| The Future of Digital Publishing question has been one of the most popular discussions at major conferences in the last few years. Publishers and ebook stores cannot come to a definitive conclusion on a singular delivery method that would appeal to everyone. Over the course of the last few weeks we have spoke with major publishers, ebook companies, app developers, and thought-leaders to chronicle the future of publishing. This article is the last one in a three part series, you can check out Part 1 and Part 2. You don’t have to follow the publishing industry closely to know that books these days tend to be packaged in dedicated apps or have interactive elements. Readers now have more choice than ever before when it comes to the process of reading ebooks. You can read them directly on the web with a new generation of Cloud Readers, such as the ones offered by Amazon, Kobo, and Overdrive. You can also download enhanced ebooks in the form of apps from Apple, Google Play, Sony, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble. These enhanced editions provide a myriad of interactive features, such as audio, video, maps, narration, and gaming elements. Finally, many e-reading companies deliver ebooks the way people have always purchased them, but the rise of tablet use has all the standard multimedia elements delivered right in the book itself. Whether you are reading books on the web or reading enhanced ebooks on a tablet, smartphone, or computer, you are often reading them in a HTML5 or EPUB 3. Many people think these are singular entities with nothing in common. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as EPUB3′s backbone is actually powered by HTML5. EPUB 3, which is the latest revision of the industry-standard XML ebook format, is firmly embracing HTML5 and CSS3. It retains its focus on XML-driven toolkits by requiring XHTML serialization and adding supplementary XML vocabularies, such as MathML and SVG. MathML is fairly interesting because it actually allows complex mathematical formulas to be displayed in a book, which is very useful for e-textbooks. EPUB 3 offers a variety of options for developing advanced, digital-native publications. The main positives about the blending of the two formats in a singular ebook format is the ability for publishers to display video, audio, interactivity, global language support, multi-column layout, embedded fonts, and the backwards compatibility with EPUB 2. So you can say that HTML5 and EPUB 3 have a ton of synergy with each other. Right now, major e-reading companies like Kobo, Apple, and Sony have all introduced updates to their Android or iOS reading apps to display EPUB 3 books. The main factor is that most publishers seem to be bundling their content in dedicated apps or delivering it via HTML5 and still relying on the EPUB2 format. Amazon is doing its own thing with Kindle Format 8, which is basically just EPUB3 re-packaged to suit its line of Kindle Fire e-Readers. Marilyn Siderwicz, the Marketing and Communications Manager of W3C, whose company The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. She told me that “Digital publishing already is web-based. If you think about today's ebooks, they're really 'frozen' web sites packaged in a container. Readers today, however, are demanding more flexibility in how they access and use content. They want rich media and the ability to interact with more and different kinds of content. They want to choose how, when, and where to access stories or information. And they want to use media to engage others much like they share physical books with others to expand a conversation. HTML5 is part of a larger set of technologies—which we call the Open Web Platform—that helps publishers do all these things while reducing the costs and complexities of cross-platform development. Many people don't realize that EPUB3 is heavily HTML5-based. So what we're seeing is a continued evolution of the user's online experience both within and outside of the browser. W3C invites everyone in the digital publishing community to join the conversation as the industry continues to evolve Web technologies. Change will surely accelerate.” Tom Waters, the CEO of Autography, runs a company that allows authors to autograph ebooks. He has his hands in many different cookie jars, delivering content to a myriad of platforms. He mentioned that “The basic hardware will mainly see changes in performance/size/resolution, but I think we’ll see a wider variety of applications that will be customized for very specific groups of readers. Not just in the accepted genres like romance or thrillers, but also very specific slice of demographics based on location, age group, and cross interests (18-22 year old women, residing on the West Coast, who like romances AND thrillers, etc). Book clubs could customize apps, event managers could customize apps, it goes on and on. They’ve got to embrace cross-functionality, easy upgrades, clean interfaces, and ease of library movement if they want to be successful long term.” ThisNext originally rolled out Glossi in December, which is a platform that allows people to DIY publish digital magazines. There is no shortage of online ebook creation programs, but magazines really haven’t been done before. We spoke with Glossi CEO Matt Edelman, who knows what he is talking about. Before taking over the reigns of Glossi, he was in charge of Marvel's Entertainment division. He weighed in on the question and answered “Apps are popular because they provide enhanced value. That isn’t going to change. Even though HTML5 remains a viable alternative, native apps will continue to raise the bar because app-based operating systems will continue to advance. It’s hard to envision a future in which HTML5 closes the gap entirely. That said, a publisher cannot rely upon one or the other to reach their target readers or maximize the size of their audience. Content wants to be wherever it can be consumed. That philosophy has guided the development of Glossi. We believe in hyper-distribution and are designing our platform to enable creators to publish content within whichever user experiences their audience prefers.” David Burleigh is the chief marketing officer at Overdrive, whose company has recently revised its entire online experience to center on HTML5. This allows ebooks to be read on the web, tablet, fridge, or car screen. He simply said “We see a continuation of development for both apps and other methods, such as HTML5. We believe there's more dynamic growth in HTML5-based ebooks.” Finally Jim Ambach, Senior VP of Product Management at e-textbook company Coursesmart said, “At least for the next couple of years, we feel it will remain necessary to provide dedicated apps on iOS and Android mobile devices in order to offer the best possible reading experience both online and offline. Although mobile browsing is becoming more and more important (in some months, CourseSmart sees just as many user sessions from mobile browsers as it does from its native apps) due to the limitations of the browsers on mobile devices, there are things you can’t do without a dedicated app. For example, offline caching and significant data storage. Right now, we think that the optimal solution is to provide both native apps as well as a mobile-optimized browser experience, so we are currently providing both.” Marilyn from W3C said, “W3C members are discussing a variety of new technology standard enhancements, including those for web typography, layout, metadata, video, and audio. But technology is only one piece of the puzzle. Industry business models will need to reassessed, too, including review of existing and new value chains, competitors, and monetization opportunities. An additional W3C member benefit is learning how other industry players are preparing for change—technologically, but also in the broader business sense.” She continued, “Many publishers are switching to ‘XML First’ content workflows to capture fluid, reusable high-quality content directly from authors. This change reflects a new way of thinking about primary assets, rather than just a technical switch. These publishers ultimately will have a competitive advantage by generating Web technology alongside, or in place of, print products.” Jim Ambach of CourseSmart weighed in on the prospective barriers on adopting EPUB 3. “Barriers to widespread adoption of these formats include issues such as support for readers with disabilities; for example, the more types of media that are included, the more steps necessary to make sure the content is universally accessible. Also, proprietary standards for particular platforms such as Kindle or iBooks, might hinder widespread adoption as content producers debate about what formats they want to produce to. Lack of tools and design know-how are also considerations, although they seem to be less of an issue now that more and more authoring environments are being created.” She continued “As large publishers work these new standards and capabilities into their existing workflows, they can buy time today by working with third-party experts to convert existing titles and add interactive components to published work. Smaller publishers can take advantage of newer authoring environments and start generating new content right away. The trick will be learning what kind of media and interactivity can contribute to a more engaging reading experience. One of the things that we are starting to do at CourseSmart is provide publishers with analytics that describe how and what content is being used to help them determine what is effective and what isn’t.” Tom Waters commented, “I think education is the biggest hurdle – people don’t know these formats, don’t know the pros and cons of them, and don’t like having to ask someone for help. They are already behind, and as a result, the changing technology is moving ahead of them even faster because they’re not learning and adapting quickly enough to keep up. It’s something publishers are accused of quite often, but I think as readers we are just as guilty.” What can publishers to to overcome these new technical challenges? “The toolsets for creating and maintaining content are usually the challenge. Currently, creating a feature-rich ebook for multiple platforms means you've got to maintain one toolset and document version for KF8, another for EPUB3, another for Apple's iBook ePub format, and yet another for HTML5. Maintaining the toolsets and personnel qualified to use them is a burden.” Matt Edelman from Glossi elaborated “The barriers will be based on what enables publishers to best distribute and monetize their publications. Amazon’s dedication to its own format, KF8, makes KF8 a requirement for book publishers. KF8 will only go away if Amazon moves to another format. At the same time, no one else is rushing to adopt KF8; they see Amazon as dominant enough already. HTML5 and EPUB3 have advantages for multi-media publishing and distribution, although they are not exactly analogous. You can have an HTML5 experience within an EPUB3 ‘container.’ HTML5 cannot offer everything in terms of ebook creation that EPUB3 offers… yet. However, EPUB3 faces two key barriers: lack of backwards compatibility with all EPUB2 readers and less support across platforms and devices. Any restriction on distribution threatens wider adoption.” Marilyn from W3C said “The question implies that EPUB3, apps, and HTML5 are in direct competition. Instead, it's more helpful to recognize that the technologies already have a lot in common. EPUB3 is really a packaged HML5 Web site. And app development will be very similar whether someone is using the app inside or outside the browser. The approach is the same; differentiation is really a matter of the user interface design and overall experience. Digital publishing companies increasingly are getting involved with building Web standards, but more involvement is needed. Organizations like IPDF and W3C are reaching out. We welcome everyone in the industry to participate.” Tom Waters was fairly negative about any consensus happening with wider adoption of a single ebook format. “I don’t expect to see a unified platform. We don’t see it elsewhere and I wouldn’t expect ebooks to be any different. There are multiple sizes, shapes, fonts, and layouts of physical books. There are DVD’s, Blue Rays, and various streaming video formats for movies. We don’t want or need just ONE format for content delivery because our needs are different at different times. Flexibility is key. The content and the container, regardless of how much we might complain about it, are inextricably linked.” Jim Ambach from CourseSmart mentioned, “I think the industry needs to watch and understand how the majority of users will want to access that content, and then find the easiest most effective way to reach them. At CourseSmart, we strongly believe that the fewer impediments between a user and the content they need, the more willing they will be to use the services you provide. We are committed to working with publishers to provide access to their content using the most straightforward means possible. Whatever technology lends itself to that cause is likely to become that unified platform.” Eric Hellman the President of Gluejar, maker of Unglueit contributed “There’s a vital, need to have a standard for distributing self-contained book-like websites. EPUB3 goes a good way toward towards that. Let me rephrase that. I think that our civilization will descend into darkness without a standardized distribution format for book-like things. I don’t want our civilization to descend into darkness. Apps, KF8, MOBI, EPUB3 are all attempts to make something like that. The process behind EPUB has the best chance, I think to get there. Maybe it will be EPUB5 before it reaches some level of maturity. I fear that the “Book in Browser” approach (Kindle CloUd, Safari Online, etc Zola, too) will hook publishers on the narcotics of intrusive data collection and revision. No doubt it’s the best format for a cookbook or a travel guide. But it can’t work for a dangerous book, and the great books are dangerous. Ironically, the BiB approach is the best near-term solution for implementation skew, which is today’s biggest headache for EPUB publishing. So I see that as a key step along the way. I talk to a lot of librarians, and their deepest concern is for the future. What will happen to ebooks when the platforms go away? Companies will fail, governments will fall, and censorship is an ever-present and growing danger. Too much of the publishing world is focused on next year’s bottom line, to the detriment of the entire ecosystem.” Finally, Matt from Glossi summed it up by saying, “I don’t think there is anything driving the various members of the digital publishing ecosystem to proactively choose a unified platform. Not even consumers would benefit from that. Just as some people prefer hard cover books over ANY digital alternative, so too will segments of consumers continue to gravitate towards publications that offer unique value specifically because of the platform on which they are published. And as long as there is a market for more than one alternative, there will be suppliers for that market. What does seem clear though is that the web itself is becoming the publishing platform of choice as it matures. That suggests HTML5 may become the most dominant platform, largely because it would be the most economical one.” The Future of Digital Publishing – The Synergy between HTML5 and EPUB 3 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Saturday, March 9, 2013
The Future of Digital Publishing – The Synergy between HTML5 and EPUB 3
Hacking contest takes down all your favorite programs
Don't
fret too much, though. In the old days of Pwn2Own, this would mean these
hacks would later be sold to deviant hackers. Now, since Pwn2Own is
sponsored by Google and HP, the makers of these programs are the first
to know how the hack happened.That means you should see patches for them in the coming days. Some programs will be updated automatically, but make sure you're always running the most recent version of your favorite program.
See more at: http://www.komando.com/tips/index.aspx?id=14163&utm_medium=nl&utm_source=notd&utm_content=2013-03-08-article_1-cta&page=3#sthash.rVryw2f7.dpuf
Apple Only Remaining Defendant in Anti-Trust Suit, CEO Might Testify
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According to a report in Bloomberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook might testify in the case in accordance with an order put forth by the judge presiding over the suit, Denise Cote, for a March 13th conference call that will help her make a determination on the matter. This order came after the US requested assistance in a discovery issue involving the CEO’s testimony outside of court. The allegations in the case stemmed from the creation of the “agency model,” as opposed to the previous wholesale model that Amazon had originally instituted with the publishers. Amazon’s original terms allowed the online retailer to sell ebooks at undetermined prices, even taking a loss on some major bestselling titles, in order to encourage sales of its Kindle e-readers. Under the agency model, Amazon was forced to sell ebooks at a price set by the publishers; this outcome was seen as collusion on the parts of the publishers named in the lawsuit and Apple. With the settlements in the case agreed to by the publishers, Amazon has been allowed to return to some level of discounting on upcoming and recently released titles. According to a report on the issue by Reuters, the DOJ is not seeking monetary damages against Apple, but is looking for a ruling that the corporation violated anti-trust laws and that measures will be enacted to prevent further collusion.
Apple Only Remaining Defendant in Anti-Trust Suit, CEO Might Testify is a post from: E-Reader News |
Apple and Amazon File Patents to Sell Used eBooks
| When you purchase a digital book from Amazon or Apple, you don’t technically own it. You are merely licensing the electronic version for an indeterminate amount of time and there have been many cases where users’ entire libraries get deleted. The question of ebook ownership has been a hot button issue, because when you buy the physical book, it’s yours. You can sell it to a used bookstore or loan it out to friends. Last month Amazon filed a patent that had something to do with establishing a new digital system that would allow the reselling of content you purchased from them. In the last 48 hours, Apple has also filed a patent to sell used digital content, adding credence to the rumor that both companies will be unveiling a new way to buy and sell used ebooks. One of the biggest concerns the games, music, and publishing industries have with digital content is the transfer of ownership without the original owner still having access to their copy. Amazon and Apple both have elaborate systems that deliver content to your specific used account. When you buy a Kindle book, it is transferred to your main account and you’re able to read it on any e-reader, tablet, or app on a smartphone. The same thing occurs when you buy a book from iBooks; it is easily tracked that you bought the book. These new patents could allow for the removal of paid books from your account when the ownership is transferred. The removal of content from your account is something Amazon and Barnes and Noble have developed with their lending ebook programs. Kindle Lending allows publishers and authors opt into a program that allows book buyers to loan a book out to a friend, over the period of two weeks and only once in the lifetime of the book. While the book is loaned out the original owner cannot read the book, and after two weeks it is automatically returned to the owner. When you borrow books from Overdrive on the Kindle, the books are also temporarily available for you to read and then returned when you are done. You can say that Amazon has extensive experience with removing and adding content to customers’ accounts. It would make sense the company is laying down the groundwork for a used market for e-textbooks and ebooks. The Apple and Amazon patents for used digital content could be the makings of a huge shift in the marketplace. Both companies sell books directly to the users and have full control over the master account. Not to mention that both of these companies are juggernauts and Amazon is thought to control over 60% of the global ebook market. I could see both of these behemoths take a cut out of each used book sold, to double dip in the profits. They would remove the initial cut from the publisher from selling the book, and then get another fee from reselling it to another user. Apple and Amazon File Patents to Sell Used eBooks is a post from: E-Reader News |
Abattoir! A topical Scratch game.
| Martin O’Hanlon from Stuff About Code (you might recall Thursday’s post about his adventures in Minecraft) has written a Scratch game that made us laugh. Hard. Wherever you are in the world, you’ve probably heard something about the recent horsemeat adulteration scandal in Europe, where cheap beef mince products like lasagna and frozen burgers turned out to be anything up to 100% horse. In Abattoir! you’ll be making sure that only delicious cow makes it into the mincer. Have a look at this video for some gameplay. Get the code at Stuff About Code. |
Friday, March 8, 2013
Apple iPad Mini vs. Google Nexus 7
| Welcome to another Good e-Reader Video Comparison! Today we take a look at two of the most popular tablets in the world, the Apple iPad Mini and Google Nexus 7. Currently, these two devices really shine with iOS and Android Jellybean, and you can think of them as the flagships of their respective brands. Over the course of this video tutorial we put a heavy emphasis on the e-reading experience. We look at magazines, comic books, and ebooks to give you a sense on how they perform against each other in real world circumstances. In many cases, you are buying a tablet to get games, apps, video, and music. We take a look at their respective ecosystems with Google Play and iTunes. If you are torn between buying either of these two devices as an e-reader, look no further! Apple iPad Mini vs. Google Nexus 7 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Supercharge Your Gaming Experience This Weekend
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Fine-Tune Your Gaming Hardware
Repurpose an Old Console or Get the Most Out of a New One
Upgrade Your Mobile's Gaming Experience
Have a great weekend and enjoy your games!  |
With such versatile technology, your gaming systems can do more than play games and your other devices can double as fantastic gaming platforms. Take a few hours this weekend and supercharge your gaming experience. 
Your gaming rig may be relatively powerful, but that only goes so far if it isn't tuned for optimal performance. If you're new to tweaking your graphic settings, 
You can do a lot with old consoles, or even newer ones. Streaming media centers make for one of the most popular hacks, and 
While you've likely played a few games on your phone or tablet, it can do a lot more than you might find in the app store. For starters, Remains of the Day: CCleaner, Our Favorite Windows Maintenance Tool, Is Coming to Android
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Photo by photastic (Shutterstock), a2bb5s (Shutterstock), and Feng Yu (Shutterstock).  |
Turn a Cardboard Box into a Photo Light Box
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Craft blog Flax & Twine details the steps to make your own light box from these inexpensive materials. It's even easier to make than using 'K'nex sticks, a baby changing table, or other objects. A trip to the office supply or crafts store for a box, some tissue paper, and white poster board can set you up for making your own gorgeous, professional-quality photos of any object. DIY Photo Light Box - A Finish Fifty Project | Flax & Twine  |
Light boxes are the key to making magazine-like photos of objects. If you want to take beautiful photos that put your object front and center, all you need is a cardboard box and some craft supplies. Lost Photos Finds Old Pictures You've Misplaced, Is Free This Weekend
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We've talked about Lost Photos before, and it's a pretty handy little app. Lost Photos is always free on Windows, but Mac users usually have to pay $2.99. This weekend, it's on sale thanks to AppyFridays, so head over to the Mac App Store and check it out while you can. Lost Photos (Free) Lost Photos (Free) | Mac App Store via AppyFridays  |
Windows/Mac: You've probably received a ton of photos over email in the past few years, but never really added them to your photo library. Lost Photos is an app that scrubs your email for all those missing pictures, and it's free this weekend only. Judging eBooks By Their Covers
| We've all heard the adage "Don't judge a book by its cover." But when it comes to library eBooks, the visual appeal of cover images is more important than ever. OverDrive's Next Generation library websites prominently displays book jackets to provide users with a more visually engaging browsing experience. Eye-catching cover images can prompt users to sample and borrow titles that they would've otherwise missed.
Recently, a number of publications have compiled "Best-of" lists for book jackets. Do you agree with these picks?
The New York Times' "Favorite Book Cover Designs of 2012"
The Los Angeles Times' "18 Fantastic 2012 Book Covers"
The Atlantic Wire's "Most Wonderful Book Covers of the Year"
To order these and other eBooks and audiobooks with attention-grabbing covers, visit Content Reserve. (Title availability may vary by geographic region.)
Melissa Marin is a Marketing Specialist at OverDrive.
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March 8, 1918: Killer Influenza
| With World War I reaching its climax, the first case of Spanish influenza is reported. It quickly spreads, and the resulting worldwide epidemic — the worst in history — ends up killing more people than the war. |
B&N Now Giving Away Paid Nook Apps for Free Every Friday
Barnes and Noble is launching a new promotion to help reinvigorate the Nook brand by taking a page from Amazon’s book and giving away a paid Nook app for free every Friday. While B&N isn’t giving away a free app every day like Amazon, hopefully the quality of the apps will be better. They are [...] |
Hyundai T7 Budget Android ICS Tablet Launched
| There is a new tablet in town, and it's not every day that we get to see a top notch car maker launch a tablet. This that makes the Hyundai T7 special. The specs are impressive as well, with a quad core Samsung Exynos 4412 processor, Mali 400 graphics, 1 GB RAM, and 8 GB of internal storage. Upfront lies a 7 inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. The tablet also boasts of a few other niceties, such as an HDMI out port, a micro USB port, and a microSD card slot. The tablet runs Android 4.0 ICS instead of the latest Jelly Bean, which could have added to its appeal even more. The T7 has also been endowed with a pair of cameras, front 0.3 and rear 2 megapixels, while Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth round off the connectivity options the tablet has to offer. However, while all the above makes the T7 pretty likeable on paper and the tablet impresses with its performance, the device lacks in quality. Also, as liliputing points out, there is still some work to be done with the tablet's software to ensure it provides a seamless working experience, something that the device seems to be lacking. While the T7 out performs the Nexus 7, as well as the recently launched Asus MeMo Pad ME301T (both of which feature a Tegra 3 quad core chip), the T7's rather disappointing experience on the software front as well as its build quality leave something to be desired. Hyundai has worked its way to the top in the world of automobiles and is already respected for its commitment towards quality and ease of use. That is, however, lacking with the T7. The only consolation is that the T7 is priced around $166, while some retailers are ready to shave off a bit more to entice buyers. It remains to be seen if this can win it some big time buyers.
Hyundai T7 Budget Android ICS Tablet Launched is a post from: E-Reader News |
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Marvel Brings Its Unlimited Service to iOS; Android to Follow
| Last December, I noted that Marvel had quietly released a beta version of its Digital Comics Unlimited service for tablets, and today they made it a real thing with an iOS app and the promise that an Android version is on the way as well. They also rebranded the service as simply “Marvel Unlimited.” That’s a good description: Unlike the other Marvel app (and comiXology, which runs it), Marvel Unlimited doesn’t sell you one comic at a time; it’s an all-you-can-eat service with a subscription cost of $60 per year or $10 per month (and one of the few criticisms I have of the app is that you can’t find the price anywhere on it). The library currently numbers 13,000 issues. This is a service designed for readers who want to go deep and read all the back issues, not for those who want to get the latest thing. All the comics on MU are at least six months old. But if you’re OK with that, or if you use it as a supplement to comiXology’s Marvel app, it’s a pretty good deal. The app does away with some of the complaints that people had about the original service: You don’t have to sit in front of your computer to read the comics (the one digital comics experience that is universally loathed), and while Marvel Unlimited on your computer is streaming-only, the app allows the user to download up to six comics to read offline. How does it work? Beautifully, at least on the iPad. It’s true that the iPad screen is smaller than a standard comics page, but the images are crisp and easy to read. The pages load quickly and navigation around the page is simple and intuitive. There is a panel-by-panel view function, called Smart Panels, but it’s not all that smart. Unlike comiXology’s Guided View, which carefully pulls the page apart into individual panels and letterboxes each one, the Smart Panels feature just chops the page into pieces, each of which may contain several panels. In every sample I looked at, the panels were poorly cropped—either a strip along the edge was chopped off or a strip of the adjacent panel was left in. You can also use the iPad’s pinch-and-zoom to enlarge the page, but you can’t turn the page without going back to the original size. (This is an annoying feature of the Kindle as well.) The good news is you probably won’t have to, as the pages are pretty easy to read. The iPhone is a different matter: The pages are too small to read, and the Panel View is just as bad. If there’s a problem with this app, it’s findability. The problemis that many Marvel characters are featured in different comics, and there are multiple lines that get renumbered from time to time. As a result, if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for—or even if you do—it can be hard to find things. I read part of Daredevil #1, and when I went looking for it again, I couldn’t find it. There were over 20 Daredevil series listed in the browsing area, but that particular issue was nowhere to be found. I have had similar problems on the website, so I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong or the comics are just poorly indexed. Even in the best of circumstances, if you’re new to the Marvel universe(s), the array of titles and characters can be daunting. ComiXology does a nice job of organizing comics into story arcs, but Marvel just throws them up there, so it’s a little hard to know where to start and where to go next. In the past, users have complained about gaps in the story arcs, but Marvel is working on fixing that. Even when I had to read the comics on my laptop, I thought the Marvel Unlimited service was good value for the money. The iPad version puts it over the top. The comics look great, and there are plenty of them. Marvel seems to be pretty serious about putting comics onto the service once they are six months old, so if you’re willing to wait, you can read to your heart’s content at a very reasonable price. Marvel Brings Its Unlimited Service to iOS; Android to Follow is a post from: E-Reader News |
Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7 vs. Google Nexus 7
| Welcome to another Good e-Reader Video Comparison! Today we take a look at two of the hottest Android tablets on the market today, the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7 and Google Nexus 7. Both of these tablets use the Android operating system, but are quite different in terms of the overall user experience. In this video we will show you how each one stacks up against each other in a battery of tests. The Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7 features a seven inch IPS display with 1,280 x 800 pixels. It offers an amazing viewing experience and the ability to watch 720p movies right on the unit. Underneath the hood is a 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP4460 processor and 1 GB of RAM, which makes accessing media, books, and other content very fast and easy. One of the best aspects of this model is the fact that it has twin stereo speakers with Dolby Surround Sound technology. It is seriously the loudest tablet I have ever used! The speakers themselves are on the back of the unit, but creep up the left and right sides. Even if the Kindle Fire HD is lying flat on its back, you still get amazing sound. he Google Nexus 7 features a seven inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1280×800. The resolution overall is fairly solid and videos looked a little bit better than the Apple iPad Mini and Kindle Fire HD. One of the strongest elements this tablet has going for it is the processor. It crushes all other e-readers on the market with a Nvidia Tegra 3, quad-core 1.3 GHZ processor. In conjunction with 1 GB of RAM, you can multitask to your heart's content and not experience stuttering while watching videos or turning the pages in ebooks. Over the course of this video comparison we will show you how music, video, eBooks, newspapers, magazines, comic books and the stores work. If you are thinking of buying these tablets as an e-reader, you won’t want to miss this. Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7 vs. Google Nexus 7 is a post from: E-Reader News |
A $2 smartphone
Pottermore Gives Back with eBooks for Red Nose Day
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Pottermore, the interactive site created by Rowling’s company of the same name, will release two titles that were previously only available in print, with a large portion of the proceeds going to charity Comic Relief. When Rowling initially wrote the two titles, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the were created with the charity in mind. Now the Comic Relief is hosting its Red Nose Day, and the titles will be available digitally through Pottermore.com with 40% of the purchase price going to the organization. "J.K. Rowling has long been associated with Comic Relief,” said Alex King, head of marketing at Pottermore, “so we were really keen to highlight to givers and supporters of the charity that the eBooks of Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them are now available – with at least £1.15 from every sale going to Comic Relief. The new generation of Red Nose Day participants will now be able to discover the eBooks for the first time, via social media channels – and we are enlisting the support of the loyal Pottermore community to help get the Red Nose Day message out too." The entire digital catalog of available Harry Potter titles, along with the two new digital titles that benefit Comic Relief, are available for sale at Pottermore.com.
Pottermore Gives Back with eBooks for Red Nose Day is a post from: E-Reader News |
Official Amazon App Coming to BB10 This Month
| The Amazon Kindle e-Reading app has been one of the most asked for apps for the Blackberry Playbook, since it first came out. Amazon has never developed an official app for the platform, but is thought to release their seminal reading app and bookstore this March on BB10. Rumors are swirling that Amazon is actively developing a native version of their app to be released sometime in March. This will give customers the ability to both buy and read books on their Z10 phone. Currently, the only way to get Kindle working is to sideload in the converted Android file and the main downside is that you always need to maintain a WIFI connection. This potential app, might be good news for everyone in the Blackberry sphere who is really looking for a mainstream reading app to hit their platform. Currently no big name company has a dedicated reading app for BB10. Official Amazon App Coming to BB10 This Month is a post from: E-Reader News |
