the position data and commands at 115,2 kbps over the hardware serial port to the Dwengo microcontroller board. The Dwengo board does some additional calculations, like taking the square root of the proportional error and squaring the 'integral error' (curvature of the line). I also used a serial interrupt and made the serial port as bug-free as possible by receiving each character separately. Thus, the program does not wait for the next character while in the serial interrupt. The Dwengo board sends an answer character to control the data stream. The microcontroller also takes the analogue input of the SHARP IR long range sensor to detect the obstacles and scan for the container. In short, the microcontroller is controlling the robot and the Raspberry Pi does an excellent job by running the CPU intensive line following program. There's a post on the forum with a more detailed technical explanation – but you will find the most important steps below. Electrical wiring Grippers Building the robot platform This time, I took a different approach. Instead of using an outer shell (like insects have), I made a design that supports and covers the parts only where necessary. The result of this is not only that the robot looks much better, but also that the different components are much easier to mount and that there is more space for extensions and extra sensors. The design files can be found here: Robot RoboCup Junior – FabLab Leuven. 3D renders in SketchUp:   On the day of the RCJ competition I had some bad luck as there wasn't enough light in he competition room. The shutter time of the camera became much longer. As a consequence, the robot had much more difficulties in following sharp bends in the line. However, this problem did not affect the final outcome of the competition. Maybe I should have mounted some LEDs to illuminate the line… |
Scribd Enhances eBook Discovery
| Scribd was the first company to really make the entire notion of Netflix for eBooks viable. They have attracted some major publishers to contribute their content and they have over 500,000 titles available. This can be really overwhelming to find a novel you might dig. Today, Scribd has unveiled a new set of discovery tools and enhancements to aid you in the quest to find your next read. Scribd's new browse experience brings the familiar elements of perusing a neighborhood bookstore into the digital realm, from personalized staff picks, to shelves for every category and special interest niche imaginable. The foundation of the new browse experience is a proprietary category structure that allows readers to browse both at a high level, like Fiction & Literature, and a very niche level, like Biographies of Outlaws. Scribd also has a new team of curators that will change editorial content to put the spotlight on books they like. "Scribd's subscription model does wonders for book discovery, because it eliminates so much of the friction that usually exists to begin reading a good book," said Trip Adler, co-founder and CEO. "Meanwhile our new browse feature alone is a huge step forward for book discovery. Ultimately we believe it's the combination of the subscription model with our innovative book discovery offering that will create a magical experience for readers, and this is just the beginning of more to come." Scribd Enhances eBook Discovery is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Learn About Art for Free with the Google Art Project
Did you know you can visit some of the world's best museums from your living room couch? The Google Art Project lets you do just that. |
Barnes and Noble Unveils Same Day Book Delivery Service
| Barnes and Noble is teaming up with Google to delivery books the same day you order them online. Books will only be shipped to a few key markets, but the intention is to use Manhattan, West Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area as a pilot for an eventual Nationwide rollout. Google has been running Shopping Express only for only a year and only recently expanded out of California a few months ago. The premise Express is to partner with companies like Costco, Guitar Center, L'Occitane, Smart & Final, Staples, Target, and Walgreens and allow people to get things delivered to their house the same day the order is placed. Barnes and Noble is betting on a few factors to make their same day book delivery system work. Shopping Express is offering a free six month subscription to get free shipping. Alternatively you can simply pay $4.99 for each shipment, instead of subscribing. Amazon's same-day service costs $5.99 for members of its Prime program, which also has an annual rate of $99.99. So what B&N stores are participating in this pilot project? The Union Square store in Manhattan, the Marina del Rey store near Los Angeles and a store on Stevens Creek Boulevard in San Jose. They will all have a dedicated person on site to assist customers in placing online orders for books, toys, games, magazines and other items. Google will collect the orders and hand them to a courier. Barnes & Noble stores have 22,000 to 163,000 titles, depending on the store size. We live in an age of instant gratification. This is why the eBook industry exploded in the last few years and major publishers trumpet that they account for 21%-28% of their entire revenue stream. It is all too convenient to buy a book on your e-reader, smartphone or tablet and instantly be able to read it. Barnes and Noble is betting that same day deliveries will encourage more people to buy the print edition. Barnes and Noble Unveils Same Day Book Delivery Service is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Chapters & Indigo Continues the March Towards Financial Disaster
| The Canadian bookselling industry is dominated by Chapters Indigo. You can get a good indication on how many people are buying print books by looking at their overall financial profitability. The latest quarterly results are in today and the future looks dark. Chapters and Indigo are on the brink of disaster. The bookseller announced a loss of $10 million last November and a massive $20 million decline in June. The latest figures published today have their resources shrinking further with a $14 million loss and C$180.8 million in total revenue. One of big reasons the losses were not nearly as profound as they could have been, was primarily due to the fact seven bookstores closed. The flagship store on Robson Street in Vancouver and Indigo Yorkdale have been doing brisk business selling American Girl Apparel. Heavy promotion is being done outside the stores with posters to bring people in to buy dolls and accessories. This product line has been so successful that Indigo made the call to bring it to the Chapters Rideau store in Ottawa. During the earnings call Indigo drew attention to their lifestyle products were seeing success. It took awhile for their inventory selection to catch on with the Canadian public that often shops at Pier One Imports for that sort of thing. A new selection of content that is available anywhere else is now available at the bigger stores. Books have seen greater success and Indigo reported that for the first time since 2010 they sold lots. This is due to major titles being released this year by Hillary Clinton and JK Rowling. Chapters & Indigo Continues the March Towards Financial Disaster is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Android L Will Include Multiple User Support
| There are plenty of reasons to run multiple user profiles on your Android smartphone, whether you want to separate work from your personal life or you have family members that share a single device. Technically we have been able to use more than one user profile since Android 4.2, but it was a workaround solution and not terribly convenient. Now with the upcoming Android L release due out this fall, Google will make it easy to run more than one profile on your smartphone. For something that seems so straightforward, many wonder why it took this long to implement on smartphones (as opposed to tablets). According to a Google engineer, it was due to the complications surrounding how to handle phone calls and text messages. As we continue to hear about new Android L features, it becomes harder to wait for the public release. What are you most looking forward to?
Android L Will Include Multiple User Support is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Timber App Brings Tinder to BlackBerry 10
| 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 |
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.  |