| Fitbit hasn’t even made their official announcement launching their upcoming wearable, but Brookstone went ahead and started offering pre-orders for the much-anticipated Surge watch… though the page is now unavailable. Often regarded as the king of the fitness-related wearables market, Fitbit’s updated entry in this category could be a meaningful contender. During the time Brookstone had their page active, we were able to get a glimpse into what this device is going to look like –inside, and out. While the main question answered indicates this is indeed a fitness device and not a true smartwatch, a touchscreen display (that tilts up slightly toward you, making it very easy to see) and additional functionality helps it to actually fall somewhere in the middle. A lot of technology is now built-in, like the 8-sensors (for steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, floors climbed, and active minutes) along with with a GPS to make those details more accurate without the need for a smartphone nearby. Athletes will love the automatic, continuous heart rate monitor and the ability to record workouts as they happen. Geeks will appreciate that a few smartwatch features are included, allowing for call and text notifications while also being able to control your music. Most importantly (and even better than being water resistant and lasting a full 7-days on a single charge), the device syncs wirelessly and is compatible with iOS, Android, Windows and Mac OS (plus with Aria Wi-Fi scale). With an anticipated price-tag of $249 USD, it’s on the expensive side of fitness trackers. It may be seen as worthwhile for those interested in a little more functionality than existing pedometer type trackers can offer, without making the more sizeable jump into a full Android wearable or the upcoming Apple Watch. Brookstone Mistakenly Begins Pre-Order For Fitbit Surge Wearable is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Monday, October 27, 2014
Brookstone Mistakenly Begins Pre-Order For Fitbit Surge Wearable
Amazon Kindle Scout Battles Horrendous Indie Authors
| Amazon has just taken the beta sticker off their new author and reading community, Kindle Scout. The essence of this program is to give authors a chance to pitch their upcoming books to the public and readers cast their vote on what ones get published. Amazon is throwing their marketing and financial efforts behind authors to publish their next book exclusively through them. They are giving an advance of $1,500 and a 50% eBook royalty rate to authors who successfully woo the crowd to get behind their next title. The book will then get hyped with Amazon, and likely the books in the early stages of the Scout lifetime will get a ton of media attention. "We're always looking for new ways to add meaningful connections between readers and authors," said Dina Hilal, General Manager of Kindle Scout. "We've been delighted by the submissions so far and are excited to give readers a say in which books they want to read. We also hope they'll have a lot of fun getting to know authors and their work." I think Scout is a really great idea and will assist in a huge problem in the publishing world, the dirge of indie author titles. Every week, thousands of horrendous books are released that pollute the digital ecosystem and hinder the eBook discovery process. In all honesty, indie authors are destroying literature as we know it. Scout attempts to vet out the wheat from the chafe, and hopefully we will only hear about the best of the best and not indie generic title number 19281210912. Amazon Kindle Scout Battles Horrendous Indie Authors is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New York Times Bets the Future of News is not Paywalls
| The New York Times is betting the future of newspapers is not paywalls or digital subscriptions, but charging on a per article basis. The Times recently invested in Netherlands based startup Blendle to usher in a new area. Blendle recently attained three million dollars from the NY Times and and German media giant Axel Springer. The company launched in 2013 and has been billing themselves as the iTunes of news. This has been a hot topic for quite a few years already, and this pay-for-what-you-read model is a huge step forward. The Blendle service has attracted over 130,000 registered users in just over a year. The essence of the service is to partner up with hundreds of Netherlands based news agencies and pay them a percentage of every article that is read. Each news item price is established by the publisher, so the pricing is not consistent, but everything is really cheap. The money that Blendle has raised will be used to establish a presence in other countries. They want to include more agencies and sources to be able to have a true European reach. New York Times Bets the Future of News is not Paywalls is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Sunday, October 26, 2014
e-Reading on Mobile Phones is on the Rise
| According to a new report from the United Kingdom, 50% of readers tend to use their mobile phones books. This research is quite telling because e-reader and tablet sales are quite robust and have a high rate of availability in the retail sector. Overall, 50% of UK mobile reading consumers used the Amazon Kindle app to read on their mobiles, followed by Apple iBooks with 31%. Reading platforms Kobo and Nook are in third and fourth places with 9% and 6% respectively. Among younger readers, iBooks is closing ground on Kindle. The study found that 41% of 18 – 24 year olds who use their mobile to read are using Kindle, versus 39% who are now using iBooks. So how many people are actually reading eBooks on their mobile phones, outside of this report? Deloitte UK's estimate that there are currently 35 million smartphone users in the UK. If we assume that 44% of these smartphone owners read just one eBook on their phone, that's equivalent to 15,400,000. Then, if Nielsen is correct when it says that 323 million books (print and digital) were sold in the UK in 2013, that means 4.7% of the total UK book market's total output was read on a smartphone. Despite the mobile phone's overall growth in appeal and popularity as a reading device, the survey discovered that readers, particularly those in the UK, tend to read on their handsets fairly infrequently and in much shorter bursts, compared to the amount of time they would spend reading printed books or eBooks on tablets and e-readers. e-Reading on Mobile Phones is on the Rise is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Apple Patents the Future of Newspapers
| Newspapers have two forms when it comes to digital reading, apps and replica editions. Apple is betting on the future of flexible displays with strong media enhancements for sharing the stories that matter the most. The device – first spotted by Patently Apple – could be used to try and replicate the experience of reading a printed newspaper or magazine but on a large flexible digital display that could be updated periodically and wirelessly. Apple indicates in the patent filing that its digital periodical is double-sided, so users can read both sides of a magazine. It’s also flexible, so it can be held like a newspaper. The filing shows that the screen can be rolled up for portability. Apple is betting that flexible screens are the future of news and but this technology can also be used for advertising in their retail stores. Instead of posters and cardboard cut outs, the digital paper can be employed to connect up to Apple servers and dynamically change the content on the fly. Apple Patents the Future of Newspapers is a post from: Good e-Reader |
eBooks vs Print – The Reasons Why Digital is Better
| Over the course of the last decade, eBooks have become second nature to savvy readers. Not only can you purchase them in your pajamas, but they are more economical viable than new releases that come out only in hardcover. One of the big questions that readers always ask, is what are the direct benefits of reading digitally? Is there a big difference between reading in print and an eBook? Today, we look the big reasons why buying an eBook makes a ton of sense. Table of Contents – One of the big benefits with an eBook is a clickable TOC. It makes it really easy when reading an academic or textbook to be able to quickly go to the exact page that you want, with minimal fuss. Cloud Syncing – If you have a smartphone, tablet or e-reader in the household and often read the same book on many different devices, cloud syncing makes things really easy. Amazon and other vendors have the ability to monitor the last page read. This insures that you will pick up exactly where you left off on a book you were reading when you were going to sleep on your e-reader and then pick up where you left off on the subway with your smartphone. Highlights and Annotations - Writing your own notes or making highlights is ridiculously simple with an e-reader or e-reading app. Anything you do with an eBook is also synced to the cloud, insuring any change will follow you, no matter what device you are on. This is especially beneficial with digital textbooks that you rent for a few weeks or a semester. The title may not be in your library anymore, after the loan period is up, but any note you make are yours to keep and is stored perpetually in the cloud. Some companies have really taken the note taking features on hardware to new and exciting levels. The Sony Digital Paper is a 13.3 inch reader, that is billed as a replacement for read paper. Instead of exclusively typing on touchscreen keyboard, like most smartphone, you use the pen to quickly draw your notes out save them as an independent file. The Galaxy Note line of phones is also super solid for note taking because of the accompanied Stylus. Dictionaries and Translations – When reading fiction or non-fiction title, inevitability you will be unsure on the exact meaning of a word. It might be something you never heard before, or may use idioms from another country. Many of the top e-readers by Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo all have dictionaries pre-loaded on their devices, with the options to download additional ones, for free. If you buy an English Kindle, but want to load in a German dictionary, no problem. I also really like some of the translation software on the new Kindle Voyage, you can click on a word or body of text and translate it from the language its in, to over 15 ones. Oh, you can also get diverted to Wikipedia and Google to look up a specific word too! Fonts - If you have a vision deficiency and love to read, going to your bookstores large print section used to be your only option. These large font titles are really expensive too, often costing two or three times that of a paperback and they are normally just available in hardcover. The benefits of eBooks is being able to adjust the font on a title to your own personal preference. If you don’t like the default font eBook comes with, you can switch that too. Most e-readers and e-reading apps often have six fonts you can switch to, but Kobo goes one step further by allowing users to load in any font they want, allowing for more flexibily and control. You can Loan an eBook out, and always get it back – I have six big book shelves full of books, but used to have more. I have loaned a ton of books over the years to friends who really dug what I was reading or wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I am also not ashamed to say, there were times I gave an awesome book to a girl I was sweet on, only to never get them back. Amazon and Barnes and Noble developed eBook lending programs that allow you to loan an eBook to a friend, one time, for up to two weeks. The only problem, is that your friend, also needs the same e-reader as you do. Many European companies sell digital books with watermarks, which makes it infinity easier to give out a copy of your book, while still preserving ownership of the original. Many people in their social circle of friends are the only one with an e-reader, such as a Kindle or Nook. This makes loaning out titles impossible and borrowing books super hard. A number of eBook loaning services have been developed over the years that connect readers with each other, who don’t know one another in real life. Lendle and eBook Fling are the two most popular. Buy eBooks in your Pajamas – The one aspect of eBooks that I really like is being able to buy a title at any time. There has been many cases where I complete an amazing book and want to see what else the author has written. In many cases at the end of the book, you can click on a series of links to bring you to whatever online bookstore the author recommends to find additional titles. If the book you just read was apart of a series, you can immediately buy the next one. eBook pre-orders are proving to be fairly popular on iBooks, Kindle, Nook, Kobo or Google. You can have a book immediately sent to your device at midnight, on the day of the release. Its like when new movies come out, and you can see it hours in advance if you checkout the midnight showing, its the exact same thing with digital books. Fan fiction – If you grew up loving My Little Pony, GI.Joe, Harry Potter or boy bands, there is fan-fiction for that. Millions of stories are available to read for free, on WattPad, Kindle Worlds or fanfiction.net. Some fanfic authors have transcended their humble beginnings, such as Anna Todd and landed publishing and movie deals. incidentally, her book about a One Direction signer has had billions of reads. Fan Fiction normally flies under the radar in the standard eBook conversation, but some of the websites like WattPad do gangbuster business. Readers spend two billion hours a day reading free books on their site and social media elements allow authors to converse directly with their fans to help them become better writers. Fans will frequently offer advice on serialized novels, on what they want to see, or to help in the direction of the plot. Its interactive, which is why so many people love it. Beyond the Book/X-Ray – If you are like me, sometimes I find myself juggling many books at once. I may begin a book and something I have been waiting for finally comes out, and I instantly switch and devour it. When I come back to the original book I started, sometimes I feel lost. Sometimes names of minor characters can blur together, and I think “how was he again, whats going on?” To solve this situation Amazon developed X-Ray, which gives you a comprehensive list of all the major and minor characters in any given book. It also tells you about the locations, objects and how many times they are referrences throughout the book. No longer will readers be confused on a book they are reading, because they can easily access a small biography. eBooks have less of a carbon footprint – There are higher environmental costs involved in manufacturing an e-reader unit, compared to a unit of paper, and there are also on-going operational effects. However, one e-reader can hold any number of eBooks, newspapers and magazines — which means that e-reader users purchase fewer printed publications. Producing a Kindle creates the same CO2 as 30 books. So you need to read that number or more to offset the carbon emissions it takes to make it. eBooks Allow you to be Anonymous – Our taste in books no longer have to be a guilty pleasure. The entire 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon showed us that many women were reading the eBook on their smartphone, tablet or e-reader on public transit and they weren’t advertising what they were reading like they would a print book. The social stigma of reading trashy romance, fantasy or erotica have been firmly removed with the advent of portable e-readers. Not advertising what you are reading may remove some of the public transportation flirting, but it allows you to immerse yourself in a book you love, without attracting too much attention. eBooks are Cheaper – Many readers cite the price of eBooks as one of the primarily aspects of why they choose to read digitally. A new report by Books and e-Books UK 2014 is trying to quantify the parallel between cheaper books and reading more. Their data suggests 26% of consumers who have bought an eBook in the last year are reading more than they used to, because eBooks cost less than paperbacks, a figure that rises to 38% of 16 to 24-year-olds. You don’t need reports to say that eBooks cost less than print. When a new book comes out, it is normally exclusively in a hardcover. The average cost is around $29.99, sometimes more, depending on the title and publisher. When it comes to eBooks, new titles are anywhere from $9.99 to $12.99, in rare cases they go all the way to $18.00. When people ask me what I do for a living, inevitably they ask me about the benefits of an e-reader or eBooks in general. I always cite, if you love to read, you can read more books, while spending less. eBooks vs Print – The Reasons Why Digital is Better is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Saturday, October 25, 2014
AT&T Locking Down Apple Interchangeable SIM
| Apple intended for their new interchangeable SIM to work between carriers in the US and UK (including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and EE), but it seems AT&T had other plans. While the idea was that you could switch carriers using your device settings instead of swapping SIM cards, if you choose to get your data service with AT&T this won’t be the case. According to an on-screen notification:
AT&T is quick to confirm that this news is true, but hasn’t yet announced why they have chosen to go against the nature of the new SIM card. This kind of move certainly isn’t going to win any popularity contests for AT&T, and may make them look like bullies in the long run –especially if they are the only carrier to lock users in to their service in this way. I doubt it is impressing Apple much either, and it is likely safe to assume that they will make it well known this wasn’t their decision or within their control. Are you less likely to choose AT&T after hearing this news? AT&T Locking Down Apple Interchangeable SIM is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kindle Voyage vs Kobo Aura H2O Comparison Review (+Video)
| The Kindle Voyage and Kobo Aura H2O have set themselves up as the best two new ebook readers released this year, and a lot people have been asking how they compare, which is better and what to get. Both ereaders share a number of similarities as far as software features are concerned, and each offers […] |
New Cybook Muse and Cybook Ocean Get Released in November
| Bookeen, a French ebook reader company that has been making ereaders since 2003, announced a new lineup of devices for 2014 last week, with pre-orders starting in early November and shipments proceeding in mid-to-late November. The new devices include a 6-inch Cybook Muse, available with and without a frontlight, and the better-late-than-never Cybook Ocean, an […] |
PocketBook InkPad 840 Finally Released, an 8-inch E Ink eReader
| Earlier this year PocketBook announced a new lineup of ereaders, with the 8-inch PocketBook InkPad 840 among them. It was supposed to be released back in July, but there were some unexpected delays, and it’s just now getting released. PocketBook has making ebook readers for many years now, but they are pretty much never available […] |
Apple is Dominating The eBook Market iOS
| Apple is currently dominating eBook sales on iOS and has now bundled their iBookstore on all devices that run iOS 8. The Capturino company has relegated Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo to being ineffective players on the global stage, and its by design. July 2011 was a dark day for readers, as Amazon, Nook and Kobo eBook sales were suspended on iOS. The companies all updated their apps to remove the ability to purchase books, comics, newspapers and magazines. The booksellers all did this because Apple had implemented a policy for all in-app purchases to be done through them and not 3rd parties. This would not be so bad, but Apple also was taking a 30% commission out of every purchase. All of the major eBook players realized that they were losing critical user data and giving Apple a cut of millions of dollars worth of sales did not make financial sense. Online booksellers have to pay a percentage to the publisher whenever a book is sold and most companies like Amazon rely on razor thin margins. It was impossible to give Apple a 30% cut of every sale, they would likely lose money. Today, customers cannot install the Kindle or Nook app and buy books. They apps themselves have all turned into glorified e-reading apps. This Apple policy has also damaged comic book sellers, such as Comixology. They removed in-app purchases back in April 2014, a few weeks after it was acquired by Amazon. Comic lovers lambasted the company saying they removed the discovery and impulse purchase aspect of the app, thereby ruinning the experience. Honestly, who wants to visit a website to browse, buy and sync over new content to the app. Wouldn’t it be way easier just to deal with a company that had in-app purchases? This is how Apple is winning the eBook war on iOS. Apple has sold more than 550 million iPhones and more than 237 million iPads, and its impact on the eBook market is set to grow significantly. The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, both have larger screens than their predecessors. This makes e-reading more enjoyable, and comics and graphic novels shine a bit more. Apple is now ramping up their efforts to reach casual readers with new discovery features in iBooks. The app now includes a solid selection of free eBooks and additional categories to help consumers find the books they want. The titles offered in the "Great Free Books" section represent a variety of genres and reading tastes. Among them are Private by James Patterson, Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard, How the GarcÃa Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez and Justice League, Vol. 1: Origin by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. One of the big new initiatives on the iBooks app is curation and editorial content. There is now more seasonal and topical lists that abide by cool themes. Oh, and one of the biggest cleanups was removing Breakout Books, which was sourced by Smashwords. Indie authors have been booted off from the platform, in order to help readers find more quality content. In the future, you will soon be able to get book recommendations before and after purchases with technology leveraged by Booklamp, a company Apple bought a few months ago. Apple is borrowing a page out of Barnes and Nobles playbook by advertising their online bookstore in the retail environment. There is a new promotion campaigns to advertise the social aspect of the store and to make it clear how easy it is to buy and read. Recently, Apple orchestrated a Meet the Author events at the SoHo store in Manhattan. It featured bestselling YA novelist John Green, comics artist Jim Lee, Batman writer Scott Snyder, and actress and author Gillian Anderson. There simply isn’t any major competition left on iOS that Apple has to compete with anymore. All newspaper, magazine, newspaper and audiobook sales are all sourced from the Newsstand or iTunes directly, so Apple gets a cut out of everything. Apple is Dominating The eBook Market iOS is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Friday, October 24, 2014
J.K. Rowling Pens Original Short Fiction
| In a special Halloween treat for Harry Potter fans, J.K. Rowling's website pottermore.com will post new original writing on October 31 about the witch and former Hogwarts professor Dolores Umbridge. The character was first introduced to readers in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic. Umbridge is not only one of the most malicious "Potter" characters, she is the only person other than Lord Voldemort to leave a permanent physical scar on Harry. The new exclusive J.K. Rowling content provides a rich, 1,700-word back story about Umbridge's life filled with many new details, as well as Rowling's revealing first-person thoughts and reflections about the character. J.K. Rowling Pens Original Short Fiction is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Use a survey to (en)gage your students
|
No matter what questions you ask, a survey will unquestionably increase awareness of your digital library. A good way to measure the impact is to run the User Statistics reports in Marketplace. By comparing the results before and after the survey, you can see if there was in increase in how many students logged in for the first time, if your digital library saw an increase in visits and page views, and if more individual students are actually borrowing titles. Feel free to post any other good questions you have in the comments below, and create your survey today!  |
Scooter with blinkenlights
| Alex Markley, a programmer, writer and comedian, has a young relative who, thanks to a Model A Raspberry Pi, some Adafruit Neopixels, some sensors and a scooter is currently the world’s happiest nine-year-old. I asked Alex if he’s written the project up – he says he’s working on it. We’ll add a link to any build instructions he produces as soon as they’re available. |
Thursday, October 23, 2014
EA Releases SimCity BuildIt For Android
| I have been playing video games for a really long time (longer than I like to admit, truth be told), but few stick out in my mind like Sim City. While it may seem like a rather silly concept, creating cities out of their base elements… decades later, when I drive by a new park, my inner voice says: “parks make people who live near them happier.” This lasting addiction (and my desire to share it with others) is why I am so delighted that EA has released SimCity BuildIt for Android! If you’ve played the game before in any of the many versions, the gameplay will be familiar: supply your city with the necessities (like water, electricity, housing, commercial property, and industrial areas) and then spend your time growing it and solving problems (such as traffic congestion, fires, or pollution). EA has added a social element, allowing you to trade resources with other cities and interact with friends. This isn’t the first time EA has tried to bring SimCity to mobile devices, but earlier versions tried to be entirely too close to the PC version. This time, they had simplicity in mind: understanding the need for adjustments to better fit smaller screens and mobile gaming habits. If you have more than a little free time to lose, download SimCity BuildIt for Android. The game is free, but be warned… there are plenty of in-app purchases to embrace or avoid.
EA Releases SimCity BuildIt For Android is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Blizzard Delays Hearthstone Mobile App Until 2015
| Smartphone gamers are going to have to wait a little longer for the popular Hearthstone card game developed by Blizzard. While the PC and iPad editions have been out for a while now, the acclaimed game creators need more time to best accommodate smaller screens (but don’t worry, this delay doesn’t include Android tablets –that version is still on track to be released by the end of 2014). According to Blizzard, as noted on their official Hearthstone blog:
Hearthstone is a game that is well described as deceptively simple, but insanely fun. Using your customized deck of cards, you can “sling spells, summon minions, and seize control of an ever-shifting battlefield.” As much as it sucks to wait, releasing a poorly executed version of the game would likely do more harm than delaying it and doing things correctly; especially true when you consider there are already 20 million players, many of which will turn to the smartphone version as well.
Blizzard Delays Hearthstone Mobile App Until 2015 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Audio Experts at Jawbone Launch DROP, Tweet-Based Music App
| DROP by Jawbone is a new kind of music app that lets you create and manage playlists using tweets. By inviting you to “drop a beat with a tweet,” users of the app can turn choosing the next song on your playlist into a social activity. Inspired by the experiences of Jawbone’s audio designer and DJ-in-residence, Austin Soldner, DROP was created: always taking requests, the idea was to make it easy for groups of friends to create their own selection of songs. Once you connect DROP to your Twitter account, friends can easily add songs to the mix with a tweet like "@yourtwitteraccount drop hungry like the wolf". Anybody suggesting songs will need access to Twitter, but only the listener needs to have DROP installed. This might work great at a party, and it’s a really cool idea, but it sounds kind of dangerous to use on a regular basis if you have friends that like to torture you (endless stream of Justin Bieber songs, anyone?). DROP is made possible by Twitter’s mobile platform, Fabric… but unfortunately only for iOS devices so far, Android users will have to wait. If you’d like to give things a listen, download DROP by Jawbone for your iOS devices. The app is free, but you will need a paid subscription to Spotify Premium or Rdio Unlimited to actually take advantage of it.
Audio Experts at Jawbone Launch DROP, Tweet-Based Music App is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Vatican Library Digitizes 4, 400 Ancient Manuscripts and Gives Them Away for Free
| The Vatican Apostolic Libraryis now digitizing its valuable ancient religious manuscripts and putting them online via its website. All of the content is available for free. The Library was originally founded in 1451 AD and holds over 80,000 manuscripts, prints, drawings, plates and books printed prior to 1500 AD. The titles are all written throughout history by people who had different faiths or religions, from all over the world. Not only are paintings, religious iconography and books being published online, but also letters by from important historical figures, drawings and notes by artists and scientists such as Michelangelo and Galileo, as well as treaties from all eras in history. Finding all of the new digitized material is not easy, the library has a few samples online, but honestly its tedious right now to view the rest. Users have to search the database manually by clicking on each title and scanning through all the pages in each book. By the end of the year, a new rendering engine is going to be implemented with a more robust site-wide searching system. In order to properly digitize the rest of the library, the Vatican is estimating that it will cost €50 million and take fifteen years. They are looking for corporate sponsors and normal people who want to see this work. One of the ways they are attracting corporate sponsors is to hold exclusive fundraising events. In June 2014 they had one and gave attending guests an exclusive guided tour of areas generally closed to the public, including the Library halls, laboratories and the caveau where the manuscripts are safeguarded, with dinner in the Sistine Hall. They also seeking donationsof €5 to save a single page in a manuscript, while donations of at least €1,000 will see the backer included on the official supporters list. Vatican Library Digitizes 4,400 Ancient Manuscripts and Gives Them Away for Free is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kobo Releases Massive Update to Current Generation of e-Readers
| Kobo has unveiled a brand new firmware update for their compete modern of line of e-readers. This includes the Kobo Glo, Kobo Aura, Kobo Aura HD, and the brand new Kobo Aura H2O. It includes a bevy of enhancements, such as the ability to turn off the X-Ray inspired Beyond the Book. New Touch Zone: The new software adds a fourth option in the Reading Settings menu to customize the tap zones for turning pages and accessing the menu options. The new setting is optimized for one-handed reading. Keyboard: The keyboard now offers the option to use accented versions of letters by long pressing on them. Beyond the Book: This feature has been changed slightly to add the option to view related titles from the initial popup window. Reading Progress: The reading progress feature can now be set to display info for the current chapter or the entire book, and can be set to show page numbers, percentage read, or time remaining in footer. Dictionary Fix: A bug that caused users to have to re-select what dictionary to use each time has been fixed to remain on the selected dictionary. Other Changes: There's a new "You’ve finished" page added to the end of Kobo ebooks that shows reading stats, related titles, and includes a Facebook sharing option. The update should be pushed out automatically to most Kobo e-Readers when you are connected up to WIFI and press the sync button. Like most firmware upgrades, not all countries receive it at the same time, as it would kill the servers to have millions of people updating it at once. If you want to get the jump on installing this, you can download it from HERE, then Extract the downloaded file and place its contents in the .kobo folder by accessing it via Windows Explorer. Safely eject the Kobo from your computer and unplug the USB cable; the update will automatically install. Kobo Releases Massive Update to Current Generation of e-Readers is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amazon Experiences a $170 Million Loss on Fire Phone
| Amazon announced their quarterly results today and the company as a whole has lost $544 million. One of the big proponents to the massive decline in profitability was the Fire Phone. During their earnings conference call for investors, Amazon representatives suggested that they’d be taking a $170 million loss on the phone. This writedown would be “primarily related to Fire phone inventory” as well as “supplier commitment costs.” According to Chitika and comScore, the Fire Phone was in use by less than 35,000 US citizens several months after the official launch. One of the big reasons was the exclusive telecom partner, AT&T. It is currently impossible to get a data and voice plan with any other service provider, which limits the audience. In order to boost Fire Phone sales, AT&T has just launched a promotion where if you buy the phone, they will give you a Kindle Fire HDX 7 tablet. This is the model that came out last year and has since been supplanted by the Kindle Fire HD7. Can you imagine if Samsung, Google, LG or Blackberry released new phones and only sold them in the US and UK? These are two of the most saturated markets in the world and even these large companies would be on the boarder of profitability. This is what Amazon has done with the Fire Phone, instead of reaching out to a global audience they only sell it in those two countries. I think Amazon should abandon their ambitions in being an integral part of your pocket. They simply cannot give users a compelling enough reason to forgo Google Play and rely on an abysmal secondary app market.
Amazon Experiences a $170 Million Loss on Fire Phone is a post from: Good e-Reader |
