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 Digipalooza is less than two weeks away which means that soon the center of the library world will be downtown Cleveland. We’re excited to have our good friends at the Baker Publishing Group joining us for the conference and so we wanted to share some great titles from their collection coming this fall. Whether you’re attending Digipalooza or not you can add all of these titles by adding this list to your cart in Marketplace. The Imposter by Suzanne Woods Fisher Katrina Stoltzfus needs time to heal her broken heart. What she doesn’t need is attention from Andy Miller, a farm hand who always seems to say the right thing, and be in the right place, at the right time. Is Andy for real, or too good to be true? Refining Fire by Tracie Peterson Militine and Thane, who meet while serving Seattle’s poor, both feel tainted by past choices. Can God build something new from the debris of the past? Irish Meadows by Susan Anne Mason At Irish Meadows horse farm, sisters Brianna and Colleen struggle to reconcile their own dreams with their father’s demanding marriage expectations. The Mistress of Tall Acre by Laura Frantz In the aftermath of the American Revolution a destitute young woman agrees to a marriage of convenience and becomes Mistress of Tall Acre. But when secrets from her husband’s past are revealed, loyalties and ties are torn asunder. The Memory Weaver by Jane Kirkpatrick Eliza was just a child when she was taken hostage by the Cayuse Indians during a massacre in 1847. Now her husband wants to make a new start in another territory–the land of her captivity. Can she lay the dark past to rest and move on? Or will her childhood memories always hold her hostage? Hope Harbor by Irene Hannon Coming home to Hope Harbor wasn’t on Tracy Campbell’s agenda and neither was romance, but when she meets Michael Hunter, everything changes. Christmas Joy Ride by Melody Carlson Christmas takes on a new jingle when two unlikely companions take off on the adventure of a lifetime along Route 66 in an RV that looks like Santa’s sleigh on steroids. Gone without a Trace by Patricia Bradley When a high-profile case strikes homicide detective Livy Reynolds as eerily similar to her own cousin’s disappearance, she must work with the distractingly handsome Alex Jennings to solve the mystery. Trial Run by Thomas Locke In this high-concept thriller, three competing interests race to master a dangerous and mind-bending technology even as time itself twists in unexpected directions. As perception and reality become entangled, no one escapes unscathed. The Innocent by Ann H. Gabhart At the close of the Civil War in the Shaker village of Harmony Hill, Carlyn Kearny must come to terms with a personal tragedy and find a way to open her heart to love again. Keeping Christmas by Dan Walsh When years of holiday traditions are threatened, a box of ugly ornaments might be the key to saving one family’s Christmas. Murder at the Courthouse by A. H. Gabhart Former Chicago police officer Michael Keane has no trouble relaxing into the far less stressful job of deputy sheriff in his small hometown. After all, nothing ever happens in Hidden Springs, Kentucky. Nothing, that is, until a dead body is discovered on the courthouse steps. Not by Sight by Kate Breslin When a misguided suffragette hands a white feather of cowardice to an English spy, neither could have imagined the dangerous consequences that follow. The Potter’s Lady by Judith Miller Rose McKay has plenty of ideas on how to make her family’s newly acquired pottery business a success–too many ideas, in long-time employee Rylan Campbell’s opinion. But can these two put aside their differences and work together to win an important design contest? Vendetta by Lisa Harris Detective Nikki Boyd’s Missing Persons Task Force is desperately searching the Smoky Mountains for a missing girl when the case becomes very personal–and deadly. In Good Company by Jen Turano Millie and Everett are eager to prove themselves–as a nanny and a society gentleman, respectively. They both have one last chance . . . each other. A Bride at Last by Melissa Jagears Silas and Kate both harbor resentment over failed mail-order engagements. But for the sake of a motherless boy, can they move beyond past hurts? Through Waters Deep by Sarah Sundin In 1941 as America teeters on the brink of World War II, Mary Stirling and Ensign Jim Avery work together to expose a saboteur. Will the dangers they encounter draw them together or tear them apart? To Capture Her Heart by Rebecca DeMarino Kidnapped by a rival tribe, a Montauk princess must choose between loyalty to the Dutch soldier who rescues her and the Englishman who has loved her from the start. A Reason to Stay by Kellie Coates Gilbert A Houston news anchor and a bass fishing champion are newlyweds on the brink of divorce until a tragedy stops them in their tracks. Last Chance Hero by Cathleen Armstrong Doctor Jessica McLeod and Coach Andy Ryan have nothing in common until they join forces to help a high school football player achieve his dreams. We'd like to thank the Baker Publishing Group for sponsoring this great event and showing their support for libraries!  |
Thursday, July 23, 2015
The hottest titles coming this fall from the Baker Publishing Group
Pigeon Pi
| By day, Robert Threet is a systems manager at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville. But when he’s not knee-deep in network hardware, he races homing pigeons. Credit: Robert Threet Pigeon racing, which I’d always thought was the preserve of people from the north of England with flat caps and whippets (calm yourselves, commenters: my granddad was a man from the north of England with a flat cap – no whippets – and his friends were all over this stuff; budgie shows, too) turns out to have a following in the USA as well. Things are far more sophisticated than they were when I was a kid. Back in the 70s when my Granddad’s friends were racing, each pigeon carried a little removable rubber ring around its ankle matching the unique number on a permanent band fitted when the pigeon was a chick. The rubber band was collected manually and logged when the pigeon arrived back at its loft by placing it in a special compartment in a pigeon clock, which stamped a piece of paper with the time. I was never allowed to touch one of these endlessly fascinating pigeon clocks, and they’ve always been objects of mystery – I was really chuffed when researching this post to find that a giant database of the things exists. 1955 Jundes pigeon clock. Click image to view at the Pigeon Clock Museum. Nowadays, the pigeons are kitted out with RFID tags, and counted in by an electronic clock. The pigeons race over distances between 300 and 500 miles, depending on age and experience. Pigeons belonging to a number of different racers all start at the same location, and fly back to their home lofts. The lofts’ GPS coordinates are taken, and used to calculate the distance flown. The pigeon with the best yards-per-minute score overall wins the race. What does this have to do with Robert Threet in Indiana? Robert has been using a Raspberry Pi to augment the pigeon experience. Whenever one of his own pigeons arrives back in the loft after a race, a Raspberry Pi (which he also uses to monitor weather and the temperature conditions in the loft) uses a motion detector to trigger a camera, so each bird gets a photo-finish. Robert plans to set the Pi up to automatically tweet those pictures, but for now, there’s a problem: his WiFi doesn’t extend to the pigeon loft. Please drop us a line when your setup is tweeting, Robert (as opposed to cooing softly); we’d love to be able to watch what your pigeons are doing. The post Pigeon Pi appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
New Hotel in Tokyo Allows you to Sleep in a Bookstore
| Many bookstores in Tokyo have adopted cafes so you could have a drink and read some interesting new titles. If you are simply having tea, your eyelids could get droopy and sometimes you doze off. When the location closes, you are normally kicked out, since bookstores aren’t open 24 hours a day. What if you could get the best of both worlds, a bookstore that encourages you to sleep? Set to open this September, Book and Bed is a cooperation between designers Suppose Design Office, bookstore-cum-publisher Shibuya Publishing Booksellers, and real estate boutique R-Store. The one big selling point behind this new operation is you don’t have your own private room, but has a communal vibe. Suppose Design Office's bookshelves have bunks you can crawl into, capsule hotel-style. And like a capsule hotel, these are not exactly private rooms, but I suppose if you are dreaming of dozing off in a bookstore, you are OK with that. There is no word yet on how they are handling showers, washrooms and changing areas, likely it will be all shared, hostel style. There isn’t any information yet on if it will be c0-ed or not, or whether everyone will share the same space. I think this is an excellent idea, a hotel, cafe and bookstore blended together where you can buy books and lounge around. This might make an excellent location to meet fellow bibliophiles or a meeting place for a book club. |
How to Know if you are a Book Nerd
| Book Nerds are a different breed of readers from anyone else. Book Nerds when borrowing a book from someone who dog ears the pages have to actively restrain themselves from smoothing out all of their corners…because “It’s not my book. It’s not my book. It’s not my book….GAAAAHHH! How do you know if you are a Book Nerd or not? Check out these 11 graphs.       |
The Evolution of Front-Lit e-Reader Displays
| The vast majority of e-readers on the market pack technology that allows you to read in the dark. Unlike a smartphone or tablet that have light that shines into your eyes, front-lit displays have five LED lights built into the bottom of the bezel that project light upwards. How does this technology really work? Today Good e-Reader investigates. e-Readers first became popular in 2007 when Amazon released the first generation Kindle. This e-reader and all others that came after it, use technology from e-ink, called e-paper. E-paper displays have advantages such as a pleasant reading experience, extremely low power-consumption and provide users with the ability to read in sunlight. Because it is reflective it just gets brighter when you sit in a brighter environment – for example outside. But e-paper displays – like real paper – are impossible to use in a dimly lit room or during a flight when lights are out. This all changed in 2008 when Sony unveiled front-lit technology for the first time with the advent of the PRS-700. It incorporated LED lights on the side of the bezel that projected light across the screen. Because this technology was so new, Sony did not implement it properly and the end user experience was a pale blue hue, and was not very indicative of a quality reading experience. This device also did not sell very well, because of the $400 price tag. Sony had such a negative outcry from their growing base of e-reader owners that it vowed never again to include light in any of their future devices.  Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight on the Left, Kobo Glo on the Right It wasn’t until 2012 that the next e-reader had a front-lit display and it was the Barnes and Noble Simple Touch with Glowlight. The nations largest bookseller was trying everything they could possibly do to differentiate themselves from Amazon, Kobo and Sony. When this device first came out Barnes & Noble said that the GlowLight technology was designed in-house at the company’s office in Palo Alto, Calif., and has a patent pending. Instead of having the light on the sides of the bezel, like the Sony model did, B&N included five LED lights on the top of the bezel, that projected light downwards. You activate the light by holding down the Nook button on the front and shut it off the same way. You can also dim the light to avoid bothering a bed partner who’s trying to sleep. Later on in 2012 Amazon and Kobo both got into the front-lit game with the Kobo Glo and Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. These two companies refined what Barnes and Noble did, by including the LED lights on the bottom of the bezel, and projected light upwards. This was a winning formula and something all future e-readers adopted going forward. Amazon finally got Light Right The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite got light right. All prior models had a noticeable blue hue to the screen, and this was something nobody could figure out until the folks at LAB126 figured it out. Amazon has not revealed exactly how (because it is patented) but broadly speaking it works by using a light guide layer that is located underneath the anti-glare layer. The LEDs (light emitting diodes) are placed at one of the edges and light is then guided out on the light guide layer and down from the top into the e-paper display with the use of a light diffuser. The light diffuser's purpose is to distribute light evenly on the screen which is done by having tiny holes in the layer. Closest to the LED source the holes are farther away and further away from the light source the tiny holes are more concentrated. This is necessary because the LEDs are placed at one edge only. Previous generations of the Kindle used an infrared touch technology where infrared sensors where placed at the edge of the bezel. Infrared touch technology is far slower and more inaccurate. The Kindle Paperwhite was the first Amazon branded e-reader to feature a capacitive touchscreen display, which warranted a different way to approach the lighting system. This is more or less why Amazon currently leads the pack because most of the industry still uses infrared lighting (Kobo Glo HD, Nook Glowlight etc). Front-Lit Displays – a closely guarded secret Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo all have different ways of approaching front-lit displays and they all have their own patents for the technology. Not a single one of them would speak on the record about the evolutionary growth of their LED lighting systems and what has changed from the first model to include LED lights to the latest and greatest. Not even e-Ink, the company responsible for developing e-paper displays and controllers would speak about it. 3rd party manufacturers that churn out whitelabel e-readers that companies like Onyx, Pocketbook and Icarus would also not comment. Why is front-lit displays such a closely guarded secret in the industry? Nobody really knows and the companies involved in the development space keep this close to the vest. This is honestly so weird, I have been covering e-readers since 2008 and I know everything about the hardware. From who makes the RAM and processors to batteries. Who makes front-lit displays? How many different generations have passed from the first to the current? These are questions nobody will answer, either on or off the record. After careful analyzation there has been a few major benchmarks or generations of front-light. The first was the Sony PRS-700, the second was the Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight, the 3rd was the Kindle Paperwhite and the 4th is what is on the market today. Check out for yourselves how lighting on e-readers has changed.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Google Play Books App Now Syncs Notes to Google Drive
| Google has added a handy new feature to their Play Books app for Android and iOS that gives users the option to sync notes, highlights, and bookmarks to Google Drive. After you turn on the new notes saving feature in the Play Books settings menu, all your notes and highlights get organized into a Google […] |
Create a staff of OverDrive champions with our on demand Learning Center
| Your staff is busy. Between assisting users with the many programs your library runs, managing the library itself, one-on-one meetings with patrons, cataloging and trying to offer book recommendations, it can be hard to find time for professional development. Team OverDrive understands that your time is valuable and we want to make sure you can learn about new OverDrive features and services when it's convenient for you. Our on demand Learning Center offers short training modules on everything from the user experience to navigating Marketplace and even how to manage reports. These pre-recorded training videos are perfect for getting new staff up to speed or for providing existing staff updates on what's new with your OverDrive service. You'll even find "Getting Started" guides and training templates that you can use to host classes for new users.  While on the Learning Center, you can sign up for our live training sessions which offer an in-depth look at the basics of OverDrive Marketplace and using the service from an end user perspective. You can also sign up for our quarterly hot topic webinar where we discuss trending issues in the digital library world. The upcoming session will be all about helping your patrons find their next favorite book. In addition to the training sessions we currently have available, what aspects of your OverDrive services would you like to learn more about? Let us know in the comments section or by emailing training@overDrive.com.
Adam Sockel is a Social Media Specialist at OverDrive.  |
Roberts R300 Reinvention
| Liz: today’s guest post comes from Gordon at IQAudIO, who makes and sells audio accessories for the Pi, which we really, really like – with one of his DACs you can turn your Pi into a proper audiophile-approved piece of kit. Gordon had made a project we really liked the look (and sound) of when we last saw him, so I asked him to write it up. Over to Gordon: When my grandmother passed away many years ago I was asked if there was anything of hers I'd like to have in order to remember her by. The choice at the time was pretty easy for me – her bright red Roberts radio. This radio sat on her kitchen worktop, and whenever we visited I was always being told off for touching it, tuning it to some other radio station and spinning the whole thing around on its turntable base far too quickly. The radio, somewhat the worse for wear. My grandmother was affectionately called "Granny Hi-Tech", simply because she was always the first to get hold of gadgets, most of which I assume she bought having seen them being demonstrated at the large department store in Glasgow where she worked during the 1960's and 70's. The original intention on receiving the Roberts radio was to get it working again and keep everything authentic, but I really didn't know where to start, so it was placed in a box and forgotten about. It's moved house with us six times since, and was rediscovered, grubby and broken, during our last house move eight months ago. A bit of a state I did finally find a spare wet afternoon, but on taking the radio from the box and giving it a good look over, it was obvious I'd been seeing it through rose tinted glasses – it was much worse than expected, and although I may have been able to restore the inner workings, what stations can you pick up on Long and Medium Wave these days? It was decided that a sympathetic transplant was called for, keeping the aesthetics of the original radio but delivering a modern music playback solution. Some parts of the radio were okay, some terrible and overall it had lost that lovely red colour that I fondly remembered. One of the dials had lost its brass cover, the grill was dented, the Roberts logo was yellow and broken, and the inside had corrosion in places. A Roberts R300 with Airplay I could have bought a cheap bluetooth speaker and transplanted the workings into the R300, but I wanted the original radio buttons to work as expected (on/off, volume) and wanted it to have some real musicality to surprise. I also wanted the ability to have synchronous playback across the house with my other HiFi systems. Overall it should look and feel like an original Vintage 1960s radio but in terms of audio performance I wanted it to sound awesome. Enter the Raspberry Pi There are several add-on boards for the Raspberry Pi, and we develop and sell a few of these ourselves. For this transplant I used our Pi-DigiAMP+. This Raspberry Pi HAT board takes the digital audio signals (I2S) from the Pi's 40-way header, and delivers high-quality stereo audio up to 192MHz/24bit resolution – you just need to add speakers and a suitable power input to complete the job. The DigiAMP+ is designed to drive bookshelf or larger speakers – we usually pair it with QAcoustics 2010i or 3020 speakers, and it sounds simply brilliant. We demonstrated this very combination at the recent CamJam and also at the Recursion Computer show in Stratford-Upon-Avon. The IQaudIO Pi-DigiAMP+ can run from 5v -> 18v, and has on-board circuitry to power the Raspberry Pi too. Here we have used a 15v/3.3amp power brick from XP Power – this will allow the Pi-DigiAMP+ to deliver 2x20watts into 4ohm speakers, with a little less into 8ohm drive units – more than enough for a bedroom or kitchen radio. Using the Raspberry Pi allows us to take advantage of the many Linux-based music playback solutions available. We could have gone for Volumio, RuneAudio, Moode, PiCorePlayer, Pi MusicBox, Max2Play or others; but for this build we went with Mike Brady's Shairport Sync. Mike is a computer science lecturer at Trinity College Dublin and has posted his source code on GitHub making it easy to build and modify if needed. We've been running Raspberry Pi-based Shairport Sync systems for a while with great reliability and ease of use. Thanks Mike! Remove the unnecessary and rework the rest Taking the radio to pieces was pretty simple; there were none of those annoying plastic clips you break when attempting to open a modern device. Here it's mostly wood screws with the occasional brass nut and bolt. We carefully removed the innards and stripped down the radio to its bare components, unsoldered the 60s electronics and removed protruding and unnecessary metal that would make the overall transition more difficult. Obviously, a 40-year-old paper mono speaker wasn't going to cut the mustard, so we removed that too, replacing it with a pair (to give us both left and right channels) of full range Balanced Mode Radiator (BMRs) drive units – not only do these fit in the available space, but they sound good too. Now left with a bare carcass, it needed a good old clean and polish, but what we didn't expect was for the carrying handle's leather strap to disintegrate, which was one of the key aesthetics, along with the base turntable, we really wanted to keep. A quick Google search and subsequent calls to Roberts themselves resulted in some replacement (but modern) parts being received next day, although we ended up only using the new silver "Roberts" logo, as the beautiful replacement red handle was just too big a colour difference. Rebuilding the radio was just like a Haynes manual (refitting is the reverse sequence to removal). We cut an MDF support panel for the speaker drive units.
The analog volume potentiometer of the original was replaced with a simple 3-pin rotary encoder, wired to the Pi's GPIO. We used the sample code from the IQaudio GitHub repository to take the Rotary Encoder pulses and convert them into Linux ALSA volume commands. Adding the Raspberry Pi and Pi-DigiAMP+ was the easiest part. The speakers were connected to the Pi-DigiAMP+ and the Official Raspberry Pi WiFi Dongle was added. From the outside you wouldn't know anything had changed, and to keep the functionality of the radio's Off/Long Wave/Medium Wave selector, we wired it in-line to the positive power from the external power brick. Selecting either Long Wave or Medium Wave powers the Pi-DigiAMP+ and Pi, while selecting Off cuts the power to both – we added a simple power barrel connector onto the back of the radio so it wasn't always tethered and didn’t have a flying lead. Finally, we replaced the wooden wedges and measured up the display window (ordering another to be laser-cut from www.podbox.co.uk at the same time). We also added some sound damping from an old speaker we had lying around. The handle was repaired using some similar covered vinyl. As with all good builds, there were a few extra pieces left over… How does it sound? Surprisingly good, way better than expected. It really makes us smile streaming Deezer/Apple Music to radio that’s nearly half a century old. Having the physical volume control just adds an extra retro feel too. What's left to do? Having used the Raspberry Pi/IQaudio Radio for a while now, we've decided there are a few additional tweaks to perform when we find the time. These include:
Parts list
The post Roberts R300 Reinvention appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Go Set a Watchman Missing Text Proves Why e-Books Rule
| The first printing run of Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee has missing text on the last few pages from the initial printing run. HarperCollins who published the book has blamed it on a printing error. Customers who ordered it online from companies like Amazon are promised a new copy with the corrected text will be mailed out soon. How do you know if you have a physical copy that has the printing defect? It occurs in the middle of an argument between Scout, who is now mainly referred to by real name Jean Louise, and her father Atticus Finch about his views on a changing society.
This printing situation obviously pissed a lot of people off and it highlights why purchasing the digital edition sometimes bypasses this type of problem, partly due to automatic updates. Likely one of the most underrated benefits of buying the e-book edition is that the digital title can be updated on the fly by the author or publisher. Anyone who had previously purchased it will have the new version automatically delivered to their e-reader. Surprisingly Amazon and Apple are the only two companies that actually has this type of content delivery system. Barnes and Noble and Kobo both don’t support it, even though self-published authors have been bugging them about it for years. If you have previously purchased an e-book title and there is a few version available, normally it is automatically downloaded to your Kindle e-reader, Fire Tablet or Kindle e-reading app. If you are not receiving the updates, you need to do the following; 1. Turn on the Annotations Backup* for your Kindle device or Kindle reading app to sync your notes, highlights, bookmarks, and furthest page read One of the big advantages of using Apple products, such as the iPad is to purchase digital textbooks. These get updated for any number of reasons. Thankfully, the iBooks app supports book and textbook updates. That means if a book you purchased is republished with new or additional content, iBooks lets you know. You can download the updated version free, and it automatically replaces the older copy in your library." I really think that a number of people are switching to the e-book edition so an eagerly anticipated book is not subject to simple printing errors. Could you imagine if a new Harry Potter book came out and it was missing the last chapter? |
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Introducing a Bookshelf with Built in Reading Light
| When you read at night, often you need to turn on a lamp in order to read and then turn it off when your done. What if the light would automatically turn off when you were done reading? This is the thought behind the LiliLite, which is an all-in-one bookmark, bookshelf and reading lamp, the device sits at that rare intersection of being functional and really nice-looking. The shelf is made of steam-pressed plywood and bent in a way that accommodates both your to-be-read pile and your current pre-sleep pick, includes a light that turns on automatically once a book is lifted from the shelf. When finished, one simply replaces the book to turn off the light. I think this bookshelf/light system is a perfect coupling: an ideal accessory for the avid reader. It clears some bedroom clutter, keeps books an arm’s length away, and adds light right where it’s needed. |
SIM Cards Might be a Thing of the Past if Apple Gets Their Way
| Whenever you purchase a new smartphone or data enabled tablet you normally have to take the SIM card out of your old device and insert it into the new one. This process might be a thing of the past if Apple and Samsung get their way. The two companies are talking with the GSMA (GSM Association) to start embedding electronic SIM cards in smartphones and connected devices as early as 2016, according to a report from the Financial Times. These e-SIMs would stay embedded in the phone so they aren't user replaceable, but would allow users to switch between carriers with ease. In addition, the removal of SIM card slots might free up some extra space to pack in more useful hardware technology. Apple already tried the no-sim feature with the iPad Air 2, which allows customers in the US to be able to switch carriers on the fly via the settings menu. This is totally beneficial because you are not locked into an exclusive contract and can take advantage of limited promotions or deals that offer a ton of data. Not only are hardware companies trying to make SIM cards a thing of the past, but telecom carriers are also on-board. AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison Whampoa, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone all want to make this happen as soon as possible. |
eBook Pirates in the UK to Get 10 Years in Jail
| Most of us are likely guilty of pirating the odd e-book or downloading a few songs from the internet. If the United Kingdom gets their way, the maximum jail sentence could be increasing from two years to ten years. The proposed measures are mainly targeted at the distributors of pirated content – the people creating copies of movies, sometimes before release, and uploading them to be downloaded by thousands upon thousands. It also is targeting large scale piracy operations where they host the content and either give it away for free or charge monthly subscription packages. The new law will not throw the average user in the slammer who pirates e-books, so you don’t have to worry about stripping the DRM or visiting the Pirate Bay, but it will chiefly target large large commercial operations. Intellectual Property Minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe said: “The government takes copyright crime extremely seriously – it hurts businesses, consumers and the wider economy both on and offline. “Our creative industries are worth more than £7 billion to the UK economy and it’s important to protect them from online criminal enterprises. By toughening penalties for commercial-scale online offending we are offering greater protections to businesses and sending a clear message to deter criminals.” |
Samsung Unveils Galaxy Tab S2 Tablets
| Samsung is one company that really wants to make tablets viable and consistently releases devices to appeal to people who play games, but also e-books, magazines and newspapers. If you are in the market for a super high end device, the Galaxy S2 might be up your alley. Samsung says the Galaxy Tab S2 is the company’s “thinnest and lightest tablet of its size ever”. It is 5.6mm thin, with the 8-inch version weighing 265g and the 9.7-inch version getting a weight of 389g. Both versions have a Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 2048×1536. Both versions of the tablet will have Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box, along with an octa-core processor, with four cores running at 1.9GHz and the other four at 1.3GHz. Both will also have 3GB of RAM, an 8MP rear camera and a 2.1MP front facing camera. Both Galaxy Tab S2 models will have a fingerprint scanner, and a way to run two apps on the screen at the same time. Samsung hyped up the device, saying “The tablet also presents deeper contrast and more precise detail to provide a best-in-class reading experience with the Super AMOLED display delivering 94% of natural tones to show true-to-life colors (Adobe RGB color standard). Users can now enjoy galleries of vividly detailed photos and effortlessly shop online while viewing the most accurate images on the Galaxy Tab S2. In addition, the Galaxy Tab S2 continually offers its advanced screen technology to display bright and natural content for a more comfortable visual experience. Adaptive Display intelligently adjusts gamma, saturation, and sharpness based on the application, the color temperature of the viewing environment and ambient lighting. Also, Reading Mode modifies the screen’s brightness level to help users to read content for longer periods of time without straining their eyes.” |
New Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 Tablets Arrive in August
| Yesterday Samsung issued a press release announcing the upcoming global release of two new tablets in the Galaxy Tab S2 line, and they just might be the best tablets ever for ereading. There’s a 9.7-inch model and an 8-inch model. Both feature high-end Super AMOLED displays with high pixel density and an iPad-like 4:3 screen […] |
Bedbot – furniture with a tech twist
| Fine woodwork has always been a mystery to me. I blame the church summer camp I went to when I was nine, where the boys got to build wooden doorknockers shaped like woodpeckers, and the girls – you guessed it – got to paint them with flowers. (This also meant that half the children didn’t get to take a doorknocker home with them at the end of the week. Very poorly thought out, Rev H.) I once made a shelf to go inside an airing cupboard. Perhaps I assign too much value to things I could never, ever contemplate making myself. But I’ve a suspicion that the rest of you will also think this project is pretty darn amazing: here is Bedbot, created by Peter Roca, the sort of person who can casually say, “The drawer front is a ¾″ thick piece of curly maple that I had laying around”. Peter calls Bedbot a Daytime Initialisation Assistant. In short, Bedbot is there to ease Peter from sleep into a state of energised morning wakefulness. It is a very over-engineered alarm clock.
Peter did a gorgeous job of constructing the furniture itself. He then designed and built the hardware that lives inside Bedbot, wrote the software (which includes a rather snazzy user interface in QT), put in a touchscreen from Adafruit, and an OLED screen to tell the time with. Peter says:
He’s made an online Board Explorer to show you around the hardware (beware: this won’t work on mobile devices) which is well worth your time. There’s also video of Bedbot in action which we can’t embed here, which Peter has made part of his exceptionally thorough build diary and writeup – go and check it out. You’ll find all the software he used on GitHub. Thanks for the writeup, Peter – we love it. It’s a beautiful object: we hope it continues to cheer up your mornings for a long time to come. The post Bedbot – furniture with a tech twist appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Monday, July 20, 2015
HBO Now is released for the Kindle Fire
| Sometimes you have to put that compelling e-book aside and utilize your Amazon Kindle Fire tablet for entertainment. One of my favorite apps has expanded past the Apple TV and HBO Now is now available for not only Android, but Amazon branded tablets. You can get HBO Now from the Amazon App Store and you can try it out a 30-day free trial, then it costs $14.99/month. It charges your Amazon account directly, so you don’t need to do any kind of signup process and pay a 3rd party. Also, I heard that the Fire TV will also have the service in the next few weeks. What I like the most about HBO Now is that you can totally binge watch any of the big series that are on the TV channel. There is a total benefit to the on-demand nature of the app, you don’t have to suffer through commercials and you can watch the series from the beginning. I never really watched Gamer of Thrones when it was on television. I never saw it from the beginning and would watch random episodes and have no idea what was going on. When HBO Now became available on the Apple TV, I watched all five seasons in three weeks and got totally caught up. I have since cut HBO from my digital cable package and watch things like Last Week Tonight and Silicon Valley or a myriad of movies. Its totally worth downloading the app for your Android device, or your Kindle tablet. You can get a sense of how it works, without having to pay anything for the first 30 days. |
Amazon Follow Allows Authors to Connect Directly with Fans
| Amazon has unveiled a new social media program for any author that uses Kindle Direct Publishing. Amazon Follow allows readers to connect up directly with an author and get instantly notified whenever a new book comes. The Amazon Follow button is now on the authors page. The author has the ability to handcraft their email messages that will automatically be delivered via email to anyone who is following the author and notifications will be available on their Follow Updates timeline. This program is currently only available to US based authors and is invite only. I see this program has being tremendously useful for authors who exclusively self-publish on Amazon and want to cultivate a loyal following of readers. Amazon Follow is in essence a personal newsletter delivery service where they can keep readers informed on not only what new books are in the works but also interact with them in a personal way. |
Barnes and Noble is Going to Kill the Nook
 Barnes & Noble appoints Chief Digital Officer, Frederic D. Argir, to lead E-Commerce and NOOK The future of Barnes and Noble Nook e-books, e-readers and tablets looks to be in jeopardy. The Nations largest bookseller has just hired Fred Argir to run the Nook division and e-commerce division, replacing Mahesh Veerina who had run it for the last two years. The Barnes and Noble Nook division is in serious trouble. They recently unveiled a massive upgrade to their website. The new design gives us a sense on what the bookseller is hoping to sell more of, which are lifestyle products, print and e-books. Unfortunately there are a number of bugs with e-books and Nook that are preventing people from reading and this is resulting in a fair amount of apathy. When you are looking to buy a new book and haven't heard much about it, likely you want to check out the first few chapters with a digital sample. Barnes and Noble has an online reading platform called Nook for Web. Sadly, this system is totally broken and has not been revised to work in conjunction with the new B&N website. Users have also reported a myriad of problems with logging into their accounts and purchases randomly disappearing. The Nook brand, which includes e-books, e-readers, tablets and accessories hasn’t been profitable under the watch of Mahesh. They have lost money every single quarter for the last two years, and are down over a billion dollars since it first launched in 2010. Whenever Barnes and Noble has hired high level executives to run the company they have always promoted people internally. This is the first time the bookseller has brought in two high ranking people, including new CEO Ron Boire from the outside. I have a feeling Ron and Fred will kill the Nook division because they are not loyal to it and will likely see it an essential cost cutting measure. What does a gutted Nook division look like to the average e-book buyer? Likely the bookseller will stop making dedicated hardware, such as e-readers and tablets. Instead, the company will solely focus on their apps for Android, iOS and Windows to sell digital content. They will also promote their newly launched Nook Audiobooks app. Basically, all hardware will be killed off and Nook will pivot into being purely a digital content provider. |
September/October Kids & Teens eHighlights are here!
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One thing I am ready for? All the great books that will be released in September and October. This Fall will bring releases from James Frey, Ali Benjamin, Tedd Arnold, Anna Dewdney, Katherine Applegate and more. The Copper Gauntlet by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare is book 2 of The Magisterium series. Books on Tape brings a new audio retellings of the classic "Star Wars" films: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi…just in time for the release of the newest film this December. Rachel Renee Russell's Dork Diaries series is back with Tales from a Not-So-Perfect Pet Sitter, where Nikki Maxwell takes on a new venture: pet sitting. Readers of all kinds will be able to find a title they're excited about within the pages of our newest edition of the Kids & Teens eHighlights catalog. If you have any suggestions for how we can make this catalog better, please send us your ideas to cdanalysts@overdrive.com.
Emma Kanagaki is a Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive  |
A new board member
| Sherry Coutu CBE has been a member of the board of Raspberry Pi Trading for a couple of years now; she’s an exceptionally valuable member of the team, and we’re very grateful to her for donating her time and expertise to our organisation.
Today we’re really excited to be welcoming Sherry to join the board of the Raspberry Pi Foundation as well, so she’s now going to be working across both the trading and charitable sides of the organisation. Sherry’s extraordinary. This month she was placed in the top ten of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in Tech list. She sits on the board of the London Stock Exchange (when she and Joanna Shields were taken on, they were the first women to be appointed); she’s also on the boards of Zoopla, the University of Cambridge‘s Finance Board, Cambridge Assessment, Cambridge University Press, and Cambridge Temperature Concepts. And because she’s somehow managed to cram more hours into the day than the rest of us are given by nature, she’s also on the advisory boards of Linkedin, the Natural History Museum and the Royal Society. Phew. Thanks Sherry – we’re really glad you’ve come on board on the Foundation side of the organisation too. It’s terrific to be able to have access to your skills across the whole spectrum of what we do here at Raspberry Pi, and we’re looking forward to working more with you. The post A new board member appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |