| Microsoft is on a rampage trying to woo companies to bundle their Office line of apps on all sorts of Android tablets. They have been very successful ironing out deals with Samsung, LG, Sony, Haier, Positivo and Wortman. Officially Microsoft has signed deals with over 31 different companies to have Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype loaded on Android driven tablets. The first batch of tablets to include the MS apps will be on a yet unannounced LG tablet, and Sony will include them on their Xperia Z4 tablet within the next 90 days. There is no word yet if these apps are able to be uninstalled or not, I know many people will be quite irate if they aren’t. Microsoft Apps Now Available on Samsung, LG, and Sony Tablets is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Microsoft Apps Now Available on Samsung, LG, and Sony Tablets
Amazon Unveils New Bookerly Font for iPhone and iPad
| Amazon has just released a new version of their seminal Kindle e-Reading app for the iPad and iPhone. The company has made a big step towards better typography with the advent of Bookerly, the first typeface designed for the Kindle for scratch. Additionally, it looks like Amazon is trying to solve the Kindle’s typesetting problems with an all-new layout engine that introduces better text justification, kerning, drop caps, image positioning, and more. Bookerly is going to be replacing Caecilia as the new default font for the Kindle Fire line of tablets and their fleet of apps. Bookerly is a serif style of font that has been custom-made by Amazon to be as readable across as many different types of screens as possible. Like Google’s Literata, Bookerly is meant to address many of the aesthetic issues surrounding e-book fonts. Does Bookerly make a big difference while reading an e-book? According to Amazon’s internal tests, that means it’s about 2% easier on the eye. That may seem like a small improvement, but spread that 2% across millions of Kindle users and billions of pages of e-reading, and it all starts to add up. I think the one exciting thing that users will notice right away with the new Kindle App for iOS is the new layout engine. It justifies text more like print typesetting. Even if you max out the font size on the new Kindle app, it will keep the spacing between words even, intelligently hyphenating words and spreading them between lines as need may be. This will obviously appeal to people who frequently adjust the sizes of the fonts or have vision disorders and want to read more effectively. Amazon Unveils New Bookerly Font for iPhone and iPad is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Emoti – Visualising our Emotions
| If you missed the updates recently, we’re currently running a 12-month programme for creative young people called Raspberry Pi Creative Technologists. We have a Google+ community for the group to post ideas, share interesting links and ask each other for help and we hoped they would also use it to arrange to meet up outside of the organised field trips: within the first month, one of them found the Art Hackathon and suggested they go along and take part. Three of them went along and teamed up with some others. Yasmin wrote a full account of the hack… I've always heard about how awesome Hackathons could be; they're a chance to surround yourself with intelligent people who share the same interest, come up with inspiring ideas together and become engrossed in a project, with everyone chipping in to turn concept into reality over one weekend. But I’m going to be perfectly honest with you here; however awesome this sounds, I can't help but feel a tad intimidated by it all. There's still so much I feel I have yet to learn and I always worry about how much of an asset (or a nuisance) I would be. So when I saw an opportunity to go to an Art Hackathon, which aspired to mix teams with different skill sets and types, I knew that I had to attend, and I'm so glad I did! With the Hackathon holding presentations by many talented people including as Joel Lewis, Di Mainstone and Nick Rothwell, as well tables full of various tech and art supplies, there were no limitations to the amount of creativity that we could muster! Yasmin and Milton All of this inspired a creation that managed to win 2nd Place for Peoples Choice, and I can proudly say that I was a part of its development: Emoti – Visualising our Emotions
Using Twitter Widgets, our team was able to pull certain keywords from tweets being posted in real time and assign them to different emotion types, which meant being able to have constantly updated data on how people were feeling on twitter through these emotion-related keywords. The emotions we assigned them to were: Happy, Sad, Surprised, Afraid and Angry. From this data we then created a simple HTML web-page with 5 divs, or blocks, of colour relating to the different emotion states. These would constantly change width depending on the data that was being collected from the tweets to give a visual representation of how many people were tweeting under each emotion:
To make this experience of witnessing how the world feels and how frequently these emotions change more immersive, these visual representations are also accompanied with audio. We chose five audio tracks, one to depict each emotion, adding them into the web-page using the HTML5 audio tag, and adjusted their volume depending on the emotion-based twitter data with some JavaScript wizardry. This ended up with the clashing music types seemingly battling against each other, reflecting how hectic the live emotion states were and how rapidly they would change at random; one moment showing solely happiness, the next ultimate anger. The Hackathon Effect This was an Art Hackathon don't forget, so, of course we had to present this data in a beautiful and intriguing way. What's more intriguing than creating the illusion of 3D colour-changing ripples?! For this effect, the designers in our team laser cut clear plastic to create the individual ripples and slotted them into a black board. I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to whip out my Raspberry Pi! We ran the web-page through the Pi and hooked it up to the HDMIPi, allowing a bright screen for our structure to be placed onto, so that the moving coloured blocks from below would shine onto the clear plastic and give the illusion of a 3D object. Finally, the structure was put together in a dark, enclosed space, and the end product came to life, completely exceeding my expectations! Colours danced gracefully across the ripples, making us forget that there was even a web-page below. It was easy to get lost in the entrancing movement of pattern that the object seemed to create. As soon as you immerse yourself in the full experience, with audio as well as these entrancing visuals, it becomes a little overwhelming. Watching the colours is one thing, but hearing the clashes of audio really brings the message across that this is how people from around the world are feeling right now.
Yes, it’s open source! Find the (somewhat messy) code here: https://github.com/itomblack/emotion-twitter What I Gained…Aside from the obvious: an awesome project, a better understanding of how to work in a team and improved coding skills, I managed to come away from the Hackathon feeling much more positive about what I, an as individual, can achieve. I may not be have been the most skilled coder in the room but I was still able to have meaningful input on the project, both creatively and through my development skills, which leaves me wondering what I was so worried about in the first place! As well as this I'm so grateful to have had the pleasure of meeting many creative and genuinely lovely people. It was so interesting to see all of the various projects that everyone had made, each one entirely unique and fascinating in its own right. Thank you to the people behind the Art Hackathon event and those intelligent folk within the Emoti Dream Team who helped bring it to life: P.S. This is my very first blog, how am I doing? Let me know! (If you want to… No pressure…) The post Emoti – Visualising our Emotions appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Microsoft Cortana Available on Android and iPhone this June
| If you are not a huge fan of Siri or the Google Now you may soon have an alternative. Microsoft is porting over Cortana to Android in June and an iOS version a few months later. Cortana's arrival is part of a larger cross-platform mobile strategy centered around the newly announced Phone Companion app for iOS and Android, which will help users configure their phones to work (and play) well with their Windows 10 computer. Ever since Microsoft got a new CEO a few years ago the company has been bringing all of their key software to the mobile platform. If you really think about it, Microsoft Office has been in use for well over a decade and optimized apps for Android and iOS only came out this year. I know plenty of people who now rely on Outlook for their email, instead of using the default Mail app for Apple devices. Microsoft says that the experience will be comparable to the one in Windows and Windows Phone, but not identical. You can use the dictate function, set reminders, track flights and otherwise keep your life organized. Cortana’s Notebook, which remembers what you like, will also sync across all your platforms. It has been confirmed that the seminal “hey Cortana” or options to launch apps and settings will not be available on Android and iOS. This will purely be a Windows 10 and Windows Phone feature. Microsoft Cortana Available on Android and iPhone this June is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Google Signature Font “Roboto” is now Open Source
| Google has announced that their signature font “Roboto” is now officially free to use by any e-reader company. This font is the default one that is currently being used in Android and Chrome OS. The font files for the Roboto family of fonts were first released under the Apache license as part of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) in 2011. With this launch, Roboto is now a true open source project, with a revamped font production toolchain that is completely based on open source software. Another key improvement in the Roboto font family has been the vast expansion of its character coverage to include all Latin, Cyrillic and Greek characters in Unicode 7.0, as well as the currency symbol for the Georgian lari, to be published in Unicode 8.0. For the expansion, the number of glyphs provided in the fonts more than tripled in number, going from around 13,000 (1071 per font) to more than 40,000 (3350 per font). An earlier version of the expanded font family is included in Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and later. The open source nature of this font is going to appeal to e-book reading apps and e-reader companies looking to expand on their product offerings. Google Signature Font “Roboto” is now Open Source is a post from: Good e-Reader |
3M Cloud Library Implements New Web Features
| The 3M Cloud Library system by Baker and Taylor has been embraced by hundreds of libraries in the US. In order to provide a robust experience for patrons, the company has totally revised their user interface. Meanwhile for librarians, 3M added the ability to reclassify the age range for books. What has changed on the user interface? Well, newly enhanced personalization options give users the ability to manage their accounts, receive email notifications and customize favorite content categories. Library collection managers will likely dig the changes made to the purchasing tool. It allows them to change a book's age range. If a librarian sees a book in an inappropriate age range, for example a Young Adult book appearing in the Children's age range, they can now reclassify the book so it will be the right age range. These new enhancements come after a banner year for the 3M Cloud Library, in which checkouts grew 121% and 95% of customers renewed their contracts 3M Cloud Library Implements New Web Features is a post from: Good e-Reader |
John Scalzi Signs Massive 13 Book Deal with TOR
| Author John Scalzi has just signed a 13 book deal with TOR. For the next ten years he will be writing for the DRM-Free publisher and will be garnering over $3.4 Million dollars. The first book will launch a new far-future space opera series. Scalzi will also return to the Old Man's War universe. Other titles will include sequels to 2014's bestselling and critically acclaimed Lock In. "Well, now I know what I'm doing for the next decade," says Scalzi. "And that's a good thing. In an era when publishing is in flux, this contract with Tor will let me spend more of my time doing what readers want me to do: writing books and making new stories for them to enjoy. It also gives both me and Tor a stable, long-term base to grow our audience, not only among established science fiction and fantasy fans, but among readers of all sorts. Science fiction is mainstream culture now, and there are so many people discovering just how much there is to enjoy in these stories of ours. We have much more to share. That's what we're going to do." The TOR website is really hyping this man up, as well they should. In a recent blog article they said “John Scalzi is one of the most acclaimed SF authors to emerge in the last decade. His debut Old Man's War won him science fiction's John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, his most recent novel Lock In, and also Redshirts, which won 2013's Hugo Award for Best Novel. Material from his widely read blog The Whatever has earned him two other Hugo Awards as well. Currently three of Scalzi's novels are in development for television: Redshirts (FX), Old Man's War (SyFy), and Lock In (Legendary TV).” So here is a bit about the deal. The money is spread out over ten years, he doesn’t get paid unless he writes the books. John also is getting an indeterminate amount as a signing bonus. Two books with the TOR deal will be focusing on YA and hopefully get the same type of audience that other books like Maze Runner gets. In the end, this certainly isn’t the biggest book deal in publishing but it does give John security in order to write books and know where his next paycheck is coming from. John Scalzi Signs Massive 13 Book Deal with TOR is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Periscope for Android Now Available
| Periscope is a live streaming app that was developed by Twitter. It launched on iOS two months ago and has been a hit with celebrities and citizen journalists alike. In its first 10 days of operation it reached over 1 million users and now the app is available on Android. The first iteration of the Periscope app for Android requires a fairly modern version of the OS. You need 4.4 in order to gain access to all of the features. The new app is also optimized for both smartphones and tablets. When you install the app and register an account it will recommend recent broadcasts from people you are following. If you are new to the app Periscope will suggest you follow everyone you’re following on Twitter. If nothing current is happening, you can swipe right to the next screen, which shows you broadcasts happening around the world. There are some features on this app that are not in the iOS version. Periscope on Android offers you a "Resume notification" so you can keep watching where you left off in case your broadcast gets interrupted (by a phone call or message. It also offers a material design for the app icon and notifications. Why should you care about Periscope? It might be the next big streaming app since Vine. The platform is made by Twitter, so it immediately adds credibility. Even tech savvy authors such as Margaret Atwood are starting to embrace it. You can download Periscope for Android for free, from the Good e-Reader App Store. Periscope for Android Now Available is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Harlequin is Producing Audiobooks
| Audiobooks are quickly becoming a billion dollar industry and this has prompted a number of publishing companies to take advantage of new digital distribution platforms. Romance and erotica publisher Harlequin has just announced the formation of a new audiobook unit and will begin pushing out new content this June. 200 audiobook titles will be produced in the first year and they will be pushed out to most digital platforms such as Audible and Findawayworld. Harlequin Audio will also distribute physical CD versions of all titles through Blackstone Audio and Midwest Tape. Harlequin will be producing the audio titles in conjunction with HarperAudio. This is the first major initiative between the two companies since Harlequin was acquired by Harpercollins last year. Harlequin is Producing Audiobooks is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Lenovo Tab 2 A8 Tablet Shows up Online for $129
| A couple weeks ago I posted about some interesting new tablets from Lenovo that were recently added to their A series lineup, the Lenovo Tab 2 A10, A8 and A7 tablets. They appear to be good value picks on paper, especially the 10-inch A10 model for $199 with its high resolution 1920 x 1200 resolution […] |
Amazon’s Tax Woes Hit EU
 View of the reception of Amazon Europe Holding Technologies in Luxembourg in this picture taken on November 20, 2012. To match Special Report TAX-AMAZON/ REUTERS/Francois Lenoir (LUXEMBOURG – Tags: BUSINESS POLITICS) – RTR3B9F8 The past few years have not been kind to Amazon in terms of sales tax. Once various states around the country discovered a veritable cash cow in trying to force Amazon to collect and submit sales taxes, lawsuits sprung up from every corner of the country, with states’ attorneys general filing lawsuits to recover back taxes and state governments introducing new legislation aimed at forcing online retailers to comply. That issue largely died down following Amazon’s official stance that it would follow any national sales tax introduced and passed by Congress, but that it simply wasn’t feasible to collect and report sales tax from fifty different states with fifty different requirements. States that worked out deals with the retailer stood to benefit, and states that continued to obstinately push the issue found their Amazon distribution centers closed and their residents’ affiliate statuses revoked. Interestingly, there was outspoken backlash against Amazon at the time, but there was also a lot of sympathy, even from small business owners who argued that it wasn’t fair that they had to charge their customers sales tax while Amazon could not only offer lower prices due to volume, but also didn’t have to charge taxes. Supporters could appreciate the logistical nightmare involved in following so many different regulations. But one area where Amazon has not garnered as much sympathy is in Europe. Due to interesting tax structures, Amazon was able to set up operations in Luxembourg while still selling and shipping to other countries in the region, meaning it only had to collect sales tax at Luxembourg’s enticingly low rate while competing business owners in each different country quickly lost customers to a retailer who offered everything, shipped immediately, and could charge less. Amazon’s defense this time? “Everyone is doing it.” And to a large extent, they’re right. Amazon has been pointed out as the villain in a tax evasion scenario while every major corporation conducting business in Europe lines up in Luxembourg, with companies like Starbucks, Google, and others setup operations in what is essentially a tax haven. Basically, the sentiment became, “You guys let us do it this way, now we’re just taking advantage of that.” And that’s about come screeching to a halt, at least for Amazon. While Amazon has stated this change has been a gradual two-year process, the company will begin collecting and reporting sales tax for its sales in Britain, Germany, Italy, and Spain. It’s by far not all of the countries contributing to Amazon’s $15 billion European sales in 2013, but it’s a start. Industry watchers are already speculating as to whether this seemingly voluntary move (or at least voluntary before the EU could come together and rewrite the tax code to make it even more punitive on retailers) will spur other tech and retail corporations doing business in Europe to follow suit.
Amazon’s Tax Woes Hit EU is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Astro Pi Mission Update 3
| Here at Pi Towers, Astro Pi fever is taking hold! Over the last few weeks there have been a number of things happening which we’re really excited about, so it’s time for an update. The first and most crucial bit of news for those of you furiously writing your competition entries is that you now have just a little more time. UK Space, the organisation managing the competition, have decided to give secondary students a whole extra week. As we were a week late in shipping the kits to our phase 1 winners the deadline is now Monday the 6th of July, by 10am, so get cracking! Put this date in your diary, don’t forget. To help you get to grips with programming the Astro Pi HAT we’ve created a couple of helpful resources. Firstly, you can find out all about the hardware, its capabilities and get a detailed breakdown of the Python library using our Astro Pi Guide. It explains in detail all aspects of the library and provides some examples of how to use them. However, if you just want to have a play and learn as you go, check out our Getting Started with Astro Pi resource which works through a series of examples and explores most of the the Python library. You will create a series of interesting programs which make use of all of the Astro Pi sensors like this reaction game. There’s a great interactive demo for exploring the IMU (movement) sensor and you can also experiment with pressure, following Dave’s example: Astro Pi HATs are also starting to appear in the wild — loads of competition entrants have been receiving their Astro Pi HATs and excitedly tweeting about it.
Others within our community have been playing around creating examples and resources. The awesome Martin O’Hanlon has put together a getting started tutorial as well as building this amazing interactive Astro Pi in Minecraft: Dan Aldred, one of our Raspberry Pi Certified Educators, has put together some great resources for using Astro Pi with his students. Visit his website to find a great language reference booklet. We also have a number of examples compiled by Ben Nuttall and available on Github. If you’re looking for more technical help with Astro Pi check out our Astro Pi forum. As you can see we’re all super excited about the Astro Pi Launch! You can keep an eye on our progress as we get closer to lift-off by following social media channels. In the next few weeks the flight hardware is going to be assembled and tested! PS SPAAAAAAAAAAACCCCEEEE!!!!!! The post Astro Pi Mission Update 3 appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Monday, May 25, 2015
Google Play Books Publisher Program Has Been Closed
| Google has closed their Play Books publisher program amidst concerns of rampant e-book piracy. The Google Play Publisher Program allows independent authors and publishing companies to include their novels and app guides on the Google Play bookstore. Sadly, this program has been taken over by fake publishers and people uploading pirated apps. There has been many documented cases of independent authors posting e-books by well known bestselling authors at a fraction of the price. This is taking money away from the real author and publishing company. In other cases people are uploading pirated apps that are posing as digital books. When you buy the book, you are given a link where you can download it. Some of the links are malicious, some are just regular scams, but none of them have the involvement of the actual authors or apps’ original developers, some of the APKs are even cracked or modded to give you unlimited in-app currency. Many authors and publishing companies have brought the pirated content to the attention of Google, but Google tells them they have to reach out to the Publisher, as Google’s hands are tied. In other cases when specific content is pointed out to Google they tend to delete it right away. But the sad truth is, its instantly re-uploaded by the same people, poising as a different company. Over the course of the last four weeks there has been a media firestorm about the sheer scope of pirated content on Google Play. This has forced the company to close their Play Books Publisher Portal. In a message in the Google Product Forums, a Google rep said “We've temporarily closed new publisher sign ups in the Play Books Partner Center, so we can improve our content management capabilities and our user experience. We're working to reopen this to new publishers soon. Thanks for your patience.” What is Google going to do in order to combat piracy? Will they implement a system like Content ID that is a YouTube fixture? Will they manually vet all future submissions by a dedicated team? The future of Play Books is uncertain, but we do know there is a huge piracy problem and something has to be done. Google Play Books Publisher Program Has Been Closed is a post from: Good e-Reader |
How to Fix a Kindle eBook That’s Not Downloading
| If you happen to experience a problem with a Kindle ebook or Amazon app not downloading or not finishing downloading, there are a few things you can try to do to remedy the issue on your own before having to contact Amazon support. It’s not very common, but sometimes a Kindle book won’t download properly […] |
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Top 10 New Android Apps for May 2015
| This week a number of notable titles have been released. We have a new entry to the popular franchise Ice Age and many new entertainment apps. All of the below apps are available to download for free from the Good e-Reader App Store, no registration required. Tidal – This is the big Jay Z venture everyone is talking about. Tidal is the world's first music service with High Fidelity sound quality, High Definition music videos and Curated Editorial by music journalists, artists and experts, making for a simply superior experience. Bubble Cloud Widgets + Wear – Place apps, contacts and bookmarks in AppleWatch style “circle galaxy” on the launcher homescreens or Android Wear watch. Meerkat – Meerkat allows you to live stream video from your phone to all of your Twitter followers at once. Press ‘Stream’, and instantly your live video stream shows up in your follower’s Twitter feeds. Layout from Instagram – Instagram’s newest app lets you create fun, one-of-a-kind layouts by remixing your own photos and sharing them with your friends. MixRadio – MixRadio is the perfect FREE app for music lovers who like to discover fresh new tunes every day. As you listen, MixRadio learns the artists you like, giving you a PERSONALIZED experience. The more you listen, the better it gets. So, with a whole world of songs out there, you can spend more time listening and less time searching. RealTimes (with RealPlayer) – RealTimes with RealPlayer automatically turns your photos and videos into beautiful video "Stories" that you can share with friends and family and relive using any device! All your moments get saved in a private cloud that's just for you. Lumi: Smart News & Videos – Lumi uses powerful data science to pick stories just for you and learns every time you like or skip a story. They source from all major news outlets as well as indie publications, and cover everything from current affairs to business and politics, sport, design, tech, and music. Ice Age Avalanche – Join Sid, Manny and Diego on an epic Ice Age journey in search of a long-forgotten treasure in this fun new puzzle game from the makers of Ice Age Village and Ice Age Adventures! Swipe fruit in any direction to match 3 or more of the same kind as you travel with the Sub-Zero Heroes around the Ice Age world. Amy the Starry Archer – The evil Star-Eater has stolen all of the stars from the night sky, and it's up to Amy and her magical bow to get them back! Soar through the skies of a fantasy world, in this visually stunning, flight-based action game! Star Walk 2 Free – Star Walk 2 is an exquisite stargazing tool that combines astronomical data with premium technology to deliver an effortless journey through thousands of stars, comets, and constellations. All you have to do is point your device at the sky. Top 10 New Android Apps for May 2015 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Authors Guild President Advises Authors Not to Write for Free
| The President of the Authors Guild has decreed that authors should not be writing online for free. She says that it devalues book sales and there is no correlation between blogging and making more money. In an interview with the Bookseller, Authors Guild President Roxana Robinson said "People write on Huffington Post, they write for Goodreads, they write for Medium.com: valuable sites owned by big tech companies that make a lot of money for those companies. Writers choose to write there for nothing and to provide content for nothing. That's another issue, and that is something that writers are doing deliberately." Robinson drives home the point that writing for free, does not increase book sales. "I don't know that anyone has figures on sales that result from this kind of writing (for free)," she said. "Everyone says, 'get your name out there', but does that really translate to connecting to the hard mental presence of the book? We want writers to recognize what is happening, to be aware of this trend, that writers themselves are contributing to the idea that their writing doesn't deserve to be paid for." Roxanne is dead wrong about authors devaluing their books if they write for free. Many of today’s most notable writers are constantly in the media, whether its William Gibson writing for Wired or Hugh Howey’s Authors Earnings website. Its important to be build brand identity and to write for publications who reach readers, who wouldn’t have otherwise known who the author was. I have discovered many new writers who after the article ends, mentions their latest book. What Roxanne is advocating is that writers shouldn’t be blogging or contributing book reviews to GoodReads. Instead, they should be writing more books. I think this is a load of crap, if you are just writing books, who is going to read them if they don’t know who the author is? You might as well as be a lowly self-published writer on Smashwords. Authors Guild President Advises Authors Not to Write for Free is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Saturday, May 23, 2015
21 Thousand Developer Accounts on the Good e-Reader Android App Store
| The Good e-Reader Android and Blackberry App Store is the largest in Canada and we have just hit a major milestone. Over 21 thousand developers have registered accounts with us in the last two years. Developers on Good e-Reader can submit both free and paid apps. Free apps are accessible to be downloaded on our website and official Client. Paid apps are only on our website right now, but all developers will earn 70% of each transaction and have their apps visible by over 90 million yearly visitors. One of the strongest advantages of our Developers System is that we have full support for OBB files, which are large data files. Almost every single game from Electronic Arts and Gameloft have these. We store these safely on Amazon AWS, instead of forcing developers to host their own files. The only other company to offer this service is Google. The Good e-Reader App Store is a viable solution for Android developers who want to port their apps over to Blackberry. We have one of the best APK to BAR converters, which allows anyone to submit an Android app and automatically convert it to Blackberry. This gives developers increased visibility on not only our store, but its perfect for submission to Blackberry World. We would like to thank our cadre of loyal developers that have supported us during the last few years. You are all true heroes. 21 Thousand Developer Accounts on the Good e-Reader Android App Store is a post from: Good e-Reader |
What Would Make you Upgrade your e-reader?
| e-Reader technology does not improve at the exponential rate as tablets and smartphones do. New e-paper comes out every two or three years and there seldom is a compelling enough reason to spend a hundred dollars to buy a new device. Once in awhile new e-readers like the Kindle Voyage and Kobo H2O comes out and pack in new features not seen before. So the question is, what would make you upgrade your e-reader? Over the course of the last 13 days we ran a poll on Good e-Reader and poised a new series of questions on what type of new hardware features that would make them spend their money and upgrade their existing device. The number one thing that people want to see on a new e-reader is colored e-paper. 56 people that represented 24% of the entire vote want to see e-Ink Triton 2, Liquavista or new technology on a mainstream e-reader. We have reviewed every single colored e-reader on the market and its not there yet. I would like to see an investment of new technology that would not only give people a solid color e-reader, but also carry over to devices like the Yotaphone 3 or smartwatches. New e-paper technology came into second place with 40 votes (17.5%). The latest and greatest is E-Ink Carta and it originally came out in 2013. Only a handful of e-readers currently employ this technology, such as the Kobo H2O, Kindle Paperwhite 2 and Voyage. Lately, the price has decreased and a number of 3rd party companies are starting to issue new devices. The problem, is that Carta is over two years old and I think people want to see higher resolution screens and the true elimination of full page refreshes. People want an e-reader that is indistinguishable from a real book. 39 people (17.1) of the vote said that they wanted a larger screen. The industry standard is six inches and once in awhile someone bucks the trend and does something a bit bigger. The Kobo H2O and Aura HD was 6.8 inches, Cybook Ocean 8 inches and Onyx Boox i86 is also 8 inches. Sometimes they even get a bit larger, such as the Icarus Excel and Amazon Kindle DX. The problem with 9.7 inch e-readers is the price is often over $350 and people tend not to want to invest that much in a singular purchase digital reader. Still, apparently people are tired of six inch e-readers. The most common thing people wanted was an A4 screen, 10 inch screen or a company like Amazon to release an 8 inch e-reader. The other most notable poll result was the fact people want to see Android on more e-readers. I have been lobbying for years that companies such as Barnes and Noble should firmly embrace an open version of Google Android and optimize the Nook App Store for e-ink devices. Many European brands such as Icarus, Onyx, Energy Sistem and Boyue have released e-readers with either Google Play or the Good e-Reader App Store. This gives people the ability to not be locked into any one specific book ecosystem and give true freedom to deal with whatever company you want. Sadly, the average person has not heard of these small European companies before and want a mainstream e-reader with a vanilla version of Android. What Would Make you Upgrade your e-reader? is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kindle eReader, Tablet, and eBook Deals
| A couple weeks ago I posted about Amazon Warehouse Deals offering the 9.7-inch Kindle DX, open-box units, for 20% off, taking the final price down to a mere $103, which is a crazy low price for a 9.7-inch E Ink ebook reader, even if it is outdated. Now the same deal is back for the […] |
Can eBook Subscription Services Evolve?
| Amazon Kindle Unlimited, Entitle, Oyster and Scribd all have e-book subscription models that allow you to read as many titles you want, for a low monthly price. Given that there are close to 100,000 books on each platform are people binge reading the same way Netflix users watch television? Do they have the capability to evolve? Over the course of the last few years the concept of binge watching has been established. Netflix has been the poster child of this movement and they release an entire season of television episodes in one shot. House of Cards has been a critical success due to the high production values and massive media attention it gets for the first few months. Netflix hired Harris Interactive to study what's happening on its platform. Among the results, it was found that 61% admitted to binge-watching (tuning in to two or three episodes in one sitting) regularly. Most in the study considered the behavior positive, with 76% saying packing in multiple episodes was a welcome distraction and refuge from life, and 79% claiming that binging out on shows makes them better. e-Book subscription services are relatively a new thing and there isn’t much data that is publicly available that supports the notion that people binge read. Companies like Amazon don’t publicly disclose any viewership metrics and keep everything internal. The other major services likely don’t have the capital to put into advanced metrics or to hire an exterior company to evaluate reader habits. What we do know is that most publishers and authors remain wary of e-book subscription services, which they worry could devalue books in consumers' minds. And binge-reading is a far more time-consuming proposition than binge-watching. Many industry experts are in agreement that the current e-book subscription system is deeply flawed and publishers do not commit front-list titles that are on the bestseller lists. Instead, they only contribute older titles that have been around for a few years and likely any serious reader has already borrowed them from the library or read it in another format. Tim Hely Hutchinson, chief of Hachette UK simply sees the current generation of e-book websites as not being viable. “"people are always pitching new models to me, and the first thing I say is that the existing model works really well. I don't believe in subscription. I don't see how it would do anything other than cannibalise the business we already have. I know other people take a different view. Within the limits of the law, I hope [HarperCollins UK c.e.o.] Charlie Redmayne will explain it to me, because I don't get it." Neither is he interested in selling direct—"I don't think the consumer wants it. The last thing I think we should be doing it undermining our customers, the retailers."” Meanwhile Hachette Livre chairman and c.e.o. Arnaud Nourry said in a recent interview that e-book subscription sites are a flawed idea. "Offering subscriptions at a monthly fee that is lower than the price of one book is absurd," he said. "For the consumer, it makes no sense. People who read two or three books a month represent an infinitesimal minority. And there are bookshops. If I seem like a dinosaur, so be it. My colleagues at Penguin Random House say the same thing." Is the financial aspect of e-book subscription sites not compelling for publishers? How exactly do publishers get paid? Well, Scribd and Osyster have adopted the pay-per-read system in order to pay publishers. Indie authors and publishers earn 60% list price when a reader opens an e-book and reads more than 10% of the book. On average, Amazon pays authors $1.39 for each qualifying read. In some cases, Amazon ironed out exclusive deals with Pottermore and Susanne Collins for the Hunger Games and the Harry Potter series. I don’t think that the standalone novel is not indicative to a large amount of growth potential. The companies involved in e-book subscriptions don’t either and this fact has made most pivot from their core business. Scribd for example now offers audiobooks and comics. Oyster has started selling new e-book titles, instead of just having an subscription platform. Can e-book subscription sites evolve? Can they offer more than just a fiction novel? I have a few ideas. I think one thing that they can do is have a standalone subscription for a specific author or book. For example, a school textbook is frequently updated, sometimes on a yearly basis. It would be nice to subscribe to that specific book and get the yearly updates. If you love a romance author, you can just subscribe to her and get notified whenever a new book is added into the platform. Most subscription platforms have a fairly paltry sports selection. I would like to see more of an emphasis on titles being added when a new season starts or when a big event like Wimbledon or the Masters transpire. I would gladly play an added surcharge on top of my existing subscription for things like this. I also think that serialized fiction is also one of the ways e-book subscription services can gain more users. Short fiction or books that just have a hundred pages would be easier to read and promote “binge reading.” Authors too are starting to embrace short-fiction or serialized novels and enroll them on Kindle Unlimited. Susan Kaye Quinn author of 18 Debt Collector novellas told Good e-Reader that "Romance readers are ravenous, in general, and many subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. In romance, serials allow authors to get material out quickly to their fans, and KU lets romance readers gobble them up without breaking the bank. But not every romance reader is enrolled in KU, so there are, in effect, two audiences for a romance serial – KU readers and non-KU readers. Understandably, the KU readers read episode-by-episode, taking advantage of the fact that each episode is free to them. They get the excitement of serial-reading (the episodes are generally fast-paced) for free. Non-KU readers tend to wait for the box set. Pre-orders are actually perfect for serials, as they allow readers the choice: pre-order the next episode, or skip ahead and pre-order the full box set. Readers then have the best of both worlds: read-as-you-go or get the full story, depending on your preference." In the end, I think its tremendously important that e-book subscription sites pivot from their core business model and try new things out. There is an established demand for serialized fiction, as the success of Wattpad demonstrates. Non-fiction materials such as sports, textbook and education material would bring in an entirely new demographic and promoting binge reading to make all parties involved more money. Additionally most of these companies need to scrap the US only policy and expand into foreign markets. Can eBook Subscription Services Evolve? is a post from: Good e-Reader |
