| Fantagraphics is probably the leading publisher of independent and art comics in North America, in terms of sheer numbers as well as quality. They are the longtime publishers of the Hernandez brothers’ Love and Rockets, Daniel Clowes’s Ghost World, Linda Medley’s Castle Waiting, archival editions of classics from Peanuts to the works of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, and a host of other high-quality work, both new and old. And right now they are heading in two interesting, if opposite, directions. One is that they have turned to Kickstarter to raise $150,000 fund the next season’s publications. Fantagraphics was brought low by a sad situation: One of their founders, Kim Thompson, was diagnosed with lung cancer in the early spring and died in June. Thompson edited their European graphic novels, and his death meant that Fantagraphics had to cancel 13 books, a third of their planned Spring/Summer output. “Our fixed costs stayed the same —because they're fixed— but the income 13 books would've generated was lost, disrupting our cash flow, and leaving us in a tight spot,” the Kickstarter explained. What’s interesting about the Kickstarter is that there are no digital rewards. Most of the premiums are signed copies of books or posters, and it’s true that Fantagraphic books are beautiful objects, with high production values, but at least one person has commented, and I would second this, that a digital bundle could attract more pledges. Fantagraphics publishes their work digitally via comiXology, and if they could arrange for a couple of digital bundles, or direct downloads, that might broaden their base a bit. Not that they necessarily need to, as the Kickstarter is up to almost $130,000 as I write this, as many backers have opted to pre-order books they might have bought anyway—but with the added frisson of the creator’s autograph and the satisfaction of helping a publisher that has built up a lot of loyalty over the years. On the other hand, Fantagraphics also announced this week that it is releasing its first digital-only comic: Violenzia, by Richard Sala. It’s the story of a woman who charges through the world, guns blazing, and leaves a trail of death and destruction. The publisher describes the comic as “a blast of pulpy fun” with retro overtones; it’s due out on November 20 but can be pre-ordered now. Fantagraphics associate publisher Eric Reynolds told Tom Spurgeon that Sala has been interested in digital publishing for some time, and this seemed like the right project: “I believe he proposed Violenzia to me originally as a 24 or 32-page digital one shot — it eventually became 50 pages — and it was just a perfect opportunity for both of us to experiment with a digital-only release.” As for why it’s digital-only, as opposed to digital-first, Reynolds said he wanted to focus on the marketing challenge of getting potential readers to find the comic in a digital format, and he added that this doesn’t necessarily mean that more digital-only comics will be forthcoming. Fantagraphics Launches All-Print Kickstarter and First Digital-Only Graphic Novel is a post from: E-Reader News |
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Fantagraphics Launches All-Print Kickstarter and First Digital-Only Graphic Novel
Top 10 Apps for Android and Blackberry 10 for the Weekend
| Welcome to another installment of the Good e-Reader Top 10 Apps for Blackberry 10 and Google Android! It is the weekend and its time to allocate sometime to discovering some of the great new apps that have either received a major update or just came out. Like always, these links are often valid for only one week and then you will need to search for the name of the app using the search bar on the top right hand corner Crunchyroll Manga for Android and BB10 - The Crunchyroll Manga app provides users with unlimited access to a variety of the hottest manga emerging from Japan! As soon as it hits newsstands in Japan, Crunchyroll Manga users can read the latest from hit titles like Attack on Titan, Fairy Tail, and Space Brothers. JumpCam – Friends Video Camera for BB10 - JumpCam is a free app that makes it easy to create collaborative videos with friends! Just start a video and invite others to add their own clips. JumpCam instantly stitches everything together into a single, beautiful movie. Star Wars: Tiny Death Star for Android - Amidst a civil war in a galaxy far, far away, the Emperor is building a Death Star level by level, and he needs your help. Intergalactic war is expensive, and space stations are, too. Do you have any idea how much it costs to build one the size of a moon? bitmado for Android - Download bitmado and enjoy an endless supply of the world’s hottest wallpapers! They change all the time and you also get cool battery life saving technology. Call of Duty for Android – The Call of Duty app provides a new mobile experience designed to work hand-in-hand with Call of Duty: Ghosts and provides several personalized features during and beyond your play sessions. Swype Keyboard Free for Android - New Swype is even more powerful and personal! Get it today! This trial version is good for 30 days. Swype is all about YOU. Whether you're a fast tapper, exact typer or a Swype Ninja, get ready for a better, faster keyboard experience that gets smarter the more you use it. Swype pays attention to the way you input text and creates a personal language model that follows you from device to device. Swype – the world's most powerful keyboard. Trailerpop: Trailers & Trivia for Android and BB10 - Play hundreds of thousands of trivia questions while watching over 20,000 movie trailers. Who was almost cast as the iconic Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate? How many movies have Samuel L. Jackson and Quentin Tarantino worked on together? From The Wizard of Oz to The Matrix, Argo to Key Largo, there’s something here for everybody to enjoy. WatchESPN for Android and BB10 – Lots of new features with the 2.0 update! The free WatchESPN app lets you keep up with your sports anytime, anywhere on your Android phone and tablet. Watch live games and studio shows with 24/7 access to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU, ESPNews and ESPN Deportes. You can also watch on-demand clips of the latest news and highlights. Indigo for Android and BB10 – This is a great app that allows you to buy items and books right in the store. Hook up your membership card and scan it digitally and quickly scan products for reviews or inventory. Eversnap – Get Friends’ Photos for BB10 - Eversnap is great for anytime you’d like to collect photos & videos from friends and family, For example: Groups, Events, Weddings, Trips, Birthdays, or many times just to share private photos & videos between family members and close friends. Top 10 Apps for Android and Blackberry 10 for the Weekend is a post from: E-Reader News |
Satirical Newspaper The Onion Goes Strictly Digital
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According to an article on the move to digital by Lynne Marek for Crain’s Chicago Business, the paper has been slowly phasing out some of its print markets for some time, reduced finally to being available on paper in only three US cities. Most of its readership has been consuming the content online. While this type of transition often has industry watchers concerned about the state of publishing in its various forms, this move is actually quite positive. Marek demonstrated that The Onion had already been receiving a larger portion of its revenue from its digital advertising, with only two full page ads printed in the most recent paper edition. Other newspapers around the country that are currently experiencing this level of upheaval and shift can take a lesson from this example, if they’re willing to. Following the final print edition in mid-December, The Onion will shift its focus to building its online presence and on its video production arm of the company.
Satirical Newspaper The Onion Goes Strictly Digital is a post from: E-Reader News |
After twenty-five years of providing satirical headlines, articles, and features, some of them meant to take a stab at politics or religion, others simply intended to be pointlessly funny, The Onion will no longer be available in print.Upstagram – live photos from a tiny house floating over Paris
| This is just gorgeous. A hand-made, tiny version of the house from Pixar’s Up, a bouquet of helium balloons, a Raspberry Pi, and Paris. This beautiful bit of hackery uploads photos to Instagram as it flies over the Paris skyline. Valentin Squirelo, one of the founders at HackerLoop, an innovation lab based in Paris and San Francisco, mailed me to let me know about the project; you can read more at the HackerLoop website. Meanwhile, here are some pictures of the build, and some more which the Pi sent to Instagram – look out for the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur. |
C&R And ValoBox Set Up New eBook Gifting Site
| For those who'd like to gift an ebook, there is a new site that has come up and is worth a look. The result of a partnership between Constable & Robinson (C&R) and e-book service ValoBox, giftanebook.com will allow users to buy an ebook and then send it to anyone they wish to via the site. The service is unique in that it is not tied to any of the specialized ebook reading app that we know of. Instead, recipients will be able to read the books via their browsers itself instead of an ebook reading app. The books can be read on a PC, smartphone or a tablet device after having downloaded the same on the host device. Further, the books can be read even in the absence of an active internet connection. “Sharing newly read books and favourite authors with friends and family is what readers love to do. Our partnership with ValoBox, through the IC Tomorrow Digital Innovation Contest, will now allow readers to do just that in a way that is personal, not digital; enthusiastic, not algorithmic,” said Rob Nichols, digital and communications director at C&R when speaking of the latest development. There are about 2,000 titles that are on offer from C&R that can be picked up. Constable & Robinson can be counted among the oldest publishers that is still operating under its original name, having been in operation since 1795. Anna Lewis, co-founder of ValoBox too is excited of the venture saying, “Digitisation has made books more accessible than ever, but some of the magic associated with gifting and sharing those reading experiences has been lost. You can hand someone a paper book without giving them instructions on how to open it, or worrying if they have the right reading device. This partnership with C&R has given us the opportunity to address this and match both the thoughtful process of giving a physical book and the delight of reading one.”
C&R And ValoBox Set Up New eBook Gifting Site is a post from: E-Reader News |
Friday, November 8, 2013
Intel Purchases Digital Educational Company Kno
| Kno has had a rocky road since they burst onto the tech scene in June 2010 when the company announced their 14 inch dual screen tablet. It never ended up hitting the market and in early 2011 the company gravitated towards software development. They reached agreements with 75 publishers and has over 200,000 interactive and digital titles their library. Habitual investor of the company, Intel, has just announced they have acquired majority ownership of Kno. John Galvin, the GM of Intel Education said in a statement “The acquisition of Kno boosts Intel's global digital content library to more than 225,000 higher education and K-12 titles through existing partnerships with 75 educational publishers. Even more, the Kno platform provides administrators and teachers with the tools they need to easily assign, manage and monitor their digital learning content and assessments … We're looking forward to combining our expertise with Kno's rich content so that together, we can help teachers create classroom environments and personalized learning experiences that lead to student success.” Most of KNOS team will be moving to Intel to try and kickstart their fledgling educational unit. There will be a series of Intel branded tablets being released soon that will have all of Kno’s software bundled on it. Kno has never been known for making a ton of money and their investors have been lobbying for an exit strategy to make their cash back. Babur Habib is one of the co-founders of Kno and has been a fixture at tech events all over the world, talking about big data. It is unknown if he will be moving to Intel, but the other co-founder Osman Rashid will not be moving in, due to a conflict of company ideals with Intel. Intel Purchases Digital Educational Company Kno is a post from: E-Reader News |
Good e-Reader Android App Store Client Receives Major Update
| The Good e-Reader Android App Store is Canadas largest and has close to 100,000 free apps to download. The Android client for smartphones and tablets is currently being used by over a million people every single month and we have just pushed out the largest update we have ever done! We have added a new Facebook Connect system that will allow users to connect up their accounts and stay logged in, even if they close the app. When logged in via Facebook you can now have your Facebook image appear when leaving reviews of apps. There is also new sharing options available when you install an app or click the share button, so you can let your besties know what new game or reading app you are checking out. Most Android users have at least one tablet and a smartphone and use the same apps on both devices. The new Good e-Reader Cloud system compiles a list of any app you have ever purchased or installed from the store. Under a dedicated “Cloud” list you can 1 click install any app from your list of prior installed apps, no more searching the the store for your favorites. If you want to uninstall an app, we have a new 1 click uninstall option accessible under “My Apps.” Finally, we eliminated a ton of existing bugs to make the store more usable on older devices. The Good e-Reader Android App Store has been going strong for over one year now and we offer a more compelling ecosystem then Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Getjar or 1Mobile. We mandate ourselves to only stocking the best apps available and have no fear of promoting our competitors. Our App Market whether you are accessing it on the web or within the client will work in every single country in the world, without restriction. Download the new Good e-Reader Client from Google Play or the Good e-Reader App Store.
Good e-Reader Android App Store Client Receives Major Update is a post from: E-Reader News |
Digital Comics Bargains for November 8, 2013
| Guy Fawkes Day may be over, but it’s never too late to enjoy an Alan Moore comic. Both comiXology and Amazon are currently running a 99-cent sale on comics by Alan Moore, including the iconic V for Vendetta (illustrated by David Lloyd), which gave the world the Guy Fawkes mask as a protest symbol, thus allowing Anonymous to be anonymous. But it doesn’t stop there: The 99-cent selection also includes Moore’s Swamp Thing, Tom Strong, Promethea, and more. Here’s another sale that’s on at both comiXology, the Nook store, and Amazon: DC graphic novels for $3.99. Choose from Batman, Teen Titans, Nightwing, and more, all first volumes of their New 52 series. ComiXology’s Thor sale is no doubt spurred by the release this week of the new movie Thor: The Dark World. Catch up on Thor’s recent adventures for 99 cents an issue. Dark Horse is having a 99-cent sale on what I guess you would call retro heroes: The Black Beetle, Lobster Johnson, The Shadow. Some are old, others are old-ish. You really can’t go wrong with Francesco Francavilla’s Black Beetle, so if you don’t have those already, grab ‘em now. Digital Comics Bargains for November 8, 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Podcast: New and featured content for November
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Hear all about the latest publishers to join OverDrive Marketplace in our November collection highlights podcast, now available on OverDrive's Learning Center.
This month's featured publishers boast award-winning romance titles, Spanish-language audiobooks, professional development content for educators, eBooks that teach readers how to play popular instruments, and much more. We also share big news about a highly anticipated publisher who'll be available in Marketplace soon, as well as details about our upcoming holiday sales, which kick off this month with great deals on popular audiobooks.
As always, we wrap up our short podcast with tips and resources for ordering content for your digital collection. Don't miss out on this quick and easy way to brush up on what's available and how to order in OverDrive Marketplace—November's podcast is available all month on OverDrive’s Learning Center.
Carrie Smith is a Technical Writer at OverDrive.
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New Ms. Marvel Will Be Muslim Teen from New Jersey
| Marvel turned a lot of heads this week with the announcement that its newest superhero will be a 16-year-old Muslim girl, Kamala Khan. Kamala is the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, lives in Jersey City—and can change her shape at will; with her newly awakened powers, she is taking the name Ms. Marvel. The Ms. Marvel character has been around since 1968, and Khan is not the first to bear that title. The original Ms. Marvel was Carol Danvers, an Air Force major who acquired superpowers after an explosion caused her genes to be fused with those of an alien species, the Kree. Last year, Carol became Captain Marvel in the series of that name, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and illustrated by Dexter Soy. And Kamala Khan takes on the mantle of Ms. Marvel because she is an admirer of Carol Danvers—a member of the Carol Corps. "Captain Marvel represents an ideal that Kamala pines for," writer G. Willow Wilson said in an interview with the New York Times. "She's strong, beautiful, and doesn't have any of the baggage of being Pakistani and 'different.'" Kamala sprung from a conversation between Marvel editors Sana Amanat and Steve Wacker. "I was telling him some crazy anecdote about my childhood, growing up as a Muslim-American," Amanat said. "He found it hilarious." The two started talking about the lack of female superheroes as well as superheroes from different cultures, and that got the ball rolling. When they invited Wilson, who is a convert to Islam, to write the comic, she jumped at the chance. The comic ties in with an event in the larger Marvel universe, specifically the Inhumanity storyline: In last month’s Infinity #4, the Terrigen bomb was detonated over New York City, awakening dormant superpowers in a whole group of Inhumans. Kamala is one of these. The character is at once dealing with a very specific situation—being a first-generation immigrant, negotiating the tricky divide between traditional family ways and the life of an American teenager—and something very universal, the need for teenagers to find their own identity and place in the world. For Kamala, this is complicated by her newfound superpower, which should make for an interesting story. Amanat said she is prepared for some criticism: "I do expect some negativity," she told the Times, "not only from people who are anti-Muslim but people who are Muslim and might want the character portrayed in a particular light." New Ms. Marvel Will Be Muslim Teen from New Jersey is a post from: E-Reader News |
New Software Update for 1st Gen Kindle Paperwhite
| Amazon has started rolling out a new software update for the original Kindle Paperwhite. The new firmware version is 5.3.9. When I first saw it I thought maybe Amazon was adding the features from the new Kindle Paperwhite, but alas it’s a minor update with just a couple of changes. I still think it’s likely […] |
Steve Wozniak on the Raspberry Pi
| BBC Click interviewed Steve Wozniak this week, and he had a few words to say about a certain little computer. If you’re in the UK you can watch the programme on iPlayer for the next month. The bit we’re interested in starts at 2:19.  Woz talks Pi. Click to visit iPlayer if you’re in the UK. Since many of you aren’t in the UK (or may be coming to this late), I’ll transcribe the pertinent bits of the interview: namely the bits that had us smiling so widely we were a little worried that the lower parts of our faces might fall off. Spencer Kelly: Do you think, then, that things have got better? Or do you think, with the return of the app…that we’re back to the days of the bedroom programmer – that any one person can be a success? Woz: There are Arduino boards, and Raspberry Pi boards that young people can buy and learn about technology, and even drive motors and things: but there isn’t as much of it. It’s not as easy as it was back then. But the creative desires come out of a brain. (Gestures at head.) And the creative desires are coming out in other ways – thank god for the App Store! I’m so glad for that, that Apple didn’t say “No apps can come out except for ones that we write”; that would have been horrible. (Spencer and Woz talk about the App store and Steve Jobs. Then:) Spencer Kelly: You mentioned the Raspberry Pi. Are you a fan of getting real nuts-and-bolts engineering into schools as early as possible? Woz: From a very young age on. You don’t need the high-level math of calculus or the stuff you get at university level. Any young child, even ten years old, can understand enough to learn to program, and the Raspberry Pi – you can hook wires to little motors, you can build devices that do things. What an incredible learning experience. Or sensors – you know, or when I say a certain word it’ll turn on the lights. Those are really fun projects for young people. And they are a growing step in developing the great technologists of the future, that build the devices we all live with. – As far as we at Raspberry Towers are concerned, Woz occupies the same bit of the pantheon as Merlin the Magician. We have now watched this clip about forty times, and it’s still not getting old. Thank you Woz. That absolutely made our day.
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OverDrive Releases Update to School Digital Library Interface
| OverDrive, one of the world’s largest digital content and media suppliers to academic and public libraries, has rolled out a new update to its web interface that will make searching for content even more streamlined. The first enhancement helps ensure that users who access the interface via computer, tablet, or smartphone will see a very similar storefront, helping make searching easier by keeping information in as uniform a space as possible across the different platforms. But it is the second feature, Recommend to Library, that may offer the most assistance to both patrons and library directors. By allowing students to search the OverDrive catalog for content and then clicking to recommend that title, libraries can keep up with what content their patrons are requesting. In addition, once a title has been added to the catalog by the library, the requesting patron will receive an email stating that it is now available through the library. Of course, with so much recent attention focused on the accidental exposure of children to inappropriate subject matter in different ebook stores due to metadata miscalculation, OverDrive has taken measures to ensure that only age-appropriate content can be requested by patrons at public school libraries. Using the Recommend to School feature, students can only request that their libraries purchase titles “with Juvenile or Young Adult subject categories, titles that have school metadata, such as Lexile/ATOS scores, ortitles that have been added to other school library collections.” Finally, teachers have been provided with even greater tools for seeking out student reading material. “Users are now able to search for titles based on standardized reading level information such as Lexile, ATOS and Accelerated Reader scores. This new metadata will assist teachers in identifying the most appropriate content for their students.” Within the new interface, users can select from three different visual themes, can adjust their lending periods, and can alter their account settings to pre-select different categories of books.
OverDrive Releases Update to School Digital Library Interface is a post from: E-Reader News |
Amazon Names Best Books of 2013
| Amazon’s Book Editors have chosen their top picks for Best Books of the Year, making selections across a wide variety of categories. While the comprehensive list has one hundred selected titles, the top ten books are: 1. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt "This year offered a stellar list of books to choose from, both fiction and nonfiction," said Sara Nelson, Editorial Director of Books and Kindle at Amazon.com, in a press release. "Our top choice, The Goldfinch, is an emotionally trenchant masterpiece and was hands down our team's favorite book of the year." Celebrity authors were invited to pick their top books of the year, and they were “Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, chosen by George R.R. Martin, Life After Life, selected by Helene Wecker (debut author of The Golem and the Jinni), and The Sound of Things Falling, which is one of Khaled Hosseini's favorites.” Amazon is offering readers two incentives to accompany this list. First, the Best Books of 2013: Reader’s Guide offers insiders’ look at author interviews, excerpts, and information on each of the books included in this year’s top picks. In addition, Amazon is hosting a sweepstakes in which three winners will be given a Kindle Paperwhite filled with this year’s selections. The free Kindle readers’ guide can be found HERE, and the sweepstakes entry can be found HERE.
Amazon Names Best Books of 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Flagship Toronto Chapters Bookstore to Close
| In 1999 Chapters moved into the The Runnymede theatre that was first established in 1927. The curtain is about to fall for the last time as the flagship bookstore in the Toronto area will be closing in the next few months. "It's a great store that's served the neighbourhood incredibly well," said Drew McGowen, vice-president of real estate and development at Chapters Indigo. "We're at the end of our lease and the landlord can get far, far more money than we are able to pay." Following Book City’s demise, will that leave ANY bookstores between Jane and High Park? Very bad news for the community because in Chapters place will be yet another Shoppers Drugmart. Parent company Indigo has experienced frequent quarterly loses as Chapters bookstores are under the gun to transform themselves into a “lifestyle” geared store. Less books are being ordered as the company tries to push our kids toys, pillows, martini sets and exotic chocolate. In many cases stores perform so badly that they lease a part of their store interior to companies like StarBucks to help subsidize the rent. Flagship Toronto Chapters Bookstore to Close is a post from: E-Reader News |
Bookstores Express Disdain with Amazon Source
| Indie bookstores in the US and UK are expressing a massive amount of trepidation about the new Amazon Source program. This provides bookstores with a 10% commission on Kindle and eBook sales. If a customer buys a Kindle, the bookstore will earn a small % of each book sold for the first two years. Many stores and their organizational bodies are not reacting to this new program in a positive light. Today, we look across the web for industry responses to Source. Most indie bookstores in the USA belong to the American Booksellers Association, which assists them in marketing materials and ideas for seasonal themes. The CEO of the ABA, Oren Teicher, commented “Given Amazon’s aggressive corporate tactics and their longstanding strategy to avoid the collection of sales tax, we don’t see this new program as being at all credible.” "If Amazon thinks indie bookstores will become agents for the Kindle, they are sorely mistaken," says Suzanna Hermans, co-owner of Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and president of the New England Independent Booksellers Association. "There is no way I will promote Amazon products in my stores after the havoc they have wreaked on our industry as a whole. Sorry, Jeff. I'm not buying it." Tim Walker, owner of Walkers bookshops in the UK, said: "One would have to ask the question 'Why would Amazon want to take that step? Where is the motivation?' Because at the end of the day, they haven't really ever given a shit about everyone else in the book trade . . . My worry would be that by selling Kindle devices, we would be converting customers to using Amazon for their physical book sales as well as e-books. I would be very reluctant to jump in." Carole Horne of the Harvard Book Store commented "Hmmm, let's see. We sell Kindles for essentially no profit, the new Kindle customer is in our store where they can browse and discover books, the new Kindle customer can then check the price on Amazon and order the ebook. We make a little on their ebook purchases, but then lose them as a customer completely after two years. Doesn’t sound like such a great partnership to me." The entire staff at Skylight Books in California weighed in, "This offer seems clearly disingenuous and is obviously a Trojan Horse style attempt to gain access to our customers. As independent booksellers, we don't have the negotiating power of Amazon, or their market share, or the luxury of losing money each year while being propped up by worshipful investors. What we do have is our own stores—physical spaces that are each unique (and many, like us, already offer e-readers), that serve as a center of their communities, that are frequented by passionate book lovers and supported only by their purchases. On the other hand, Amazon has always proved itself to be an opponent of 'e-fairness' at every turn, has done grievous harm to communities of readers across the country by driving booksellers out of business and leaving many cities without a bookstore at all. Therefore, our convictions tell us that Amazon, no matter how much they try to bully and encroach, will not be allowed access to our stores. We are not Amazon franchises. We don't want 10% of a Kindle sale or anything else from Amazon." Christine Onorati of WORD Bookstores in New York expressed "No surprise here, it's not for me. From a purely dollars and cents point of view I'm sure some booksellers somewhere will see value in this. Especially the ones who dwell in the gray areas of buying deeply-discounted books from Amazon to resell in their stores or those who charge authors who publish through CreateSpace a fee to stock their books on their shelves. I know they exist, and I know they think they are 'sticking' it to Amazon in some way. But I have no desire to sell my customer info to Amazon or send more of my customers to them. I'm happy keeping completely separate from them. I also said no when I was approached by Audible (owned by Amazon) to sell them my customer data by sending my customers to them. So Amazon is obviously interested in us indies right now. Let's hope that's an optimistic sign that we're making a difference." Michael Tucker, president and CEO of Books Inc., a 12-store indie chain based in San Francisco, described it as more or less a form of suicide. "In the long term, for anyone who gets into it, they would be losing their customers for what would end up a very small return." Bookstores Express Disdain with Amazon Source is a post from: E-Reader News |
Recommendations come to school digital libraries
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Recommend to Library, OverDrive's enhancement that lets users suggest titles for libraries to add to their digital collection, is rolling out for our school partner websites. This feature, which will enable students to view OverDrive's catalog of titles not currently in your digital library, helps answer the ultimate questions, "What should we put in the collection?" and, "What do my students want read?"
Recommendations will be tracked in OverDrive Marketplace for staff members to review and add to their carts. If a school purchases titles that a student recommends, the student will be alerted via email so he or she can check out the book. This new feature will empower your students and open lines of communication with staff members as to what titles readers are interested in and what the most popular recommendations are. By making your students a part of the selection process, you can create a collection of titles you know your students want.
While students will be able to recommend titles not currently in your collection, they won't have access to OverDrive's full collection. Students will not be able to recommend titles such as "Fifty Shades of Grey," for example. They will be limited to viewing titles that are a part of OverDrive's collection with any of the following criteria:
Pilots for this program will begin soon with a full rollout expected later this year. Visit OverDrive at AASL in Hartford, Conn., November 14-16, to learn about the new recommendation feature and much more. If you'd like more information about the Recommend to School feature, you can contact your Account Specialist.
Adam Sockel is a Marketing Communications Specialist with OverDrive
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Sony 13.3 e-Reader to Launch this December in Japan
| Sony has been quietly developing a 13.3 inch e-Reader that is specialized for reading and editing PDF Files via a Stylus. The company has announced today on their Japanese website that they intend on commercially releasing it in Japan this December for $1100 US. The move to sell it in Japan first is due to a trial that five Universities engaged in to test the feasibility of the product in an academic setting. The first time Sony had displayed this product publically was at the e Ink booth at SID Display Week in Vancouver. Not only is this the first 13.3 inch e-reader in the world, but the screen technology was developed by Sony, called Mobius. This is a flexible high resolution e-paper display screen that makes it lighter and more durable. e Ink told us that the major benefit of Mobius is that the tech allows them to cut it to any size they want, and still retain all of the benefits. The new Sony e-Reader 13.3 will be known as the Digital paper “DPT-S1.” The PDF experience is the main attraction of this device, obviously you can take notes and make annotations by either writing with the stylus or the full virtual keyboard. If you make a note, you can save that page as an independent file. If you have a big PDF document and make all sorts of edits, you can save it as a "Workspace" into its own PDF document. This insures you have your virgin file, with no edits and then your changed document with all of your notes. If you have a large document with many notes, you can actually initiate a new feature that will allow you to look up all of the notes or changes you made on the document. A search feature will bring up a list on the right hand side, listing every single change you have ever made. If you tap on any of them, the page will open. When we reviewed the e-Reader at SID Display Week it did not have support for EPUB books, just PDF Files. Sony has confirmed today that the e-reader will ONLY support PDF files, so you won’t be able to read your normal eBooks on it, unless you use a 3rd party program to convert your books from one format to another. Finally, Sony intends to launch this in Japan first, but plans on doing an international rollout in April 2014 to Canada and Europe. They are trying to market it to schools and businesses that can push out documents from a centralized server right to the e-readers via WIFI. Sony 13.3 e-Reader to Launch this December in Japan is a post from: E-Reader News |
Kobo Arc 10 HD and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 Both Available Today
| If you are looking for a large screen device and want to bypass the entire Apple ecosystem there are a few new ones available today. Amazon has just announced it is shipping the brand new Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 in the US, all other markets will have to wait until November 26th. The Kobo Arc 10 HD has just been released via the main Kobo website and dealers such as Best Buy and Shop e-Readers in North America. The Amazon and Kobo ecosystem are fairly different in terms of content and execution. You only really benefit from doing business with Amazon if you live in the US, as the wellspring of content is only truly accessible there. If you live in Canada, the UK or other international markets you will be able to buy book, audiobooks, magazines, newspapers but not videos or rent television shows. You also are basically locked into exclusively dealing with the Seattle based company, unless you load in your own apps. The Kobo ecosystem is a bit more agnostic. You can purchase books, newspapers and magazines in most countries in the world. The company relies on the Google Play ecosystem to get all of your apps and games. This might be a deciding factor for the vast majority because Google is simply integrated into more markets than Amazon is. Kobo Arc 10 HD and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 Both Available Today is a post from: E-Reader News |
Lincoln Heard, Minibeasts and Raspberry Pi
| I often get how old the youngest kids we see using the Pi are. A lot depends on the individual kid’s dexterity: if they can handle a mouse with reasonable accuracy, they’re old enough to use Scratch. Usually the younger kids we see are the children of engineers or other people who are already confident around computers – and typically they start at about five.  Lincoln hooks up a camouflaged camera Lincoln Heard a bit of an outlier. He is four years old. When he was three, he made a video with his Dad (an ICT teacher) about how to set up your Raspberry Pi (“So easy a three-year-old can set it up!”). Lincoln really loves his Pi, and when he came home from school with a form inviting him to enter a Minibeasts habitat incorporating recycled materials, hit upon the idea of incorporating a Pi into the build. A cereal box, a webcam, a Pi as a webcam server, some Minecraft cutouts and some weatherproofing later, Lincoln and Dad came up with this (the engineering knowhow is Dad’s, but the design and much of the work you see here is Lincoln’s): And here’s snailcam in action: If you’d like to make your own Minibeasts habitat like Lincoln’s, Dad has written the project up: you’ll find a full parts list and tutorial, as well as some discussion of design decisions he and Lincoln talked through (weatherproofing, wireless strength, power options). And, of course, you’ll find out how Lincoln did in the competition, in case you hadn’t guessed already. |
