| The Australian Road and Maritime Services has installed e-paper traffic signs on Sydney roads, representing the first time that electronic e ink, a technology best known from e-book readers and smart watches, has been used in traffic signage. E Ink has partnered up with Visionect to have 15 solar powered parking and road signs distributed all over the capital of New South Wales. One of the great things about this technology is that the displays draw no power while still displaying critical data. If the Australian Road and Maritime Services needs to update anything they can simply push out the new data directly to the sign, since each one has a 3G internet connection. When nighttime inevitably arrives each sign has the same front-lit technology found on the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite or the Kobo Glo HD. This will allow motorists to be able to continue to read all of the information. Traffic signage might be a huge industry that e Ink can garner a ton of revenue from. It has been reported that the city Los Angeles puts up 558,000 temporary parking restrictions signs every year to the cost of $9.5 million – a strain on staff and resources that can be reduced by implementing permanent e-paper signs with content easily customizable via cellular networks. |
Monday, July 27, 2015
Sydney Australia Unveils First e Ink Traffic Sign
Audiobooks are catching on like Wildfire
| The Audio Publishers Association released the results from their annual sales survey, conducted by the independent research firm Management Practice in the spring of 2015, which revealed that the audiobook industry is continuing to expand in sales as well as the number of titles being published in the format. Based on information from responding publishers, the APA estimates that audiobook sales in 2014 totaled more than $1.47 billion, up 13.5% over 2013. Unit sales were also up 19.5%, nearly five times the increase of the overall book trade industry (4.2% as reported by the Association of American Publishers in June 2015). Additionally, 1,032 more titles were published on audio than in the previous year — bringing the number of audiobooks published in 2014 up to 25,787. The growth of the industry is largely due to the growing popularity of the digital download and increasing awareness and profile for the audiobook format. Sales of digital downloads continue to rise – showing an increase of 7.3% in dollars and a full 10% in units sold from the previous year. Year # of Audiobook Titles Published 2014 25,787 2013 24,755 2012 16, 309 2011 7,237 2010 6,200
While adult titles continue to account for 87% of sales, children and young adult titles are on the rise with a 3.7% increase in sales from 2013 to 2014. The APA's recent consumer behavior study revealed a strong demand for titles for younger listeners, with 36% of respondents reporting listening to children's or YA audiobooks. Fiction continues to represent the vast majority of audiobooks sold with roughly 77.4% of audios being fiction vs. 22.6% non-fiction. The unabridged format continues to dominate with 91% of audios sold being in this format. |
How Using and Renting Kindle eTextbooks Works (Video)
| Amazon offers a number of Kindle eTextbooks to rent and buy in the Kindle Store. Many of them are just basically regular nonfiction ebooks, but some carry a specific eTextbook designation that adds some extra features. Many of the eTextbooks are available like regular Kindle ebooks on Kindle ereaders, Fire tablets, and Kindle apps for […] |
Image Comics and graphic novels are now available in Marketplace
|
Also, OverDrive now has one of the most exciting comic series of the past couple of years, Saga by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples. This series has won several awards and is a phenomenal space opera in the vein of Star Wars with a mix of Game of Thrones and Romeo & Juliet. One cannot do it justice in a blog, but know that your patrons want it, and you should probably read it if you're at all interested in any of the above topics. Be sure to check out all the great content from Image and also take a look at other Adult Comics/Graphic Novels.
Kristin Milks is a Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive  |
Attend a Picademy@Google in Birmingham
| This year we’ve seen an explosion of Raspberry Pi Certified Educators thanks to the number of free teacher training events called ‘Picademy’ that we’ve been able to facilitate. Aside from our own in-house training, there have been five regional Picademies, three of which have taken place in Google’s Digital Garage in Leeds. Thanks to the generosity of Google.org, we are able to offer even more continuing professional development opportunities to educators, this time in Birmingham! Picademy will be awesome at the new Google Digital Garage Birmingham! Picademy@Google is for classroom teachers of any subject at primary, secondary or post-16 level. The courses and workshops in Leeds are run by renowned community member Les Pounder, who gives much of his time to helping adults and children create weird and wonderful projects. You may have seen some of his Picademy work on Twitter recently.
Picademy@Google Birmingham will be every bit as good! Highly regarded community member, Minecraft wizard, and creator of stuff about code Martin O’Hanlon will be leading teachers across a diamond block path to Raspberry Pi enlightenment. Here he is doing his best Steve impression: Martin was at the venue for the launch and said:
All our training events in Birmingham will take place at the latest Google Digital Garage inside Birmingham Library, and are completely free to attend. If you are interested in take part and becoming a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator, please complete this form. The following dates are available:
The post Attend a Picademy@Google in Birmingham appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Why do Publishers Launch Websites?
| Major publishers in recent years have been on a rampage trying to appeal to the YA audience. They have been setting up niche websites that are designed to sell books but also have a youth savvy editorial voice. Sadly, the vast majority of these sites are dead in the water a few months after launching or languish into obscurity. Are publishers doing the wrong thing with building websites instead of using social media? Pew Research conducted an internet study report that looked at youth and teens. They found that 92% are online on a daily basis and 71% are on more than one social networking site. Publishers are certainly doing the wrong thing spending hundreds of thousands of dollars building a site and curating it with editorial content when they could be going where their audience is. Most publishers have a presence on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter but these sites have lost traction with teens in recent years. David Ebersman, the former chief financial officer for Facebook said that Facebook was no longer the hip hangout spot on the Internet for teenagers, and there's a simple reason for that: It's hard to look cool when you're hanging out with Mom and Dad. However, some teens aren't just bailing — they're refusing to buy into Facebook in the first place. In a Huffington Post essay on the great Facebook exodus, Bianca Bosker notes that it was difficult to find teens who had signed up for the service to begin with. Of a group of high school girls Bosker spoke to, only one was on Facebook, and just as University College London professor Daniel Miller argued was the case amongst teens, the student seemed "embarrassed to even be associated with it." Teens these days are on Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat and Vine. Publishers hardly have a presence on these platforms at all. There are plenty of “vine famous” celebrities have that billions of loops and who can count on 30 to 100 million views on each six second video. These guys get sponsored all the time by app developers and major brands, but publishers are notably absent. What Vine user wouldn’t love to see something posted by their favorite author? Why aren’t publishers making accounts for their up and coming teen authors or setting up a production unit to film content on a daily basis? Teens simply don’t visit static websites anymore. They live and breathe on social media sites and publishers still don’t get it. I get hundreds of emails every year about publishers launching this and that. Last week Simon and Schuster launched Glommable, Penguin got in the game awhile ago with Teen Australia and Random House released Bookscout and Totally Random. Totally Random is amusing because the company hyped the hell out of it and the last update was August 25th 2014. I think publishers need to wake up and realize websites are dead, even if you make them look like social media hubs. Teens and YA use their smartphone more than their computer. Publishers NEED to develop a unified social media strategy and develop exclusive content for Instagram, Snapchat and Vine. |
Sunday, July 26, 2015
How to Load e-Books on the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 3
| One of the most common questions we get on Good e-Reader is how to load e-books on the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 3. The vast majority of users simply use Windows Explorer to copy and paste content, but this method does not offer much flexibility. Today, we show you how to use Calibre, Dropbox, and Kindle Documents Manager. Calibre is a free download and it is a very powerful tool for people who want maximize freedom to craft their own experience. This software allows you to convert e-books from one format to another and also change the author, book title and virtually all other metadata. Kindle Documents Manager simply allows you to email books to your Kindle from Outlook, Thunder Bird or any other email client such as Yahoo or Hotmail. Dropbox is fairly popular and you can upload any e-books from your PC or MAC directly to your cloud account. Once uploading is complete you can use your Kindle Experimental Browser to access any of the books you have stored.
|
Audible Launches Subscription Audiobook Service in Japan
| Audible has just entered the Japanese market with a subscription based system that allows you to listen to unlimited amount of audiobooks for 1,500 yen per month. If you are on the fence and not sure if this service is for you there is an initial 30-day free trial period. There are two thousand audiobooks in Japanese that are available right now and Audible plans to boost that figure by this fall to more than 10,000 titles, including novels, business books, recorded storytelling performances and works from other genres. You can listen to as many audio editions as you want, as long as your smartphone or tablet is running Android or iOS. It is important to note that Audible is doing something truly unique in Japan that should help it surpass local competition, such as Tokyo-based Otobank. They are offering an all you can eat subscription service, which is a stark contrast to their North American and UK business model which merely offers a book of the month type club. via AsiaOne |
eBook Piracy Virtually Nonexistent in the UK
| The vast majority of UK residents have never pirated an e-book. There are so many options now available to legitimately pay for anything you may want or download it for free from the public library or websites such as Project Gutenberg. The Intellectual Property Office conducted a three month study into the extent of online copyright infringement in the UK. It found that 1% of UK internet users aged 12 and over read "at least some" ebooks illegally. This is a stark contrast to 9% consuming pirated MP3 files and 7% who download the latest Game of Thrones TV episode. Why is ebook piracy virtually nonexistent in the United Kingdom? The government has taken an extremely hard-line against rogue websites. In June it was mandated that seven pirate websites were to be blocked by the largest internet service providers. There is even a new law currently being examined that would extend the amount of time e-book pirates would spend in jail. Currently the maximum sentence is two years and the government wants to dramatically increase it to ten. I think it comes down to the simple fact that the ebook market has matured tremendously in the last five years. There are so many options to legitimately consume content. If you are a voracious reader you can subscribe to Scribd and read as much as you want. If you are a casual reader, it doesn’t cost very much to buy something from Amazon. |
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Wattpad Quote Art Helps Stories Go Viral on Social Media
| Traditionally e-Book companies that hype up sharing book quotes on social media are relegated to plain text. Wattpad is doing something quite different, they have devised a new system that takes a quote and allows people to generate pretty backgrounds to help stories go viral on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Tumblr. This new quote sharing feature that not devised due to a the company having it on their strategic road map. Instead it was created on Hack Friday, where the Wattpad team is given free reign to work on unique projects that support their users. Quote Art is available exclusively on mobile and has been fully integrated into the Wattpad iOS and Android apps. Getting started is really simple , to create Quote Art users highlight text and select the Quote Art icon. Then they choose from one of several curated images, or can upload their own. The Quote Art is then ready to share on the network of their choice. When this project was first introduced on June 24th 2015 over 35 million quotes have been shared on social media within a month. This is a testament to how popular the Toronto company has become with user generated stories. |
Amazon Kindle Voyage vs Kindle Paperwhite 3
| This is the e-reader comparison you all have been waiting for! Today we take a look between Amazons two flagship e-readers, the Kindle Paperwhite 3 and the Kindle Voyage. Today we take a look at all aspects of these two e-readers that matter to people on the fence about purchasing either device. We look at the hardware, PDF experience, reading digital manga and an e-book. As an added bonus we look at reading in complete darkness and in direct sunlight. These two e-readers are very similar in hardware specs, they both sport a six inch screen with a resolution of 1430 x 1080 and 300 PPI. During this comparison we noticed that for all sense and purpose the Kindle Paperwhite 3 is the exact same as the Paperwhite 2, the only thing that is different is the screen technology. If you are thinking of buying either of these two devices or want to see how they perform head to head, check out the video comparison below.
|
Amazon Starts Summertime Reading Contest
| Amazon has just initiated a Summertime Reading Contest where they want parents to submit pictures of their children reading. One Grand Prize winner will receive a Kindle Paperwhite, Fire HD 7 tablet, Fire HD 6 Kids Edition tablet, two Kindle Voyages, Fire TV, Fire Phone, three Kindle covers, one Fire HD 7 tablet cover, one pair of kid's headphones, and a $500 Amazon.com Gift Card. If you come in second of third place you will receive a $200 Amazon.com Gift Card. In order to win the contest you don’t need to just upload a cute photo, but Amazon has posted a list of judging requirements. They will look at how how well the photo submitted captures the child's love of reading, photo creativity and quality and composition of photo. The contest runs from July 20, 2015 and ends on August 3, 2015. In order to submit your photo you have to visit the contest page. Amazon will be posting the pictures they like on social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, so you have to be cool with that. |
Friday, July 24, 2015
Amazon Paperwhite 3 vs Kindle Voyage – Glowlight Test
| The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 3 is the latest e-reader to hit the market and it has the same screen technology as found on the Kindle Voyage. You might get a very similar reading experience on both of these devices, but once you compare them side by side with the lights out, the Voyage surpasses the Paperwhite 3. Good e-Reader recently conducted an extensive video comparison between the Amazon Kindle Voyage and the Paperwhite 3. The Voyage provided a superior experience when reading in the dark, because there are fundamental differences between the two models. The Kindle Voyage screen is totally flush with the bezel, much akin to a smartphone or tablet. This warrants a different approach to the illumination engine because of the way the physical screen is constructed. Peter and I are very sure that Amazon must be using different LED technology because of the way the hardware is constructed. In contrast, the Paperwhite 3 has a small dip between the screen and the bezel, and this model actually uses an older front-lit display. Want to see for yourself what we mean? Check out the video below.
|
New Mapping Project Chronicals American Literary Road Trips
| There is something uniquely American about hitch hiking across the country or painting a big bus and touring all over the US. A new mapping project has chronicled famous literary road-trips from authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and Tom Wolfe. This project was created by Richard Kreitner and Steven Melendez, the map "includes every place-name reference in 12 books about cross-country travel, from Mark Twain's Roughing It (1872) to Cheryl Strayed's Wild (2012) and maps the authors' routes on top of one another." Each route is peppered with quotations from the book concerned, often with reference to that particular location on the map. |
Pocketbook Touch Lux 2 Gets New Firmware
| Pocketbook has just updated their Touch Lux 2 e-reader with firmware 5.9. It brings a slew of new features, including a user friendly setup process if you factory reset your device and support for a brand new PDF rendering engine. New Features 1. User-friendly setup wizard which starts during firmware update or factory reset. Fixed 1. Incorrect notes display in books in DjVu format (in some cases). |
Kobo Glo HD e-reader Now Available in Japan
| Kobo has just launched their new high resolution e-reader in Japan. The device is available for purchase from the Rakuten Kobo eBook Store and selected online and offline retail stores in Japan. The price of the device is JPN 12,800. The brand new Kobo Glo HD features a six inch e-ink Carta screen with a resolution of 1448×1072 and 300 PPI. It has the same front-lit display as the Kobo Aura H2O, so you will be able to read in low-light conditions or complete darkness. Underneath the hood is a 1 GHZ processor and 4 GB of internal storage. When you take the e-reader out of the box for the first time you only have 3.1 GB of memory, primarily because the OS takes up a fair amount of space. The Japanese version of the Glo HD includes two English-Japanese dictionaries pre-installed. In addition, Kobo has also launched the Kobo Glo HD Support Dial service, in which a team of specialized staff are ready to answer questions on everything from setting up the device to purchasing eBooks. This toll-free service can be used not only by those who have already purchased the device, but also those are considering purchasing it. The first 3,000 customers to purchase the device and log in with their Rakuten membership ID will receive a JPN 2,000 coupon for use on the Rakuten Kobo eBook Store. |
Pneumatic tooth fairy
| With the expanding global population, Jeff “BabyWrassler” Highsmith realised, the Tooth Fairy is probably finding it tough to keep on top of her job. He decided to help her out with a tooth transportation system using pneumatic tubes, controlled by a Raspberry Pi. This wonderful video is brought to us by Make: Jeff’s past projects include his older son’s Mission Control Desk and his younger child’s bedroom Apollo Mission. We desperately envy these children. The post Pneumatic tooth fairy appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
White Onyx Boox M96 Now Down to $318
| The Onyx Boox M96 is the only 9.7-inch ebook reader available on the current market, aside from older outdated models and a few obsure models only available in certain parts of Asia. A lack of options doesn’t usually equate to a lower price point since their isn’t any competition to compete with, but in this […] |
You can now merge end user barcodes and IDs
| We at OverDrive strive to give the people what they want which is why we are thrilled to introduce a new end-user support tool, in OverDrive Marketplace, that allows library and school staff to easily merge activity from one barcode to another. Just think, all those new cards your library issues can now be merged, easily and most importantly, quickly without delay to your end users! They can continue to borrow their favorite digital titles using their new ID/Card/Barcode/Username etc. without hassle. The tool to merge barcode activity has been a popular request among our partners and will help your staff act quickly to ensure end users retain all OverDrive activity (checkouts, holds, wish lists, etc.). You'll find the new tool in the End-user support section on the Support tab in Marketplace. Like the other end-user support features, "End-user support" permission is required to access it. The tool allows barcodes to be merged one at a time. When a user is issued a new barcode, simply enter the original barcode and the new barcode within the tool. (If your library uses a value other than barcode for user verification (e.g. record ID, username, token ID), enter that value.) Search, verify you've selected the correct barcodes, and click Merge. After merging, activity will be associated with the new barcode immediately. Easy as that! If you have any questions about this exciting new feature, please contact your Collection Specialist today! Christina Samek is a Launch Specialist with OverDrive.  |
Major Publishers Might Revise eBook Pricing for Libraries
| The Association of American Publishers has just released their annual data report and e-book sales are not doing that great. In the first three months of 2015 they have plummeted 7.5% from the same period last year. In all of 2014 e-books have more or less stabilize with only 3% growth from the year prior and this is forcing publishers to evaluate their policies on selling e-books to libraries. Libraries right now are at the mercy of publishers and these companies can charge whatever they want. The new Michael Connelly novel Burning Room costs $14.99 on Amazon, but libraries are paying $106.00 per copy. John Grisham's Grey Mountain costs $15.99 for a retail edition, but costs libraries $85.00. Some publishers make libraries repurchase the title after 25 loans, while others have them expire after one year. There is little consistency with the pricing, but hopefully this will change. Publishers are very aware of new entrants to the market that are bucking the trend of e-book distribution. Hoopla has an innovative model that has their entire catalog of books and comics available for online library lending, but the library only pays for the titles that are checked out. Freading, Total BooX, and BiblioBoard also have interesting business models. Major publishers have certainly not been asleep at the wheel and letting these small companies gain a meaningful foothold in the library space. This has prompted them to take more risks and experiment with new pilot projects. One of the most successful was the Overdrive Big Library Read project that started in 2013 when the company partnered with Sourcebooks. It made the title The Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone, available simultaneously to all patrons of over 3,500 OverDrive partner libraries. The book could be downloaded an unlimited number of times. This program was so successful that it prompted HarperCollins to contribute four different titles over the last two years and they continue to sponsor the event, even now. Back in April Simon & Schuster announced that it will donate a free electronic copy of Academy Award–winning producer Brian Grazer's new book, A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, to school and public libraries for every ebook or hardcover book sold at retail, up to 5,000 copies. The promotion was coordinated by Overdrive and was a resounding success. Ultimately pilot projects are a great way for the publishers and libraries to promote a few titles in tandem with each other, but the high e-book prices to maintain a proper collection is draining the libraries budgets at an alarming rate. This has prompted a new coalition in Canada to be formed that is trying to bring public awareness to just how bad things are getting. For the first time ever all of the major organizations, which include The Toronto Public Library, Canadian Library Council, Ontario Library Association and the Canadian Library Association are seeking government intervention to adopt a uniform set of standards for publishers to follow. There is no denying that for the last few years the steady growth of consumer e-book sales have either stagnated or halted completely. Publishers need libraries now, more than ever to keep the digital gravy train rolling. This will result in more pilot projects and lower prices on books, in order to sell more of them. |
