| New Zealand residents do not have to pay the local 20% GST on digital purchases, such as e-books. This might change as Prime Minister John Key announced that his government is looking into forcing overseas companies selling online content to pay the GST. The primary reason why this is becoming a big issue is because recently Netflix announced it would not be charging tax because it was not a local entity. This is a blow to the rival Kiwi streaming service Lightbox that is forced to pay tax, therefore charge more money. The NZ government is looking into the viability of starting an online service that will force publishers to apply for a GST account and make quarterly payments, based on the content that is sold. How this might affect companies that sell content in apps, such as digital newspapers, magazines and music remains to be seen. New Zealanders Might Soon Have to Pay GST on e-Books is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Friday, March 20, 2015
New Zealanders Might Soon Have to Pay GST on e-Books
Alice Hoffman’s First Middle Grade Novel: Reviewing Nightbird
| Alice Hoffman, the author of such popular books as The Dovekeepers and Practical Magic, just penned her first middle grade novel, Nightbird. As in her previous novels, Hoffman uses magical realism to explore life in a small town where one small girl lives a lonely life due to a centuries-old family curse. You do not cross a witch. This is a fact that the Fowler family understands better than any other because a long time ago a curse was enacted upon them. Due to the curse, the family withdrew as much as possible from society, away from prying eyes. Twig Fowler is a lover of climbing. She loves nature, acting and her family. More than anything, Twig wants a friend. But life is not easy for the Fowlers, for what would the town's people do if they found out that what they think of as "the Sidwell monster" is actually Twig's big brother? When new neighbors move into the vacant cottage next door, life gets more complicated. Twig struggles with wanting to be friends with Julia and knowing it's against the rules. Not only is this family a threat to the Fowler's isolation, but they are ancestors of Agnes Early, the witch who cursed the family so long ago. But what if the curse could be broken? What if there's more to the story of Agnes Early and Lowell Fowler, the long ago ill-fated sweethearts? This was a very sweet read. Twig is a wonderful character who has a lot to deal with for one so young. She learned to keep secrets long ago and repress her desire to make friends and be well liked. Any child who has felt isolated by his peers will recognize the yearning Twig feels. I enjoyed that there was no bad guy. It gets difficult to read books where one character is blatantly bad. Instead Nightbird concentrates on misunderstandings. People in the town of Sidwell are well-meaning and the reader gets the sense of small town living.
Kristin Milks is a Collection Analyst with OverDrive |
PressReader Offers Free Forbes Daily, Kobo eReaders
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The first is the announcement of a joint offer through some of PressReader‘s content partners, and that’s the free Kobo ereader with the purchase of an 18-month subscription to one of a handful of news titles. The free Kobo Arc 7 Android tablet is suited for this type of daily reading habit, and it available to new subscribers of any of the following digital newspapers: The National Post, The Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, The Star Phoenix, Regina Leader Post, Windsor Star, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, The Province, or The Vancouver Sun. The second announcement was the offer of a free read of the Forbes Daily replica edition, available to all consumers via the PressReader website or its app between now and April 30th. This daily edition contains business news and associated political interest news. Users will also be able to access back issues during that time, as well as comment on many of the articles. This news came after the announcement earlier this week that PressReader is adding thirty additional titles to its catalog of nearly four thousand publications. While PressReader is a platform that powers public libraries’ digital periodical lending, as well as other service industries like in-room digital newspapers for the hospitality industry, there are individual user-based plans for subscribing to specific titles.
PressReader Offers Free Forbes Daily, Kobo eReaders is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Piper: Learning electronics with Minecraft
| At Raspberry Pi, we’re interested in many of the different ways that computers and education converge. To hear more about a new approach, I’ve invited Mark Pavlyukovskyy to write about his project, Piper, which you can find on Kickstarter now. Here’s Mark: I was a junior in college when I first heard about the Raspberry Pi. It seemed miraculous that you could have a full Linux board, that could run off of your phone charger, that cost only $35. While I imagined hundreds of different projects that I would want to make with the Pi, I realized that at such a low price point, the board would be perfect for giving kids in all over the world a way to hack and play with technology. It could democratize who had access to creating with technology. My first project was to add peripherals like screens and keyboards to the Pi and send these cheap mini-computers to Africa and India for kids to learn about computer hardware and software. Today you can be a software developer from anywhere in the world, and I wanted to use the Pi to serve as an interactive instruction manual to let anyone get started with programming. Not only was it logistically difficult to ship dozens of black boxes with wires and electronics to different countries, but the biggest challenge was actually getting kids interested. For the majority of the students we worked with, the interface or the games we made didn’t interest them as much as putting together the pieces and seeing a working computer as a result of their efforts. We went back to the drawing board to figure out a way to let kids not only build a computer, but to continue building and creating; to spark their curiosity and show them that they could build real things themselves. After doing dozens of workshops with schools back in the US, we found the hook that would get kids interested – Minecraft. Minecraft is a virtual building blocks game that allows kids (and adults) to create anything they want in virtual reality; even if that anything is virtual replicas of Hogwarts, the Starship from Star Wars, or the city of Beijing. And luckily for us, the Pi had a version of Minecraft that we could modify with Python. The other beauty of the Pi was the GPIO pins. These programmable input/output pins allowed us to create a modified Minecraft that kids could alter by adding their own hardware and electronics to the Pi. We could modify the game, so that once kids built the correct hardware and connected it to the pins on the Pi, the Minecraft would react in some way. We designed and created a storyline, where you were sending a robot to a different planet, and on the way over, his hardware was damaged, so you had to repair his hardware on the Raspberry Pi right in front of you in order to advance through the levels. In each level of the game you would have to physically build a power-up, such as a button, a switch, a row of LED lights, and these power-ups would give an advantage in the game. The switch for example opens hidden doors, while the row of LEDs serves as a proximity sensor for finding diamonds, so the closer you are to diamonds, the more lights light up. And as we started showing this to kids, we couldn't get them to stop playing. It was really amazing how interested kids were in both the Minecraft and the hardware. For many, they had played regular Minecraft, and were fans, but modifying it by adding your own real gadgets was a novel concept, and excited them. Many kids had never built anything physical prior to Piper, and they got excited because it showed them that the in-game possibilities were endless. We are currently creating a sandbox platform that will allow players to make their own levels and add custom hardware, and then share their creations with friends. Because as kids see the endless possibilities of what they can create in the game with Piper, we know that they will remember these lessons, and eventually see the whole world around them as full of possibilities which they can create and invent. We want Piper to inspire an entire generation to believe that they are superheroes not just in the virtual world, but in the real world too. Not to see technology as a black box that works on magic, but as something anyone can remix and create. And together with the incredible community of Raspberry Pi enthusiasts like you, we can bring this vision to life! Please join us in bringing Piper to inventors and creators all over the world! |
Rovio Disappointed By Declining Profits From Angry Birds Franchise
| Since 2009 it has been difficult to throw a stone and not hit something branded with Angry Birds. It may have started with a single video game, but it quickly branched into a wide array of consumer products (including toys, clothing, sweets, and bedding). That said, nobody can accuse the Angry Birds developers at Rovio of lacking ambition –they are taking aim at the likes of Disney with plans for an educational playground, feature-length animated movie (due out in 2016), and a spin-off television series. Unfortunately for those plans, Rovio’s operating profit took a 73% loss last year (due in large part to their licensing business). The original Angry birds title was among the first of its kind –using a slingshot to send birds flying like weapons through levels of physics-based game-play. After quickly becoming number 1, Rovio decided to capitalize on their new-found fame by creating (milking) sequel, after sequel, after sequel, after sequel… until even the most addicted players stopped caring. Sure it was nice to have the extra levels in titles like Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio, but eventually there were just too many to keep up with. It also didn’t help that other game developers were watching Rovio’s early success and learning from their formula at a much higher level, instead of just copying it (though there were a few that tried that as well). Since 2009, the number of apps available has increased dramatically –and just like Angry Birds, many of the most successful titles include colourful graphics and loveable characters (not to mention level-based, addictive play). Critics of the Angry Birds franchise are not surprised by the decline, with many calling it a one-hit wonder (that just kept repeating itself); others accuse the game of lacking the kind of sophistication that causes players to develop longer-term relationships with it. When asked, Rovio confirms their disappointment regarding the drop in profits while noting that the upcoming movie should inspire renewed interest in merchandise sales. With the film still a year away, and the mobile world moving at faster and faster speeds (meaning there are exponentially more apps available and ready to compete all the time), that seems like a lot like trying to hit a moving target. Rovio assures gamers that the company is also striving to build new characters that will be expanded into new games (and of course, new consumer products). What they don’t say, is whether those new games will actually be fresh and different… or more of the same. Rovio also admits to making shifts toward free-to-play games and monetizing using in-game purchases and advertising –which is a wise move, but should likely have been addressed at the height of their popularity and not on the downward slope. There is little doubt that Angry Birds will always hold a special place in the hearts of early mobile gamers, but in the end… it’s no Super Mario. Do you still play Angry Birds? Are you still quick to download new versions when they are released?
Rovio Disappointed By Declining Profits From Angry Birds Franchise is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Thursday, March 19, 2015
How to Install Flash on your Kindle Fire or Alternative Android Tablet
| Adobe has discontinued Flash support and many modern tablets do not have Flash enabled, instead rely on HTML5. Many websites such as Twitch and others depend on Flash to play video and music. The Amazon line of Fire tablets do not have Adobe Flash support by default and users must install it themselves. Today, we take a look at how you can install it on your tablet. Kindle Fire If you have any model of the Kindle Fire line of tablets, before you can install Flash, you need to enable unknown sources. This basically allows you to install your own apps, separate from the Amazon App Store. 1. If you are using the Kindle Fire or Kindle Fire HD: Go to Settings -> Devices -> Allow Installation of Applications – Check this option 2. If you are using the Kindle Fire HDX: Go to Settings -> Applications -> Apps from Unknown Sources – Check this option 3. Next you want to open your Silk internet browser and visit this link goo.gl/H5j8JL 4. Install the app and Flash is now loaded on your Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD or HDX. Android Tablets If you are using the stock internet browser on a new Android tablet, chances are it doesn’t have Flash. The Chrome Browser and Dolphin browser actually have a Flash Player built into it. So you can simply download it from Google Play. Lower end tablets often do not have the Google App Store and deal with a smaller one. If this is the case, you need to do the following; 1) Tap the clock on the taskbar, tap the popout that appears, and then tap Settings. 2) Scroll down the list and tap Security, then on the right, scroll down and tap Unknown sources. 3) Tap OK on the prompt that appears. Any internet browser you use from now on will have Flash support. How to Install Flash on your Kindle Fire or Alternative Android Tablet is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Top Literary Prizes Unfavorable to Asian Authors
| Nury Vittachi, chairman of the Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Association said that the Man Booker Prize and Pulitzer Prize are unfavorable for Asian authors. He might have a point because the former is limited to works published in the United Kingdom, while the Pulitzer is only for authors with American passports. This has prompted the creation of the World Readers’ Award. The award will pay an author $10,000 for a book printed or translated to English. A judging panel, made up of members of the association, will select about 12 books in the next eight weeks and the public will be asked to vote on the shortlisted works. The voting is actually a sham, as the judges basically said their voice has little to no bearing on the definitive selection of the winner. It will be interesting to see if this award will have longstanding appeal. There are many awards, but seldom do they hold the public’s interest for more than a few weeks. Top Literary Prizes Unfavorable to Asian Authors is a post from: Good e-Reader |
How Will People Read Books 20 Years from Now?
| In the last ten years we have seen a dramatic shift from exclusively reading the print editions of books to the e-book. e-Readers, smartphones and tablets have all gained mainstream acceptance and many apps have been developed to optimize the overall experience. Today, Good e-Reader Research looks at how our reading habits might change 20 years from now. Over the course of the last two weeks we ran a poll on Good e-Reader, asking people to look into the crystal ball and weigh in on how the majority of readers will be consuming books 20 years from now. 441 people from Canada, US and UK all participated in the research. The number one result with 18% of the vote was the quintessential e-reader. E Ink is very easy on the eyes and is the only technology to mimic real paper. Since 2007 Amazon and Sony have led the innovation race and in the last few years the prices on the hardware have dramatically fallen. In the second position we have print as the dominant format of choice, capturing 13.83% of the vote. Considering how print has the dominant format for hundreds of years, likely things won’t really be changing too much in the two decades. Narrowly attaining the 3rd position in user voting were multimedia tablets, who garnered 13.38% of the vote. Seriously, tablets got two votes less than print books, which was very surprising. The rise of the iPad and Android based devices has generated a billion dollar app development industry, where thousands of high quality reading apps can be downloaded at a click of a button. Apps are the primarily distribution method for e-book subscription services such as Scribd and Oyster. The rest of the field was really close, with a few votes separating the other options. Smartphones ( 9.3%), Virtual Reality (7.26%), Library (6.12%) and online (7.03%) rounded off the list. Surprisingly, the zombie apocalypse option attained 8.62% of the vote, giving credence that people might be too busy trying to survive instead of reading a book. I think what surprised me the most was that smartphones were not as popular as I would have thought. Considering there are more smartphones in the world than any other device, people simply aren’t using them to read novels. How Will People Read Books 20 Years from Now? is a post from: Good e-Reader |
A message to our library and school partners from Steve Potash
| Dear OverDrive Library & School Partners, OverDrive announced today that Rakuten, Inc. has agreed to acquire OverDrive from Insight Venture Partners, our private equity partner and majority owner since 2010. In a few weeks after the sale is complete, we will be part Rakuten USA, the US operating division of Rakuten, Inc. As you are an important partner of OverDrive, I am excited to share this news and describe what this will mean for you and your readers. Our announcement and FAQs can be found here. OverDrive has grown significantly in the past decade due to our drive to constantly improve our service and deliver proven value for our library partners. Over the past four years we drew upon resources from Insight Venture Partners and its global portfolio of 90 technology-based companies. I am very excited about the new technologies, content, and innovations we expect to bring to our library partners and your readers as a result of this transaction. Rakuten is one of the world’s leading Internet services companies. Its business interests include eReading (Kobo), e-commerce (Rakuten.com, formerly buy.com and EBATES), instant messaging (Viber), and other B2C and B2B businesses in the US, Canada, and around the world. Since 2012, Rakuten (http://global.rakuten.com/corp/about) has been ranked among the world's 'Top 20 Most Innovative Companies' in Forbes magazine's annual list. This change in ownership will not affect our commitment to connect your readers with books and libraries by supporting all popular devices and apps. We remain committed to continue advancement of open industry standards, deep library integration, and other industry best practices. We will remain strongly aligned with your mission to uphold reader privacy, library branding and control of lending policies, and local curation of your digital collections. OverDrive will continue to be a strong advocate for library and school access to the best collections of digital materials with library-friendly terms and new and more flexible access models from publishers. I will be meeting with library and school directors, management, and staff over the coming weeks and months to further outline our roadmap for 2015 and beyond. As proud members of ALA, we are in close communication with ALA leadership and the technology and information policy and advocacy units. While competitors or others may speculate what this news may bring, we will continue as before to work hard and provide the best selection, service, device compatibility, with measurable benefits for your communities. We are preparing to work closely with Kobo (headquartered in Toronto) to add eBooks from their vast supply network of international publishers and content providers. To better serve our Canadian library and school partners, I am also pleased to announce we are preparing to open OverDrive Canada offices in Toronto in the coming months. I am very proud of the relationships we have developed with many of you, the world's greatest librarians, educators, and public servants. I look forward to making 2015 another record year of enabling service to your communities with increased efficiencies and respect for your resources. My team and I welcome a chance to answer any questions you may have. If we don't connect before the summer, please plan to schedule a meeting with me and Team OverDrive at the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco, or consider joining us and hundreds of librarians, educators and publishers this summer in Cleveland for Digipalooza 2015 (www.digipalooza.com). Thank you for your partnership and for the trust you have placed in us.
Best regards, Steve Potash, CEO OverDrive, Inc. |
The First Look at Attack On Titan’s Live Action Movie
| After three agonizing months of silence after the release of the Attack on Titan Live Action poster was revealed, and a look at who the main cast will be, we finally get a short sneak peak at the exciting post apocalyptic upcoming feature. The short teaser was shown on a segment on a Japanese variety show, which after was posted to youtube quite quickly. The movie clip is literally only a few seconds long, but from what we can see, it looks quite good! The Titans look menacing, as they should, an also a look at the collosal Titan which looked amazing! Unfortunately no footage of the 3Dimensional Maneuver gear in action, but it will only be a short wait to summer to find out how everything looks. The films are directed by Shinji Higuchi (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Kill la Kill). The live action adaption will span across two films which are aimed to be released this summer in Japan. Hajime Isayama has been busy working on the scripts with screenwriter Yuusuke Watanabe ("Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods", "20th Century Boys") and film critic Tomohiro Machiyama. The manga has inspired spinoffs, a hit anime series, tons of merchandise and video games. It was revealed earlier this month that Sony Pictures Entertainment had registered numerous domain names tied to an "Attack on Titan" movie, suggesting a US version could be in development. The sneak peak begins at :58 in! The First Look at Attack On Titan’s Live Action Movie is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Rakuten Buys OverDrive; What’s it Mean for Kindle Library Books?
| There’s big news in the ebook industry today. Rakuten has announced that they are purchasing OverDrive for 410 million dollars in cash. The acquisition is expected to be finalized next month, April 2015. OverDrive is the leading platform for ebook and audiobook lending to public and school libraries, with over 30,000 supported libraries worldwide. Rakuten, […] |
Raspberry Pi Internet doorbell
| This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a Raspberry Pi used to add useful or entertaining features to a doorbell, but it’s probably the most feature-rich doorbell hack we’ve come across. Amongst other things, Ahmad Khattab’s Internet doorbell can call your phone, send you a text, and stream video of who’s at the door:
It’s a lovely DIY solution to the problem of missed calls and deliveries, and my favourite thing about it is imagining how much you’d pay for a glossy, boxed-up version of it. Ahmad’s costs £17 plus a Raspberry Pi.  This Internet-of-Things device does not come in a fancy case Ahmad has written some instructions for the benefit of other people who are interested in better living through technology, but not interested in spending a lot of money on things in shiny plastic cases that you can’t open or customise. |
OverDrive Acquired by Rakuten, Owners of Kobo
| OverDrive is the world’s leading digital content provider of books, movies, music, and more to the public and academic library space. The company basically powers the digital lending capabilities of more than 33,000 separate libraries around the world, as one of their huge innovations was the ability to borrow content through dedicated library apps to any mobile device. And their reach is about to get even bigger. Tokyo-based Rakuten, Inc., one of the world’s largest internet service companies, has acquired OverDrive in what is another in a long line of acquisitions dedicated to increasing the global footprint of companies, adding reading focus to its practices, and extending itself into new markets. Rakuten USA, located in Boston, will oversee the stateside operations of OverDrive while long-time CEO and innovator Steve Potash will remain in place. "I am excited for OverDrive to be part of the dynamic group of market leading e-commerce and digital media companies that Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani has assembled," said OverDrive CEO Steve Potash. "From OverDrive's world headquarters in northeast Ohio to the 50 countries in which our library and school partners reside, we will continue to connect readers with books and institutions by supporting all users and all popular devices, while promoting open industry standard formats and best practices. We look forward to working closely with the Rakuten companies toward a mutually beneficial future." Rakuten’s acquisition of Toronto-based Kobo helped propel the company into an even bigger international standing than it had already enjoyed. Rakuten Kobo has powered the distribution of more than 4 million ebooks across 190 countries through its catalog, so the internet company is no stranger to handling high volumes of ebook content and getting them into readers’ hands. It does this through its own staggering line-up of dedicated e-readers, and through its any-device-compatible platform. It will be interesting to see how this acquisition furthers both OverDrive and Kobo in the US, but my educated guess is that OverDrive will see better contracts with publishers due to the agreements Rakuten has forged for its Kobo retail catalog. This could mean getting newer and bestselling content into libraries in a far more timely way, while Kobo may power additional library checkout opportunities, especially for self-published titles. While Smashwords has been the powerhouse pioneer for indie authors in its agreement with OverDrive to allow libraries to access the Smashwords catalog, there is still a stigma in place that blocks libraries from seeing this catalog as a viable option for ebook content. Hopefully a joint effort between Smashwords, Rakuten, Kobo, and OverDrive will mean those walls will start to come down. OverDrive Acquired by Rakuten, Owners of Kobo is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Barnes and Noble Remains Committed to Nook
| Barnes and Noble remains steadfast in their commitment to selling e-readers and digital content. The company has publicly decreed that they have no intention of selling the brand and want to continue to capitalize on the bookstore chain to promote the hardware. The entire Nook enterprise has been a loss leader for Barnes and Noble and the company has lost over one billion dollars since 2011. During the last quarterly results released two weeks ago, device sales were down 60% year on year. Barnes and Noble has been cleaning house in the Nook Media division over the course of the last fourteen months. Some of the most notable departures included Jim Hilt, head of global eBook sales, and before him digital products director Jamie Iannone, VP of digital products Bill Saperstein and Theresa Horner the VP, of Digital Content. The one aspect these executives all shared was a tremendous lack of technical expertise and fundamental understanding of the e-reader industry. After all, they were with Barnes and Noble before there was even a Nook brand to begin with. They built up an ecosystem from scratch and ran it into the ground because they failed to innovate. I can’t even crucify them for that, because lets face it, what bookstore chain in the last 30 years has really focused on innovation anyways? Barnes and Noble is now focusing on hiring core executives to chart the future direction of Nook from startup and heavy digital backgrounds. The most prominent hire was Doug Carlson, who was the Executive chairman for five years at Zinio. He now has the title of Executive Vice President and CMO of Nook Media. Jeanniey Mullen also came from Zinio where for five years she was the Global Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer and now is VP of Sales of Nook. Kashif Zafar got promoted within the company, he was the Head of Sales for three years and now is the VP of e-books. Prior to that, he actually worked on the ill-fated Skiff e-reader. The first major project from the new executive team had been the launch of the Nook Audiobook service. There are over 50,000 audiobooks from major publishers available to purchase and the vast majority of them have free samples that range between two and four minutes in length to preview. It is available on Android right now, with an iOS version planned for the springtime. The big plan right now is to get the audiobook app loaded on all of the Samsung 4 Nook tablets and then launch a big marketing campaign in their bookstores. Speaking of audiobooks, this isn’t Barnes and Nobles first foray in selling them. They used to have a small section on their website that sold digital content from Overdrive. Customers needed to install the Overdrive Media Console app to listen to them, which wasn’t ideal. The two sides decided to part ways in this regard, but formed a new business relationship. In early 2015 Barnes and Noble officially started distributing hundreds of digital newspapers and magazines through Overdrive to thousands of libraries all over the US. There are no new tablets planned for 2015, so hopefully the primary focus can be on a new Nook e-reader. Likely B&N now realizes that they have to compete with the Voyage and the Kobo H2O in terms of build quality and hardware specs. Anything less will mean a continued loss of sales in the critical US and UK markets. Barnes and Noble has always run Android on their entire line of Nook e-readers and tablets. They have always heavily skinned it though, so it doesn’t resemble the same type of experience you would have on a Google Nexus or Samsung Galaxy Tab. I would hope that the Nook 2015 edition will have audio capability via a 3.5mm headphone jack in order to leverage their new audiobooks business. They would also be better served on running a more open version of Android, since the big trend of 2014 were companies such as Onyx, Boyue, Icarus and Energy Sistem all releasing e-readers that allowed people to install their own apps. If B&N can re-purpose their existing Android App Store and offer customers an avenue to download content that would be compatible with an e Ink device. It would make their app store relevant again. A fully featured app store on a new Nook e-Reader could be a very compelling value proposition. It could very well be the first mainstream e-reader that allows people to craft their own e-reading experience, with apps that are curated by B&N. Good e-Reader has proven that it is possible to take an App store that has been designed for fully featured tablets and redesign it exclusively for e-readers. The Good e-Reader App Store for e-ink has been downloaded over 1,000 times in the first week and is a freely available. The app store is also available on all 2014 Icarus e-readers as an option for users to install apps right out of the box. Hopefully Barnes and Noble could follow our lead by taking their own great app store, that took a long time to build up and use it as a marketing gimmick to really sell their next e-reader in vast quantities. Audio and apps would really encourage former Nook users to come back to the brand and give people who have older devices a reason to upgrade. Barnes and Noble Remains Committed to Nook is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Microsoft Wants You to Run Windows 10 on Your (Android) Smartphone
| Fewer hardware manufacturers are making Windows-based smartphones, but apparently that isn’t something causing Microsoft to lose sleep. Proving yet again that they are thinking outside of the box and interested in reinventing themselves, Microsoft is working on a ROM that will morph your Android smartphone into a Windows Phone 10 device. Just to be clear, this isn’t a dual-boot type option. Instead, this ROM will truly offer a native-like Windows 10 experience on your previously-Android-based smartphone. Microsoft has issued a statement describing their project:
What do you think of Microsoft’s decision? Other mobile platforms have offered app compatibility with Android, and it’s certainly been done to death in the desktop arena… but this is fairly groundbreaking (I wouldn’t expect Apple to open themselves up to this kind of thing anytime soon –or ever). It isn’t clear how easy it will be to move back to a stock Android built once you’ve installed Windows 10 on your smartphone, but one should expect it can be done without too much weeping or gnashing of teeth. I tend to think this is a stepping stone of some sort. Microsoft has been making a move toward being all about mobile software and lessening their attempts to break into the proprietary hardware realm (sure the Surface is out there, but it really feels like it’s a secondary priority for them somehow). What is the end-game? It may just be a move to prove their continued relevance. It might be a power move to say to hardware manufacturers that they don’t need their loyalty or commitments. It might just be a way to generate buzz and show themselves as having the most progressive mobile operating system. Heck, reaching further out… it could be a way to position certain technologies for sale. No matter the answer, watching what Microsoft is up to has become interesting once again.
Microsoft Wants You to Run Windows 10 on Your (Android) Smartphone is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
The March Adult eHighlights Catalog is here!
| For us at OverDrive, we're excited that the weather is finally warming up. It has been a very chilly winter and to get us through the last of those cooler days, we've got this great list of hot new releases for adults in March. NYPD Red 3 by James Patterson is the latest novel in the series about what happens behind the closed doors of New York's high society.
Debbie Macomber's newest book, Last One Home, follows Cassie as she struggles to reconnect with her two sisters after many years apart. Newly divorced and back on her own feet, Cassie sees an opening to reconcile with her family and finds hope at a fresh start in life. Fans of Gillian Flynn and Tana French will love The Daughter by Jane Shemilt. Jenny's life is picture perfect with a career, three wonderful teenagers, and a neurosurgeon husband. But when her daughter, Naomi doesn't make it home one day, Jenny finds her life crumbling around her. As Jenny searches for her daughter, she realizes Naomi might not the girl she thought she raised. For more exciting titles, check out the catalog in its entirety here! (link: http://partners.overdrive.com/files/catalogs/2015/Adult-eHighlights-March.pdf) Stay tuned for eHighlights for Kids & Teens coming soon.
Emma Kanagaki is a Collection Analyst with OverDrive |
PressReader Adds 30 New Publications to Its Unlimited Reading Lineup
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One of the world's leading digital subscription platforms, PressReader, announced this week the addition of as many as thirty new titles in its catalog of all-you-can-read publications. These titles include Lonely Planet Traveller, BBC Music, Top Gear, and many more. “Immediate are renowned for producing compelling content that enhances the way people engage with what they love,” said Kevin Curtis, head of mobile apps and partnerships, in a press release. “Our digital revenues are accelerating and our world-class content is driving this forward across new platforms. PressReader will be an important vehicle to help continue this growth.” PressReader has been on the forefront of publishing innovation for the past decade, pioneering the all-you-can-read model and offering over 4,000 magazines and newspapers on its platform, with 540 publications from the UK alone. This addition brings the available number of titles in both magazines and newspapers to well over four thousand, a fact that has gained a lot of interest from hotels who seek to entice guests, libraries who are working within the constraints of ever-shrinking budgets, and other organizations with similar cost-effectiveness and engagement needs. PressReader also operates its own hotspots to reach consumers in a variety of public venues.
PressReader Adds 30 New Publications to Its Unlimited Reading Lineup is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Observing a solar eclipse with high-altitude Pis
| Helen: We’re pleased to welcome back to the blog a regular guest, high-altitude balloonist Dave Akerman. You’ll have gathered that a noteworthy astronomical event is to take place across northern Europe on Friday, and as you’d expect, Dave has plans. We’ll let him tell you all about them. As you have probably heard by now, there will be a total solar eclipse this Friday morning, with the path of totality passing north of the UK and directly over the Faroe Islands. In the UK we should see about 90% of the sun eclipsed by the moon, with the north of Scotland getting the best view assuming no clouds get in the way. By now you are probably wondering what all this has to do with the Raspberry Pi, and the answer is that I will be flying two Model A+ Pis on a balloon from (no, not the Faroes) Leicester racecourse. Additionally, there will be several more Pi boards decoding the transmissions, and a V2 Pi B+ showing the results on a large monitor. The launch will be at about 8am so that the balloon is nicely high during the peak of the eclipse at about 9:30am.  An earlier launch of a Raspberry Pi with a weather balloon Some of you may have followed some of my previous flights using the online map and live image page. This time though, there’s an extra special option for your viewing pleasure. Live TV. The launch will be recorded by the BBC and some of the footage will be transmitted on an extra BBC Stargazing show on BBC1 that morning (9am to 10am). Also, there will be a couple of very brief live segments where, hopefully, I get to show some pretty live images and say “Raspberry Pi” as often as possible. Assuming we get to recover the flight, then some of the recorded video should end up on the main Stargazing show in the evening (9pm-10pm, BBC2). The plan looked a tad uncertain earlier in the week because weather predictions gave me a choice of landing at Heathrow or Gatwick. I spent a lot of time speaking to the BBC trying to come up with a plan that lets us launch but without getting onto the national news for all the wrong reasons! One rejected plan was to launch from Jodrell Bank (from where the main Stargazing show is broadcast), but for some reason they don’t allow mobile phones or 3G there. Another plan was to underfill the balloon and get it to land near Dieppe in France. As of Wednesday morning, though, predictions are continuing to improve and I’m now confident of getting this flight to land somewhere safe in England, instead of having to trek to France to recover the payload. The reason for launching from Leicester is that the BBC are running a “spectacular live event” from the racecourse, open to the public from 9am to 3pm and then 6pm to 9pm. Entry is free to please do come along if you can. They have a real astronaut and plenty else of interest – see this information page. Also, Leicester is home to the National Space Centre, so there’s plenty to see if you do decide to visit. Helen: If you want to complement the coverage from Dave and the BBC with your own observations, the Royal Astronomical Society and the Society for Popular Astronomy have produced an excellent pdf guide to this Friday’s eclipse, explaining how to view it safely and what you’ll see if cloud cover doesn’t spoil the fun. Remember that cameras, including the Raspberry Pi camera module, are liable to be damaged if you point them directly at the Sun; don’t try direct eclipse photography unless you have the proper filters, but do bear in mind that you can achieve some very pleasing results without any specialist equipment by photographing a pinhole projection of the eclipse. |
Facebook Messenger App Joins Mobile Payments Trend
| Once upon a time, you would hand your friends paper and coins anytime they needed cash. These days, it is more difficult –if your friends are anything like mine, they lack a functioning debit machine attached to their bodies somehow; this means we need to be more modern about the way we send and receive money. Many apps and services have stepped up to make this an easy task, not the least of which is Facebook. In the coming months (at least for those of you in the USA), Facebook Messenger will roll out the ability to transfer funds using your debit card to the people you are chatting with. Oh… it’s also going to be free! Facebook describes how simple it will be to use this new feature:
The transfer is completed instantly (though there may be delays depending on your bank). It may seem like an unusual service for Facebook to provide, but the social media giant is actually no stranger to processing payments (having done so for gamers and advertisers since 2007).
Facebook Messenger App Joins Mobile Payments Trend is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Nintendo is (FINALLY) Creating Mobile Gaming Apps
| So apparently pigs have wings. And I may have to eat my hat. And Nintendo has announced their intention to team up with major Japanese mobile gaming development firm DeNA to create smartphone games starring your favourite Nintendo characters. It’s been a long time coming. There have been flirtations with mobile gaming in the past, but overwhelmingly Nintendo has demonstrated an aversion to mobile gaming. By refusing to license their beloved characters for mobile use, Nintendo has been motivated by a fear that doing so would lessen the value of their console-based titles. Since taking this stand, sales of game consoles and hand-held devices have done nothing but decline… so much so that it is expected mobile gaming will all but replace them in 2015. Have no fear, Nintendo hasn’t completely abandoned their antiquated way of thinking; president Satoru Iwata has assured us that they have not given up on dedicated games systems. Though few details are known, the next Nintendo-branded console (which has been codenamed ‘NX’) promises to be a brand-new concept (which is a good thing following the poor performance of their last system). So how do they successfully do both? Instead of creating direct ports of existing games, Nintendo and DeNA plan to develop all-net, unique applications filled with familiar characters. Using this strategy, mobile gamers will have the chance to fall in love with Nintendo stylings such that they may feel persuaded to also embrace a console. To support their development initiatives, Nintendo and DeNA are also developing a new membership service and game distribution platform that promises to be entirely cross-platform. This secondary project is expected to launch in the fall of this year, which we hope means their first mobile gaming titles will drop around that time too. Not much else is known just yet but given their love of the bottom line, it’s unlikely these new Nintendo-branded games will be free to play –especially when they have spoken out so loudly against in-app purchases as a means to generating revenue. That may not be such a bad thing though when young people are included among your target demographics.
Nintendo is (FINALLY) Creating Mobile Gaming Apps is a post from: Good e-Reader |
