| Indie Authors who self-publish through Smashwords are in for a treat. The company has just signed a new distribution agreement with Txtr. This move will benefit authors to give them the ability internationally distribute all over Europe and the UK. Txtr started their digital bookstore back in 2009 and quickly became one of the largest companies outside North America packing their bookstore from publishers all over the world. Currently Txtr is based in Berlin and due to the European Union has a very strong presence in 18 different countries. The current corporate strategy is to develop online ecosystems to not only sell products, but also manage the hosting and localization environments. Many European countries have a wide array of languages and being able to deliver content in a localized manner is very important. Not only does the company develop commerce solutions, but they also develop applications for Android and iOS. The company's portfolio includes clients such as Vol Retail and Weltbilde, who is the largest EU book retailer. Txtr will retail Smashwords books at the price set by Smashwords authors and publishers, or at the local currency equivalent. Smashwords will pay authors 60% list after the deduction of VAT taxes, similar to how they pay for iBooks sales. In the months ahead, Smashwords will also supply preorders to txtr because their platform supports preorders. This Friday authors will start to see their books listed on Txtr. Smashwords Authors can Now Distribute via Txtr is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Monday, May 19, 2014
Smashwords Authors can Now Distribute via Txtr
Comparison Review: Nexus 7 2nd Gen vs Samsung Galaxy Tab 4
| Last week I posted a review of the new 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 4. One of its main competitors is the 2nd gen Nexus 7, so I wanted to put together this comparison review outlining the similarities and advantages for each. Both are very similar yet very different Android tablets. The Nexus 7 has some […] |
Comic News – New Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer, Marvel Announces Star Wars Comic Plans
| The Diamond Retailer Summit has just occurred in Las Vegas and it was a tremendously newsworthy event. Marvel quietly announced that they were going to talk about what they are doing with the new Star Wars comic license in July and the next big event that will last until the rest of the year. Marvel is unleashing two big events this year that will crossover into other serieses, much like Infinity and AVX. The first one is AXIS, which stars the Avengers and the X-Men teaming up to fight a modern day Axis of Evil. The villains will feature a team led by the Red Skull and includes Sabretooth, Doctor Doom, Loki, Green Goblin, and Carnage. The second big Marvel event will start in early 2015 and is titled Time Runs Out. It is based on a big storyline right now about parallel dimensions being destroyed in order to preserve the current version of earth. Earlier in the year Marvel announced that DC will not be renewing their Star Wars license and it will be transferring to Marvel early next year. This July Marvel will officially announce the first few titles it intends to publish, leading up to Episode 7 dropping at the movie theatres next year. Speaking of movies, there is a brand new Guardians of the Galaxies trailer that was released today. It is filled with a ton of new footage and we finally hear the voices of Rocket Racoon and his houseplant Groot. I give it 9 out of 10 ooga-chakas!
Comic News – New Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer, Marvel Announces Star Wars Comic Plans is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Podcast: Hachette/Amazon Battle, Kobo Book Club, Hugh Howey and RT BookLovers Debacle
| Welcome back to the Monday edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show with Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield of Digital Book World. Today on the show they talk about how the Hachette/Amazon contract negotiations will likely play out and how authors have seen a dramatic decrease in book sales The RT Booklovers conference just occurred in New Orleans and Indie Authors have busted out the flaming torches and pitchforks due to segregation from the traditionally published, Michael and Jeremy break it down on what exactly happened. This is a jam packed show with a riveting discussion on who exactly is the spokesman for indie authors. The two most notable is Mark Coker and Hugh Howey, Michael has some interesting thoughts on the matter. Finally, Jeremey interviewed Trip Adler of Scribd to get an indication on how their eBook subscription site is doing and much more! Podcast: Hachette/Amazon Battle, Kobo Book Club, Hugh Howey and RT BookLovers Debacle is a post from: Good e-Reader |
UK Rules eBooks Aren’t Books as Far as Taxation Is Concerned
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To make matters worse, the EU is planning to implement tax legislation that will make ebooks even more expensive. As it stands, companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon have based their operations in Luxembourg to take advantage of its 3% VAT on ebooks, but that benefit to consumers is about to disappear. Beginning in January 2015, retailers will be charged the tax rate of the consumer’s location, meaning UK’s artificial tax hike on its citizens will have an even bigger impact on their wallets. According to government sources, “As announced at Budget 2013, the government will legislate to change the rules for the taxation of intra-EU business to consumer supplies of telecommunications, broadcasting and e-services. From 1 January 2015 these services will be taxed in the Member State in which the consumer is located, ensuring these are taxed fairly and helping to protect revenue.” But when Tom Harris, Labour MP for Glasgow South, asked about changing the status of ebooks to avoid this outrageous amount, he was essentially told that it wasn’t government domain to change the tax on ebooks. According to an article in The Bookseller, the response from the Treasury's Exchequer Secretary David Gauke was: "The sale of a digital book is classified as an electronic service and attracts the standard rate of VAT under EU law. Legal advice obtained by the government indicates there is no scope to change the VAT treatment of the sale of digital book and similar products under EU law. As such, no assessments have been made of the type referred to by the honourable member." While the clock ticks down to force online retailers’ hands in taxation, hopefully the various governments will move to take the burden off of consumers. A couple of countries, including France, have lowered the VAT on ebooks against the guidelines of the EU. resulting in stiff penalties against the governments in an effort to help their citizens purchase books, regardless of format.
UK Rules eBooks Aren’t Books as Far as Taxation Is Concerned is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month
| In 1992 May officially became Asian-Pacific American Heritage month. As many of you know, we have a great selection of eBooks in Chinese, Korean, and now Malaysian! We are proud to highlight what our extensive OverDrive catalog has to offer in honor of this month. Many institutions, communities, and even public libraries will be holding events to call attention to the incredible contributions that people of Asian and Pacific American ethnicities have made to the United States. Why not do the same at your library on your digital site? You could even contact your Account Specialist on the Library Partner Services team to make any of your related titles a featured collection for the occasion. Is your library taking advantage of our OverDrive powered foreign language interfaces? Make the experiences of ALL your patrons' memorable ones by improving their customer experience with a digital site in their native languages. Again, contact your Account Specialist or your Collection Development Specialist to get started. The Collection Development team has created a list of popular titles in Chinese, Korean, and Malaysian. Check it out via the link below! Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month
Kate Seivertson is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive.
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Webinar: Digital Textbooks in the K12 Sector
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But that still hasn’t been the case, at least not in the widespread way that educators, parents, and stakeholders had hoped. Two years ago, industry watchers were already predicting a wholly digital learning landscape by this time, but the reality has been far slower to crawl in. Part of the issue stems from the still-astronomical cost, leading school systems to back away from the idea given that it isn’t a significant savings. More systems are still tied up in fears that they will not control the content of the digital editions, taking an approach of wariness. A webinar from Data Conversion Laboratory this week will let stakeholders have a chance to examine the concerns and the benefits to a digital learning scape in hopes of implementing greater adoption in the coming school year. Addressing both the financial and educational implications, this event will offer a discussion opportunity to voice some of the lingering concerns over the issue. Registration and information for the webinar, entitled “Monetizing and Marketing Digital Textbooks,” can be found here.
Webinar: Digital Textbooks in the K12 Sector is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amy Mather’s week of work experience
| Liz: A few weeks ago, over the Easter holidays, we had Amy Mather, 14 years old and surpassing fantastic, come and visit us for a week’s work experience. (Check out this talk she gave at last year’s Jamboree, aged only 13; see another talk she gave at Wired with Clive, our Director of Education, and read about her in The MagPi, where she was the cover star last June. Amy is the recipient of the European Commission’s Digital Girl award. She is keen to point out that she is a real girl too.) Amy came to town with mum Lisa and brother Dan in tow, as well as a couple of grandparents, and it gave us a great excuse to have a more burger and pizza-heavy diet than we usually do. I asked her to write a post for us about what she spent the week doing with us when her exams this month were finished: over to Amy! Over the Easter holidays I did work experience at the Raspberry Pi Foundation and I had an awesome time working on loads of amazing projects! When I wasn't at Pi Towers I hung out with Ben Nuttall, and explored the beautiful town of Cambridge.  Amy’s first encounter with GitHub went swimmingly – we’re adapting the work she did into an educational resource The first project I worked on used the Energenie, a new product that allows you to switch on and off mains plug sockets wirelessly from the Raspberry Pi GPIO. After a trip to Maplin to buy some disco lights, I created a memory game in Python with PyGame. I made it so that when you won it played Rick Astley’s Never Going to Give You Up (as suggested by Dave) and set disco lights blaring using the Energenie. Initially there was an issue with the disco lights because they didn't turn on straight away when plugged into the mains as you had to press a button for them to start. So to solve the problem we used a piece of cardboard and duct tape to press the button constantly! I would like to apologise to the team at Raspberry Pi for any annoying noises and distracting lighting effects that were created during the process of making that project. Whilst I was there Ben taught me how to edit the Raspberry Pi documentation using markdown, and I added some missing parts of the documentation. I then decided to write up a simple version of my PyGame painting program in the form of a learning resource. I adapted the program so that it was compatible with the Adafruit PiTFT. Adafruit’s PiTFT is a touch-screen that connects to the Pi using the GPIO pins. By combining it with my PyGame painting program you could draw with your fingers on the touch screen! I also had my first proper play with the PiCamera, I put it to good use with PyGame as you can see:  Adding moustaches to Raspberry Pi employees with Pygame One of the days Dr Sam Aaron came in and showed me Sonic Pi, (again apologies for some really offputting noises). It was great to experiment with Sonic Pi as I hadn't had a chance to play with it before. I think it's a great tool for teaching the beginnings of programming, with as you get instant results.  Learning Sonic Pi with Sam Aaron On the Thursday I did a photo shoot for Wired, who came to visit Pi Towers, and spent an afternoon draped in Ethernet cables.  Amy, mid-photoshoot The photographer complained that my hair was in the way for a lot of the pictures…  This photo is unlikely to be used by Wired. …which encouraged Ben and Carrie Anne into having a hair swooshing competition. Look at Ben’s beautiful locks… On my last day I helped Carrie-Anne, Clive and Craig set up for Picademy. As a thank you present to everyone in the office, for such an enjoyable week, I handed out key rings and presented two Pi Clocks to the office, all of which I made on a laser cutter at MadLab (an awesome Hackspace in Manchester).  This clock is now hanging on the wall by Liz’s desk, where it reminds her of Amy at going-home time. The week was a really great experience and I learned a lot. I had so much fun working with all the talented members of the Pi Foundation team and I'm really looking forward to, hopefully, doing it again some time soon! |
In the end, the project was used as a demo at Picademy.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
How to Buy Comics with Comixology for iOS
| Comixology was acquired recently by Amazon and the company decided to suspend in-app purchases. This now prevents any comic book fiend from devouring tales featuring Galactus or what hairbrained scheme Norman Osborn is cooking up next. Instead of using the app, you need to fire up Safari to buy comics directly from the website. Today’s video instructs you how to purchase, use your $5 free credit and then sync the new content into the dedicated app. There are two things you need to start purchasing comics with Safari, a Comixology account and either a Paypal account or a credit card. Simply open up Comixology.com from the web-browser and login to yoru account. Next, the free credit you have is displayed on the top right-hand corner. Next, find a comic you want to buy and make the purchase. If you have any credit, its automatically added to the purchase. In the tutorial video, I basically got one for free! Once you make the purchase simply hit the Home button and re-open the main Comixology app for iOS. If the app is already open you need to click “in the cloud” and then drag your finger down on the left hand side, where all of your past purchases are displayed. This syncs any new content you purchased and you can begin reading as the issues are downloading. How to Buy Comics with Comixology for iOS is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Indie Writers Starting to get Segregated from Professional Authors
| There is a stark contrast between professional authors and writers who elect to self-publish. When an author derives their living solely from the process of selling their books, they can be called an author. Normally these types of people get signed to publishing contracts, everyone else is a mere writer. The segregation of indie writers from professional authors is starting to transcend personal perspective and is now being put into practice. The RT Booklovers Convention recently drew 700 authors to the Grand and Mardi Gras ballrooms at the Marriott Hotel in New Orleans. The largest room was devoted to traditionally published authors and crammed into a room half the size were indie authors. Why were self-published writers in a smaller room than the real authors? The main issue was inventory. The trade authors brought stacks of books to be sold and signed. The majority of the indie writers had no physical books on them at all and were relegated to selling them via Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble or Kobo. Many indie writers complained to the organizers that they felt marginalized and for an hour an announcement was repeatedly imported attendees to go check the Indie room across the hall from the grand ballroom. One author who attended the event said “However, given that that exhortation was necessary, I can only imagine how incredibly frustrating it was for those authors to be set apart in that way. It wasn’t just indie authors, either, but many who had e-first publications through small or large traditional publishers.” gs/2014/05/18/rts-giant-bookfair/">Courtney Milan attended the conference as an author and said “Rumor has it that the authors with returnable books were "real authors" and that the authors who were selling their books on a consignment basis were "aspiring authors." As far as I can tell, this appears to have been one misinformed volunteer, rather than the official RT Convention description. It was not something that I saw or heard, and I do think it was widespread.” Smashwords really promoted the fact they had close to a hundred authors attending the event. These are desperate souls looking for validation for books that likely no one will ever read. These people raised the most rukkus citing the fact the indies had tables that were 3 feet in size, while the real authors had six. The RT Booklovers convention did a great job separating real authors with real books from indie writers looking to sell their books on consignment. The phrase “Aspiring author” was used all over the RT Convention website to refer to unpublished writers. It is refreshing to have all of the rabble in one quantified area, rather than have everyone lumped together. Now if only digital bookstores like Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Kobo would develop indie only sections. Indie Writers Starting to get Segregated from Professional Authors is a post from: Good e-Reader |
eBook Review: Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen
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What does it take to earn a solid, middle-of-the-road three stars in a book? Basically, it involves a book that is single-minded in its goal while being so badly researched and written that you come away feeling mildly dumber for having read it. Mrs. Poe is yet another attempt by a historical novelist to paint a picture of what if. And those novels, when done well, are really, really fun. But the difference between supposing and downright muckraking is not usually a fine line to cross. It’s one thing to craft a story on an often-misheld belief that Edgar Allan Poe and Frances Sargent Osgood–a prolific poet and contemporary of his–may have had a fling. But to take it upon herself to build a premise that Osgood went for nearly years at a time without seeing her philandering husband, leaving her to all but beg in the streets for a roof and food, is stretching things. More importantly, let’s suspend belief for a moment and pretend there was actually any truth to not only the absent, neglectful husband idea, but also the Poe-Osgood affair, a theory that Poe scholars have destroyed time and time again. Instead of crafting a story of undeniable, forbidden love, Frances is basically painted as a woman who thinks to herself, “Why not? My husband’s sleeping with every heiress in the country, I can cheat if I want to.” The depiction of any love–heck, any level of fondness even–between Poe and Osgood is so void that I can’t tell if the author subscribes to the scholars’ belief that it never happened, or if she just doesn’t know how to write a good love story. Other details were borderline annoying, like the reference to words and phrases that simply were not in use in Poe’s day. There were details that were fun for a while, like the names of their contemporaries and the story lines associated with them, but with the sheer number of word errors in the book, it’s hard to tell if these story lines were researched at all or merely pulled out of the author’s imagination. Finally, the deranged villain of the book is purportedly Poe’s simple-minded, child-like, tuberculosis-stricken wife, only for us to find out at the end (spoiler alert) that it’s someone equally implausible and insulting. So how does a book with this many problems earn such a high rating? The time line of the book demonstrated that Osgood, who became one of the leading American women writers of her day, at one point struggled with writer’s block and rejection letters. She had to force herself to sit down and put quill to paper to pay the bills, just like writers of today. Moreover, the book was mindless fun. If it had been set in a parallel universe where reality and recorded history didn’t matter, it would have been okay. Think of it as a vapid beach read for intellectuals.
eBook Review: Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Authors Guild, Authors Alliance Battle Over Speaking for Writers
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The organization he was referring to by name actually just launched this month, but has already made waves for its stance on copyright and open access, a slippery slope that Stiles was attacking. Of course, AG’s feelings about a group that supports access to information by the masses should come as no surprise given its lawsuits against both Google and the Hathi Trust for scanning and digitizing rare works that have been locked away in academic libraries all this time. For her part, Authors Alliance co-founder Pamela Samuelson gave an interview to Publisher’s Weekly that very clearly illustrates how the organization isn’t even on the same radar as the Authors Guild, instead planning to advocate for authors who are interested in making their works available on a widespread, no cost basis. But the reaction from AG and its members who commented on the open letter paint the Alliance as a group of thugs out to make all authors’ works subject to rip off. Samuelson pointed out that the very people the Alliance aims to enlist would have sided with Google and Hathi in those lawsuits, meaning that their ideals do not line up with the AG’s anyway. While the mud flinging and name calling from the AG and the seemingly patient doctrine from the AA come out, both groups stand to remain disconnected from the lives and careers of most of the people that the groups aim to advocate for–average, every day authors, both traditionally published and self-publishing. There are, however, two groups who are potentially going to experience some fallout from the new and old organizations. Already there has been some confusion over the name with the Alliance of Independent Authors and the Author Alliance. The first, ALLi, is a dedicated organization that educates and speaks for the needs of indie authors, and the second is a website that lets authors pay a membership fee to promote their books. In both cases, the unfortunate similarity in names can have search and contact implications.
Authors Guild, Authors Alliance Battle Over Speaking for Writers is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Why Used eBooks Still Have Not Happened
| The Holy Grail of digital publishing is the end user being able to sell the eBooks they purchased from online retailers. Amazon and Apple actually have filed for patents in 2013 to make this happen, but have yet to introduce anything coherent. Why have used eBook stores failed to materialize and what are the extenuating factors hampering a huge industry? The first sale doctrine allows owners of copies of copyrighted works, such as used books, CDs, and DVDs to resell their copies without restriction. Sadly this not really really apply to audiobooks and eBooks. American company ReDigi wanted to create a used eBook and audiobook market, but started with music files first. They lost a case in 2013 due to the first sale doctrine being inapplicable. The district court found that the reproduction right was necessarily implicated when a digital music file was embodied in a new material object following its transfer over the internet onto a new hard drive. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that its service "migrates" a file from a user's computer to its Cloud Locker, so that the same file is transferred to its server and no copying occurs. Rather, the court ruled that even accepting defendant’s description of the process, “the fact that a file has moved from one material object – the user's computer – to another – the ReDigi server – means that a reproduction has occurred. Similarly, when a ReDigi user downloads a new purchase from the ReDigi website to her computer, yet another reproduction is created. This is much akin to mixtapes being created and sold. A small company wanting to sell used eBooks does not really have a chance of making it financially viable. Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google, Sony, Samsung and a myriad of others do not actually sell you the book. They merely license it to the end-user, which does not have a definitive state of ownership by the buyer. This makes it practically impossible to sell it. Some companies do enable their customers to resell their eBooks, mainly based on the honor system. O’Reilly allows customers to resell their books once you are done with it, provided that you do not retain any copies of the book after you sell it. The problem with these titles is that often because of their technology focused nature, a book can quickly go obsolete in six months. Science Fiction publisher TOR scrapped DRM and made it possible to resell the books. One big obstacle in selling your used eBooks are the increasingly irate user that strips the DRM out of a purchased book. Whether you want to backup your Comixology collection, kill the encryption in your Kindle book or purchased PDF file, it is all ridiculously easy. If a website started to sell used books, likely a huge majority of users would do it without DRM and peddle the same copy over and over again. Amazon and Apple both have patents to sell used eBooks. It is thought that they intend on a complex state of license transfer from one user to another. Likely the option to be included in the resale scheme would be an opt in feature. This would be similar to the options presented to publishers to be included in the Kindle Lending Library or KDP Select. I envision publishers trying it with their backlist titles first and not risk it with their frontlist ones. This is very much akin to the way they all handled getting involved with libraries loaning out eBooks and eBook subscription websites such as Scribd or Oyster. It is clear that the big problems facing a used eBook market is the licensing agreements from the mainstream digital booksellers and how to handle the question of DRM. The only way used eBooks could happen is if it started with the indie publishers first, where authors directly self-publish. Bringing them aboard would change the way licensing agreements work and likely result in a huge new industry. Why Used eBooks Still Have Not Happened is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Yahoo News Digest Review
| Yahoo unveiled their curated news service last week for Android and has been available for iOS earlier this year. The premise of this app is to give you 10 new stories every twelve hours, focusing stories relevant to the UK, US, Canada and international events. The top Yahoo brass is happy that 40% of all users who have the app installed, access it on a daily basis. The news that Yahoo curates basically give you the gist of a major news item or event. Every story consists of a Yahoo summary, plus several “Atoms,” or key quotes, images, videos, Wikipedia excerpts and other material relevant to the story. Since the news on this app is basically a summary each story has close to 10 references, so you can dive deeper into something that rivets you. Twitter also plays apart in the layout with sites such as Cnet, Verge, Reuters all weighing in. The idea is to give you more information than the typical wire service story or single-sourced report. Twitter are quickly becoming a metaphor of the way news stories develop. Frequently you will receive news on these sites first and news outlets will pick up on it. The Arab Spring, internet suspensions in Turkey and the war in Syria all broke on Twitter first. Companies like Facebook and Yahoo are betting on curated stories with sourced information from Twitter and other breaking news outlets. This app feels very much like a product from 2014, which is quite refreshing. Its layout is intuitive and easy to dive in for ten minutes and get a sense on the day’s top stories. Download Yahoo News Digest for Android today.
Yahoo News Digest Review is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amazon Kindle DX vs Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2
| The Kindle DX Graphite edition has been Amazons flagship large screen e-reader for a number of years. The main premise behind this unit is to give you a large screen to read your PDF and eBook files on. The Paperwhite 2 features a second generation illuminated display and a myriad of software enhancements. Today, we are going to evaluate what is the better e-reader. The Kindle DX features a 9.7 inch display and does not have a touchscreen. This results in a learning curve to orient yourself with the D-Pad and what the settings menu does, depending on if you are reading a PDF or standard eBook. One of the things I like about the base model is free 3G internet access, so you can buy books while on the go, or even make purchases while traveling. PDF files look simply amazing, it may not have the software features the later Kindle has, but it does a better job than any other Kindle. The standard eBook does not let you change the font type or line spacing, but does let you make notes, highlights and change the size of the font. One advantage the DX has is the ability to render text to speech. It has two speakers so you can listen to audiobooks or listen to music while you are reading. There is a small dedicated section on the Kindle store to buy additional audiobooks. The Paperwhite 2 has all of the bells and whistles you can expect out of the latest generation Kindle. You can read at night with the six inch display and control the brightness settings. It has GoodReads integration to let you converse with people who have the same taste in books as you do. It also has dictionary lookups, translations and X-Ray for eBooks. The smaller screen makes PDF files difficult to navigate and large files buckle under the pressure and crash the e-reader. The overall book experience is better on the Paperwhite due to the advanced augmentation options. In the video below we document the same PDF file on each unit and show you everything that you can do to craft your own experience. We also fire up a purchased book from Amazon to give you an indication on what might be the better investment. Amazon Kindle DX vs Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amazon Kindle DX VS Apple iPad Air
| Welcome to another Good e-Reader Comparison Video! Today we evaluate the core reading experience with eBooks and PDF Files on the Amazon Kindle DX and Apple iPad Air. The DX and iPad Air both have 9.7 inch screens, but are quite different in their form and function. The Kindle has an e Ink display screen, which means in long reading sessions you won’t strain your eyes. The iPad Air has the traditional LCD screen, so you will have light emitting from behind the screen. The DX does not have a touchscreen, so you will have to use the menu/settings and the DPAD to navigate around. The iPad Air has the best touchscreen in the business and you can easily pinch and zoom PDF Files. The Kindle DX has a resolution of 1200 x 824 pixels and uses an E Ink Pearl display screen. The screen is a giant sized 9.7 inches, which really makes PDF files shine. Most files you will load in won’t look good right off the bat, so you have to use the zoom function to find your sweet spot. The bigger a file is, the longer it takes to zoom and to turn a page. This unit has free 3G internet access, which works in over 300 countries, so you can buy books from Amazon while on the go. Reading a standard eBook is pure bliss, it has text to speech and plenty of ways to augment the margins and font size. The iPad Air has a staggering resolution of 2048×1536, which blows the DX out of the water. Reading a PDF file is a cakewalk with the ability to pinch and zoom on the fly. I noticed when you load in a 100MB file though, the iPad tends to struggle with it and you tend to see clipping with big black boxes if you pinch/zoom quickly. The overall clarity in reading PDF files is really nice, there is a ton of detail that is evident. One of the things I liked is being able to do highlights and note taking right in a PDF file, while the DX has no functions at all. Your standard eBook looks really crisp, lots of great functions in iBooks to change the font size, font type and lots of advanced highlight features. The video below documents the same PDF side by side on the iPad Air and the Kindle DX. You can get a sense on what both bring to the table and what types of functionality you can expect. We also fire up an eBook, so you can see what device may be right for you. Amazon Kindle DX VS Apple iPad Air is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Friday, May 16, 2014
Samsung Readers Hub Disbanded
| Samsung is disbanding the Readers Hub that they have owned and operated since they started to seriously focus on Android tablets and smartphones. The South Korean company is suspending their relationship with PressReader and Zinio, two partners they have had since the beginning. Samsung is also closing down their own eBook store that they established in 2012 and relying on Amazon on their custom built Kindle Store, optimized for Samsung devices. The Samsung Readers Hub was launched at IFA in Berlin Germany back in September of 2010. The essence of the service was to have Kobo, Zinio and PressReader preinstalled on all smartphones and tablets going forward. At the time, these apps were heavily customized to take advantage of specific screen sizes and resolution. It gave customers an all in one ecosystem to buy things right out of the box, instead of relying on Google Play to find the app of their choice. In 2012 samsung decided to get into the book business themselves and severed ties with Canadian based Kobo. They talked with publishers and small presses and launched their own bookstore towards the end of the year. Their coming out party was at Book Expo America in 2013, where they met with even more publishers and bolstered their catalog to over 2.3 million titles. One of the drawbacks of the Samsung Bookstore is that it wasn’t available in all markets, nor all of Samsung’s devices. It failed to get traction because of poor locationation and mass market appeal. In early 2014 Samsung made a bold move and partnered with Amazon. The Seattle based company made a custom app for Samsung to distribute on all future phones. In order to get people using the app right away on their new Galaxy S5, Amazon is giving away 15 free eBooks a year, from a predetermined list of 3 titles a month. The Samsung Books Hub will officially close on July 1st 2014 and all new phones are being bundled with the Kindle app. If you have purchased books from Samsung in the past, you will lose them all. Currently there is no migration plan in the works and that is the price we all pay for licensing digital content, instead of owning it. Samsung Readers Hub Disbanded is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Top New Android Apps of the Week – May 16 2014
| Disney, Hasbro and a number of major companies have all released new apps this week. We also have a brand new TitanFall companion app to assist you in your Pilot in dominating any gametype. Yahoo News Digest – Yahoo News Digest provides a definitive summary of all the important, need-to-know news. Digests are delivered twice a day – once in the morning and once in the evening. All the top stories are summarized and presented with the key information that you need to stay on top of what's happening. Transformers:Age Of Extinction – An artificial intelligence made from the spark of a Transformers bot has taken over your device. Discover clues about the upcoming Transformers: Age Of Extinction movie, view exclusive content and compete in a worldwide battle for the future of Earth. Watch movie trailers and interviews for the Transformers: Age Of Extinction movie while checking out character bios and meeting the newest bots. Download the Transformers: AGE OF EXTINCTION Movie app now to complete missions and earn Energon points to help your side claim victory. Maleficent Free Fall – From the creators of Disney's #1 hit game Frozen Free Fall comes an all-new match 3 puzzle-adventure, Maleficent Free Fall! Inspired by Disney's epic live-action film Maleficent, you'll embark on a spectacular journey with exciting and challenging objectives like you have never seen before! Titanfall Companion App – Enhance your Titanfall experience with the Titanfall Companion App. Provides you with notifications for all of the latest info and updates to Titanfall. Features rich intel about the history of the Titanfall universe, characters, weapons, maps, modes and controls. Now review your stats from anywhere including total kills, favorite weapons, time spent playing and more. Includes exciting features available when connected with your Xbox One Console. With the second-screen map feature, you have at your fingertips a full screen, real-time interactive mini-map of the game you're playing. See and track your teammates and where the action is happening live and with the ability to zoom in and out to focus on key areas of the map. Use a filter feature to access additional map information that cannot be accessed anywhere else, giving you an advantage in game. View the live scoreboard that updates in real-time as the game progresses. With Titanfall Companion App, you will have the ultimate Titanfall experience. EasilyDo Smart Assistant – EasilyDo is an app that organizes and notifies you of what matters so that you can stay on top of things. Less work, less worry, and more time for you. Recommended on the Katie Couric Show, NBC's Today Show by Randi Zuckerberg, and featured by Apple on the iTunes home page! Critically acclaimed by Time, WSJ, Good Housekeeping, Lifehacker, TechCrunch, PC Magazine, Forbes, Reuters, AllThingsD, Fast Company, GigaOM, Computerworld, The Next Web, TMCnet, PandoDaily and more. Duck Dynasty Slots – Relive your favorite Duck Dynasty moments: hunt with Willie, cook with Miss Kay, fight back against the beavers, join a redneck wedding, and travel to Hawaii with the Robertson clan! Creatures of Olympus – Game will help you imagine yourself in Ancient Greece. Build habitats and raise legendary creatures, breed new hybrids with cross-type breeding. Grow food in farms and feed your creatures. Decorate your town with great fountains, flowers and buildings. Optimize your economy to maximize your earnings. LandGrabbers – GET YOUR WARFARE ON AND PASS YOUR WAY THROUGH 36 LEVELS IN 4 DISTINCTIVE LOCATIONS. Travel through Middle Ages, take part in the Crusades, conquer castles and towers, upgrade your army and become a legendary military leader as you advance your troops in medieval warfare. Ace Tales – Embark on an epic Atlantic adventure with hero dog Ace and Doc O'Hare. This game will surprise you with stunning graphics, great game play and action moments. Yahoo Mail – Not a new app, but one with a huge update. Has Yahoo Weather, Sports and a number of other critical Yahoo services built into their seminal mail app. Top New Android Apps of the Week – May 16 2014 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
PressReader iOS App Updated with New Interface and Top Stories
| The largest digital newspaper distributor PressReader has just updated their flagship app for the iPad and iPhone. The new update brings hundreds of top stories that you can read for free without having to to subscribe. The interface has also been redesigned with a swipeable carousel filled with popular titles based on your country and easy access to digital magazines. PressReader used to be known as NewsPaperDirect and recently underwent a dramatic rebranding process. The company has been investing a copious amount of time and energy on their web-presence and now we are starting to see their line of apps getting new functionality. PressReader have always put an emphasis on newspapers, but with their app update they have magazines right on the home screen now. They currently have over 600 domestic and international editions to subscribe to and over 2000 newspapers from every major country in the world. The new app is very intuitive and gives users three full downloads of any newspaper they want to checkout. Unlike most newspapers you find online in the Amazon App Store or the Apple Newsstand, PressReader gives you a full replica edition. This insures that you will have local advertisements, classifieds and a preserved layout that is true to the physical copy. When you open a title you can click on the headlines and get a very e-reader friendly version of the story. You can enhance the size of the font or change it entirely, which appeals to people who have vision problems. The new Home Feed allows readers to select the country they want to pull major news stories from and customize their own experience. It automatically detect your geographic location but you can manually select most countries. The content is pulled from important publications such as the New York Times, Daily Mail, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, The Telegraph and many more. One of the things I like about it, is the international flavor in the featured news items. By default, the news service pulls all sorts of stories from the thousands of newspapers in which the articles derive. You can refine your tastes and just look at Business, Entertainment, Sports, Editorial, and Readers Choice. I think this app update has been a longtime in the making. Seldom when you download an update on iOS do you expect a totally new unique experience. Every aspect of the UI has been tweaked and there are a ton of free content now to check out. PressReader iOS App Updated with New Interface and Top Stories is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Chipotle Cups and Takeout Bags Adorned with Quality Litterature
| Chipotle is one of the best chain restaurants in the US that focuses on gourmet Mexican food, such as burritos. The company has taken the unusual step to distinguish themselves from the competition by adorning their disposable cups and takeout bags with short stories by Jonathan Safran Foer, Malcolm Gladwell, Toni Morrison, George Saunders, and Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Lewis. Jonathan Safran Foer came up with the idea of having something interesting to read on his cup or bag when he was hanging out in a Chipotle restaurant and had nothing to read. He neglected to bring in a magazine and did not own a smartphone. He had met Steve Ells, the CEO of the foodchain a few years ago and pinged him on an email. He mentioned that “I bet a shitload of people go into your restaurants every day, and I bet some of them have very similar experiences, and even if they didn’t have that negative experience, they could have a positive experience if they had access to some kind of interesting text,'" Foer recalled. "And unlike McDonald's, it's not like they’re selling their surfaces to the highest bidder. They had nothing on their bags. So I said, 'Wouldn’t it be cool to just put some interesting stuff on it? Get really high-quality writers of different kinds, creating texts of different kinds that you just give to your customers as a service." Steve liked the idea and went all in, commissioning a series of short stories, accompanied by pictures. Everything on the cup was done by the author and took a few days to get the story out there and something visually arresting. Jon said in an interview with Vanity Fair that ” 800,000 Americans of extremely diverse backgrounds now have access to good writing. A lot of those people don't have access to libraries, or bookstores. Something felt very democratic and good about this." Chipotle Cups and Takeout Bags Adorned with Quality Litterature is a post from: Good e-Reader |
