| Oyster has announced that they are shuttering their e-book subscription service in the next few months and customers will have to look for new options. The company raised over $17 million dollars during the lifespan of their company and this was not enough to keep them solvent. In a statement on the official Oyster Blog the company stated “we will be taking steps to sunset the existing Oyster service over the next several months. If you are an Oyster reader you will receive an email personally regarding your account in the next few weeks. We look forward to sharing more details soon, but rest assured, your account will continue to operate normally in the meantime. If you'd like to request a refund, please contact us at refunds@oysterbooks.com.” Oyster is the second company in the last few months to find that the entire e-book subscription concept is flawed and is an unsound business model. Entitle went out of business in July and like Oyster they were solely reliant on venture capital funding in order to keep the lights on, because the e-book subscription market does not have enough paid readers to make the business model viable on its own. One of the challenges that Oyster faced faced was having to constantly placate publishers concerns. The vast majority of them are very apprehensive about going the same route music or movies went. In a recent interview with the Bookseller, Arnaud Nourry, the CEO of Hachette said"We now have an ecosystem that works. This is why I have resisted the subscription system, which is a flawed idea even though it proliferates in the music business. Offering subscriptions at a monthly fee that is lower than the price of one book is absurd. For the consumer, it makes no sense. People who read two or three books a month represent an infinitesimal minority." Penguin Random House's CEO Tom Weldon echoed Arnaud's sentiments at the Futurebook conference a little awhile ago in the UK. "We have two problems with subscription. We are not convinced it is what readers want. 'Eat everything you can' isn't a reader's mindset. In music or film you might want 10,000 songs or films, but I don't think you want 10,000 books." The Penguin and Hachette bosses sentiments are oddly prophetic, it seems as though the e-book subscription service is flawed and all of the major companies in this space are going out of business. How a company burns $17 million in two years and is totally abandoning their business is totally beyond me. |
Monday, September 21, 2015
Oyster is Shutting Down their e-Book Subscription Service
Kindle for Samsung Free e-Books for September 2015
| Amazon developed a customized version of their seminal Kindle e-reading app for Samsung in early 2014. It is now bundled on most of the companies smartphones and tablets and available in 80 different countries. Every month there are four e-books available in a pool and you can pick one to read completely for free. Today, lets look at the titles that are available for September. The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire by Linda Lafferty Each morning in the hour before dawn, a silent boat launches on the Bosphorous, moving swiftly into the deepest part of the waters halfway between Europe and Asia, where a man will die… The Drowning Guard is the tale of the Ottoman princess, Esma Sultan—one of the most powerful women in Ottoman history and unlike any other woman in the Islamic world. In a gender reversal of Scheherazade in 1001 Arabian Nights, Esma seduces a different Christian lover each night, only to have him drowned in the morning. The Sultaness’s true passion burns only for the Christian-born soldier charged with carrying out the brutal nightly death sentence: her drowning guard, Ivan Postivich. The Drowning Guard explores the riddle of Esma—who is at once a murderer and a champion and liberator of women—and the man who loves her in spite of her horrifying crimes. This textured historical novel, set in the opulence and squalor of Istanbul in 1826, is woven with the complexity and consequences of love. n the underbelly of Soho's organized crime ring, everyone knows that retired boxer Harry Woods is not one to mess with. And that goes double for his family. Harry has it all: the big house, the flashy cars, and an abundance of wealth. As much as money talks in his world, Harry knows deep down the only thing that really counts is family. Haunted by the sudden death of his wife, he'll do anything to protect his children, but truth is a heavy burden and hidden secrets can unravel even the strongest of bonds…. Without loyalty, family are bound together only by blood. Bad blood. Once Bitten by Stephen Leather There’s a full moon over Los Angeles, and for police psychologist Jamie Beaverbook that can only mean one thing: the crazies will be out in force. But when he is called into the station for a consult in the middle of the night, even the jaded Beaverbrook can’t believe his ears. The innocent-looking girl in the interview room doesn’t look a day over fifteen, yet the cops say Terry Ferriman was discovered in an alley off of Sunset Boulevard, her mouth smeared with blood as she crouched over the body of a man whose throat was torn out. A basic psych evaluation convinces Beaverbrook of Terry’s sanity and yet he can’t ignore the evidence that seems to point in one extraordinary direction. He tells himself he doesn?t believe in vampires, but after some digging, the good doctor begins to realize that the shadows of L.A. conceal a world where girls like Terry never age and where blood is more valuable than gold. Never Kiss a Rake (Scandal at the House of Russell #1) by Anne Stuart Bryony Russell and her two sisters are left destitute by the disgrace and unexpected death of their father, a wealthy shipping magnate. He left a cryptic note, and Bryony is determined to find the real villain and clear her father's name. In disguise as a servant, Bryony infiltrates the home of her father's business partner to find proof of his guilt…or innocence. It's not just clues that Bryony finds, but temptation too… Adrian Bruton, Earl of Kilmartyn, immediately suspects there is something not quite right about his new housekeeper. The brooding, irresistible rake plays along because he has his own guilty secrets, and his venal, scheming wife holds the key to them, trapping him in a hate-filled marriage. But against his will he's fascinated by Bryony, seeing past the scars on her face to show her the beauty she never knew she had. Bryony must uncover the truth and attempt to preserve her father's legacy, before things go too far and she falls in love with a man who might very well be her worst enemy. |
Nokia Developed a Secret e-Reader in 2013
| Nokia is well known for their foray into smartphones and to a lesser degree tablets, but did you know they were secretly developing an e-reader? In 2013, the same year the Kindle Paperwhite came out, Nokia had designed an e-reader that they were hoping to market all over Europe. The Nokia e-reader was known internally as Pine and it was running on Linux based system, where Nokia were teaming up with book providers to develop "interactive content". Stephen Elop the former CEO of Nokia decided to kill this device, as his first major decision when he joined the company. This might have been a bad move because the e-reader and e-book industry have blossomed into a multi-billion dollar industry. Likely, he was just totally inept when it came to technology because under his tenure Nokia annual revenues fell 40%. His only saving grace was selling the company to Microsoft. Could the Nokia Pine made a difference in the e-reader sector? I guess we’ll never know. |
10 e-Books to read this Fall
| GoodReads has just crunched the data from over 40 million users and put together a list of the top e-books that are going to be available in the next few months. If you are looking to curl up and read a new title or discover a new read, this is the list for you. Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg  This debut novel from a writer who is better known as a superstar literary agent is generating both a lot of anticipation and also stellar reviews on Goodreads. Goodreads member, Maxwell, says "It's these kinds of books, ones that you can't put down, that bring you to tears, or resonate deeply within you, that stay with you the most. It makes you grateful for the community around you; friends, family, even the people you don't think affect your life, but at the end of the day are all part of your story." Tip: This is a great book club choice, likely to provoke a lot of discussion about regret, redemption, and how life is impacted by small decisions and actions.  From the author of bestseller, The Secret Keeper, comes a new mystery set in Cornwall. A child goes missing in 1933, and in 2003, a London police officer on disciplinary leave, stumbles across the case and starts investigating. On Goodreads, Susan says "The book has so many layers and so many secrets that it's like an onion. The layers keep being peeled away and everything you thought you knew is gone in a poof of smoke. Things keep being revealed and you can barely put the book down because you just have to know what's going to happen next." (Will be published on October 20, 2015) Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff  One of the most talked-about literary novels this Fall, "Fates and Furies" is getting rave reviews from readers on Goodreads. In this story about a marriage of 24 years, you first hear the husband's side and then the wife's. Karen's review on Goodreads says "this is a story of the moving parts that keep a marriage going; the sacrifices and the machinations under the smooth façade. It's about how much work it takes to make it look effortless. It's about secrets." Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta  A coming of age story about a young woman called Ijeoma that reveals the suppression LGBTQ people continue to face daily in Nigeria. In her Goodreads review, Betsey writes "As the story progresses with a compassionate and vital energy, the reader is taken on a courageous journey of a woman who is fighting for love, family, personal justice, and as sense of inner peace. Okparanta, in this touching novel, gives voice to the many Nigerians who have been forced to go into hiding. She speaks up for love, in different forms." (Will be published on September 22, 2015) The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks  If your knowledge of the Bible's King David is limited to the battle of David & Goliath, this book by the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "People of the Book" will open your eyes to his extraordinary life and times. Goodreads reviewer, Tony, writes: "Brooks' capacity to tell a gripping story, of a person who is immensely talented and deeply flawed is wonderful. David has an insatiable hunger for victory, love and sex. He is driven to rule and all that this entails—there is as much blood and slaughter as in several seasons of Game of Thrones here and almost as much lust." (Available on October 6, 2015) City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg  Everything about this debut novel is big; from the bidding war between ten publishers which led to an advance of nearly $2 million to its 944 page length and its pantheon of vivid characters who live in the New York City of the 1970s. Goodreads member, Susan, says "To try to capture the essence of this is impossible, but I would suggest that if you have read, and enjoyed, books such as "The Goldfinch," you might also like this. It has a huge depth and takes in disgruntled youth, those living on the margins, the ultra wealthy, the art scene, drugs, infidelity, insider trading, and much more." And for Goodreads member, Loring: "This book will haunt any reader for months, perhaps years, because it never is quite clear what we have and have not lost in the fire." (Available on October 13, 2015) Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt  In this dark and peculiar fairy tale, high jinks ensure when Lucien Minor takes a job at the isolated Castle Von Aux as an assistant to the majordomo. There's a crazy missing baron to find, the heart of the winsome Karla to win, and many secrets to uncover. Goodreads member, Sarah, calls it "wonderfully smart … a yarn for adults, a fable without morals/talking animals, and it made me remember what it felt like to be a wide-eyed kid being told a new favorite story of the very first time.” Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein  This is the revealing and raw memoir of Carrie Brownstein, the star and co-creator of the award-winning series, Portlandia, and musician in the feminist punk band, Sleater-Kinney. Goodreads member, Lisa, calls it "Terrific: sharp, smart, introspective, complex, funny, and sad. What you (I) want in a music memoir – a little creative process, a little zeitgeist of the times, a lot of self-awareness without too much self-indulgence." (Available on October 27, 2015)  Secret identities. A request to dig up a body. The debate over the heir to a dukedom. Sounds like something out of a novel, but this is the true story of one of the most famous court cases in the Edwardian era in England. Jane sums up many Goodreads reviews with "The question at the center of the case—whether T C Druce and the 5th Duke of Portland were two men or one—was beautifully balanced, and as the case twisted and turned, as new claimants and new evidence emerged, I could never quite make up my mind. I knew I could go away and look up the case, and I so wanted to know what would happen, but I resisted because I knew this was too good a book to spoil." (Available on October 5, 2015) |
How did Writers Create their own Ink?
| Writers and self-publishers in the middle ages had their work cut out for them. You could not just run to the local merchant and buy ink, you often had to make it yourself. It was equally hard to find a good quill and get your hands on parchment, papyrus, and vellum. There are several ways to make ink in the middle ages and many have recorded their instructions on how to do it. The following recipe comes from Theophilus Presbyter, who in the early twelfth-century created a work known as De diversis artibus (On various arts). To make ink, cut for yourself some wood of the hawthorn – in April or May before they produce blossom or leaves – collect them together in small bundles and allow them to lie in the shade for two, three or four weeks until they are fairly well dried out. Then have some wooden mallets, and with them pound these thorns on a hard piece of wood until you completely peel off the bark, which you immediately put in a barrel full of water. When you have filled two, three, four or five barrels with bark and water, allow them to stand like this for eight days until the water has drawn off all the sap of the bark. Then put this water into a very clean pot or into a cauldron, place it on the fire and heat it. From time to time, put some of this bark into the pot so that, if there is any sap left in it, it can be boiled out, and, when you have heated it for a little, take it out and put in some more. This done, boil down what remains of the water, to a third of the original quantity, pour it from this pot into a smaller one and continue to heat it until it becomes black and begins to thicken, taking particular care that you do not add any water except that which was mixed with the sap. When you see it become thick, add a third part of pure wine, put it in two or three new pots and continue to heat it until you see that it develops a kind of skin at the top. Then left these pots off the fire and put them in the sun until the black ink resolves itself from the red dregs. Afterwards, take some small, carefully sewn, parchment bags like bladders, pour the pure ink into them and hang them up in the sun until it is completely dried. When it is dried, take from it as much as you want, mix it with wine over a fire, add a little iron vitriol and write. If, as a result of carelessness, the ink is not black enough, take a piece of iron, an inch thick, put it on the fire until it is red hot and then throw it into the ink. There is something deeply romantic about forgoing a computer and all technology to write something. I think it would be a neat project to make your own ink, paper and go on a journey to find a writing quill and pen some short fiction. |
Librarian’s Share: Merchandise Your OverDrive Collection Like a Pro
| Last month I did something that I normally avoid like the plague – public speaking! Somehow I found myself at the podium at the 2015 Digipalooza Conference addressing a HUGE group of people (something I am more than a little phobic about). I was asked to speak about the experience our library has had merchandising our OverDrive collection with the curation tool in Marketplace. You know that I have to feel pretty strongly about something if I have agreed to do this dreaded task. First off, I want to tell you that curating collections is the favorite part of my job. I select adult eBooks for Toronto Public Library and oversee our OverDrive collection. I love putting together lists of great books and I create or add to existing curated collections almost daily. (Quite frankly, I am a little obsessed…in a good way.) The constant flow of new titles keeps the collections fresh and has helped to grow a following of avid eBook readers who go there first for reading recommendations. If you feature good content that you know you customers want, they will keep coming back for more. The feedback about our collections has been overwhelmingly positive. Our most popular curated collection is the "Hot Releases of 2015" list where we gather all the best sellers and books that have received media attention this year so far.  Let's face it, browsing through tens of thousands of eBook offerings is a daunting task foranyone. Offering a selection of hand-picked titles significantly enhances the user experience and allows us to engage with our public by providing a remote readers' advisory service. Curated lists can help your customers find the content they are looking for in one easy place. If you don't have a lot time to create and maintain curated collections, inviting your branch staff to help put together book lists might work for you. We maintain a "TPL Staff Picks" collection that does just that. Not only does it allow staff to let their expertise shine but it also fosters a positive attitude towards digital collections in general. Library branch staff are readers' advisory pros! The curated collections have also had a positive impact on our circulation and the overall turnover rate of our collection (Our library is on target to hit three million downloads for this year alone!). I regularly feature older best sellers or well-reviewed titles that have many available copies to get them circulating again. Do you have a ton of available copies of "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett on your virtual shelves right now? Are you awash in older John Grisham eBooks that cost your library an arm and a leg? Feature them in your curated collections and watch them get snapped up. Featuring titles works like a charm. If you need proof check out these two slides from my Digipalooza talk:
 
In addition to improving our circulation, featuring content has helped our library get a better return on our investment for our eBook collection. The harsh reality is that our budget is finite and many of the high demand titles are punishingly expensive. It's a struggle to provide adequate copies of the latest best sellers while the demand for eBooks continues to grow. Waiting lists for the hottest titles is a fact of life. Our curated collections help guide our customers to their next great read while they wait for the latest best seller. Read-alike lists are fantastic for this. I make it my mission to feature as many pricey older titles as I can in order to ensure that we are getting a good bang for our buck! Here are some examples of some lists that have been popular on our site:
The possibilities to promote titles in your collection are endless. Curating is fun, easy and highly addictive – you should give it a try if you haven't already.
Maria Cipriano is a Collections Librarian and manages the Electronic and Online resources for Toronto Public Library  |
Guitar boy
| Is it a guitar that’s also a Game Boy, or a Game Boy that’s also a guitar? We just don’t know. This is a thing of beauty. Best of all, for me, is the way the A and B buttons don’t just control the Game Boy; they’re also volume and tone dials. The build uses the guts of a real guitar. Fibbef, the maker, who created the Guitar Boy for the BitFix Gaming 2015 Game Boy Classic build-off, built his own guitar body with a screen and rammed a Raspberry Pi running the RetroPie games emulator in there, ending up with a functional guitar that’s also a functional (giant) hand-held gaming device. If you want to see more of the build, Fibbef documented it in this thread at the BitFix forums.
The post Guitar boy appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Saturday, September 19, 2015
People are Not Reading the e-Books they Buy Anymore
| Are people reading the e-books they purchase from companies such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Kobo? There is growing research data that is supporting the notion that people are not reading the digital titles they buy online and for the most part, they are never even opened. At Book Expo America last April, Kobo dived deep into global reading behavior and analyzed the data. They found that 60% of e-books that are purchased from their complete line of apps, e-readers, tablets and via the web are never opened. Interestingly, the more expensive the book was, the more likely the reader would at least start it. There are other companies that are also checking out reading behavior and providing some very interesting data. Jellybooks is a young startup and they have developed e-book tracking software that users opt into getting their reading habits tracked in exchange for free or discounted items. Over 100 publishers are now using their API for their own e-book library, including Harlequin, which uses the code for free romance novels from their new loyalty program. Jellybooks has found that 40 to 45% of e-books never get opened across the board, but certain genres tend to fluctuate. Some books glue readers to the page with completion rates at 70 to 90%—well above the norm—whereas, for other books, it might be 20 to 40%. Readers are generally more likely to finish a plot-driven genre novel than they are a literary one. Most of all the e-book data over the years has stated that people only read certain types of genres. Romance, erotica, science-fiction, fantasy and paranormal have done tremendously well because the vast majority of them are self-published and not available in print. I am of the belief that people are not buying literary fiction or poetry on their e-reader. Instead, they are buying guilty pleasures such as hardcore erotica and gay fiction because they are too bashful about being seen in public reading the paperback. In other cases people buy e-books similarly in the same type of fashion as people who are in airports who buy a throwaway pulp novel by Tom Clancy or something, fall asleep on the plane and end up throwing it out. Maybe the fact we are buying books and not reading them is indicative to the day and age we live in. The Pew Research Center reported in 2014 that nearly a quarter of American adults had not read a single book in the past year. As in, they hadn’t cracked a paperback, fired up a Kindle, or even hit play on an audiobook while in the car. The number of non-book-readers has nearly tripled since 1978. Pew and other industry experts speculated that its not that people aren’t reading at all anymore, but they are reading online and via their smartphone. Every month hundreds of millions of readers are visiting websites such as Good e-Reader, Engadget, Buzzfeed, Facebook, or Publishers Weekly and getting their reading fix. The time that they used to spend reading a book is now used to checkout a few long-fiction articles on Medium or some One Direction fan-fiction on Wattpad. This is the type of reading behavior that is not easily quantifiable and hard to track. Normally this type of data is only shown to advertisers, but Wattpad has admitted that every month over 2 billion minutes are being read on their website. In the end, I am very surprised that so few people are even opening an e-book they bought from Kobo. There are many reasons why this is happening, but if you are guilty of this, drop a comment below. |
Chipotle Giving 50 Kindle e-Readers Out Every Day
| Chipotle, the chain of Mexican grills has a new writing contest called Super Short Book Report and they are prompting their customers to write an extremely short,103-character review of some short stories written by famous authors on its site. Over 50 people a day will be rewarded 3rd generation Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. The Super Short Book Report challenges customers to not only read the newly published short stories on Chipotle's cups and bags, but to summarize one story of their choosing. Authors such as Laura Hillenbrand, Jonathan Franzen, Anthony Doerr and eight others have contributed written prose. “The Super Short Book Report is Amazon Kindle's first-ever partnership of its kind with a national restaurant company,” Chipotle said in a statement. |
Friday, September 18, 2015
What is Amazon Word Runner?
| Amazon has announced a new speed reading feature called Word Runner. It will debut in the companies new line of Fire Tablets due out at the end of September and will also be showcased in the Kindle e-reading apps for Android and iOS. Kindle Word Runner shows text in the middle of the screen, like most speed reading apps. It does a few notable things though, such as the Dynamic Pacing function which slows down auto reading when you encounter a much larger word or something that is really complex. You might be breezing along in a novel until the word algorithmically appears, and it will pause for a moment to give you a chance to digest it. One of the other major enhancements is called Brake. If you miss something, because maybe the kids are acting up or someone is calling your name and a bunch of text flies by you can just tap and hold the screen to activate the Brake. It instantly pauses Word Runner, and lets you easily scroll back and pick up wherever you'd like. Will people use Word Runner? Well, I like the ability to customize how fast the text displays. So you can read really slow, or fast. Traditionally Fire Tablets need you to tap the screen in order to turn the page, and this is near new functionality for automatic page turns. It might be a gimmick, but I think its interesting at least. The average person may not employ it, but it might be appealing to a very small demographic. |
Princess Cruises and Amazon Team Up for Free e-books
| Princess Cruises has teamed up with Amazon to offer cruise ship passengers three free romance e-books. The short love stories, written by well-known authors Carolyn Brown, Heather Burch and Barbara Longley, were inspired by their own Princess cruise experiences sailing to the beautiful Caribbean. Not only will you be able to read the free e-books using a Kindle e-reader, tablet or app but the authors themselves will be sailing with you. Brown, Burch and Longley, along with New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Linda Lael Miller, will be sailing aboard a five-day Eastern Caribbean cruise aboard Regal Princess, departing Ft. Lauderdale November 3, 2015. Onboard the authors will participate in meet-and-greets, book club discussions and also offer book signings. “We strive to provide engaging experiences for our guests and we know they love to read, especially while on vacation, so teaming up with Kindle Love Stories is a perfect match,” said Adrian Fischer, Princess Cruises vice president, entertainment experience. “As part of our newly relaunched Princess Book Club, avid readers will be able to participate in exciting onboard events and enjoy great stories inspired by a Princess cruise.” Many cruise ships have famous people riding aboard as part of the draw, there has been artists, musicians and washed up actors. This is the first time that a cruise ship line is partnering with Amazon to bring authors aboard and at the same time provide free e-books. |
10 Free Kindle eBooks – September 18th
| Below is a list of ten free Kindle ebooks with a bunch of positive reviews, along with a list of a few ongoing Kindle book deals. If you happened to order one of the new Fire tablets that Amazon announced yesterday, you can get these free ebooks now and they will be on your Fire […] |
First Look at Kindle Word Runner, New Speed Reading Feature (Video)
| Yesterday Amazon announced a new lineup of Fire tablets for 2015. One of the changes with this year’s tablets is an updated user interface and updated software. The new software version is called Fire OS 5 "Bellini"; it’s based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. One of the new features that it adds to Fire tablets is […] |
SeeMore for World Maker Faire 2015
| We’re gearing up to go to World Maker Faire in at the New York Hall of Science on September 26 and 27 – if you’re going to be there, please come and say hi at the Raspberry Pi booth. We’ll have demos, activities, some little bits and bobs to give away, and much more. Eben’s going to giving a presentation too over the weekend, so come along if you’ve any questions you’d like to ask him. World Maker Faire is always a blast. If last year’s anything to go by, we’re hoping to see more than 200,000 of you; and every year, there seem to be more and more Raspberry Pis there driving makers’ projects. This year we’re particularly excited about seeing this exhibit from Sam Blanchard, an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Virginia Tech. SeeMore is part kinetic sculpture, part giant parallel computer, built with 256 Raspberry Pis. Each Pi is mounted on a servo arm, which moves depending on how much individual computation the Pi in question is doing. It’s a brilliant visual representation of how a parallel computer carries out many calculations simultaneously, breaking down a large problem into many small ones which can be worked on at the same time; this is the architecture modern supercomputers use, and SeeMore makes that architecture very easy to understand. There’s a touchscreen interface that visitors can use to set SeeMore tasks. Sam is engineering those tasks to be specific to the venue, so you’ll see SeeMore calculating things which have something to do with World Maker Faire itself. Thanks Sam – we’ll come and say hi when we’re not on stand duty! The post SeeMore for World Maker Faire 2015 appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Amazon Fire Tablets Get New Silk Upgrade
| Amazon is in the process of pushing out a new firmware update to most Kindle Fire tablets and it primarily updates the Silk internet browser. One of the big enhancements is a new color scheme that replaces the darker colors and adds lighter shades of white and grey. There is also better support for multiple tabs open at once. Silk was a major innovation when it was originally released in 2011. Instead of being a run of the mill web browser like Firefox or Chrome, Silk taps into the power and capabilities of the AWS infrastructure to overcome the limitations of typical mobile browsers. Instead of a device-siloed software application, Amazon Silk deploys a split-architecture. All of the browser subsystems are present on your Kindle Fire as well as on the AWS cloud computing platform. Each time you load a web page, Silk makes a dynamic decision about which of these subsystems will run locally and which will execute remotely. In short, Amazon Silk extends the boundaries of the browser, coupling the capabilities and interactivity of your local device with the massive computing power, memory, and network connectivity of the AWS cloud. |
Hardly Anyone Knows their Library Loans out e-Books
| The vast majority of libraries in the United States have an e-book collection. The American Library Association claims that 90% of all branches have one, whereas the Library Journal states this figure is closer to 95%. The larger libraries spend millions of dollars every year, developing their collections, but is this money well spent? Maybe not. Pew Research has said that less than 38% are actually aware their library has a digital collection and only 6% have actually borrowed one. One of the big problems facing libraries is how do you build brand awareness that you have an e-book collection and how to promote it? Some locations have promotional material, such as flyers and posters. In many cases companies like 3M, Baker & Taylor and Overdrive provide free content or promote in their branches. Overdrive has gone the extra step and actually created Free e-Book Day, which is drawing attention to libraries digital collections and rewarding those who do a good job with free credit to purchase more titles. How exactly do libraries promote their digital collections without an expensive marketing campaign? Here is what a few of them are doing, maybe some of them will be relevant to your branch. West Virginia's Marion County Public Library System used Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter to expand their virtual marketing campaign with an "eBook of the Day." Staff created this program to reach out to library customers and provide readers advisory focused on "hidden gems" in the eBook collection. As a result, the titles they showcased increased dramatically in popularity. With this success, the library has also added a "Staff Pick" component to their approach. Check out the Pinterest page here! The Kent District (State) Library recently hosted a virtual treasure hunt, hiding books throughout their community. Patrons were asked to take a picture of the found book and upload it to Twitter or Facebook to be eligible for some cool prizes. Staff members at Sacramento Public Library came up with a clever way to connect its physical and digital collections: they place "Now in eBook Format!" stickers on the covers of corresponding titles in the physical collection. These stickers were printed in bulk and direct customers to the library's website where people can sign up to borrow books online. It promotes the ebook service, without having to spend more money in marketing materials. Another great way to promote a library's ebook collection is to develop shelf cards. These can be inserted into the books themselves or placed underneath them. This gives patrons a picture of the cover art and name of the book, as well as a web-link to the book entry in the library's computer system. This is a little bit more extensive, but libraries have seen a 100% increase in loan-checkouts when they employ this method. The Mid-Continent Public Library developed a number of savvy posters and then digitized them to promote it on their website. These marketing materials were aimed at people who never used an e-reader or borrowed a digital book before. It encouraged people who had an e-reader that they had the ability to borrow books for free. Since they employed this method, checkouts increased by over 54%. In the end, if more libraries actually promoted their collections instead of buying a bunch of expensive e-books and hoping for the best, the public would be aware. |
Wattpad Pimps out their Successful Writers with Wattpad Stars
| Wattpad has just unveiled a new program that will leverage their most successful writers and contract them out to brands. This is the thought process behind Wattpad Stars. Wattpad has established relationships with some of the worlds top media companies, such as Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox and USA Network. Whenever they need an entry level writer to do something, they contact Wattpad and they recommend one of their writers. The company refused to divulge how much money they were getting paid on behalf of media conglomerates and what type of revenue system the authors were getting. They also never made it clear whether the author was doing freelance work, or if Wattpad had their hands all over the deal. Wattpad Stars is being billed as an accelerator for their young writing talent and is leveraging some of its breakout superstars in order to draw attention to the self-publishing platform. A few notable writers whose writing careers have skyrocketed thanks to Wattpad include:
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Amazon Introduces New Fire 5 OS – Bellini
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Updated User Interface Fire OS 5 "Bellini" introduces an updated user interface that provides the best entertainment experience on a tablet, making it easy to access your favorite apps or discover new content. The new home screen includes dedicated content pages for books, games and apps, video, music, audiobooks, and periodicals—each page presents an engaging layout akin to the beautiful pages of a magazine and presents your recent content as well as personalized suggestions for new entertainment. If you subscribe to services like Prime, Kindle Unlimited, or Audible, you can easily discover new content that you can access at no additional cost. On Deck—Ensures You'll Always Have Something Good to Watch Have you ever forgotten to download a movie ahead of a flight? For Prime members, On Deck automatically keeps your Fire tablet current with popular Prime movies and TV shows, as well as Amazon Original Series, so you always have something good to watch. Importantly, On Deck only uses the available storage on your tablet, opportunistically in a special shadow mode. When you download something, On Deck automatically makes room for your selected content—there's no hassle of needing to clear out space yourself. This feature will be available via a free, over-the-air Fire OS update in the coming months. Amazon Underground Many apps and games that are marked as "free" turn out not to be completely free. They use in-app payments to charge you for special items or to unlock features or levels. Fire HD tablet owners have access to a one-of-a-kind app store experience where over $10,000 in apps, games, and even in-app items are actually free. Experience titles from top developers, including Disney, Rovio Entertainment, Gameloft, Zeptolab, and Sega of America without ever having to pay for the app or in-app purchases. Best Tablet for Reading —Now Even Better with Word Runner Fire HD offers a crisp HD display, Amazon-exclusive features like the Bookerly reading font and Immersion Reading for audiobooks, and innovative new reading enhancements being introduced with Fire OS 5 "Bellini." Read Faster—one word at a time—with Word Runner, a new speed reading feature that brings each word to the center of the screen to where your eyes are already focused. Word Runner has Dynamic Pacing so it gradually builds to your preferred reading speed and algorithmically and automatically slows down for difficult words, punctuation, and paragraph breaks. If you miss something, just tap and hold the screen to activate the brake, which instantly pauses Word Runner and lets you easily scroll back and pick up wherever you'd like. Activity Center—More Tools for Parents For parents with kids who have outgrown Amazon FreeTime but are not yet ready to be without parental controls, Activity Center provides an easy way for parents to see how their kids are spending time on their tablet. When Activity Center is enabled, parents can visit a customized, secure page on their smartphone, tablet, or computer to review how much time their kids spend playing games, watching videos, and reading. Parents can also choose to view browser history via Activity Center in order to understand what sites their kids are visiting on the Internet, or can look at which specific apps, books, or videos their kids accessed. Activity Center will be available via a free, over-the-air Fire OS update in the coming months. Share Even More with Family Library Family Library now allows families in an Amazon Household to share Prime benefits, including Prime Video, Kindle Owners' Lending Library, free 2-day shipping on millions of items, and many other benefits. Family Library links your Amazon account to that of your spouse or partner so you can easily share apps, games, audiobooks, books, and Prime Video content within your household without changing accounts. Family Library lets family members share their content while using a single Fire tablet with different profiles, or across multiple devices—including Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, and Amazon Fire TV—as well as on all of the other most popular devices and platforms with the free Kindle, Audible, and Amazon Video apps. World-Class Customer Service—For Free This is not a new feature, but Amazon is really hyping up Mayday, which revolutionized customer service with video chat on Fire HDX. Mayday Screen Sharing now brings Mayday-powered tech support to Fire HD tablets, delivering 24×7, 365 days a year technical assistance—for free. When you call in to customer service by phone, the Amazon expert can share your screen—with your permission—to draw on your screen, talk you through how to do a task, or to do it for you. Best Tablets for Prime The new Fire HD user interface is perfect for helping Prime members discover the best selection of digital content—available at no additional cost. Prime Video provides streaming access to tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes, including Entourage, Orphan Black, and Downton Abbey, and is the only U.S. online subscription service that enables offline viewing. Plus, get access to award-winning Amazon Original programming like Transparent and Tumble Leaf, as well as new shows coming this fall. With Prime Music, you can listen ad-free to over a million songs, and with the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, you can choose one book per month from more than 800,000 books to borrow for free with no due dates, including current and former best sellers. Included with Prime, you will also receive secure unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive for your entire photo collection. |
Every year when Amazon refreshes their tablet lineup they always enhance the Android operating system. Unlike devices from Samsung, or Dell Amazon skins the OS, giving customers a very unique experience. Fire OS 5 is based on Android 5.1 and today I will give you a rundown of all the new features.Amazon Announces 4 New Fire Tablets and they are Terrible
| Over the past few weeks we have given you a preview about what Amazons new Fire tablets are all about and now we finally have an official announcement. Today, Amazon unveiled 4 new tablets that are fairly modern, but still not as good as last years HDX models. $50 Fire Tablet The seven inch Fire tablet has a resolution of 1024×600 and underneath the hood is a quad-core ARM cortex-A7 1.3 GHZ processor with Mali-450 graphics, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage. There is expandable memory via the SD card, so you can jack it up to 128 GB. You will be able to snap pictures with the rear facing 2MP camera or access on-demand video chat via the 0.3MP front camera. Customers can also choose to buy Fire as a six-pack for less than $250. Last year, Amazon released the Fire Kids tablet, and many people saw it as a critical flop. Not to be dissuaded, Amazon has taken the hardware from the $50 Fire Tablet and is offering a Kid’s Tablet variant for $99. This tablet comes with a rubber shell, a two-year warranty, and a one-year subscription to Freetime Unlimited, Amazon’s kid’s subscription service. Fire 8 and 10 inch tablets I simply have no words about these two tablets, other to say they are a tremendous downgrade from last years models. The Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 have a resolution of 1280 x 800 and run on a quad-core MediaTek MT8135 CPU with PowerVR Rogue G6200 graphics, 1GB RAM, 8Gb or 16GB internal storage, a pair of cameras (5MP and 1MP), Bluetooth, and Wifi. They also have Dolby Audio, which actually gives you better sound than most other tablets on the market. To give you an indication on the resolution downgrade, last years Kindle Fire HDX 7 had a resolution of 1920×1200 pixels and the HDX 8.9 had 2560x1600p pixels with 339 ppi. Fire HD 8 is available for pre-order beginning today with 8GB or 16GB of memory starting at $149.99 at www.amazon.com/FireHD8 and comes in four fun color options: black, magenta, blue, and tangerine. Fire HD 8 starts shipping September 30. Fire HD 10 is also available for pre-order beginning today with 16GB or 32GB of memory starting at $229.99 at www.amazon.com/FireHD10. I would honestly skip all of the new tablets Amazon announced today, except for the $50 Fire tablet. The cheap one, will not be your primary device, but will be good for the kids. |
New 8-inch and 10-inch Fire HD Tablets
| Amazon’s new tablet line for 2015 adds tablets with different screen sizes to the Fire tablet family with new 8-inch and 10-inch models. They also add memory card slots, which is a big change from the way Amazon used to do things. The Fire HD 8 starts at $149 and the Fire HD 10 starts […] |