e-Book News

     It is a truth too rarely acknowledged, that a commuter in possession of a sophisticated electronic device, must be in want of a good book.          
                                         Hypertext blogger Steve Johnson, paraphrasing Jane Austen

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2012 is Australia's first National Year of Reading

February 2012

 

*What did Americans give each other for Christmas 2011? A phenomenal number of them gave either Web tablets or e Ink e-readers. According to a "mini-report" from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the number of Americans owning tablets rose from 10% to 19% over the brief period mid-December 2011 to early January 2012, while the figures for other e-readers such as Kindles and Nooks increased by a similar amount. At that rate, more than half of Americans will own such a device by January 2013. So 2012 is definitely the year e-book reading capability will reach majority status in the culture most closely watched and often imitated around the world..

*And so to our February news reports.. But first, please note that we've added quite a few extra stories to the previous three months, November, December and January, prior to archiving last years news. So if you're a keen newshound, we suggest you glance through the items in those months below to see what important snippets you may have missed. Meanwhile...

Have They Got It Right Yet?  E-Books In Education

How effective are e-books in classrooms and for home study? That's a major talking point for schools these days, as the e-reading experience "mainstreams" in the broader population. It's an even hotter topic at the tertiary level, where student sophistication, years of familiarity with advanced technology and a greater relative affordability all seem to make the triumphant progress of educational e-reading inevitable.

Or is it? The reality has been quite different so far. More sophistication and more exacting requirements mean more critical scrutiny, and the history of attempts to integrate e-reading into the practicalities of everyday teaching and learning has been mixed at best, with several early e-reader devices actually given the thumbs down in previous trials.

Too slow, too cumbersome, not interactive enough, lacking key features, too small, too large, no colour -these are some of the many criticisms that have been made, and often deservedly so, about past e-reading devices in the educational context. Without the right device to use it on, an educational e-book may be inferior in practice to the printed version, even if cheaper to purchase (but then there's no resale after, either). So, have modern e-textbooks overcome the many previous criticisms?

Well, some are now available in enhanced editions with capabilities far exceeding the printed page. Embedded video and audio files, web links, the ability to zoom in on the details of illustrations, or run actual simulations, are some examples. They're also displayable on more effective and interactive mediums now, such as Web tablets and smaller, lighter, faster laptops. Time perhaps for a new study and re-evaluation?

So thinks the CIC, anyway. That's the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a working group of thirteen US universities made up of the Universities of Chicago, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan & Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska-Lincoln, Ohio State, Pennsylvania State, and Wisconsin-Madison, plus Northwestern and Purdue universities. The CIC is working with a private company, Courseload Inc., to prepare a significant pilot study. Up to a thousand students, plus academic staff, will use e-textbooks and gauge their effectiveness and practicality. The trial will take place at Michigan State University (MSU) in the (northern) autumn of 2012, and the results are likely to be keenly scrutinised worldwide.

*Meanwhile at a younger age level, a study of 3 to 6 year old beginner readers targeted two important questions. Do today's kids prefer to read printed books or e-books if they have the choice, and which do they comprehend better? The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, New York, conducted the survey in the summer and autumn of 2011. Their results admittedly have limited scientific validity because of their very small sample size (just 24 families). The survey also used iPads, not monochrome e-readers (which helps to explain the next item below). Anyhow, the answers were that most young kids preferred the e-books, and their comprehension was about equal for the two possibilities. However when interactive features were present in the e-book, the kids could be more readily distracted from the main ideas of the book. Research is continuing.

**Children's e-books are still in their infancy. Did we just say that? What was meant was that while some 13.5% of all book sales during the first three quarters of 2011 were digital copies, only a little more than half that figure, about 7.4%, were sales of children's books, according to the book indexers Bowker. The lower figure is presumed due to the fact that colour, lavishly illustrated books can't be presented on e Ink e-readers like the Kindle, Nook or Sony Reader. As interactive colour Web tablets like the iPad become more popular and widespread though, the imbalance will likely disappear. Scholastic Inc., Sesame Workshop, National Geographic and Oceanhouse Media are among the companies busy producing children's book apps for Web tablets.

 

Library e-Lending Booms

Are e-books killing libraries? Not at all, because libraries are getting into lending e-books in a big way. According to a US Library Journal 2011 survey, some 82% of American public libraries already do it, and many more are planning to.The fact that patrons can borrow from home - or even while sitting in a bus or train - may even mean additional library use from those previously unable, or too time-poor, to visit a library's physical premises.

In the USA this trend is accelerating rapidly, with many libraries now not able to keep up with this new, digital demand. As a result, patrons are complaining of long waiting lists for popular titles, just as they once did with print books in pre-digital days of yore. To illustrate the new boom, Boston Public Libraries (there are twenty-seven in the system) tripled their e-loans in December 2011 compared to a year previously, while at the New York Public Library some 2,907 e-books or other digital materials were loaned out just on Boxing Day, December 26, 2011.

The most frequent model for public library digital lending is by downloads, made available especially by the giant e-book aggregator Overdrive Inc. Overdrive reported last month that 35 million digital titles were checked out in public libraries worldwide during 2011, up from 15 million loans in 2010. Some 17 million items were also placed on hold (reservations). There are many other possible models for library e-book loans apart from Overdrive's, and some are already open for business, such as Bloomsbury Publishing's Public Library Online. That's a British initiative that uses streaming content requiring internet connection for the duration of the reading session, rather than downloading the whole book file for offline use. The disadvantage is obvious, but the model does allow for multiple concurrent users, unlike the Overdrive offering.

The biggest problem for libraries and e-books stems not from the innovation itself but from the fear factor at publishers' offices. Many publishers are decidedly uneasy about the trend, and ideally would prefer library e-lending did not exist at all (and ditto, in some cases, for e-books themselves). In fact, some of the largest publishers, all owned by mega-corporations fixated on the highest possible profit margins, still refuse to participate in the concept at all. But libraries actually buy a very large number of books, so a blanket ban on e-copies for libraries will in the end cost major publishing houses big money. At some point they will likely be "dragged screaming into the modern era", and get real on the issue.. Other publishers hedge their digital library exposure with severe limitations on the licences they grant, including limiting the number of times each electronic copy can be lent, which forces the repurchase of very popular items after a relatively short period. And each copy can only be accessed by one reader at a time, just as with p-books. So, despite the apparently unlimited potential of digital loans, librarians are forced back, inevitably, to their age old dilemma of "can we afford to buy this book?"

At least though, the digital lending trend has punctured one fear. That's the worry that in future, libraries would be starved of funds or even closed down altogether, because too few people were using their services. Digital lending has in fact confirmed the continuing relevance of the local public library. Some librarians still fret however that hostile publishers will make life so difficult for library e-lending that if companies like Amazon expand their own fledgling private library services too, the overall effect will be disastrous for public libraries in general. One solution that could enable libraries to defeat publisher machinations against e-lending would be to agitate politically for a guaranteed library right to buy any published digital title, and to loan it under reasonable conditions. Libraries already have that right for printed books, so such a guarantee for the digital equivalent could be held to be no more exceptional than maintaining a basic right and freedom.

Australian public libraries offering downloadable digital loans using the Overdrive platform currently include more than 50 libraries in Sydney and New South Wales; around 70 in Queensland (the pioneering state in this field); around 35 in Victoria; 10 in the ACT & Australia's federal capital Canberra; 5 in South Australia and just one in Western Australia. In December 2011, the library supplies company ALS launched a locally-tailored ePlatform service. It's provided by a New Zealand company, Wheelers, and is currently being trialled in 13 Australian public libraries.

 

To Apple: how about some core value?

A propos of our plea last month for significantly cheaper iPads, when the iPad 3 is released soon. Can Apple afford it? Well, their most recent quarterly business activity figures, released late in January, show that the company made a cool US$12.5 billion profit in just three months. That's on total sales of US$44.23 billion for the period, so the scale of Apple's margins is evident.

The quarterly sales (to December 31 2011) included some 15.43 million iPads, more than twice as many (111%) as the previous quarter. Total iPad sales since the device debuted in April 2010 are now more than 55 million, and this year huge additional numbers may be expected as the coveted Web tablet picks up further international momentum.

So here's our wish list for this present and future financial bonanza. First, that Apple uses some of it to ensure better outcomes for those who actually make the devices, the workers "over there" who labour under such poor if not scandalous conditions and wages. Or if that's "too difficult", then return the jobs to the USA, where unemployment remains discouragingly high. After that, cut iPad prices by say $150 to make the device more affordable for those of more limited means. How about it, Apple?

 

How Do You Burn a Digital Book? (Editorial 1, 2012)

Ray Bradbury's classic Sci-Fi novel Fahrenheit 451 has now been published as an e-book in North America. The 91-year old Pulitzer prize-winner, whose other best sellers include The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, long resisted that outcome for any of his works. Bradbury doesn't like e-books, or the Internet itself for that matter, but was forced into the move when his agent informed him that digital rights are an integral part of modern publishing.. That forced Bradbury's hand, as the author needed to make a new book deal with Simon & Schuster, his American publisher.

Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1953, has sold more than ten million copies, and has also been a hugely lent item in public libraries. Releasing it as an e-book contains an inescapable irony though, because the title temperature is that at which books burn - paper books that is. In his novel, Bradbury was pointing to the grim danger of a future where books are banned, and surviving ones burned upon discovery (plus the homes of those hiding them), in order to prevent unwelcome ideas circulating. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman. He's employed, though, not to extinguish fires but to incinerate books, to get rid of all the "unnecessary time-wasting thought" that civilisation has previously produced. His brave new world only allows comics, true confessions, trade journals and rulebooks to survive in print. Meanwhile the shallowest of mass entertainment dominates households via televisor screens covering whole walls.

As well as a warning, Bradbury's book was also a satire based on cultural trends the author saw emerging in the new mass electronic era. Bradbury may be dismissed as a cranky old man or reactionary fossil because of his attitudes to electronic media, but there is some sound and deep thinking too behind his disdain. He sees a decline in our Western mental age, reflected in both a ceaseless bombardment of superficiality and nonentity-worship, and in the refusal to deal honestly, or even at all, with uncomfortable issues. Bradbury identified those tendencies as characterising much of our daily discourse, while in the background the old organs of searching analysis wither away.

All this raises some difficult questions relating to the digital age. E-books cannot literally be burned of course, and it's comforting to know that people can stash copies of them away on all sorts of devices, just as folks could always store physical books in all manner of places. However, it is now technically easy to alter or censor the digital versions of books available on the Web, which was not previously the case with physical books and their distinctive editions. Worse, software programs can reach right into our computers and mobile devices and spy on our books and reading now, or even delete books, as happened in an actual and lamentable case, just as they do in fact constantly monitor our email and "social chat". Then there's the reality that all those Web-based corporations that "guarantee our privacy" will also, if you read the small print, surrender it to the State with great alacrity if so asked by government agencies quoting any law or regulation. Indeed, in theory it would be easy to "disappear" all electronic copies of a book from the Internet, if we fell under the grip of either a totalitarian state or just a particularly nasty piece of legislation or regulation. Such as one sneaked through parliaments or unaccountable trade committees by special interests.

It was another classic Sci-Fi novel - George Orwell's 1984 - that went even further in showing us just how chilling the future could be (or was, even then, in Stalinist Russia), if the people in power have too much control and answer only to themselves. The hero of that book, Winston Smith, was specifically employed to alter history, fake the past, by endlessly deleting everything that was now deemed embarrassing. The danger of the digital age is that Smith's job would be so much easier today, if Net censorship becomes a reality. And the worst case will be if we allow the propagandists for "cloud storage" to persuade us to keep all our books and information sources on the Net, and only there. Unless we believe that authority is always right - and what fools we would be if we did believe that - and that it is impossible for knaves and intending despots to ever be voted into power - then we must be eternally vigilant. Vigilant to ensure something fundamental. Which is, that the amazing potentialities of the digital age do not serve instead as the perfect means for the progressive destruction of all our hard-won freedoms.

 

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January 2012

Alleged Conspiracies

In addition to the enquiries into possible e-book price-fixing by the US Department of Justice, Texas and Connecticut state attorneys-general & the European Commission as mentioned last month, a private class-action lawsuit is being brought against five mega-publishers and Apple by Hagens Berman attorneys of the USA. The big five publishers that Hagens Berman have filed against in San Francisco are HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group Inc. and Simon & Schuster Inc. A major Internet book player other than Apple is believed to be financing the private action.

Comment: The bitter accusations being traded among the big players in the e-book market need to be treated with some scepticism, since all of them are engaging in or developing forms of marketing that could be regarded as either predatory or anti-competitive in some manner. Perhaps what is needed, in addition to the existing probes, is a much wider enquiry as to whether there is a risk that the old open market in physical books may be in danger of succumbing to multiple forms of trade restraint in the new digital era. Such a broad enquiry could also ascertain whether there need to be new regulations governing the sale of digital books that will safeguard the interests of authors, publishers, retailers, and of course consumers, alike. The aim would be to ensure that the natural tendency of large stakeholders to try and achieve actual or near monopolies is frustrated, and that a genuinely competitive e-book market continues to evolve.

 

iNews from Apple

New York, 19 Jan: Apple has revealed a textbook strategy for its popular iPad Web tablet, now nearing its third incarnation. Apple's iTunes store will open a special textbooks section, including some titles selling for less than $15. The move was timely ahead of the soon to be announced release of the iPad 3, a tablet model certain to include higher screen resolution. That latter improvement will better support the intricate diagrams and other sophisticated illustrations that advanced textbooks feature.

It's hard to dispute that the iPad and its high-quality competitors are well suited for textbooks. With their larger size, dazzling colour and a speed of interactivity not possible on the humbler e Ink readers, the burgeoning world of Web tablets are in fact a "natural" for many of the writing forms of particular interest or concern to the young. That includes not just textbooks but also illustrated children's books, graphic novels, manga/animé and comics. However, with many different publishers, educational policies and regulations involved, and no clear indication yet as to whether many schools will accept the new platform - or whether the high cost of the iPad makes it even potentially viable for most students - it's very early days yet for this new Apple venture. It's also not clear yet that there will be any significant cost saving for schools in the long run, surely an important consideration, since the e-texts can't be shared, reused or resold due to licencing restrictions.

*Meanwhile Apple has also unveiled a second version of its iBooks reading software. The updated iBooks 2 (it's free from the App Store) will support texts with embedded video and other enhanced and interactive features, placing them indisputably ahead of their print counterparts for some educational purposes. To go with that, Apple is further offering "iBook Author", a free app from the Mac App Store that will allow Joe or Jane Anyone to create his or her very own electronic textbooks. Note that iBook Author is for the Mac only though, and you need OS X Lion to use it effectively. Finally there's iTunes U, an app for iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch) enabling tertiary students to locate iTunes course materials for their particular institutions.

* There are some disappointing rumours around about the forthcoming iPad 3, in particular that it won't be very much of an improvement on the current iPad 2, apart from a needed upgrade to a 1,600 x 1,200 pixel high res. screen, plus a few minor gimmicks. Hopefully the whisperings are wrong, but if true, how about a price reduction instead, Apple?  If you can't stay ahead of the pack, should you expect consumers to continue to pay through the nose just for your name?

** And speaking of the iPad, it's now in the novel position of having some catching up to do. Announcements at January's CES (Consumer Electronics Show) show included Acer's Iconia Tab A700 tablet with a stunning 1920 by 1200 pixel screen resolution, and an upgraded Eee Pad Transformer, the Prime TF700T model from Asus, offering the same top-level display. Acer's Iconia Tab runs with the latest Android OS, 4, "Ice Cream Sandwich".

 

And an Amazon equivalent…

Parallelling the Apple move above, Amazon is now accepting books in a new Kindle Format 8 (KF8) in addition to the previous more basic Kindle format. The new format allows for HTML5 and CSS3, the most advanced versions of HTML and CSS style sheets. Amazon has also released software called KindleGen, to enable publishers or authors to convert text to the new KF8 standard, and an updated Kindle Viewer for checking out how they'll look.

The purpose of KF8 is to produce books that can make full use of Amazon's Kindle Fire Web tablet. It won't work with regular Kindle e Ink devices or with existing Kindle apps for other means of e-reading, although new Kindle models and app versions may eventually support it. KF8 will make possible Amazon books with advanced features such as those seen on Web pages, in textbooks and in illustrated children's books and graphic novels. Note that KF8 is a proprietary format though, so you won't be able to read these books on non-Amazon devices.

*Amazon's seven inch Fire tablet, which has already shipped over six million units, has meantime undergone two software upgrades.

 

More Tableteering

Lenovo IdeaTab S2

*New tablets displayed at the January 2012 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas include the Lenovo IdeaTab S2, which fields a 10 inch screen, runs from a powerful 1.5 GHz Snapdragon MSM processor, with 1GB of DDR2 RAM, weighs just a nice 600 grams (21 oz), and offers HDMI output. Like the Asus Transformer, the IdeaTab S2 can be connected to an optional detachable keyboard and thus serve as a netbook too. Similarly, by clicking in that connection you double your effective battery life. The IdeaTab's Android operating system is up to the minute with version 4.0, an OS known as "Ice Cream Sandwich" thanks to those droll folks at Google. Included is a Micro USB port, Wi-Fi and optional 3G for wireless connectivity, plus Bluetooth. Front & rear cameras and a full 64GB of storage in the premium version complete the package, which evidently won't be available until the second quarter of 2012. Price? That's reputed to be US$349, plus an extra $150 if you want the (optional) keyboard. Those prices will undercut Asus's EE Transformer, and Asus is reported to be hurrying along a Gorilla Glass update of its own product, with higher screen resolution, to offer a superior alternative. There's no exact word on Australian availability yet.

 

The Novo7

The Lenovo offering above is still medium-priced, but China's Novo7 tablet will be dirt-cheap. It's a smaller, 7-inch Web tablet (larger versions are planned) that will also run Android's latest "Ice Cream Sandwich" OS, yet is expected to sell for only US$99 in the States some time in the next few months (it's already available in China). A head-scratcher is that it's hard to believe they can do it at this price, more than fifty percent and a hundred dollars cheaper than Amazon's US$199 Kindle Fire. Especially since the latter is by many estimates a loss-breaker designed to make money through content sales rather than from an actual device profit margin. Moreover, the Novo7 has 3D capability, 1080p video and HDMI output, plus front and rear cameras. And a multi-touch screen! And for apparent street cred. the Novo7 has been certified by Google for the Android Market, and even applauded by Google Android executive Andy Rubin for its contribution to Android expansion.

There have to be questions about the build quality at this price though, so we'd advise perusing user reviews diligently for some time before lashing out to purchase. Although, even if it only lasted six months, it might be worth it at as an el cheapo introduction to tableteering (a word we're currently promoting as a neologism). Will it be available locally? The sentence "the tablet will be available in other geographies within the next several months." sounds promising. Meantime you can buy some alleged versions online from various Asian outlets, but beware hefty shipping fees, which OS version is actually installed, and what chipset is used.
www.ainovo.com/
http://en.ingenic.cn/mips/specialtopics.html

 

4G? Gee Whiz

You'll be hearing more and more about 4G this year. For those of you wondering just what the heck that is anyway, here's a brief summary. The "G" refers to generation of wireless network, and the first of those (1G of course) arrived back in the 1980s. By the early 1990s 2G, which offered more capacity, was being rolled out, while by the end of that decade 3G, which allows for multimedia features, was on the way to replace it. 3G connections for mobile devices have spread to become the dominant standard worldwide at the present time. 4G is therefore the latest whizbang iteration of all these gee-gees. But 4G is as much necessity as innovation, though. That's because more and more people are using wireless networks to send ever-increasing amounts of data, even chunks as huge as movies. So a reliable service without dropouts (Vodaphone Australia in particular, are you blushing?) has become essential, if angry frustration is not to become the commonplace experience for wireless connection.

For those who plan to download lots of gorgeous enhanced e-books direct to their new Web tablets for example, 4G should become the future standard they can count on. And for the technically minded, true 4G will theoretically require peak speed data transfer of at least 100 MB per second to moving vehicles and 1GB per second to a fixed location (plus interactive roaming between wireless networks). Those speeds may be hugely optimistic in practice however, at least in Australia. Indeed, the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) has since back-pedalled on those requirements, allowing a lower speed achievement to be called 4G if the technology is improved enough and includes certain technical changes. However we of the Down Under shouldn't complain too much about our more modest prospective 4G, as in the UK for example 4G isn't even within cooee yet.

The first 4G smartphone from Telstra should be available in Australia late this month or soon thereafter (it's a HTC Android OS model). Our biggest Aussie telco claims that the device's download speed will be double that of present 3G. Existing 3G is not about to disappear by the way, it'll become a cheaper alternative to a premium priced 4G. Meanwhile Optus will roll out its 4G progressively from April onwards, with Sydney, Melbourne and Perth to be connected by mid-year, while the Vodaphonies, who say they're working flat stick to upgrade their own much-ridiculed network and redeem themselves to their seething customer base, haven't put forward a specific timetable at this point.

 

Sci-Fi/fantasy Author Attempts "The Works" e-book

When does enhancement become ultimate fulfilment? Author David Farland is clearly aiming for e-book Nirvana with his new work Nightingale. You get lots of words of course, but you are also enveloped in music, art and animation throughout, with interviews and photographs to boot. The impressive extras are not just tacked on either, they're skilfully woven into the very fabric of the story. And that music is stunning, a full 45-minutes worth of world-glass rock guitar written and performed by an impressive collaborator, James Guymon. Meanwhile no fewer than six other talents laboured to make the art and animation exceptional. Farland himself is a prize-winning wordsmith; and he isn't stopping with Nightingale by the way, but plans for this magnum opus to be but the first in a series of four enhanced novels. Nightingale will also be available as a simpler e-book, as a full app you can read on your PC, in a hardbound printed edition, and as an enhanced audiobook with music and sound effects,

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December 2011

Editorial

Tablets, tablets, tablets! Add to that a satisfying round of much cheaper, dedicated e-readers. Those two features in particular define 2011's contribution to the electronic book revolution. Of course, the e-book has been around long enough now for all but the very young to realise that it's actually been much more evolution than sudden change.

For 2012, it's an easy prophecy to predict that e-reading will become more and more of a mainstream habit. After years of fitful progress and more than a few reverses, it's safe enough to say that we're finally moving, and rather quickly now, towards a future world where digital books, magazines and newspapers will become the norm rather than the exception for most everyday reading.

On the local Australian scene, dedicated e-readers became available late this year for less than $100, at last, a development we've been pleading for since Adam was in short pants. Still to come, though, are free e-readers tied to a book purchase plan, something else we've long been advocating on this website. Recently, you've been able to go into many big city stores and see any number of e Ink and LCD makes and models swanning about on the shelves. That includes mystifying brands you've never, ever heard of (be rather careful about those, folks, and research them thoroughly before committing your money).

As for tablets, at the start of 2011 there were few available apart from the iPad, and most were both unreasonably expensive and untried enough to deter the majority of us from gambling on a purchase. By year's end many were substantially cheaper, with some even rating as major bargains. If you weren't too discriminating, you could probably afford some apparently gee-whiz variety, even on a straitened budget. In the higher quality or better-featured zone, there was without doubt still room for keener prices however, perhaps in the January sales. Meanwhile some punters were clearly holding back for new and improved versions from the majors, as various brands moved towards their third iteration and others to a much improved Mark Two model.

Our tablet advice: keep your eyes peeled for forthcoming new models that are either cheaper or better. Real Soon Now. But remember, really cheap tablets may be rubbish. As in very slow response, poor display screens, jammy navigation, insufficient processing power or storage memory, and cheap, low-quality components that just won't last the distance. So, if it's a no-name brand at a too-good-to-be-true price, be extremely wary.

On the other hand, expect anything you buy now to be "hopelessly obsolete" in two years time, or at any rate to lack a chastening number of the latest "new & amazing features". So, don't spend way too much now either (unless you're very well-heeled). Another pointer is to line up someone to hand your old model to in the future, to justify a further purchase later on. A Present Rule of Thumb - if you're comfortable with the price, trust the brand and it has the features you need at present, the next three months is probably as good a time as any to enter the tablet-owning population.

Can we coin a word for these new digital adventurers, e.g. tableteers? Tablegentsia? Tablarazzi? The last-mentioned could be from the Latin, as in tabula rasa, a blank slate, ready for the newly-accessible wonders of the digital age to make multiple impressions on…

 

Tablet Wars Part Two

An all-out legal brawl between Apple and Samsung over their respective iPad and Galaxy Tab 10.1 Web tablets became a theatre of the absurd that fascinated many in late 2011.

Apple left no alternative logic unparaded in its puzzlingly desperate efforts to bundle Samsung out of the tablet marketplace. Puzzling, because the iPad's sales numbers are enormous, and not noticeably threatened so far (it currently accounts for a full two-thirds of tablet sales). Ridiculous suggestions made in submissions by Apple's lawyers as to how Samsung could have avoided a similar-looking product included making a tablet that was not rectangular with four flat sides, not having rounded corners, adding protrusions, making the device thick, or making it look cluttered and frilly. Apparently a silly looking, dangerous, rococo clanger would have been just the ticket for the iPad to compete with, if you agreed with Apple's definition of a fair market.

In the end the courts thought all that fairy sprinkle was nonsense too, and Samsung won (for the moment at least), but lost sales opportunities thorough Apple's corporate attorneys securing a global blitz of injunctions that delayed the Galaxy Tab 10.1's release for long months in many places. In Australia, that stymie lasted until almost the final week before Christmas.

Samsung professed itself undismayed, an Australian executive (Telecommunications VP Tyler McGee) claiming the publicity was well worth it. And by years end Samsung was taking revenge on Apple in pointed TV ads touting the GT's alleged superiority, although to be fair the ads themselves had significantly less class than Apple's beguiling efforts for the iPad. Earlier, Samsung also struck back at Apple by attempting to stop Apple's iPhone 4S being sold in Australia and Japan, a gambit as unlikely to succeed as Apple's own narcissistic litigation.

Apple had claimed that Samsung "slavishly copied" the iPad, which puzzled many because it would then be difficult for Samsung to proclaim any superior features. Some differences, such as that the Tab supports Flash while the iPad does not, were omitted from Apple's list of complaints for obvious reasons. It's not a case that one is cheaper than the other either, with the Tab's 16GB Wi-Fi and 3G models priced the same as the iPad's starting prices, at $A579 & $A729 respectively.

The stoush has been raging for over six months in at least ten national courts around the world, with Samsung making numerous counter-claims of patent infringements against Apple's legal onslaught. Further rounds of litigation are expected next year. The battle is all the more bizarre because of the close-knit commercial relationship between the two companies, Samsung actually making a number of major Apple components such as chips and LCD displays.

*Apple may have more cause for genuine complaint in China, where whole fake Apple stores were uncovered earlier in 2011, in Yunnan province. In another odd twist, it turns out that a Chinese company, Proview Technology of Shenzhen, came up with the iPad trademark for a tablet way back in the year 2000, long before Apple did. It seems Apple bought the world naming rights from them in 2006, but opinions varied on whether China itself was included in the deal, and a Chinese court has rejected an Apple complaint on that score. The ruling leaves the future of the iPad (the Apple sourced variety) in peril in China.

 

Luverly Ain't They, and Cheaper Too

Many people have complained about steep tablet prices this year, and with good reason. In some cases, whole desktop PC systems have cost less than one middling tablet. So it's cheering to see those over-the-top $ tickets come somewhat unstuck in the run-up to Christmas. That's particularly true for Australia, where a currency floating higher than the greenback has been no protection at all from price gouging. So for the locals (overseas readers may be interested to compare their own prices) here then are some price reductions noticed lately in Aussie chain stores (all in Australian dollars.: The Asus 10.1inch ePad tablet (16GB version, runs Android 3.0 from a 2.1GB dual core processor) for $399 at the Good Guys. There too, Toshiba's similar AT100 tablet at $477 (then a week later at $444). Harvey Norman has the Acer Iconia Tab (a 10.1inch screen again & also dual core, but with only 8GB of onboard memory) for $348, and the Asus Transformer 16GB version for $368 (without dock). "Hardly Normal" also stocks a 32GB version of the Transformer complete with docking terminal (in effect, an extra Netbook plus second battery) for $598 all up. Motorola's Xoom (dual core CPU and 32 GB of storage memory) is $392 at JB Hi-Fi, who have Acer's tablet in a 32GB 3G version for $696. In e Ink devices, the Good Guys have iRiver's Story HD with an XGA screen for a bargain $148, while the Sony Reader Touch is available for $179 at Myers, Alas, iPad prices still run up as high as $899 for the top model...

 

Eurotattle

The EC's European Commission is examining whether some of the world's major publishers have violated European rules on restrictions of trade in their e-book publishing. The issue relates to agreements with Apple and the iBookstore by big five international book pedlars, Hachette Livre, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Macmillan, all of which are owned by larger, multifaceted corporations. The mega-publishers did their now-queried agency deal with Apple as a counter-move to what they felt was an Amazon.com attempt to force down and control e-book prices.*

*Of more real use to European e-book enthusiasts, perhaps, is a French decision to reduce VAT (value-added tax, a kind of GST) on digital books to 7 percent from a high 19.6 percent figure at present, and make the tax rate equal to that on printed books. The change will take effect in France from 1 January 2012. E-books suffer heavy tax discrimination in a number of Euro nations, but the bumbling bureaucrats of Brussels seem unlikely to approve the French reform, and may well try to block it. If they have any time left over from trying to prevent a complete collapse of their somewhat less than perfectly-managed Euro zone, that is.
Update: The Luxembourgeois (yes, that's the correct term for inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg) have joined their French counterparts in digital tax-slashing, in their case reducing e-book VAT from 15 per cent to just a teensy 3 per cent.  Luxembourg is tiny, but the news is thrilling for Amazon in its various European mainland incarnations. Why?  Because Luxembourg is where Amazon's European operations are based. Handily, the local rate applies for all Amazon's European Community sales - until 2015 anyhow , when the rules change to reflect VAT in the country of purchase. Amazon's largest European operation - Amazon.co.uk - will not benefit though, as the British government is so far sticking to its own savage rate of VAT for e-books, even though physical books are exempt altogether in Britain.

US too

* While the European Commission looks into possible e-book price-fixing, the US Department of Justice is doing the same over in America. Antitrust investigators "are also investigating the electronic book industry, along with the European Commission and the states' attorneys general," confirmed Sharis Pozen, a DOJ official, when addressing a House of Representatives Judiciary subcommittee on 7 December. She revealed little more, but the Wall Street Journal claimed that the attorneys general of both Texas and Connecticut are probing the issue, with a focus on Apple and e-book publishers.

 

The British e-Reader - courtesy of Mother Russia

Yes, the truly British e-reader!  Bibliophile James Daunt, who has been CEO of one of the largest UK book retailers, Waterstones, since May this year, has this month reaffirmed that company's plans to release its own dedicated e-reading device. The launch (first announced in September 2011) will occur in the (northern) spring of 2012, if earlier intentions pan out. Waterstones already stocks the Sony Reader, so the project is clearly aimed at knocking the more successful -and store-linked - Kindle device out of the UK market. Indeed Daunt scolded Amazon in the harshest terms possible in a 5 December interview with the Independent newspaper, denouncing the Internet colossus as "a ruthless, money-making devil."

In fact Daunt is an ex investment banker himself, which might qualify him for devil status with many, and the company he heads is now owned by another banker and entrepreneur with even more commentary going on about how he may or may not have made his money. That's Alexander Mamut, a Russian tycoon who is indisputably filthy rich, and apparently just qualifies for billionaire status. Both men clearly love books, though. Daunt began developing his own mini-chain (now six shops) twenty years ago as a booklover's haven, and is already making progress in improving the consumer experience in Waterstones' High Street bookshops. Meanwhile Mamut owns a publishing house (Kolibri) and part-owned a chain of bookshops (Bookberry) in Russia.

Daunt also made it clear in this month's Independent interview that he intends to emulate Barnes & Noble, saying "We're working on the Barnes & Noble approach…They've embedded…the Nook within their bookshops and have succeeded in taking market share from the Kindle." Apart from that he was notably short on details of the new project, leading some observers to speculate that Waterstones might even stock a rebadged Nook as its device, in a joint effort with B&N to stem the Amazon tide internationally. Our take is that such a claim is rubbish however; there really will be an independent Waterstones device.

Back in September, Daunt was explicit about his e-reader philosophy to BBC Radio 4's programme You and Yours. "We in Waterstone's need to offer you a digital reader which is at least as good, and preferably substantially better, than that of our internet rival," he declared in a clear reference to Amazon, adding "and you will have a much better buying experience purchasing your books through us".

Waterstones has 296 physical bookshops in Britain and Ireland, plus a substantial online store. The UK book giant, itself founded in 1982 by an ex-employee from the far more venerable WH Smith booksellers & newsagents, was last owned by erstwhile music leaders HMV. The latter sold it cheaply to Mamut when in financial difficulties, for a mere fifty-three million pounds. That's for a company that had gross assets of no less than £283 million at 24 April 2010.

· Meanwhile, Waterstone's UK rival WH Smith, which has no less than 750 stores (including, since earlier this year, two in Melbourne, Australia), has ditched its own independent e-book venture. Instead, the leading British main street book & newsagent giant (which was founded way back in 1792, and was the first ever chain store), is currently selling the Kobo e-reader in a Wi-Fi version for £69.99, and the Kobo Touch for £99.99. Oh, and the Kobo Vox - a 7 inch colour touchscreen e-reader/Web tablet - for £189.99. WH Smith now links to Kobo for all its e-book sales.

That's Kobo's first UK outing, although France and Germany have already received a Kobo experience. WH Smith's digital book division is actually still there on its website, but is now "powered by Kobo" in a partnership deal. A plus for "Smiths" is that Kobo also stocks open format EPUB titles, and the latter can be read on a wide variety of devices, not just the Kobo hardware.

So a struggle is shaping up next year between WH Smith/Kobo and Waterstones' as yet un-named forthcoming device, for local supremacy in British digital book-buying.

 

Bowled a Googly

One year on, Google eBooks has gained only a tiny share of the e-book market, an estimated 4% by last month. As the latest major player, Google was hailed as a potential saviour for independent physical bookstores, offering itself as an easy-entry channel for their participation in digital sales. Only time will tell as to whether the search giant's foray into retailing digital literature will yet gain significant traction.

 

Warning - Adobe Software Scams

Attention all! Please note that emails you may receive promoting "ADOBE ACROBAT READER 2012" are a scam, and no such product exists. These emails do not come from Adobe. Do NOT follow any links in such emails, they will attempt to obtain your personal details for criminal purposes, or may offer you a malware download. Don't even open such emails, just delete them.

The current Adobe Reader X (called just that, there's no Acrobat in the current name) has not changed, apart from a small update on September 14, 2011 to version 10.1.1. You should never update your Adobe Reader software from an unsolicited email. Usually you will receive software prompts directly on your PC, but otherwise go straight to the Adobe site. For more detailed information, see our Software page (see link at above right).

*

November 2011

Sssh! Books!

Local Aussie competition to the overseas majors is stirring. A company that goes by the (somewhat contrived) name of Booki.sh has got together with five significant independent booksellers in four states, and built online e-bookstores for each of them. The retailers are Avid Reader, Books for Cooks, Fullers, Gleebooks, and Mary Ryan. For those unfamiliar, Mary Ryan is a chain of nine bookshops in SE Queensland, Avid Reader is a book hive in Brisbane's arty West End suburb near the Queensland Art Gallery and Museum, Books for Cooks is a Victorian specialist bookseller dealing in food, wine and cookery titles, Fullers is an award-winning Tasmanian bookstore, and Gleebooks has two semi-legendary outlets on the main street of the Sydney suburb of Glebe.  Booki.sh is plugging the slogan "delightful and accessible" to describe the experience they're aiming for on the new websites. The Booki.sh move follows an earlier January pilot with Readings Ebooks, which remains online too

 

Padawan, Padathree

And now some iPad 3 news, or should we say "interesting rumour with at least some substance somewhere". The tripled Apple beastie should be on sale in March next year, with full official details to be released, and pre-orders taken, on or around the 27th January. New or improved features will include a higher-res.1600 x 1200 pixel screen (although others such as those WSJ folks - they're the ones where you have to pay for the news so they must know {???} - claim a super 2048 x 1536 display is on the way instead).  

For sure there'll be a better battery anyhow (as in lighter and longer-lasting). But alas, no price cuts are predicted for the newbie, only on leftover existing models and maybe a "second tier surpriser" to parry the cheaper end of the tablet market. As for an actual iPhone-style "retina" display, don't count on it this time. There will be one other substantial surprise though, it's that… drats, who is that knocking loudly on my door this time of night? Ooh Ah!

 

A New Nook Enlivens the Tablet Scene

Last month's big news was the Kindle Fire, the first in a series of Web tablets planned by Amazon to challenge Apple's phenomenally successful iPad. The Fire is now on sale in the USA as of 15 November, and Amazon is clearly hoping for massive sales as Christmas gifts, bolstered by a modest US$199 price tab. But there are other challengers emerging too, and Barne's & Noble's release on the 18th of this month of a Nook LCD colour tablet is perhaps the most noteworthy at this point.

The previous "Nook Color" e-reader was halfway to being a tablet anyway, with several official Web features beyond e-reading. Adding to that, some eager owners unofficially engineered further valuable functions with a fair amount of success (it's prudent to point out that such unauthorised improvisation voids the warranty if anything goes wrong, though). Now, extended tablet functionality is both readily available and official in the simply named Nook Tablet

In many respects, the new Nook is similar to the Fire. They're both on the small side with only a seven inch display, both offer middling quality 1024 x 600 pixel screen resolution, and at this price level there's no camera in either. They even both use a 1GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4 processor and run on the same underlying Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, albeit with significantly different customisation. In proportions and weight, the Nook Tablet is just a shade stockier and a teensy fraction lighter than the Fire.

At US$249, the new Nook Tablet is also $50 dearer than the Kindle Fire, and lacks the clout of the Amazon name. Is it any better for the extra cash, in these lean times when so many people are looking for really keen value? Yes, there is extra value in the Nook, at several points. With a full gigabyte (versus 512Mb) of RAM there's more oomph where it counts, and twice the storage memory too, with 16GB on board. You also get a MicroSD card slot to extend that memory by up to a further 32GB, plus access to a newly-announced Nook Cloud online storage service. A "bonded and laminated' (air gap eliminating) VividView IPS display, featuring minimal glare for an LCD device and a wide viewing angle, will likely attract admiring reviews. There's a further bonus with battery life, which allows for an estimated 11.5 hours reading or 9 hours video watching (versus 8 and 7.5 hours respectively for the Fire). Oh, and there's a microphone too, intended for notes or a "read and record" feature which could be great for preparing bedtime stories for kids.

The worst (missing) feature, as with the Kindle Fire, is that there's no provision for 3G connectivity, only Wi-Fi (plus USB to connect to a PC). Hopefully both devices will later come in new models that will address that issue. If you're surrounded by Wi-Fi hotspots such a lack doesn't matter much of course, but if Wi-Fi is thin on the ground in your perambulations, that deficit could be a major irritant.

Speaking of thin on the ground, the description also characterises both this device and Amazon's Fire tablet in respect of the range of apps available, compared with the iPad. Expect improvement there over time, though. You cannot download from the Android store for the Nook either, only from B&N's own app store. Which at least guarantees (we hope) that all apps will work properly. On the plus side, Netflix movies, Hulu Plus TV, Pandora Internet radio and Grooveshark music are all included (media streaming apps), and 1080p video plays smoothly. BTW, there's no Bluetooth, no stereo speakers (just mono sound), and no GPS to luxuriate in either.

Like all it's Nook forerunners, the new Nook Tablet is still focussed on reading above all else, as befits a product from such a major book chain. Text formats supported are EPUB, PDF, DOC, TXT, DOCM, and DOCX, plus the usual run of audio and image files. As well as real books you can buy some 250 magazines or newspapers from the Newsstand, and (well, soon anyway) Marvel comics & graphic novels too. This device is definitely faster and better than its Nook Color predecessor (and supports Adobe Flash, by the way).

Overall, this Barnes & Noble product impresses. Where Amazon has the edge is not in its device but in a vaster "world of content" available for purchase. Both rival tablets lack the sheer class and elegance of Apple's iPad, it must be said, but at half the price or less, that may not be the main consideration for a large group of consumers. Booklovers outside of North America may well hesitate in ordering one though, since B&N don't support international sales from their bookstore at present. However that will change within the next four months, according to Barnes & Noble chief executive William Lynch, so this lack may not be other than a short-term impediment. An e-readng tie-in with the Waterstone's chain in the UK is a distinct possibility too.

*What of B&N's existing Nook Color e-reader? It's still available, but now priced down $50 at US$199, a handier figure for those content with that model's capabilities. In fact,existing Nook Color owners will get a useful free software upgrade to make the older device more tablet-like itself.

** Nook Simple Touch owners (i.e. of the monochrome e Ink model) will also receive a significant software update. Meanwhile, new Simple Touch devices purchased from now on will include the faster page turns, improved contrast and extended battery life that the update provides, and cost only US$99 (down $40) for an ads-included version.

 

The Sony Tablet S

We've mentioned this before, but here's some more detail now it's available locally. Another significant new entry in the ever more crowded tablet stakes is the Sony Tablet S. Running an Android OS (Version 3.2 Honeycomb), the "S" offers two models, one with 16GB storage memory at $579, and a 32GB big brother for $689. Specs include a 9.4 inch touch screen with a pleasing 1280 x 800 pixel resolution, a 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor and 1GB of RAM. Then there's the usual rear (a goodly 5 megapixel) and front (0.3-megapixel) cameras, a nice virtual keyboard, and both USB and SD card ports. The "S" weighs just a fraction less than the iPad, at 598 grams (1lb 5oz). Stylistically, a wedge-shaped design makes it easier to hold than other tablets too, even with a one-handed grip.

Sony is also big in film and sound, and that content availability is exploited effectively in this device, with its ready access to Sony's streaming movies and music. There's Music Unlimited for audio, and for films Video Unlimited and Crackle, although the range of new movies in the latter two may disappoint the discerning. The Sony Tablet S will play some Playstation games too, as well as titles developed for the Android Market. There's also a handy universal remote app for controlling your lounge room devices. Of most relevance here though is that the Tablet S comes ready equipped with the app for Sony's Reader e-bookstore, making it a true companion device for the e Ink Sony Reader.

Overall, the Sony Tablet S seems a worthy product, but with this major caveat. These model prices will have to come down, and substantially, if Sony wants to make serious headway against the iPad. That old "soak the early adopters" strategy is being rolled out here yet again, by those who apparently can't help themselves. We'd say it's an easy call that that approach will be a dismal failure in the tablet arena. This isn't a market that will stand around patiently waiting for companies to get competitive, especially since a wave of much less expensive models is soon to roll out of Asia. Wake up Sony, if you want to feature in the main game.
www.sony.com.au/tablet

* Of relevance to the above item the Motorola Xoom Web tablet, struggling to compete with the iPad, has been reduced to $399.

 

Last Verse for Stanza

The Stanza iOS e-reading app has been updated to Version 3.2, to correct various problems that occur under iOS 5. However the new version is incompatible with older iOS versions, and worse, that's apparently the last bugle call we can expect for the trail-blazing software, as confirmed by a "we will no longer be updating or supporting Stanza" email from Amazon. For those who hadn't heard, Amazon these days owns Lexcycle, the company that developed the once hugely popular app. Stanza debuted in mid July 2008, supports a wide range of e-book formats and at one point rated No.1 free app in Apple's App Store. Amazon will direct all future upgrades to the Kindle for iOS apps instead.

 

Kobo Bought...

Kobo, a Canadian-based e-book business encompassing e-reader devices, software apps, a large e-reading catalogue, a social network and a chain of Web e-bookstore relationships, has been acquired by a Japanese company, Rakuten. Rakuten is the largest Japanese Internet retailer, and paid US$315 million for Kobo. That acquisition is the latest chapter in a dramatic worldwide expansion of Rakuten's business in the last two years. Rakuten now owns Linkshare, Buy.com, Play.com (in the UK), Price Minister (France), Tradoria (Germany) and Rakuten subsidiaries in China, Taiwan and Thailand. Kobo itself is a spin-off from Canada's largest book chain, Indigo, and is based in Toronto, Ontario. It claims over 5 million Kobo users worldwide,

and selling

Kobo has put out its own Web tablet, the Kobo Vox. It's priced keenly at $199, the same as both Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet and Barnes & Nobles' Nook Color (the latter is the continuing forerunner of the $249 Nook Tablet). Equipped with a customised Android 2.3 OS ("Gingerbread"), hardly cutting edge, and without many video & music download/streaming options, the Vox may struggle to compete in the crowded seven inch tablet market space. With only a single-core 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM the device lacks oomph, too, leading to slow response when demands are made of it. Moreover onboard storage memory is a mere 8GB, although you can ramp that up to 32GB via a MicroSD card, while "unlimited" cloud storage is offered for your purchased titles if you trust leaving your property permanently in the care of others.

On the plus side, there's a strong reading focus in the primary icons and apps. That leaves consumers in no doubt that, despite the puzzling name (= voice in Latin), the Vox is above all a reading device. A flaw there though is that the onboard dictionary (Merriam-Webster Collegiate) is not integrated with the reading software, although Kobo promises to fix this in an update. Support for only ePub & enhanced ePub format titles seems parsimonious though.

The Kobo Vox does gets into "social reading" in a big way, so if you're one of those people who enjoy reading in a shared rather than individual environment this tablet may hold appeal. The Reading Life app will serve you all manner of your reading statistics, while Kobo Pulse will enable you to share those, comment, and hear from others all from inside a book. Meanwhile up to 42 text sizes and seven font styles, single or dual page choice for landscape mode, annotation, and brightness adjustment are welcome features of the "eReading App".

While we admire the reading focus, it's questionable whether the Kobo Vox can do well in a market segment at present dominated by slicker products from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

 

*Fourteen authors have now sold more than one million e-books as Kindle editions. The most recent three are David Baldacci, Amanda Hocking and Stephenie Meyer.

top

October 2011

Amazon's Grand Slam

Amazon is aiming for "game, set and match" in the e-reader market, with the heady release of not just a long-awaited but unexpectedly cheap Web tablet, the Fire, but also three new e Ink Kindle models, the base one costing a mere, bargain basement US$79. It's easy to draw one overwhelming conclusion from this furious volley of novel devices. Amazon wants to quickly add a huge new market segment to its customer base, by offering unprecedented price value coupled with a large model range designed to suit all tastes. Will such a rapid-fire marketing serve succeed in rallying consumer enthusiasm in these uncertain, recession-threatened times? The spectacular success of Amazon's previous bold gambits suggests that this new venture may just possibly be yet another masterstroke that aces one over.

The headline news in all this is the Kindle Fire, a colour Web tablet at only US$199. The Fire will be available in the USA on November 15, and fuller details appear below. At this price, though, it's hard to believe Amazon can make much profit on the devices themselves. Rather, the underlying aim is to encourage users to spend up big on an Amazon "world of content", described as "movies, TV shows, music, magazines, apps, books, games, and more". Special deals to encourage that trend include an introductory free month of the Amazon Prime service. And note that Amazon's Android Appstore is already well established to supply lot of apps for the Fire from one location.

What of the new e Ink Kindles though, the still monochrome devices intended mainly for book-lovers? Let's quickly summarise these. The base model, simply called the Kindle, is now as mentioned, bargain-priced at US$79*. Allegedly it turns pages 10% faster than its predecessor too. Note however that it is Wi-Fi only, has less battery life (1 month) than its peers and only 2GB of storage memory. It's also the smallest & lightest model, at 6.5" x 4.5" x 0.34", and weighs just 5.98 ounces (approx. 195 grams). "Kindle Lite" might be an apter description.

Next up is the Wi-Fi Kindle Touch atUS$99**, both a tad larger (at 6.8" x 4.7" x 0.40") and a trifle heavier at 243 grams (7.5 ounces). This multi-touch version boasts 4GB storage and two months battery life. There's also a 3G + Wi-Fi iteration of this model for US$149***. The latter weighs a shade more at 7.8 ounces, but may well prove popular for the 3G lure, as for many no 3G in a Kindle is just a no-no altogether.

A third model again is the Kindle Keyboard for US$99****, with, once more, a 3G +Wi-Fi version for US$139****. Why this extra model? Well, because it's the only one now, apart from the DX, with a physical keyboard. In fact, it's really just the existing Kindle 3 renamed, but with a welcome further price drop.

All these models have the same 6 inch E Ink Pearl display screen, but because of the keyboard the Kindle Keyboard models measure at 7.5" x 4.8" x 0.34", and weigh 8.5 & 8.7 ounces respectively for the two varieties. BTW the existing, larger, Kindle DX model, with 3G (no Wi-Fi) and a 9.7" E Ink Pearl screen, remains on offer at a now less than tempting figure of US$379. Punters will likely be looking for a price fall there soon, as the DX value presently offered is clearly out of sync with that of the new devices.

*The US$79 is for the "With Special Offers" version. Without Special Offers, the price is US$109.
**Again, the US$99 is for the "With Special Offers" version. Without Special Offers the price is US$139.
***Again, the US$149 is "With Special Offers" version. Without Special Offers the price is US$189.
****Once more, US$99 is for "With Special Offers", it's US$139 without, while the "free 3G" model is at US$139 and US$189 for the with-ads and ads-free variants.

 

Presenting...The Kindle Fire

Before overwhelming you with the burning excitement of the Fire, we'll just raise a jarring note or two (well we've had a very bad couple of days, which among other things caused us to get this news out distinctly late rather than as an early scoop). You have to question why in Amazon's ads for the Fire the new tablet looks markedly squarer in the portrait position than it does in landscape mode, an illustrator's "poetic licence" that is surely not only over the top but around the corner as well. As you can tell by the actual dimensions listed below, the squareness is a hoax and the device is actually more elongated, like the Blackberry Playbook. We've corrected the thumbnail image above to the true dimensions, so there can be no doubt of the Fire's real shape.

Second, Amazon says, unblushingly on its own website that the Kindle Fire offers some "similar technology to that used on the iPad". Given Apple's recent tendency to sue everyone in sight at the slightest pretext, this quip sounds awfully like positively demanding a patent infringement lawsuit. Perhaps Amazon believes that the attendant huge publicity might be worth it - they may even be right. Or are they just merrily blowing a raspberry at their excessively litigious rival?

Overall, what's the strategy with the Fire? First up, Amazon most likely hopes to knock out the threat posed by Barnes & Nobles's Nook Color e-reader (currently selling for US$249), an increasingly popular device that has been evolving into a web tablet for some time and will go further in that direction soon. They'd also like to seize from Apple a huge potential in future income, namely device sales to all those folks who rather fancy an iPad, but find the price way too steep. Conclusion - if Apple doesn't bring iPad prices well down by Christmas or early next year, it may lose a large slab of its future market to the lure of the much cheaper Fire.

Now, to tin tacks. Compared with the iPad, the Fire is more basic and less elegant to use, but does support Flash and offer free online data storage for Amazon customers.There are fewer add-ons than the iPad - no cameras, no MicroSD slot , no GPS and no HDMI support - but all that is unsurprising considering the low price. How about the core stuff that we're concerned with here? Well, as an e-reader it's better than monochrome e Ink devices for magazines, comics, illustrated children's books and colour text books, but with its glare-prone, sunlight-averse LCD screen and short battery life, the Fire is unsuitable for prolonged text reading and better placed for multimedia content, general browsing, games and social networking. So, serious readers will likely prefer to add it to a traditional e Ink device "for all the other stuff", rather than substitute it for an existing e-reader.

Tech specs...

The Fire runs on a customised Android OS (not the latest version though), sports a 7 inch colour touchscreen, weighs 413 grams (14.6 ounces) and measures 190 mm x 120 mm x 11.4 mm (7.5" x 4.7" x 0.45"). There's a Texas Instruments dual core processor (probably an OMAP4) in there to speed operations along, while CPU RAM appears to be 512MB. The screen is smaller than the iPad's, and so may not suit some older folks with less than optimum vision, while simultaneously attracting other buyers for whom pocketability is at a premium. In that regard, it's also worth noting that as the device's screen resolution is only 1024 x 600 pixels, a larger Fire would have demanded a higher-res solution. Claimed battery life before recharge, meanwhile, is 8 hours continuous reading, or 7.5 hours video playback, but using the wireless Net connection rather than reading or watching offline may decrease those figures somewhat. A full recharge of the Lithium-Ion battery takes around 4 hours.

There's 8GB of onboard storage memory here, which allows for "80 apps plus either 10 movies, 800 songs or 6,000 books." In addition, you can "Cloud-store" an allegedly unlimited amount of data on the Web if you own this device, but only if it's content sourced from Amazon. Note that the Whispersync technology present in existing Kindle devices to coordinate reading across multiple platforms is included in the Fire. Email also looks good with a built-in app to consolidate email from other accounts

Web connectivity, alas, is only Wi-Fi, which may be a major drawback for many. We'll hope for a 3G version further down the track. There's a USB port (USB 2.0 using a micro-B connector), and for music listening a 3.5 mm stereo audio jack, plus top-mounted stereo speakers. For fashionistas, the Kindle Fire comes in black, black, black, and (you guessed it ) black. Content-wise, the device will support the following text formats: Kindle (AZW), DOC, DOCX, TXT, PDF, DRM-free MOBI and PRC. In sound, Audible (Audible Enhanced {AA, AAX}), non-DRM AAC, MP3, MIDI, OGG, WAV and MP4, plus VP8 Video. In images. JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP are catered for.

Smooth as Silk?

A huge innovation here is Amazon's own, new "cloud-accelerated" Web browser, named the Amazon Silk and aimed to mesh seamlessly into a total Amazon experience. Amazon is playing Apple and Google at their own game with this particular gambit. So far, Silk is unique to Amazon's new tablet, and functions with a bold new concept that uses Amazon's own Web servers to "interpret" requests users make of the browser to facilitate its response. For example, if both full and mobile versions of a website exist, the user does not choose to go to one or the other. Instead, the Silk browser automatically judges which is optimal for the Fire tablet and decides for itself. While the user may opt to override such automatic decisions via changes to a Settings screen, an analogy of the default effect is that of driving a car with automatic instead of manual gearing.

The other major new aspect of Silk is a built-in ability to interact with Amazon's website - and consumer buying decisions there - in a uniquely intimate way. While the full implications of this may take some time to emerge, an early prediction is that this feature may delight some shoppers and appal some privacy advocates. Oh and by the way, unlike the iPad, the Silk browser does support Flash displays.

Overall, it seems likely that by pushing a "big name" Web tablet backed by massive content availability into the "affordable" bracket for a huge group of people, Amazon will force a tablet showdown. Other tablet makers must now either compete price-wise, offer additional unique features, or withdraw their products from the market place. Of course other new entrants may yet surprise and existing ones rise to the challenge, but for the moment Amazon seems to be ahead of the game, and only requires a 3G version of this device to confirm its position.

Kindle & Fire Availability details so far

For the USA: the new base model US$79 Kindle and the Kindle Keyboard are available now, while The Kindle Touch (US$99) & Kindle Touch 3G (US$149) may be pre-ordered for shipping from November 21. Meanwhile the Kindle Fire Web Tablet may be pre-ordered for shipping from November 15.

For Australia:  The new, inexpensive base model Kindle and the Kindle Keyboard (the remamed Kindle 3) are now available in Australia. There's no news yet of release dates for the other models. Updates will be posted as received.

*

 

September 2011

Farewell Michael Hart (1947-2011), e-book pioneer

Above: a younger (1998) Michael Hart with the first modern e-reade, the Rocket eBook

Earlier this month (September 6th, 2011), at the comparatively young age of 64, Michael S. Hart passed away. Michael was the founder, genius and muse of Project Gutenberg, the original site for free e-books on the Web. More than that, Michael was the first person to post e-books to the early Internet itself, long before the World Wide Web came into existence. In fact, he was the inventor of the electronic book as we understand the concept today. Hart later devoted his life to Project Gutenberg, eschewing the prospect of a lucrative career.

The first text Hart posted was the United States Declaration of Independence, way back in July 1971, a copy he typed himself. Hart then continued typing in major texts of Western and world civilisation such as the Bible, works of Homer and Shakespeare, and (as Americana) texts from Mark Twain. By 1987 he had typed in no less than 313 books, in a mammoth labour of love. He was eventually to spend some forty years involved in digitising and distributing electronic books. However such an exhausting solo effort had necessary limitations, and by widening his activities to involve volunteers, the anonymous but invaluable many, Project Gutenberg was able to expand into a world-wide effort. The work is aided by donations, which may be made here in his memory.

The internationalisation of the Gutenberg project also included the foundation of some fully autonomous local branches (such as Project Gutenberg Australia), to solve the difficulties imposed by different local copyright legislation. This was particularly the case after US copyright was extended unilaterally by the US Congress to be out of step with that existing in other comparable jurisdictions. That created tensions and potential legal difficulties in the undefined online environment. Project Gutenberg met these problems head on, remaining within the law but scorning weaselly legalese to deal with issues in a direct and forthright manner, in line with Michael Hart's robust approach to life. As a result, the organisation was able to repudiate many false ambit claims of the "corporate crapola" variety, by simply calling their bluff in plain language. Hart's refusal to be intimidated, coupled with the sheer worth of his efforts, scored him many devoted followers. As a result Project Gutenberg flourished, and presently offers to the world over 36,000 free and legal e-books for downloading, in some sixty different languages. To Hart's original simple typing in were added scanning, OCR and painstaking editing processes. Originally all the Project Gutenberg e-books were in plain text format, but now ePub, Kindle & HTML formats are also available.

Michael Hart died prematurely of a heart attack in his home in Urbana, Illinois. Such a loss reinforces the need for those whose pursuits are mostly literary and sedentary to take enough exercise (lots of walking is both easy and effective), eat carefully and in general look after their health. Michael Hart will be sadly missed, and deserves much honour, and permanent recognition, as one of the great pioneers and achievers of the early Internet.

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The TouchPad Lives, and other Tablet news

* A postscript to last month's dramatic TouchPad news: HP is to produce "one last run" of TouchPads to try and meet unfulfilled demand, says the company's blog. Individual retailers will set the price, and a "limit per customer" will apply, to stop more of the "scalping" that has gone on to date. It will be "a few weeks" before the further supply becomes available. Meanwhile, HP itself is now considering hiving off its PC division into a separate company rather than discontinuing it, according to HP's Personal Systems Group head, Todd Bradley. A final decision is expected before year's end.

*· For those who like the concept behind the Asus Transformer EeePad (a Web tablet that can transform into a netbook), good news. The full package deal (tablet plus docking station with physical keyboard and additional battery) is now available for $A696 (previously $A800), at the Good Guys stores. As the initial price was disappointingly high compared with US prices, particularly given the continuing above parity strength of the Australian dollar, let's hope for a further $A100 off by Christmas.

* Meanwhile the Kindle is now available from the Dick Smith chain, but at $A213 it's no bargain - you're still better off buying direct from Amazon.com.

* There's a new Sony e-reader model on the way, the PRS-T1. Only, it doesn't seem to have a whole lot of newness about it. Apparently, it's the usual six-inch Pearl greyscale e Ink, with Wi-Fi but not 3G connectivity. There'll be a microSD card slot and a stylus, ho hum, and you will get 2GB of Flash memory and a capacitive touchscreen. There'll evidently be some sort of primitive Web browser, at least for Google searches & Wikipedia. If that's it, Sony will need to explain why they're bothering, though. Their existing models are quite reasonable still, and in this market it seems to us that you gotta have a decent gimmick or a major improvement to justify a new one. Oh, the American price will likely be US$149, a bit more in Europe, elsewhere unknown.

* Probably of more interest at this point are the forthcoming Sony tablets, which we briefly described last month. The dates & pricing for these are now available, and in Australia the larger Tablet S (previously called the S1) will be pre-orderable from the end of this month, for end of October availability. There'll be 16 and 32GB versions, going for $A579 and $A689 each. Note that US denizens will get a better deal at US$499 and US$599 respectively. Meanwhile the dual-screen S2 model, now renamed as the Tablet P, won't be seen before 2012.

With the Tablet S you'll get both Wi-Fi & 3G connectivity, and it'll run on an updateable Android 3.1 OS. At 598 grams this newbie is comparable in weight to an iPad, but will boast a few extra fancy tricks (some only possible if you have the other hardware to support them, though). USB ports and integration into various Sony services are another plus, while an oddity is that the Tablet S can also be used as a universal remote control.

Early reviewers are praising the Tablet S design as superior to that of the iPad, and the interface as better too. Sony will need those boosts, because for the high prices asked an iPad also-ran would never cut the mustard. Au contraire, it looks like Sony is delivering the hat-trick of class, quality and originality here, but whether in the present economic climate these tablets can gain much market traction against the Apple juggernaut and its advertising genius is the tough question for Sony.

* The Good Guys chain has the Asus Transformer (32GB) at $A696, and the high-res, 16GB Iconia A500 Tab at $A484. However a 3G A501 version of Iconia's snazzy tablet will set you back $A649. Both run on an Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) version OS.

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August 2011

Tablet & OS Wars

HP TouchPad

1. Startling news from the tablet war zone is that HP's TouchPad has been discontinued - just four days after it debuted in Australia (on August 15th) and while flashy and expensive ads for the Wi-Fi only device were newly featuring at metropolitan railway stations. The surprise development is part of a larger and even more astonishing set of announcements from the widely respected company, or to be more precise its controversial new CEO, Leo Apotheker. Another is that HP will cease making smartphones, and a third that it will likely bow out of the PC business - its largest activity - as well. What will HP even do, now? Oh, there's a dicey lashing out of around $US10 billion to purchase the Autonomy company, which makes software for businesses. That's big bucks in these cash-strapped times. You may recall that HP bought Palm for less than a fifth of that amount two years ago, gaining Palm's webOS software in the process. The webOS is a polished operating system that experts praise, but it has not competed effectively in the marketplace against Google's Android or Apple's iOS. Old-timers will remember, for comparative purposes, that Betamax video was actually superior to VHS in quality, but plunged to oblivion due to the more effective marketing of the latter.

One onlooker described HP's announcement as "management slitting the company's throat ear to ear, from the inside". The stock market saw it that way too, and the company's shares plunged as a result. Corporate history is full of examples of CEO's taking mind-bogglingly stupid decisions in the guise of bold action, so leading great brands to ruin - or conversely, of rescuing them for the future by far-sighted and fearless moves at just the right moment (like Steve Jobs returning to resurrect Apple). Only history will reveal which of the two courses is happening here, for HP.

Anyhow, following the announcement super-bargain Touchpads were suddenly on sale everywhere in the USA, with two different versions of the 9.7-inch screen device going for $US99 and $US149 respectively. They were snapped up with great eagerness, and soon selling out all over, after very poor earlier sales. Locally, they were also on sale from the Harvey Norman chain, for $A99 & $A149 on 22 August, and likewise disappeared at lightning speed. Which, we believe, may be a pointer to tablets in general being way over-priced for the majority of their potential market. For what it's worth, we believe that plain e-readers need to be below $100 in price, and multi-use Web tablets below $200, for them to become e-reading devices most people will be prepared to regard as "must-have" items in these recessionary times.

2. Meanwhile the out-of-control suing wars over alleged copycatting continue. Not at all deterred by its legal nosebleed from Nokia, Apple is suing Samsung, HTC, Motorola and more for the same kind of thing it was found to be doing itself in that Nokia affair. Worse, Apple has been shamed in Europe for allegedly embroidering a lawsuit there with digitally manipulated images. As in, juicy leaves of falsify.  HTC in turn is suing Apple, and, well, the whole bunch of them seem to be unleashing infestations of judicial hoopla in every direction. It's a wonder the courts don't just say, enough, stop it all of you, you disgraceful bunch of shameless, corporate weasels. Meanwhile a canny Google, after publicly bemoaning Apple's use of patent lawsuits as anti-competitive and accusing the big A of strangling innovation, has just bought Motorola for a hefty $US12.5 billion, primarily, by all accounts, to acquire its enormous stash of 17,000 patents. Motorola, of course actually, really and truly invented the mobile (cell) phone way back then, and so can claim primacy for the whole phony show. If that counts for anything in the current circus of litigation. Anyone for tennis?

3. Lenovo has launched two tablets in Australia this month, running a 3.1 version of the Android "Honeycomb" OS. First up is the Thinkpad (now there's a name), a large, 10.1-inch screen model aimed at business users and presenting in three memory sizes. It's 3G capable, has a high end 1280×800 pixel display, and includes a generous three connection ports, viz. mini-HDMI, USB 2.0 and micro USB. The 1GHz processor/1gig RAM combo is no more than could be expected, but an included stylus and a keyboard dock are extras this market may value. For more common folk Lenovo offer the IdeaPad K1, a same-sized model with essentially the same specs too. In truth, the differences are nearly all cosmetic, and there'll only be $30 between them. The three ThinkPad tablets are priced from $A599 and the two IdeaPads from $569. They're open for ordering this month, for delivery in September.

*A later Lenovo surprise will be a further, souped-up Windows 7 model, the IdeaPad P1. That'll boast a 1.5GHz processor and up to 2 GB of RAM, but will be confined to the US market, and appear in the last quarter of this year.

4. Sony meantime is to release two striking Android OS Web tablets.

          Sony S1 (left) and S2 (right) tablets     

The WiFi-only S1 model, with a 9.4 inch screen, has a curved lip on the back like a folded magazine, while the well-rounded, weird-looking S2 opens to reveal two 5.5 inch touch screens. Expect more interesting names before a launch date in the southern spring/northern autumn, and notice that the two page idea on the S2 seems very suitable for e-reading. Pricing is hush-hush till later, & will probably be tempered to the rapidly evolving market if Sony displays any nous.

5. E Ink Holdings, the Taiwanese company whose subsidiary makes the electrophoretic displays (EPDs) for e Ink devices like the Kindle, the monochrome Nook and the Sony Reader, now expects to ship a total of between 25-30 million display panels in 2011. Great, we finally have a good idea of how many e Ink e- readers are being sold. But there's more. E Ink is also investing $US52 million in Chunghwa Picture Tubes, to up production of both EPDs and FFS panels over the next three years. FFS panels? Yes, e Ink chairman Scott Liu also indicated that his company will be shipping new FFS panels very soon. However he's not yet confident they'll sell well, saying on August 23 that "The uncertainty in our future revenue will come from the FFS display segment."
FFS panels, for the curious, are LCD-linked, and are used in Web tablets and smart phones. Why is e Ink making LCD components?  Did I mention the phrase "Amazon Web tablets, announcement shortly?" No? Pity. I could say more, but they'd have to kill me…

 

Apple Wins, but Will it Gain Anything?

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo & Google have now all modified their iTunes book apps to exclude links enabling users to directly purchase e-books from within the app itself. This is because Apple now has rules in place requiring app providers to pay Apple 30% of proceeds from any sales within an app. So, the four have cut out the direct purchase option rather than hand Apple payments that would destroy their margin for profitable competition.

The real loser, though, is the consumer, whose easy book purchase option on iOS devices (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch) has now disappeared. Except for e-books bought from Apple, of course. The question is, will this really push more business Apple's way, or backfire if serious book-buyers respond by just ignoring iTunes altogether for their purchases? And as more and more rival tablets and sophisticated smart phones launch, will Apple, by placing such limitations on its own devices, in fact encourage disgruntled customers to go elsewhere for the hardware too in future? Playing hardball with consumers so as to stymie commercial rivals is a very risky gambit. The outcomes in this case will be closely watched for the lessons, if any, they provide for all comers.

*And how about that Amazon Web tablet speculation? It's still a case of stand by for an announcement. "But not for very much longer", as that old Rocky Horror crew would say. Indeed, if there's no humungous hoopla before the end of September, this crewman will have some serious hat-eating to do.

*Stand by also for further new Kindle model news over the next couple of months. Note that the "with Special Offers" version of the present 3G Kindle, reduced on April 27 to $US164, came down a further $25 in mid-July to $US139 (it remains at $US189 for the version without on-screen ads). We're going to be bold (or foolhardy) here and predict that before the end of January 2012 there'll be one Kindle model available for just $US99, a sweet spot indeed.

 

*Borders Australia Online was purchased by the Pearson Australia Group, the local subsidiary of Pearson plc, on the 27th July. They'll still sell Kobo e-books though.

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July 2011

E-Sales Noble, Barns Decline

BN.com, the online branch of giant US book retail chain Barnes & Noble, is now selling three times as many e-books as printed books, the company reports. This trend reflects both the popularity of the company's proprietary Nook e-reader, and increasing use of its Nook software app on other devices. A further boost to the digital push comes from "PubIt!", B&N's self-publishing digital platform. In fact one of PubIt's home-grown titles has reached #1 sales rank in the huge Nook Bookstore.

Another surprising feature of B&N's digital effort is that sales of foreign-language e-books are growing faster than those of e-books in English, according to B&N's Manager of International Digital Content, Patricia Arancibia. One stand-out success has been Nook Books en Español, which was launched in November 2010 and now carries over 50,000 e-titles in Spanish.

At the same time, sales of physical books in B&N's bricks-and-mortar stores are now declining in absolute terms, falling 2.9% in value in the last quarter alone.The impact of that is substantial, since Barnes & Noble owns no less than 1,341 physical bookstores all up, making it the world's largest bookseller. At present the company is actually losing money overall, reflecting tough times in the recessed US economy. Nevertheless B&N is continuing to invest in the digital side of its business, in the hopes of finding a lifeline there. Meanwhile, billionaire John Malone's Liberty Media has offered to take over the company, offering US$17 per share (about US$980 million all up) for around 70 per cent of B&N's issued share capital, a proposal its board is at present examining.

It's significant that a Liberty Media statement referred to Barnes & Noble as being "at the forefront of the transition to digital… and positioned … for growth in a dynamic marketplace", indicating that the e-book side of the B&N business is what has caught Malone's attention. B&N founding chairman Leonard Riggio seems loath to part with his present role, but other board members may prefer to go with the money to help secure the company's bookbiz future. This is a situation worth watching closely, considering that rival major chain Borders is in bankruptcy protection, a dire plight that may present B&N with major new opportunities if the ailing Borders fails to recover.

 

E-Reader Uptake Zooms Ahead in the USA

At May 2011, some 12% of the US population owned a dedicated e-reader device (e.g. Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader), according to a recent Pew Internet Project report. Princeton Survey Research Associates International conducted telephone interviews for the Pew Research Center survey from April 26 to May 22 2011, quizzing a sample of 2,277 persons aged 18 and older. Grouped by educational status, University graduates (= College in the USA) were the most likely to own a dedicated e-reader, with 22% ownership in that category.

What is startling about the ownership figure, though, is that it doubled in just six months, from 6% in November 2010. The study also revealed that a lesser 8% of adults now own a Web tablet such as the iPad, up from 5% at the earlier date. That means that at least one fifth of US citizens own a large mobile device capable of e-reading. Of course, many more own smaller potential e-reading platforms such as Web-connected smart phones, or more traditional larger platforms like laptop and desktop computers. Add in games platforms that can do e-reading too, and most adults - and teenagers - in the USA can now e-read if they so choose.

 

In Death Doth He Prosper

Left: Amazon's ad for Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest It's official, the world's biggest selling e-book author ever is both Swedish and dead. Stieg Larsson (full name Karl Stig-Erland Larsson) wrote the Millennium Trilogy crime thriller series, global sales of which now exceed 60 million copies in all formats. In the USA alone, the three books have now sold nearly three and a half million copies in electronic editions, so catapulting the controversial Swede to the number one spot. Incidentally, Larsson's colourful, politically extreme life ended when he died of a heart attack on 9 November 2004 aged only 50, after climbing multiple flights of steps following a lift (elevator) breakdown. Exercise regularly to avoid a similar fate, folks! It will be interesting to see whether or not Harry Potter e-books swiftly capture the No. 1 crown (in Swedish = krona) when they become available, progressively, from October this year.

E-Books On the Up in Indonesia

Interest in e-books is rising in Australia's near-neighbour Indonesia, and a new e-bookstore named BukuTablet is shortly to be launched in the populous archipelago nation. BukuTablet is being developed by Jogjakarta-based tech company PT Informotics Digital Persada, whose CEO Ardiansyah signed a memorandum of understanding in Jogjakarta with some 40 publishers on June 21st. Newcomer BukuTablet will first conduct sales via an Android app, with retail for Apple's iOS devices and Research in Motion's Blackberry Playbook tablet to follow. The initial formats offered will be ePub & PDF, and the BukuTablet website is due to open on August 11, 2011.

BukuTablet will join existing e-bookstore Papataka as the second major local digital retailer. Papataka itself only dates back to April last year, and was founded by three young local entrepreneurs. The Papataka website is allied with nine Indonesian publishers, and also provides a platform for independent authors to publish their own writing. The site works with Adobe Digital Editions DRM, and supports Android & Apple devices, plus iRiver's Cover Story*, aWi-Fi e Ink device.

*Cover Story is an e-reader we haven't reviewed previously. It may look like a Kindle or Nook copy, but this is no cheap rip-off clone. Maker Korea's iRiver have considerable credibility with their past devices, and have gained points in Asia and elsewhere for both quality and stylish design. The lightweight (282 gram/10oz) Cover Story supports ePub, PDF, txt, Djvu and FB2 book files, plus images and audio, includes seventeen menu languages, has 2GB of onboard memory and allows up to 32GB more on SD cards. You can also use it for email via its Wi-Fi connectivity. Still, this isn't a state of the art e-reader. The Cover Story display only offers 8 greyscales, and so can be compared with the Kindle 2 rather than the current "Pearl" display Kindle and Nook models. The local version retails in Indonesia for 2.290 million rupiah (= about $A285).

 

Apple Cored

A propos the patents infringement brawl between Apple and Nokia mentioned in our May news. Nokia had filed a total of 46 complaints against Apple over time, and Apple had counter-charged with a few of its own. In brief, Nokia has now won the stoush in a sorely-needed victory for the hard-pressed Finnish phone-maker. Apple has agreed to pay up for its, shall we say, unauthorised borrowing of Nokia technology in iOS devices, in the form of a large one-off compensatory payment and then on-going royalties. Evidently, Apple decided to drop its legal counter-offensive when defeat seemed assured.  "We're glad to put this behind us", declared an Apple spokesperson. iNdeed.

 

Direct to the public, but at what price?

All the non-stop fracturing and recasting of the digital market is enough to give a traditional publisher the heebie-jeebies when trying to figure out what is actually going on with e-books. And now, giant book retailer Amazon is itself getting into traditional publishing, enlisting the thriller author Barry Eisler as their first big name. Worse, over in Britain three leading literary agents (Curtis Brown, Blake Friedman and Ed Victor) say they've decided to become back-list publishers themselves through the clever base of their best-selling authors. Which is just not cricket.

Great Scott Alfred, there must be something the gentleman's club can do to strike bat, er back at all these dastardly new forces. Well actually, they're already doing it, Mr Wayne. Heavyweight publishers Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group USA and the Hachette Book Group (owned by CBS Corp, Pearson PLC and France's Lagardere SCA respectively), are together developing a new webstore to sell both digital and physical books direct to the public. That's right, shock'n horror, buy direct from the publishers! No, I didn't say at wholesale prices though Robin, but to be really bold and daring anyhow they're describing it as "The new digital destination for readers". The website will be called Bookish, and it's coming real soon now. Good luck with that, guys

 

Elo Elo?

ELO? No not the Electric Light Orchestra, the Electronic Literature Organization, a worthy body that dabbles extensively in a directory, reports, conferences and a website about, well, electronic literature of course. Particularly the new and innovative kind. In the latest episode in a short but perambulatory life, the rolling stone ELO has lately moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where ELO President Nick Montfort and ELO Director Fox Harrello are both jiving away on the faculty. That's MIT as distinct from previous host the lispier Maryland Institute of Technology in the Humanities (MITH), where the gang have been serenading serendipitously since 2006. Before then the ELO began life in cool Chicago in 1999, and moved on to balmier UCLA in 2001. They're hoping for a more permanent home now, presumably after inspiration from cosy Bee Gees' lyrics about the lights being always on in Massachusetts….
http://eliterature.org

 

Editorial: A Market at Risk of Monopoly Clusters

Last month on 7th June, Asus, makers of the popular Eee range of netbooks and Web tablets, announced the Versent eBookstore. For Asus customers only that is, through an "ASUS @Vibe" account. With specials, recommendations, a range of best sellers, yada yada. Not that long ago (in late April), when rival Acer launched the Iconia Tab A500, an Android Honeycomb OS Web tablet, it also included the "Acer LumiRead eBookstore".

Such linking of devices/single brands with e-bookstores has been done successfully by Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple, but the market can only take so much of that kind of fracturing before alienating consumers. We have been arguing - and hoping - for e-reader devices trending towards openness instead. There has been some limited headway in that direction, with several dedicated e-reader manufacturers opting or switching (in the case of Sony) to support open format e-books on their devices. And Amazon itself has hinted that it will soon offer the closest thing to a common digital standard, ePub format books, although just how and to what extent is unknown yet.

Meanwhile the dazzling new Web tablets such as the iPad have turned out to be capable of supporting a wide variety of reading apps, and through them book purchases from a goodly range of companies. However, Apple is making that more difficult from 1 July, to pressure iPad and other iOS device owners towards buying books through iTunes alone.

We abhor this action. Surely, the dream should be a market in which all customers can either choose to stay with one company's store for reasons that make sense to them (such as service, price, convenience or even brand loyalty), or alternatively buy their e-books from anywhere else they choose? After all, if that is the case with printed books, why shouldn't the opportunity be equally available in a digital era? Let's not have a new technology that gets tightly boxed into corporate corrals in a way that destroys consumer freedom. If the big companies are truly proud of their products and services (and some at least have good reason to be), let them compete openly in a free environment, and reap their financial rewards from readers who are well-satisfied, rather than just plain hog-tied and hating it. The reader who stays with you because he wants to, not because his device forces him to, is surely the best basis for the commercial future of e-book retailing.

 

Shock! Horror! Was it all a stunt?

Update to last month's "Web Tablet euphoria" report. The $99 ZTE V9 My Tab seems universally sold out in Australia, with chains such as Dick Smiths, Harvey Norman, BigW and The Good Guys all reporting nil stock remaining and no more likely to come within cooee any time soon. In fact, after exhaustive enquiry we can report that only the supporting telco Optus seems to be offering this 7 inch bargain tablet at all now in Australia, and only in its online store. Regrettably though, the residual Optus direct offer is certainly not at $99 for outright purchase. In fact, the telco's pre-paid 3G access offer has vanished too, with the only remaining deal available being much less attractive. That's for a 24 month contract plan of around $30 per month, with only a 4GB per month data entitlement, for a minimum total spend of $7188.80.

While those who have already managed to secure a V9 at a dream price are mostly ecstatic (with many rejoicing in Web forums), suspicions are growing that the $99 offer was in fact a carefully prepared and cynical "loss leader" stunt. In other words, a ploy designed to help lure customers into the EOFYS (end of financial year sales) run by the big chains, with actual tablet availability kept deliberately tiny compared with expected demand. While the big chain stores clearly aren't going to admit to such disappointing behaviour, especially if it involved collusion, the largest question resulting is whether the V9 will re-appear in retail stores at all now, and if so under what conditions and pricing.

All of which means that there will be at least two tantalising (or even maddening) Web tablet issues for the second half of 2011. The first is the possible arrival of an Amazon Web tablet, and how that might compare with the iPad. The second is the prospective release and pricing of a full-sized, 10 inch ZTE V11 tablet or clone therof. If such a "big brother" model to the ZTE V9 is made available cheaply enough, especially since the claimed specs rival those of the iPad, it could be the hardware that causes a popular stampede to buying Web tablets in general. And that might change the face of e-reading.

Clearly, the ZTE V9 charged through a psychological price barrier and was about to go truly massive when supply suddenly vanished. A repeat of that in a larger form factor might cause a huge number of average citizens to take up reading newspapers, magazines and any colour, illustrated media on the go in an electronic format, far sooner than predicted. Of course, a cheap-enough ZTE V11 or similar product may never happen, or at least not for another year or so yet. Which means, though, that all we're waiting for now to make a general e-reading revolution possible is the right device price. All the rest of the hard work is already done.

 

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June 2011

Web Tablet euphoria

Too good to be true? Australian consumers certainly didn't think so, as news of a good-enough Web tablet reduced to the almost unbelievable price of $99 spread and caused a rush on stockists, who are now almost universally sold out. That's not so surprising, seeing the device debuted in Australia at U$279 just last December (a model will sell in the UK next month, and an upgraded version has just been released in Spain, among other markets).

The ZTE V9 is supported by Australian telco Optus, and doubles as the "Optus My Tab". This device looks about the same, at first glance, as Optus rival Telstra's originally $299 (now $199) T-Touch Tab Web tablet. The latter seemed keen value at first, but has received the thumbs down from reviewers over time and sold relatively poorly. What's got buyers so excited here, then? For one thing, the ZTE V9 is simply a good build - even the resistive touch screen works much better than it ought to in theory. Second, the V9 (a designation that has clever appeal to the Australian psyche as in "even better than a V8") has 3G connectivity (along with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth), which is a marvel at the price. Thirdly, there's "three months" Web access, & GPS, thrown in for free. Best of all there's that price. Apple is spending a fortune promoting the classy iPad 2 in Australia, but many would-be purchasers have only to glance at the steep $$$ asked for the various iPad models here to conclude that Apple's latest device out-classes their financial resources too. By contrast, even a school student could afford the My Tab from saved pocket money.

So what is this device, exactly? From Chinese manufacturer ZTE, the V9 is a seven inch Web tablet of the "long and narrow" variety, one you can therefore easily slip into a deep pocket. The screen resolution is only 800 x 480, but it still looks bright, clear & appealing. The V9 My Tab runs with a 0.6GHz Qualcomm processor on a so-so Android 2.1 OS, but that can be upgraded to the better Android 2.2 operating system through Optus. Meanwhile the "wild boys" who do such things are managing to install Android 2.3 (but be aware you've invalidated your warranty if you make such unauthorised "improvements" and they comes unstuck).

Included storage memory is only a 2GB card, but adding say an 8 or 16GB microSD card will fix that. You also get a mini-USB port, a modest (in fact fairly useless) 3 megapixel camera, a voice recorder, FM radio and mp3 player, surprisingly good sound from a built-in speaker, and a microphone. Battery life is superior in its field with up to 10 hours use per charge, but recharge may take a long four hours. There's a user-friendly virtual keyboard, and general response is quite fast. It'll play video (not HD though), at least on a stock Android video player, but won't support Flash. The weight is about 400g (14 ounces). There's no cover case included, but a tip is that the "Samsung Galaxy Tab Express Case" will substitute. A huge user forum, only accessible within Australia, testifies further to the popularity of this new "people's choice" tablet. Some users report successfully adding Aldiko as their e-reading app, and using Calibre to convert e-books to the ePub format (both are available free, see our Software page for more information).

OK, now take a deep breath. What is the ZTE V9 My Tab not suitable for? For many, the screen is too small and narrow for reading magazines or newspapers, illustrated textbooks, children's books, comics & manga, or big-print books for the vision affected. And since many avid readers prefer a dedicated e Ink device like the Kindle, Sony Reader or Nook for novels and other text-only literature, what would be the point for them in obtaining this tablet as a reading device, as opposed to a Web-connected plaything?

Yes sir, many of us want a large, iPad sized Web tablet if we want one at all. But, now we'll go all breathless again, and give you some very good news. ZTE are also bringing out a "full-sized" 10 inch tablet that looks pretty impressive at first sight. Known variously as the V11 and the Light 10 model, it'll boast a 1.2GHz dual core CPU chip (that's 20% more cycles and significantly more oomph than the iPad has), offer a highly desirable 1280 x 800 screen resolution with capacitive multi-touch, have two cameras (one 5MP) and run the tablet-optimised Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS. Then there's 512MB RAM, different versions with from 16GB up of onboard memory, and a goodly 6800mAh battery. We don't have a release date other than the second half of this year, and we don't know the price yet, unfortunately. This device will definitely take aim at the USA market though, and possibly cause Apple heartburn there, but if ZTE & Optus can do a deal similar to their great offer on the smaller version here, we predict they'll outsell the iPad by five to one or more Down Under. Forget the Bex, Kath and Kim, Australian suburbia will be gleefully awash with Web tablets if the V11 is priced to roar up to local driveways on all virtual cylinders.

* The Blackberry Playbook was released in Australia on 20 June. Expect to pay about $580, $690 or $800 respectively for the three versions (16, 32 & 64GB). Yes, the same prices as for iPad 2 Wi-Fi models!

* The Galaxy Tab 10.1 inch version is now available from Vodaphone for $730.

* The clever Asus Transformer tablet->netbook is also available now, but will set you back locally $599 for a 16GB model without the docking keyboard, and $799 for the 32GB version with dock. These are substantially higher prices than overseas, and especially disappointing given there's no 3G connectivity...

*

Much More Potter!

Thought you'd see the last of teen wizard Harry Potter after the forthcoming Deathly Hallows movie? In fact, author J.K. Rowling has been busy weaving more breathless magic, a virtual "Harry Potter" encyclopaedia completing the Potter universe. It comes in the form of a Pottermore website, crammed with both newly written and previously withheld explanations & revelations about the fascinating people, places and unusual objects populating Rowling's enchanted realm.

Pottermore will offer a huge amount of free interactivity to delight participants, including, after registration, a personal "gateway" home page, action to receive a unique wand, placement into one of Hogwarts Academy's four houses from questions answered, and a journey through each of the seven, best-selling books via a series of key "moments" or scenes. So it's in fact an unfolding journey where fans learn though a game-like experience. The website will showcase the interactive potential of digital words and pictures for children as never before.

Although Pottermore won't open to the general run of muggles until October 1st, fans can enter their email on the website to be notified when registration has opened. Apparently, a million lucky souls will be able to register early on July 31st.

Beyond the free fun for kids of all ages, Pottermore also gives a startling glimpse of where the Web and e-publishing may be taking us. Part of Pottermore will be an online e-bookstore (built by Overdrive and operated in conjunction with Sony), which may blaze new ground for major authors in that it will be the exclusive retail outlet for all Harry Potter e-books, and probably generate a cash bonanza for the stakeholders. There'll be more for sale than just books of course, but while the kids should be fully satisfied by "plenty to buy, or plenty to read or do for free", writers and publishers will be wondering if this "direct to the public" leading author experience isn't more a trail-blazing ghost of things to come.

 

Eternity's on the Road Again

Open Road Media, a digital publisher whose co-founder Jane Friedman was once CEO of Harper Collins, has just released From Here to Eternity:The Restored Edition. This is a re-issue of the famous WWII-era novel as an e-book. Controversial bits considered taboo at the time and censored out have now been added back in, and the work also features an illustrated biography of author James Jones. Open Road is mostly concentrating on presenting electronic versions of "back-list books" by established authors, rather than new titles, and offers authors or their estates a generous fifty-fifty share of profits. The company also promotes those writers anew with short video documentaries for the Web. However they've also begun publishing a few new books that will appear first in electronic format. That's great and applause-worthy, but we do feel they should be soundly spanked for coining the horrible phrase "e-riginals".

 

… and Statistics

i) Who's winning at selling e-books in the retail arena? One report from Goldman Sachs back in February cited by Bloomberg suggests that in the USA anyhow, at the time of survey Amazon.com led with 58 percent of e-book sales, followed by Barnes & Noble with 27 percent, Apple with 9 percent and Borders/Kobo running fourth at 7 percent. We're a little sceptical of these figures, because in point of fact they add up to 101% despite only including the four largest and none of the smaller players. Didn't rubbery figures like that (not to forget elastic ethics) from the likes of Goldman Sachs help get us all into the GFC a while back? Anyhow, it's possible that the percentages may nevertheless reveal the relative strength of the largest players in the market at this point in time…

ii) And who in particular is selling so well? Once authors measured their e-book sales by, well, almost counting them digital unit by digital unit. Now at least eight writers have sold more than a million electronic copies each, in the Kindle format alone. They include the late mystery scribbler Steig Larsson; thriller writer James Patterson; romance doyenne Nora Roberts; "True Blood" inspirer Charlaine Harris, Suzanne "Underland Chronicles" Collins, and Lee "Jack Reacher" Child. So has self-published novelist John Locke (the living one, not the one in the history books).

 

Brits getting there, though slowly

UK e-book sales rose by a solid, though unspectacular 20% last year, according to a report published last month in the Guardian newspaper. The report quoted figures released in May by the (UK) Publishers Association, giving estimated digital book earnings for 2010 as valued at £180 million. That represented about 5.8 % of £3.1 billion total publishing transactions. The latter rose in value by just 2%, and the number of physical books sold fell by some 3% in a rather flat market overall. Interestingly, about 70% of digital purchases originated with the academic and professional sectors, even though general consumer e-book sales rose four-fold in the year.

It's easy to deduce from this that the UK academic and professional market for digital reading is already well established, while the general consumer market is in its infancy in Britain. Of £16 million earned for the latter, only £6 million was for fiction titles (that's nevertheless up from £2 million in 2009), and only £1 million was for children's books. Yet, those two sectors are large markets. With sales of both dedicated e-readers and Web tablets climbing sharply in Britain now, much higher e-book revenue figures can be expected for 2011. For example, publisher Pan Macmillan's digital book sales for the first quarter of 2011 were up fifteen-fold compared with the same period in 2010, aided by roaring growth for authors such as Wilbur Smith, Jeffrey Archer and Emma Donoghue.

*Meanwhile mega-publisher Simon & Schuster reported in its first quarter 2011 earnings statement that digital content produced 18% of total revenue*, compared with 10% for 2010. All but 1% of that came from e-books (the rest was digital audio). For the same quarter, fellow "big six" publisher Hachette Book Group sold 88% more e-books than a year earlier, to account for no less than 22% of its overall revenue. Figures like this make it clear that in many countries electronic books are in rapid transition from a minor side-show element in publishing to a "disruptive" or transformative technology that is now galvanising the consumer market, and perhaps even spearheading a resurgence in the reading of real books after years of decline.

 

Cloudy Outlook for Libraries?

3M is about to enter the library e-book supply arena with the 3M Cloud Library, a new platform prepared by the Txtr company. The 3M Cloud deal will compete with digital distribution biggie Overdrive's established service, and will include "Discovery Terminal" download stations for libraries; borrowing & reading apps for PCs, Macs, iPads, Nooks and Android devices; plus possibly 3M 's own e-reading hardware & software. And of course a book collection. There's no mention of Kindle books here though. That's probably because Amazon has recently signed a partnership deal with Overdrive to introduce Kindle library lending later this year, and so the Kindle format will be tied to a competing platform.

*Meanwhile USA book folk McGraw-Hill have just launched an online digital library for their own titles, to supply institutions around the world from over 1,000 e-books on engineering, computing, business, medicine, and student study aides. They'll be offering one to four year subscriptions.

*Over in the UK they've had the Bloomsbury Library Online for a couple of years now, with subsets also available for the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand Germany and Denmark. Bloomsbury and several other publishers (including Faber, Canongate and Arden Shakespeare) currently contribute titles. Those are available, online only, as "bookshelves" in various subject areas from libraries that subscribe annually.

 

The Never-Ending Story, part the next

Last month we mentioned a June 1st "agreement status conference" coming up for the stalled Google online books project. That's essentially a court-mandated, "where are we at now" talk-fest of concerned parties. It was ordered by Judge Chin in the Southern District Court of New York when he rejected the most recent settlement proposal, back on 22nd March. As it turned out, the June jaw-jaw for the court case, known officially as "The Authors Guild et al v. Google Inc.", achieved very little. The concerned parties have asked for more time still, and were granted seven more weeks until 19 July, when a further conference will be held. Litigation is expected to resume if those talks fail…

*Not everything in the Google e-books world is bogged down in court cases, though. In fact, Google has just introduced an affiliates programme for e-publishers, bloggers, retailers and websites, to link to "Google eBooks" (the unlitigated and incontestably for sale ones, that is). Google is also partnering with the august British Library to digitise about 250,000 old (1700 to 1870) public domain books, whose legal status is also unquestioned.

 

"After these messages…"

On the tail-end of our April news, we reported that Amazon had just trotted out a version of the Wi-Fi Kindle that at US$114 would be $25 cheaper for those purchasers willing to accept advertisements on their devices. To the surprise of many (this writer included), that "Kindle with Special Offers" has proved extremely popular. Popular, to the extent that after five weeks availability it's now outselling the "regular" ads-free Kindle version. In response, Amazon is now offering the same deal ($25 off) for the Wi-fi+3G Kindle model, which will be available to yea-sayers for US$164 instead of US$189.

Comment: what's going on here? Is it simply the allure of getting something a little cheaper? If so, why aren't book-lovers put off by the prospect of having to endure ads for ever after in a reading situation where for a little more dosh they could permanently avoid them? We suspect there's something else involved. Does the idea of "special offers" actually lure customers in, in other words are they hoping to run across good deals on their devices they might otherwise miss out on? The only way to be sure of the truth of this marketing puzzle would be sell Kindle versions with or without "Special Offers" for the same price, and see which are more often purchased. How far could this trend go, though? Will Amazon next offer a software download so existing Kindle owners can choose to opt onto the Ad-wagon? Could the situation even arise where customers have to pay more for the privilege of receiving an e-reader that isn't a" Special Offers" model? This one bears close watching.

 

New Nook released

It's out, it's lightweight, it's touchscreen, it's comparably priced to the Kindle and it has great battery life. "It" is the new Nook Simple Touch from Barnes & Noble, now shipping in the USA. So let's take a close look at just what's on offer. "The same and yet different" are words that spring immediately to mind. Same as in yet another six inch, monochrome e Ink display screen, a description we've had to repeat so often in recent years that the phrase has become almost a column cliché. Is the new Nook all that different, though?

Well, firstly there's an infra-red touch screen. The Kindle lacks this feature, but one variety of the Sony Reader has touch already, and many e-reader owners actually like using buttons. Moreover, the touch isn't as good as that on Apple iOS capacitive devices. So, for those folks not wildly enamoured of a slightly iffy touch screen, the new Nook offers page turning buttons on the sides and a central base button for navigation anyhow. You can even programme the side buttons to suit yourself. Cool.

Take Two. The previously distinctive and rather appealing Nook gimmick of an extra, colour LCD screen at the base to display book covers has disappeared in this model. Instead, the latest Nook offers only the Pearl generation, greyscale iteration of e Ink - just like its principal rivals do already. A worry is that a semi-gloss effect on this one's screen compromises, by its reflectivity, one important advantage of e Ink. That's the ability to read text in broad daylight without glare being a major bother. Tsk.

So what is new or better then? You can see from the picture above that the Simple Touch is a bit wider than the Kindle or the Kobo in relation to its height, and has very broad edging. But that's just styling. So let's get serious and turn to some significant specs and features.

A major plus is that we're up to an 800Mhz processor with this model (which runs on an Android 2.1 OS). That's sufficient oomph to hope for a decent performance in book loading speed and general response. Lacks in the latter areas were failures painfully evident in the last and ultimately appalling Kobo model from B&N rival Borders (that device is currently being given away in Australia by a health fund, free being in our opinion a suitable price for such overwhelmingly disappointing junk). With an adequate processor, if any such faults displayed here they would be purely down to bad engineering and lousy firmware. However previous iterations of the Nook have been good enough for us to be optimistic that won't be the case at all, but we'll wait for lots of user experience reports before commenting definitively on that score.

So what's definitely to like in the Simple Touch, then? Ease of use, for one thing, the designers have concentrated on that to their credit. Excellent battery life for another, to the point that B&N rather breathlessly claim an e-reader "Best Battery Life Ever". Specifically, up to two months on a single charge if you don't use the Wi-fi at all. Recharge takes three hours.

There's lots more. How about snappy & less obtrusive page turns - now that's a winner for most people. Then there's up to two gigabytes of internal memory, which is enough for a very large library of text-only books, plus you can add more storage via the microSD card slot if needed. Six available text fonts in seven sizes sounds like a goodly range, and the device's light weight of only 212 grams (7.48 ounces) appeals too. In fact it's 35 percent lighter and 15 percent thinner than the previous "NOOK 1st Edition". For handling, the hollowed-out back is eminently graspable. Oh, and the Nook Touch will read ePub and PDF e-books plus common image files, and you can also add your own personal files in those formats.

A key further point is that the price of US$139 is certainly competitive, although that's Wi-Fi only, remember - sadly there's no 3G connection available here. There is an on-screen keyboard that usually just pops up only when needed, which is quite nice. Also new is the self-descriptive "FastPage Zoom forward", a press and hold side button feature that also lets you know how many pages you have left to read.

On the Web side of things, in addition to the existing bookstore there's a new myNook.com soon to be rolled out. That'll be, in essence, a personalised online book selection, purchasing and device management service. Oh, and at the gimmick end you can have personalised screen savers on your e-reader as well, if you're bothered. Add in some "social reading" features (e.g. "Nook Friends") if you want them, plus you can lend some books too. A minus is that the Web browser feature on earlier Nooks has gone here.

OK, overall we're reasonably impressed (although a 3G model as well would impress more). The bottom line, this is a worthy rival to the Kindle or Sony Reader as a simple e-reader, if you don't need colour or other Web tablet features. The Nook Simple Touch is backed by easy access to the very credible Barnes & Noble book range, has the advantage of supporting the ePub format, and sells at a competitive price. If you live in the USA or Canada you'd have to consider it if you're looking to buy a dedicated e-reader now.

So when, if ever, will we see this device in Australia? That's one question Barnes & Noble currently have no useful answer for.

*

*There's a new Kobo e-reader out too. We were overwhelmingly disappointed with the last model (the one we bought has now given up the ghost entirely, on a whim, but we were already so infuriated by it we're not even going to bother asking for a refund). So, unless Borders send us the new model free, plus some very kind and soothing words to go with it, we won't even dignify their latest effort with a review. Once bitten, enough said.

Update: News has come through that the last nine Borders book stores in Australia will close down within the next six to eight weeks. Although Borders Australia is now separately owned from the main Borders group, it's not a good look for the Kobo future. However the news does create new opportunities for Borders arch rival Barnes & Noble, so if B&N are sufficiently on the ball perhaps they'll think about offering Nook devices here sooner rather than later...

*

Amazon versus Apple - sparks will fly

In a late update to last month's Amazon Web tablet speculation, we informed you that the big A's head honcho, Jeff Bezos, has more or less confirmed that what we've christened the Sparkpad will be on the way soon. Now one of the tree-top birdies that tell us such things says that Amazon's Web tablet will sport a 10 inch LCD screen and run with an Android OS powered by a Nvidia Tegra quad-core chip. A 7 inch little brother model may be available too. However the device may not offer anything new and startling, just slick integration with Amazon apps and an easy e-book purchasing experience. If it significantly undercuts Apple's iPad on price though, which has also been suggested, the new tablet would be of considerable interest to those of us wishing to avoid spending too much on any one tablet model in a constantly evolving technology. Which is a lot of people. All the more reason for Apple's iPad 3 to be something really special next year, if Steve Jobs doesn't want to risk losing a huge slice of Web tablet market share to a major rival.

*Amazon already has the lion's share of the e-book maket, though. A report from Caris & Co analyst Sandeep Aggarwal predicts that Amazon's Kindle-related revenue for 2011 will top US$5.4 billion, and rise by nearly half again in 2012 to at least US$7.96 billion.

 

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May 2011

More on that Never-Ending Story...

Readers will recall - and may even be weary of - the seemingly interminable saga of Google's online books project. In brief, the search engine giant self-permissioned a hugely ambitious book scanning project some years ago in conjunction with several major libraries, but without authorisation from publishers or authors. Google took the view that it could simply scan millions of library books and allow them to be searched online for "fair-use" type extracts, setting off an enormous legal ruckus. Many concerned parties, including even some governments, joined a courtroom stoush against what they felt was Google's presumption, regarding what Google viewed as a public service as arrogant, outrageous and in point of fact just plain illegal.

Many episodes later - with some twelve million books now scanned - Google lost the latest court ruling earlier this year. A class action which began in 2005 morphed into a proposed broad settlement in October 2008, one that granted rights to Google which many parties felt unprecedented and unwarranted. Resulting objections led to negotiations that produced an amended settlement agreement, which was then put forward in November 2009. That in turn was ruled on by Judge Denny Chin in the New York District Court late in March this year.

Originally Google did not plan to make entire copyrighted books available online, only to index them and make it possible to search them for "snippets". But as negotiations progressed the proposed agreement evolved into a scheme in which Google would have the right to sell full online access to copyrighted works, something rather different from a free public text search service. Dissenters would have to opt out in time in a specific process, or be ignored.

However in his 22 March ruling the judge rejected the proposed agreement, saying "The question presented is whether the ASA (amended settlement agreement) is fair, adequate, and reasonable. I conclude that it is not." He added: "While the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the ASA would simply go too far... It would permit…(Google)... to implement a forward-looking business arrangement that would grant Google significant rights to exploit entire books, without permission of the copyright owners. Indeed, the ASA would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case…"

Nevertheless Judge Chin's ruling still allows the plaintiffs to propose a further version of the agreement in which authors and publishers must opt in rather than out of permission to use their works. "I urge the parties to consider revising the ASA accordingly," Chin wrote. Some of the plaintiffs are in favour of this option, including the US Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers.

The latest news in the tortuous saga is that three leading French publishers, Gallimard, Flammarion and Albin Michel, are suing Google for 9.8 million euros (c.$A13 million) damages for scanning almost 10,000 of their books without permission. It's not all bad news on the French front for Google though, since the largest Gallic publisher Hachette has bitten the bullet and allowed Google to scan its out-of-print books by arrangement. Oh, and an agreement status conference - effectively a gathering to discuss where all the parties to the original class lawsuit are now at - will be held on June 1st 2011. We'll update you on that soon.

 

Novel Nook This Month?

There'll be a announcement from Barnes & Noble about a new e-reader device on May 24th, USA time, apparently. Thanks to its existing monochrome e Ink and LCD colour Nooks, plus an extensive e-bookstore, B&N have surprised many by coming in second in the US digital book market recently. While Amazon with its Kindle devices and numerous Kindle apps remains the easy front-runner, Barnes & Noble now has more than one quarter of those US e-book sales, placing B&N firmly ahead of Apple's slice. No wonder Apple is reported planning a new dual function device, and as for Amazon, there's this…

The Amazon SparkPad?

Rumours are mounting across the Web that Amazon is to launch its own Web tablet, although there are precious few facts to back up the speculation so far. Apart from an unconfirmable report from Taiwan the main "evidence" so far is the launch back in March of an Amazon Android app store, unimaginatively named Appstore for Android (it does have some quite appealing features though, including a free app available each day).

Even that boring store name above is getting Amazon into trouble, as the litigation-prone Apple Corp is suing Amazon just for calling it that. Like, Apple invented apps right, just like Walt Disney wrote Snow White? Um, no on both counts Virginia, but in the Alice and Wonderland world of corporate lawsuits any Red Queen disliking competition seems to like to scream "Off with their heads!" as an opening legal gambit.

We'd believe the Amazon tablet prediction for another reason though. Namely, that Amazon has been too quiet for far too long on the volatile e-reader front for nothing to be brewing. So maybe an Amazon tablet will be shipping in July or August??? Once again, stand by for an official announcement…

Update :In a May 11 interview, Amazon's President/CEO/muse extraordinaire Jeff Bezos was questioned about an Amazon tablet and replied "stay tuned", confirming the likelihood for most observers. He also said recently that colour E Ink "is not ready for prime time…the colors are very pale", but that " it continues to be improved", implying in other remarks that there will be such a Kindle eventually, just not really soon.

*Asked when library-lending capability would be added to the Kindle (it's already available on the Nook and the Sony Reader), Bezos confirmed that would happen "sometime this year", but remained vague on just when. Good news though is that the feature will work with all generations of Kindles, and also with Kindle reading apps for other devices.

*And here's startling news: Amazon.com reported on May 19 that it now sells more Kindle e-books than printed books (hardcovers and paperbacks combined). Specifically, since April 1, for every 100 print books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 105 Kindle books. That's after less than four years of Kindle availability. "We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly - we've been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years," said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com.

 

The iPad rivals arrive - the Galaxy Tab

On 20 April the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v became available for pre-order in Australia, in what was described as a "limited edition" purchasable exclusively by Vodafone customers. The price announced was $A729 for a prepaid, 16 GB version, or alternatively $A259 upfront on a variety of monthly plans over 12 months. You can even have it for $0 upfront on two-yearly plans costing a minimum of $A936, according to the Vodafone blog. From 4 May the device sells in Australian Vodafone stores and online, although supplies may run out quickly if demand is high.

To thicken the plot iPad developer Apple is suing Samsung over the release of this Web tablet device and related Galaxy mobile phones, with some 16 claims of illegal copycatting, including 10 alleged patent infringements. That's a legal play that some might consider a bit rich considering Apple's own "inspired borrowings' in the past. Indeed Apple has itself been sued twice recently by Nokia for multiple patent infringements.
Update: Samsung has now counter-filed with ten patent infringement claims against Apple. The rival lawsuits are all the more bizarre given that Samsung supplies Apple with a huge amount of its chips and LCD displays.

The success or otherwise of such courtroom brawls is unlikely to cut much ice with the general public, though. Consumers have heard of quite enough dodgy dealings over the years from the big players to develop a "but they all do it, don't they?" cynicism over such infringement claims. Instead, interest will more probably centre on who has the best product, and also the keenest prices.

The Tab looks good on paper with its dual core 1GHz processor, high 1280 by 800 pixel resolution, low 599 grams (1.32 pounds) weight, and dual surround-sound speakers. However real-life performance is what most interests the majority of punters, a point Apple has been pushing hard in its own recent advertising. Apple has already established a credibility edge that will be hard for the newcomers to dent, and also has a more impressive range of apps available than its rivals. There's no price advantage to the Tab either - it costs the same as a mid-range iPad 2 - so it will be down to user perception as to which is the better device overall.

It's not clear which device will make the best e-reader, but both should present colour materials to considerable advantage, and be especially suitable for textbooks with colour pictures & charts, plus illustrated childrens' books. In addition magazines, comics & manga will also display well, while new interpretations of literature that include video will also be practicable on these devices.

*And on May 8th the Motorola Xoom Web tablet will also go on sale in Australia, on Telstra's NextG network. The 10.1inch screen Xoom follows swiftly on the heels of the same-sized Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v (see above), with the slightly smaller iPad 2 also fresh to the market in most countries.

For some the Xoom may be too bulky though, as it weighs a hefty 730 grams and is thicker than both the other two as well (13mm, compared with 10.9mm for the Galaxy Tab and a mere 8.8mm for the iPad 2). The Xoom is cutting edge however in running on the Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" operating system, like the Galaxy Tab, and unlike the iPad will support Adobe Flash content. It also offers a customisable home screen, and the battery recharges in 3.5 hours. Pricing is still unclear, but $A599 for the 32GB tablet has been claimed by one unverifiable source. If correct, that figure will make the Xoom competitive in the popular Web tablet category provided other aspects appeal.

*Meanwhile the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer was released in the USA on 26 April. There are two versions currently, a 16GB model for US$399 and a 32GB one for US$499. If you want to add the optional keyboard so you can also use it as a netbook (& nearly double the battery life), that's US$149 extra. The Transformer is already available in the UK where it has had good reviews, but an Australian release date is so far unknown, and supply indications don't look great at present. This tablet does have a price edge however, and Asus has traditionally been a reliable build, but the absence of 3G connectivity (it'sWi-fi only) may deter some.

 

*Then there's the popular colour Nook, an LCD "dedicated e-reader" that's starting to look more and more like a small Web tablet instead. A big boost in that direction has just been provided by a major firmware update.

The colour Nook is now running Android 2.2/Froyo as OS. New features include NOOK Email (access to Yahoo email, Gmail, Hotmail & AOL), the Adobe Flash Player, enhanced NOOK Books (they include video and audio inserts), and the ability to purchase some popular apps. There's also improved magazine navigation and a beta social feature called NOOK Friends, to share literary interests and even swap books with a LendMe facility.

Another advance is NOOK Kid Read and Play titles. Barnes & Noble has aced one over in obtaining exclusive rights to interactive children's e-books from the Dora and Diego people, Nickelodeon. There are more than thirty titles now available, and they'll work on both the NookColor and the NookKids iPad app.

The NookColor update will occur automatically for registered owners when they use Wi-Fi on their devices after April 25 through May, or can be downloaded manually from this Barnes & Noble URL.

 

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April 2011

 

Editorial : Solo or Multi? What is Apple up to, and will the line blur between dedicated e-readers and multi-purpose Web Tablets?

OK, in the left hand corner we have the Kindle, the Sony Reader and a host of other e-paper (e Ink) devices. Costing substantially les than the iPad and its rivals, they boast much longer battery life, are readable in direct sunlight and are recommended for avoiding eye-strain. They're an obvious choice for serious book-lovers, since they have four major advantages for that purpose over - in the right hand corner - Web tablets. The latter are considerably more expensive, but offer colour and video capability, can do much more than just present books, and may have access to thousands of ingenious apps for just about everything. At this point we're seeing two different concepts and two different sets of buyers.

So far so good. Then in a third corner again there are Web-connected smart phones, which can be used as tiny, ultra-mobile e-readers especially suited for the restless, high-speed young. For the mobile young seeking maximum portability, their sharp vision frequently means that smaller is much better. In fact these book nibblers often don't care if their screen acreage is minute, since in their texting and Tweet-influenced lifestyle a thousand words may seem like a grand epic anyway.

This then was the fight that looked like a no contest. Instead, customers would simply divide into three streams according to which advantages appealed to them the most. Or maybe, if finances permitted, they'd even buy one each from perhaps two categories to use for different purposes. Easy-peasy.

There were wild cards in this "self-arranging market" formula, though. What if colour, and even colour video capability, became available in a cheaper e Ink type e-reader? Or what if Web tablets - say an iPad clone - fell in price to almost the level of dedicated e-readers? Could either group then wipe the floor clean of the other to become the uncontested front-runner for e-reading?

Now the equation is becoming more complicated again. Amazon, as we all know, is the most successful purveyor of a proprietary monochrome e-reader in the Kindle. But now Amazon is also developing an App market for Android devices (for Android OS 1.6 and higher). To some this suggests that a colour, Web tablet-like Kindle device, running an Android OS, will soon be with us. Meanwhile Barnes & Noble has also developed an App store, opening this month, for its latest Nook. Note that the most recent Nook is a colour, dedicated e-reader device, albeit an LCD one. A further straw in the wind comes from reports that the clever people who know how to do this stuff are somehow transforming their colour Nooks to behave as full Web tablets, to get cheaper versions of the latter. And the colour Nook, we are informed, will soon officially support Flash and email anyway, via software updates.

Now for a real tie-breaker. The ever-active Apple Corp. is reported "considering the development of 'hybrid' e-ink-LCD displays" and has a patent to prove it, according to the very credible Adam Hartley at techradar.com. We thought that particular ingenious technology had already been developed and patented by others, but we won't plunge into the murky pit of legal politics here. If Apple does produce such a device, it's an obvious call that its marketing genius will be clearly and very deliberately going all out to achieve one particular goal. That would be to blur the line between the very different drawcard features of both the best-selling iPad and its equally successful dedicated e-reader rivals like the Kindle, so positioning a future Apple device to corner both markets. Perhaps this screen switcheroo feature, along with a higher resolution display, will be the key advance in the iPad 3? If I were a betting man I'd put bucks on it...

Get the overall picture? It's no longer a contest of technologies, it's now a free-for-all, with the majors pursuing indeterminate paths all over the show. The e-reading future is in a state of tremendous flux, and if you just paid big bucks for an "expert" to tell you which way things will go now, you sure as heck just wasted your money. Instead, to keep au fait just watch what the big boys do, not what they say...

*

Back in Blackberry

The Blackberry PlayBook, Research in Motion's 7in screen Web tablet, will be released in the USA and Canada on April 19th. The three models available, differing only in their storage capacity as 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions, will be priced respectively at US$499, US$599 and US$699. Exact release dates for Australia and other nations are not yet available, although they're promised for "Q2", i.e. by June. As a consolation though, note that the first models do not have 3G or 4G Internet connections, only Wi-Fi, so the wait may be worth it for better connectivity later.

To recap our September 2010 report on the Playbook's specs, the device is les than 10mm thick (= under half an inch), has its own BlackBerry Tablet OS (from the QNX software company), weighs just 425 grams (0.9 pounds), and will support Flash. It fields a dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor with 1GB RAM, and features two cameras, 1080p high-def. video playback, and video recording capability. It will have its own Kindle and Kobo apps for e-reading on a 1024-by-600 resolution screen. Detractors may cry "too little, too late", so with pricing the same as for the iPad 2 it's really a question of who is keener, Crackberry addicts or dedicated Apple fanbois (of either sex). Hmmm…

 

Roubles to the Rescue

We chipped the Plastic Logic company (of Mountain View, California) in a Still Queued report back in June 2010, for their failure to, well, get on with it. More specifically, Plastic Logic's 10.7-inch Que e-reader roll-out was delayed time and again, the whole project being finally cancelled in August last year. Despite an R&D centre in Cambridge, UK and a spanking new factory in Dresden, Germany, Plastic Logic has evinced a woeful lack of actual completed product.

The PL concept was innovative though, perhaps startlingly so, because it included an advanced "plastic transistor technology" which says bye-bye to silicon and existing glass screens. Indeed the projected new product is puffed as "an amazingly thin, lightweight, robust and flexible active matrix display that is unmatched in the marketplace."

Plastic Logic then began work on a second generation ProReader, including a type of colour e-paper,. However their schedule for fruition still looked lackadaisical to us, as colour e-paper rivals surged towards their own debuts. Was a lack of "that clinking, clanking sound" of sufficient shekels to actually build the durn thing the real problem? If so, salvation may be at hand. That's with this year's news that the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO) is to invest up to $US700 million into Plastic Logic over several years, to further the fantastic plastic.

RUSNANO (founded in 2007) is a state-funded newcomer with major asset backing. Specifically, this coming Russian bear-hug will involve building a huge factory in Zelenograd near Moscow for the next-gen electronic displays, and to develop this particular industry inside regenerating Russia. Not noted for e-readers or screen technology front-running in the past, despite a depth of computing nous, a goodly dollop of software wizardry and the odd naughty scam, Russia may yet become an industry leader if Plastic Logic's second strike scores a home run.

· One caution though, the Zelenograd factory isn't scheduled to begin production for a full two years or more yet That gives others scope to crowd out the market place with their own razzle-dazzle, if Plastic Logic fails to pick up the pace. Zelenograd by the way (it translates as Green City) is the home base for the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology (MIET), and the Moscow satellite town is in fact Russia's equivalent of Silicon Valley. Hmm, how does a name change to Plasticograd sound?

 

Now there's an Inkling…

Despite being instantly updateable and loaded with multimedia potential due to their digital nature, electronic textbooks have not made quite the splash to date that many had anticipated. A number of reasons can be cited for this lack of dash. For one, monochrome e- readers based on e Ink have been a real drawback in this area, since colour is critical to some academic texts (e.g. medical ones), and is highly desirable for many more. The inability of e-paper displays to show video files has also held back their multimedia promise. As well, e-readers in general have so far lacked a number of desired scholarly features. Due to poor design or primitive software, many have also been simply too slow to respond and work with for fast-paced learning and research needs, much to the frustration of tertiary students and staff. And even the colour, video-capable iPad can't do Flash.

It's clear though that these lacks are really just the teething troubles of a fast-evolving form factor. As e-readers mature, more suitable technology will inevitably become available. Quite soon in fact. Third generation Web tablets, and colour, video-capable e-paper are two fast approaching advances to that end. What's needed now is software ready to take full advantage of that coming hardware, to produce future e-texts that everyone can delight in.

Enter Inkling, a new company with big plans. Thanks to seed capital from top-shelf publishers McGraw-Hill and Pearson, plus four venture capital backers, this start-up hopes to deliver advanced interactive textbooks with both clout and credibility. Features will include 3-D objects, embedded video, peer & student-teacher interaction (even in real time), an intuitive search engine, and several layers of possible collaboration, including note-sharing, multimedia additions, quizzes and more.

Deals in hand include forthcoming Inkling versions of McGraw-Hill Higher Education's top 100 undergraduate titles, and Pearson's MBA curriculum. Several other major higher education publishers including John Wiley & Sons are lining up to participate too. There are also pilot programmes in place in three southern US universities to trial the Inkling experience. San Francisco-based Inkling.com launched a demonstration iPad app last year, a $7.99 photography textbook that is a huge download at 328MB but which has received good reviews. A general Inkling iPad app within which you can purchase e-books already available in Inkling versions is also available as a free iTunes App Store download. At the time of writing Inkling had 55 e-titles available, with a focus on business & economics, plus health, medicine and biology.
http://www.inkling.com/

 

Now you see it… Two French researchers, Jeremie Francone and Laurence Nigay, have developed a glasses-free 3D effect for the iPad 2 and iPhone 4. They use the front-facing camera as a head-tracking device, in a software achievement inspired by innovator Johnny Lee's 3D effort for the Nintendo Wii. Their feat is big on Youtube here and here if you'd like a peek. Which leads us to the conclusion that the sort of "magic" reading effects in Harry Potter movies will be available quite soon in real life to enhance illustrated literature.

*Psst! Want an even cheaper Kindle device? That would be "Kindle with Special Offers", available from April 27, 2011. Like "messages" on TV, that means advertisements - plus sale price specials. Put up with them while reading your books & you can get your Kindle for $25 less. Meat to some, poison to others.

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March 2011

 

Update: The next phase of the rollout of the iPad 2 takes place on Friday March 25. Countries affected are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

Australian iPad 2 prices will be as follows:

Wifi only models:          16GB version $579;  32GB $689 ;    64GB $799.
WiFi+3G models:         16GB version $729;  32GB $839;    64GB $949.

NB: Sales from stores won't start until 5pm on March 25th, although pre-ordering will be available online from the Apple store from 1am.

A further phase of roll-outs, including for Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore, wll take place during April.

 

iPad 2 Review- what you need to know

Apple guru Steve Jobs himself came out of sick leave to announce the second version of the iPad, and had reason to be pleased with the new model. It's substantially thinner, and lighter, than the original, so a lot more pleasing to the hand (the flatter back holds and lays down better too). Running on an updated iOS 4.3, there's also more grunt from the A5 dual-core 1GHz processor, so apps open & run faster, & you can now have more than one app open at a time. Many of the lacks that previously brought forth complaints have also been corrected.

Physically the "Two" is a full third thinner than before (at 8.8mm/ 0.34-inches), making it pretty much the thinnest of the tablets whose details have been released. At 1.35 pounds (c. 613g) the iPad has shed about 15 percent (some 3 ounces) of its bulk, to be now around the same weight as the slightly larger Galaxy Tab 10.1, and lighter than Motorola's Xoom or HP's projected TouchPad. The screen display size has not changed, though, (at 9.7-inches), and the resolution remains at 1024 x 768 pixels. It's clear that there's extra RAM aboard rather than the mere 256MB of the original, although Apple is coy on revealing just how much so far, possibly because rival tablets have more still. Leaks suggest there's now 512 MB, still only half that of its leading rivals.

New features? There are now cameras on both sides (the rear-facing one will film 720p HD video), and there's HDMI output too ( the cable is an expensive extra, but wonderfully you can mirror your iPad screen on an HDTV). As for capacity, the top of the range iPad 2 boasts a hefty 64GB of onboard storage memory (16 or 32GB in the cheaper ones). That's enough for lots and lots of large illustrated colour e-books, amongst other advantages. The iPad 2 will upload more quickly over 3G than before, the Safari browser works faster, graphics capability is significantly enhanced, and there's an improved (but still single) speaker too. Pleasingly the price has not increased for these extras (although at US$499 for the basic version, it hasn't dropped either). It will likely be from £439 in the UK, and perhaps from $A599 (previously $A629) in Australia, to make better allowance for the appreciation of the $A.

Disappointments? The battery life is reportedly unchanged (at 10 hours), and there's still no Flash available, nor USB, nor SD card slot. And where's that dreamy Retina high-resolution display that's so proudly advertised for the iPhone 4? Not here, alas, you'll have to wait for the iPad 3, probably next year, for that. Overall, this new model represents a lot of improvement, but does that leave the iPad much ahead of its better rivals? No, in fact some of the specs are even inferior. None the less ,the price does compete effectively with the other high-quality devices, and battling the Apple mystique is a tough call.

For the fashionistas, Apple has finally progressed beyond Henry Ford's dictum for the Model T, so there's now a white one as well. And for those fed up with just black and white, there's a jazzy foray into gimmickry that'll have you covered too. Literally so, in the form of an optional, magnetic, foldable Smart Cover in a range of oh so bold colours. For the extra money, this Smart Cover will also turn your device on and off with use, and even double as a stand.

So when can you get it? From March 11 in the USA. Elsewhere? In Australia, the UK, Canada and nearly all of Europe, plus Japan and Mexico, on 25 March. The rest of the world, when Apple says so I guess.

What's next? And then there are the latest rumours concerning the iPad 3. iPad 3? Yes, being designed already, don't you know. In fact some "sources" are even claiming it will come out later this year. However we'll go on the record right now as disbelieving that, you heard it from us that it definitely won't appear before 2012. OK? Now that's settled, the other current rumour, probably correct in this case, is that the "3" will have a 2048 by 1536 pixel screen resolution, compared with 1024 by768 pixels at present. That's excellent, but as with music on superior hi-fi equipment, can most people tell the difference? Still, if you're going to keep rolling out new models endlessly like Apple do, then you've gotta have a new gimmick every time…

A Word of Warning for e-book fans though: Apple's coming policy is rumoured to be that all providers of book apps for iOS devices will not only have to allow Apple a 30% slice of direct, in-App book purchases, they'll also have to price those sales the same as they do their own direct sales (which typically have a thirty per cent commission). Meaning, they'd either make nothing at all on the iPad/iPhone sales, or have to dice their margins to cover both, so stabbing themselves financially to compete with Apple's store. If this does come about, it may mean the withdrawal of non-Apple book apps from the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. That means also the end of Apple devices as "open to the whole world of books", a situation that would turn them into closed e-readers locked like the Kindle to a proprietary store (except a much smaller one). We'll hold our breath and hope that such short-sightedness, does not prevail, for it will destroy a primary advantage of tablets in the e-book world. It might also set dedicated reading enthusiasts to looking hard at the "anything but Apple" tablet alternatives.

 

What of the iPad 1?
*You can still buy it, at over 30% cheaper. Note that if you bought one from an Apple store within 14 days of the iPad 2 announcement, then you can have that difference refunded.

In Australia, iPad 1 prices are now (with the old $A price in brackets) as follows:
Wifi models:          16GB version $449 ($629);  32GB $579 ($759);    64GB $689 ($879).
WiFi+3G models: 16GB $598 ($799);                32GB $729 ($928);    64GB $839 ($1049).

* Apple is also selling second-hand ones equipped with a new battery and outer shell and a one-year warranty, for up to $80 below those amounts. Second-hand ones without warranty may be available even cheaper on eBay etc .
* Note that you can now download the iPad 2's updated iOS 4.3 to the original iPad too.

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2. Tablets - enjoy one after meals, every day?

* Are you contemplating buying a Web tablet for (some at least of) your e-reading?  With the iPad Two about to be announced (availability dates are to be unveiled by Apple in San Francisco this Wednesday 2, March 2011 {that's Thursday 3rd in Australia}), it's time for another look at what else is out there. The first iPad, by the way, has sold fabulously since its release, with some 14.8 million already retailed by the end of 2010, and it's still flying off the shelves. Despite that, the market share of Apple's premier product has fallen from 96% initially to around 75% at the moment, meaning that the competition is beginning to bite. For example, Samsung reports selling over two million Galaxy Tabs in four months. So this month we'll present an outline of what's available now in the tablet arena or (allegedly) soon to be released, starting with:

 

LG's G-Slate/Optimus Pad

The first "4G" tablet, the G-Slate will run on the Honeycomb (Android 3.0) OS, using 1GB of RAM. With a medium-sized 8.9-inch screen, superior 1280 x 768 pixel display, dual-core 1 GHz Tegra 2 processor and 32 GB of inbuilt storage memory, the G-Slate offers razzle dazzle in the form of one front and two x 5MP rear-facing cameras, the latter for 3D filming. There's HD (1080p) video playback capability and 3D video playback using glasses. At 630 grams (1.39ib) it's lighter than some, but still a shade heavier than the iPad 2. But it's not here yet, although final information on just when it will be is allegedly imminent. March 23rd has been tipped for the USA, on T-Mobile's network, with Europe to follow (where it'll be known in a 3G incarnation as the Optimus Pad). The cost will be US$530 with a two-year, T-Mobile contract.

Update:Wih March 23rd trashed, April 20 is the latest release date rumour for the G-Slate.

 

HP TouchPad

This one's not due out for a while yet, with "the northern summer" as the release cue so far. And that's just for the Wi-Fi version (though perhaps HP will speed their schedule up so as not to miss the boat on sales?) Anyhow, HP's TouchPad tablet will feature a "WebOS"version 3.0, which is the smooth & slick offspring of the original Palm operating system that once dominated handheld PDAs (HP owns Palm now). That's particularly important in view of a revolutionary inclusion - it will be possible to share and synchronise content between WebOS phones and the TouchPad just by tapping the phone to the tablet. Wowee! That includes transferring, text messages, phone calls, documents, songs and even websites.

There are many other welcome features. For example, a permanent notifications bar at the top for all your "incoming". Then there's a superior virtual keyboard with four size options available to suit your particular fingers and eyes - yes! Number keys are also included (it's infuriating that the iPad imposes a separate keyboard system for that). Easy upload & download of photos to social media, and "just type" instant email preparation are extras that also shine.

With a powerful, dual-core 1.2-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, the TouchPad is a serious entry to the tablet fray, although a few features may disappoint the picky (e.g. 1024 by 768 pixel display rather than 1280 by 800, and only a one-sided camera). The display screen measures 9.7-inches, not the biggest around but a goodly size nevertheless. The device does weighs a hefty 1.6 pounds (c.730 grams) however, and will come in miserly 16GB and more satisfactory 32GB storage memory versions. No price details are available yet, but unless it's at least a bit cheaper than the iPad the late-arriving TouchPad may still struggle to compete, with so many people currently mesmerised by everything Apple. The comparative lack of apps compared with Google's Android and Apple's iOS devices may also inhibit sales, at least until that situation changes.

An e-reading surprise though is an announcement of an HP deal with Amazon to pre-install a Kindle e-reader app in the TouchPad. Such side deals will make Apple anxious to promote the iPad Two as ahead of everything else in the game, and perhaps make their own pricing a little keener when push comes to shove.

 

Archos tablet range

  Archos 70

For such a "lesser light" name, Archos has surprised with a huge range of Web tablet devices. These range upwards from the tiny Archos 28 (the model number indicates the screen size in inches, here 2.8in), which, amazingly, can be bought for under $US100 in the USA. Then there are the inexpensive palm-sized "43" & "5" models, the mid-priced, paperback-sized "7", and the whopping 10.1in "101" model, which at as low as $US299 is substantially cheaper than an iPad. These devices may not have the allure of some of the big-name brands, but for people of limited means anxious to have an OK, colour, e-reading tablet right now, they could be a solution. *Oh, and hot goss, the French-based Archos is allegedly to launch some high-end models at the IFA Consumer Electronics show in Berlin, 2-7 September 2011,

Some specs on the largest two models:

The Archos 101 is a large (10.1in screen) but lightweight tablet at only 480 grams (c.f. the smaller iPad 2 at about 615g). It has 1024x600 pixel display, runs on an Android 2.21 (Froyo) OS with a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, and offers either 8 or 16 GB of onboard memory. Of relevance to e-reading, this tablet has Aldiko, Wikipedia, WordNewspaper & Avecomics applications pre-installed. There's WiFi, USB 2.0 plus a Micro SD port, Bluetooth 2.1, and a single camera. The Lithium Polymer battery will support up to 7 hours of Video playback, or up to 10 hours web surfing. Price = $US369 or better..

The Archos 70 This paperback-sized tablet is promoted as an e-reader, and will support Adobe DRM as well as free e-books. It weighs a scant 300 grams and offers 4GB of flash memory* plus a Micro SD Slot, and an 800 x 480 pixel 7in TFT multi-touch LCD display screen. The OS and CPU are the same as for its big brother, and overall the Archos 70 is similar in capabilities. E-book formats supported are TXT, PDF, EPUB, PDB, FB2, HTML, RTF, MOBI (Adobe DRM'd PDF and EPUB are also supported). Battery life is stated as ten hours, and at last look it could be pre-ordered for $US274.99.

* there's also a more expensive 250GB Hard Drive version for US$350.

 

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Big brother to the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab tablet, this 10.1-inch screen larger model is pitched straight to the tablet warzone. It'll run Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) on a dual core 1GHz processor, with high 1280 by 800 pixel resolution, and weighs only 599 grams (1.32 pounds). The new Tab boasts twin cameras, an impressive 8-megapixel one on the back and a front-facing 2-megapixel counterpart. It'll come in 16GB and 32GB 3G versions. First availability looks like June this year. The rumoured price could be a sticking point though, unless Samsung whack it down a bit . Says Samsung executive Lee Don-Joo, "…we will have to think that over."

 

Motorola Xoom

In contrast to the latest offerings from HP & Samsung, Motorola's Xoom is already shipping. That's in a 3G version, with a Wi-Fi only model due soon. The Xoom closely resembles the other two however, fielding a 10.1-inch screen with 1280 x-800-pixel resolution. It also weighs just the same as HP's TouchPad (1.6 pounds/ 730 grams), making both heavier than the iPad 2. There's a fast, dual core 1GHz Nvidia processor, and the Xoom will support Adobe Flash, entice with dual cameras including 720p video recording (there's a webcam too), & boast HDMI output to TV. A 3G model in the USA costs $US800, or USS600 with a two-year Verizon Wireless contract. The forthcoming Wi-fi only version will be around $US600.

Criticisms have included a dull screen (with a smaller range of colours than the iPad, & more restricted viewing angles), and an overall tendency to smudge from fingerprints. Another is that so far available apps are few, though this may change. The Chrome-like Web browser has been praised though, as have the Gmail and Google Maps apps. You can expand the built-in 32GB of storage memory with an SD card, a feature the iPad lacks. Google Books is built in for e-reading, although of course you can go elsewhere. Other add-ins include an accelerometer, a GPS, a gyroscope and a built-in atmospheric pressure monitor. The Xoom went on sale in the USA on 24 February for US$799. For Australia? Sorry folks, Motorola have only made this wishy-washy non-information available so far: "While we cannot confirm specific details around pricing and availability of Xoom, we are exploring the Australian market as an opportunity for these devices".

 

HTC Flyer

The same size as the original Galaxy Tab, this otherwise impressive new 7-inch tablet disappoints by offering only a 2.4 version of the Android OS, rather than the state of the art, tablet-specific Honeycomb 3.0. On the plus side you do get a powerful 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, plus a full 1GB of RAM. There's 32GB of ROM storage memory, a front 3mp camera for video and a rear 5-megapixel photo snapper too.

The Flyer packs 3G support, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, while weighing only 415g (less than 1 lb). For wow factor there's a Scribe app to write or draw directly on the tablet, and an HD movie service, HTC Watch. Oh, and if you crave a metal, brushed steel look then this is your model. HTC make some pretty good phones, so with solid specs overall this Taiwanese offering has to be considered as up there in the front rank of the smaller tablet contenders. When and how much are still TBA.

 

The Asus Eee Pad - variety plus

Asus is blanketing the tablet field with no less than four models, the Slider, the Transformer, the Memo and the Slate EP121. Except for the Slate (already available for order in the USA, Germany & France, & to be released in the UK during April) they're due out in the next couple of months, and will all offer an Android OS except for the Slate. Some details:

· The 12.1-inch display Eee Slate EP121 is the largest tablet we've heard of, and includes massive computing power. So it boasts a Core i5 processor and runs on Windows 7. If you want a serious, multi-tasking workhorse on the run this is it, but expect to pay big bucks for the privilege - as much as $US1,099 or more, depending where you shop.

· The 10.1in display Eee Pad Transformer is more consumer-oriented, sporting Android 3.0, a Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core 2 1.0GHz CPU, a high-res 1280x800 pixel display & extras such as twin cameras. It weighs 680 grams, is 12.98mm thick and promises up to 16 hour battery life. The Transformer name is no idle boast either, as it can dock to a full-sized keyboard to become a less-powerful laptop PC. From $US399 sans dockable keyboard, or $US699 with.

· The Eee Pad Slider is similar to the Transformer except it has a built-in, slide-out keyboard. Sounds enticing, but how much will it weigh? That's a hefty 1.9 pounds (864 g) actually, so brace yourself. Slider versions will cost $US499 to $US799.

· The Eee Pad Memo is the Mini-Me here, a 7-inch baby that is nevertheless empowered with a full Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.2GHz processor and generous 64GB Flash storage, plus extras such as GPS and twin cameras. Modela are priced at $US499 to $ US699.

*More!

And there are lots more tablets out there or in the offing folks, as manufacturers galvanised by the phenomenal success of the first iPad race towards the marketplace. Watch for these c.10 inch models:

· The 726g (1.6lb) Notion Ink Adam, notable because there's an optional dual function version switchable from LCD to a Pixel Qi display to read e-books etc in a battery-saving, non-glare, e Ink-type mode. It also boasts generous extras such as two USB ports, an accelerometer, an ambient light sensor, and a compass. Some pre-orders were taken, however mishaps including safety certification issues and damage to a shipment are delaying its release.

· An as yet unnamed Toshiba tablet running Android 3.0 to replace the ill-fated Folio.

· The 1280 by768 pixel, 3G Acer Iconia, due out next month in the UK running an Android Honeycomb OS. It's equipped with a Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core CPU and 1GB RAM, and offers 1080p HD video playback

· ViewSonic's ViewPad 10s, an improved version of the original ViewPad 10. It runs just Android 2.2 now instead of the hash created by offering a dual boot of Windows 7 & Android 1.6 in the previous incarnation, and is already available in the USA as the Viewsonic G Tablet.

· Panasonic's larger Viera, significant because of its interactions with modern Panasonic TVs.

· Lenovo's 3G-only LePad, with a high-res 1280×800 touch-screen and 1.2GHz CPU in 16GB and 32GB versions. Yes it plays Flash, has Bluetooth & Wi-Fi, and can be docked to a keyboard. Sounds fab, except for the weight of around one kilo (2.2lbs).

· The Android OS Dell Streak 10 - perhaps in May, with Windows 7?

T-Mobile's G-Slate is smaller with an 8.9-inch display, but seems to be arousing a fair bit of interest. That's partly because it's a 4G model that can record 3D and HD video. Specs include a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor and 32GB of built-in memory, with extras such as adaptive lighting, a gyroscope & an accelerometer. The G-Slate will be first available in the USA "this spring" they say, although the rumour-mongers at CrunchGear (hi guys!) suggest March 23rd as launch day. Price is TBA, with the pain probably hidden in a plan.

Meanwhile, in seven inch models there'll also be another Acer Iconia (with a 1280x800 touchscreen, due in April), a smaller Panasonic Viera, the Dell Streak 7, Viewsonic's Viewpad 7, and last but certainly not least the BlackBerry PlayBook 4G . Different strokes for different folks…

 

Brief News Roundup:

*Publishers HarperCollins have infuriated librarians by mandating that e-books they sell to libraries may only be loaned 26 times altogether. After that a new copy must be bought.

*Japan's Electronic Book Publishers Association has declared it will adopt ePub 3 as its standard e-text format. EPub 3 won't actually be finalised before May this year, but will support the vertical text common in Japanese books. That'll mean both Japanese and English-language e-books will be readable on the same devices.

*In a recent quarterly report, Barnes & Noble claimed a 25% share of the US e-book market. If their figures are accurate, the inference is that Nook fans are both numerous and avid readers.

*The UK's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has launched an investigation into e-book pricing. OFT is looking at arrangements between a number of publishers and retailers to see if they breach competition rules. The focus is on agency pricing, where publishers themselves set retail prices for downloaded books. Amazon.co.uk is rumoured to have made complaints to OFT on the issue, after major publishers such as Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin and Simon & Schuster switched to an agency model for their e-book sales.

* Don't forget Read an E-Book Week, March 6-13th, folks. If you head on over to the website you'll find lots of links to participating sites, many offering celebratory freebies, and other highlights like a Win a Nook contest. And then there's the revelation that it's been 40 years since Michael S. Hart created the very first e-book, long before the existence of the World Wide Web itself. Yep, the digital revolution has been a long time coming to the world of books, but these days it's leading the charge…
www.ebookweek.com

*For Android OS lovers, what's next? Android "I", improbably nicknamed Ice Cream Sandwich. What are these designers on, exactly? Meanwhile in the hard question division, when, if ever, will simultaneous Android OS version updates be available across all devices? Now that would promote a natural high...

 

February 2011

Mirasol Miracle On the Way???

This is big: at the Tools of Change for Publishing conference, Feb. 14-16, 2011, in New York City, a Mirasol colour screen prototype was on display. That's the long awaited alternative to colour e Ink (the latter may be released in one e-reader model in China next month, but can't handle video properly, unlike the Mirasol display). For more background on Mirasol, see our article back in December 2009.

We already have colour LCD e-readers of course (the Nook Color, the iPad etc), but the goal here is extremely long battery life and non-glare, open-air readability. Plus lighter, less toxic batteries and more environmentally-sound devices overall. OK, first impressions: although the display bias of this prototype looked to favour a rich, red-brown spectrum above somewhat washed-out blue-green hues, hopefully that will be fixed when we see an actual market product. Regardless, the prototype was still hot, hot hot. It may not blaze like an iPad, but it gleams like a polished, real leather sofa/saddle/e-reader cover (take your pick).

But when will we see Mirasol on actual e-readers? And will Amazon adopt it for a colour Kindle, or will someone else beat them to the punch? All I can say is, to the first question, soooon. To the second, if I told you they'd have to kill me. So as ever, you'll need to stay tuned…

 

*Don't forget this year's Read an E-Book Week, March 6-12, folks. Or am I preaching to the converted here? For those undecided or just e-curious, you can learn more at: http://www.ebookweek.com.  Oh and yes, there are extra freebies listed there for the duration...

 

Kindle e-books eclipse paperbacks

According to an Amazon quarterly statement released on 27 January, the Web bookstore giant is now selling 115 Kindle e-books for every 100 paperbacks. Last year Amazon reported that Kindle editions were outselling titles in hardback, but given that the latter are a minority of physical book sales this new development is more spectacular still. In fact, Amazon is now selling more than three times as many Kindle books as hardcover books, even allowing for titles where there is no Kindle edition. Said Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos,"…this milestone has come even sooner than we expected - and it's on top of continued growth in paperback sales."

Does this mean most people are now buying e-books? No, that's a long way off yet. Web sales, after all, are only a fraction of all book sales. What the figures do signify is that those inveterate readers who prefer to buy on the Web are switching to e-reading in serious numbers (since a core minority of those buyers account for a clear majority of sales).  However, as a trend it's also an unmistakeable sign that e-reading is in an enormous growth phase. It's now a credible assertion that such growth is nothing less than the early stage of a paradigm shift towards an electronic text future. To wit, an era where, while finely printed physical books are still treasured, most actual reading will be e-reading.

* Notoriously secretive about actual Kindle e-reader device sales, Mr Bezos did let slip in the same announcement that Amazon sold "millions of third-generation Kindles... during the (December 2010-ended) quarter". He also reported that the Kindle device is now the bestselling product in Amazon's history, eclipsing even the highest selling Harry Potter title.

 

The WikiReader

Amazon product link for WikiReader

Now here's a little device that we find rather intriguing. The WikiReader is something that brings you Wikipedia, and more, completely offline (you can also get Wiktionary & Wikiquotes included, but no Virginia, it does not include WikiLeaks!).

This simple, squarish three button LCD handheld is powered by two AAA batteries, allegedly enough to run WikiReader for "many months". But does this cute gizmo really have the whole of the Web's leading cooperative encyclopaedia already installed? Yep, thanks to the miracle of file compression you get "more than three million interconnected articles" without any Internet connection required whatsoever. There are no images or drawings though, just text, and there's no back-lighting for reading in the dark. But there's no" forever loading" nonsense here either, the humble greyscale display is instantly on, and the searches are good and fast. There are just three functions to go with that trio of buttons, Search, History (what you've looked at previously) and Random, the latter just for the fun of potluck.

And of course, there's a virtual keyboard to type in your enquiry .A caveat here is that some people may find it too small, & want to tap the keys with their fingernails or other objects rather than their full fingers. In fact, difficulties with the keyboard are the chief grouse against this device, and an improved virtual (or real slideout) version would be a welcome improvement. Anyhow, that keyboard does come in fifteen different language varieties, to support Wikipedia's own fifteen versions. Those are Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian and Welsh (note that they're not identical, the English language one is the most comprehensive). There's also a microSD card slot (supporting card up to 16GB in size) as the ingress point for adding new stuff.

Encyclopaedias get out of date though, and a key advantage of Web ones is their ready means to overcome that problem. The WikiReader people have come up with an ingenious way - or rather two methods - to update theirs. They'll deliver two English content Wikipedia updates per year to your door for a further $US29, or if you're game for the Web twice a year anyway, you can just download them direct for nothing.

Who would this device be suitable for? Inquisitive kids for one, so they don't drive adults crazy with all those impossible questions. They'll get more accurate answers here too, an advantage especially handy for their homework, while inhibiting them from spending too much time on a PC. Some older people will also appreciate the WikiReader, particularly those who have either never used a PC or don't really want any more truck with all of those OS and software problems, virus nightmares and all the rest of the digital downside. For the mobility restricted it's a potential gift from the gods, provided they don't have hand problems. Beyond that, many people could in fact benefit from such constant accessibility & portability (although those already overloaded with digital gadgets might query the point).

Anyhow, there's more! Not a set of steak knives, but something much dearer to our hearts here. Thanks to a new WikiReader update, "the entire Project Gutenberg library can be fitted onto a 4GB microSD card and then slid into the WikiReader". That's a whole big heap of free books, folks.

Wikireader, from Taiwanese firm Openmoko, costs $US99 for the International version (plus shipping, the latter free in the USA version). Curiously, the Pandigital company is offering what looks like an identical device, called the Pandigital Handheld Electronic Encyclopedia. The Pandigital version is somewhat cheaper too (both are available at Amazon.com). However its not clear whether Pandigital's clone, although it also offers updates, includes the Gutenberg library potential and other extras. You can read more about the original version anyway at:
http://www.thewikireader.com/

 

Apple balks as the game gets harder

Apple is pressing book app makers to strictly comply with its regulation that they offer in-app purchasing through Apple's own iStore, if they want their applications to be downloadable to Apple devices. While consumers will still then be able to buy books elsewhere by browsing outside of the app, the move is clearly aimed at rivals like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony. Apple wishes to deny them sales from their iPad and iPhone apps that might be purely at the expense of its own Web store. As a result, the current version of the "Sony Reader for iPhone" app has already been dropped from the App store, after a tense negotiation between Sony & Apple failed to reach agreement.

The tougher policy may well spring from nervousness at the possible impact of market newcomer Google eBooks. Concerned by a potential loss of sales to Google, Apple appears to be keen now to scoop up as many potential book sale commissions. for itself as it possibly can (they represent up to 30% of the retail price of the book sales concerned), even if that means restricting the celebrated "openness' of for example the iPad.

Comment: As the e-book market becomes ever more competitive, some companies will be tempted to resort to hardline tactics to grab or keep market share. Whether such efforts will succeed or backfire is not at all clear, though. One thing is sure, this move and any similar counter-moves represent at least a temporary setback to the fully open e-book publishing and delivery system referred to in our December micro-editorial.

 

*The Google eBookstore is still not available for purchasing books outside of the USA. Once again, stay tuned.

 

OS Goss and Worse

Updates to Google's Android operating system come out so fast that many users are totally confused as to just what they're running right now. Is it version 1.6, 2,1, 2.2, or what's this just lately, something called Gingerbread? Yes, Version 2.3 alias Gingerbread is the latest Android OS actually available, but it's so recent that at last look only the Samsung Nexus S phone was actually offering it. Don't pause for breath on this faster, more developed iteration though, because its successor, Honeycomb, is already drum-beating on the door. Yep, get ready for Android OS exhaustion, because Ver 3.0, aka Honeycomb, may be with us as soon as March, or even, gasp, later this month (!).

Honeycomb will be optimised for tablet devices, and includes a stacked bookstand- type widget for your e-reading. Apart from general grooviness with email, gaming, browsing, maps, 3D effects and a smooth as silk overall user interface, the e-book experience will be dual page with slick page turning. And surprise, surprise, it will integrate you into Google Editions eBooks before you've even had time to check your bank balance.

Does this mean that, not to be outdone, the hyperactive innovators at Apple are hard at it readying an iPad 2 and an iPhone 5 for release right sharpish, like? You bet. In fact, our ear-to-the-ground chappie reports that manufacturing of the new iPad will begin this very month, and the iPhone 5 possibly in May. B b b but we just had the iPhone 4 - yeah I know! Is all this going too fast for you? Me too… Anyhow, a late April release for the iPad 2, and a July date for the iPhone 5, is the current hot talk. Meanwhile another claim out there is that Apple will release specs and take early orders for the new 'Pad very soon indeed, to frustrate that feisty and fast-growing Android opposition.

 

Take a tablet for that?

If all this updating is giving you a headache, you'll probably need a tablet along with your e-reading. There's the iPad of course , but lots more newbies will be wheeled out during the first half of 2011. Motorola will have the Xoom, running that sweet Honeycomb Android OS just mentioned. A biggie with a 10.1-inch display and 1280 x 800 screen resolution, the Xoom will run off a 1GHz processor. It'll support Adobe Flash, entice with a 5-megapixel camera including 720p video recording (there's a webcam too), & boast HDMI output to TV to boot.

Then there's another Samsung offering, on top of the existing Galaxy Tab, the TX100. Featuring the same display size as Motorola's Zoom but with a top of the range 1366 x 768 screen res., the TX100 will run Windows 7 and be notable for a full, slide-out physical keyboard.

Or, how about the Asus Slate, with a huge 12.1-inch screen display? In contrast, you may recall Dell's tiny 5-inch screen Streak tablet (aka, unkindly, the phone you're having when you don't want a phone). Well, wisely Dell is now to add a Streak 7, which presents a somewhat more palatable 7-inch screen, plus Android 2.2 rather than version 1.6, and more oomph too. Asus by the way will also have a 7-inch tablet by June, the MeMo, running on the there-it-is-again Android Honeycomb OS. Expect all these, and a slew of others (from Acer, LG, Lenovo, Toshiba, Sharp & even an 8-inch Vizio model) to all be available by the end of July, some much earlier. They'll be priced from $US499 to US$1099, which is a lot of range to be canny over, shoppers.

 

Woes across Borders

The Borders booksellers chain (in the USA), associated lately with the Kobo e-reader and Kobo e-reading apps, has filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. Meanwhile "share raiders" REDgroup Retail, who previously bought Borders stores in Australia, New Zealand & Singapore, have, coincidentally, been placed in voluntary administration (which is the Australian "Chapter 11" equivalent to keep trading). REDgroup also own the Angus & Robertson chain, once a proud and iconic Australian company. More recently Angus & Robertson has been condemned for debauching its former role of in-depth booksellers into that of a couldn't-care-less "bestsellers depot". However, A&R then failed at that game by being beaten at flogging discount bestsellers by supermarket chains, and suffered a further heavy loss of trade to cheaper online sources. Sic transit gloria mundi.

 

January 2011

Publishers confused, still working it out

Simon & Schuster, the publishing arm of media conglomerate CBS, has suffered marked revenue declines in recent years, as have many similar companies. For example, a reduction of about $US100 million in S&S's annual turnover between 2007 and 2009 represented a fall of around eleven per cent, an alarming trend for the company if sustained.

Of Simon & Schuster's total annual publishing revenue, e-books now supply about 7%, a figure that is however growing rapidly. To quantify that, of the most recent quarter reported (third quarter 2010), electronic book revenue comprised just over $15 million of around $218 million. This digital revenue is rapidly expanding though, albeit from that small base. So will e-books save this day for this and other publishing companies? Amazingly, they themselves have no idea.

A study released last month by the Aptara Corp. surveyed more than 600 US publishers in the Trade, Professional, and Education classifications. It showed that 64% of those publishers are now offering titles in e-book formats, but 62% are so far unable to calculate their return on investment (ROI) from digital books. Their accounting procedures for the new workflows, apparently, are just not there yet. Equally unimpressive is the fact that so far, less than a quarter are employing XML to produce "scalable, digital workflows" in support of efficient e-book production across all varieties of e-readers. Also dismaying is that only 41% of all publishers surveyed support the supposed industry standard, the EPUB format; and fewer still, just 25%, support the popular but proprietary Kindle format. Overall, a plethora of formats and devices have fragmented the market, and the response to that is clearly disorganised. Yet there are large, identifiable markets available in among that fragmentation that are clearly profitable. So why the large lags?

Bluntly put, the majority of publishers have a long way to go yet to get their act together. While losing traditional print revenue, most of them have not yet organised their processes well enough to profit very effectively from new, digital income. The situation is improving however, but clearly in the near future only the more adept and forward-looking will prosper, while the others face lean times ahead until they make the effort needed to adapt to a new electronic age.

 

Sony Strikes Back

It fields an attractive device, but can Sony still compete with the breadth of reading applications offered by its principal rivals the Kindle, the Nook and the Kobo? Yes says Sony, and meeting the challenge the venerable Japanese electronics giant this month will widen the reach of its Reader e-Store. Sony Reader apps are shortly to be downloadable for the iPhone and for Android OS gadgets (e.g. numerous smartphones). Sony has already gone open format on its own readers, which allow ePub, PDF and RSS newsfeeds in addition to its own BBeB file type.
http://ebookstore.sony.com/rme/

 

Catch 22 - at last

So you've now got a great e-reader, and there's a book you've always wanted to catch up on, but horrors, there's no digital edition available. Catch-22? Maybe, but in that actual case, no longer. Yes folks, after fifty years restricted to print, Joseph Heller's famous satirical novel is at last available as an e-book. First released in 1961, Catch-22's publication rights are currently with Simon & Schuster, and the e-edition should be available now from all major e-bookstores in the USA and Canada. Australians, though, will have to wait longer. What number catch is that?

 

e-Books in US Libraries - Growth and Contrast

A recent survey from the publishers of the library journal LJ & the School Library Journal, entitled "The Growing Importance of Ebooks in U.S. Library Collections", has given valuable insights into the current significance of digital items in American libraries. With responses from 781 public, 364 academic and 697 school libraries, it's now clear that academic libraries lead the way in the digital arena. An impressive 94% of them report e-book availability, with a substantial average digital collection size of 33,830 items. Some 72% of responding public libraries also reported e-collections, averaging a smaller but still significant 1,529 e-books each.

However, only 33% of school libraries confirmed digital title availability, and those only managed a tiny average of 49 items each. This raises a number of questions. For example, are e-books poorly represented in primary and secondary-level schools because on the whole the schools have little funding available for books in general? Or is it a lack of know-how, or staff time to deal with such issues? Is there local level resistance to such an "innovation"? Or are all these and more factors in play?

In fact, a huge surprise is that school libraries, currently spend slightly more of their collection budget on e-books (at an average 2.7%), than public libraries (at 2.5%) do. Meanwhile academic libraries surveyed spend a mean of 7.2% each. So, while other issues may yet impact more on future developments, the key factor at present is actually the question of available funds and collection size.

Another significant fact to emerge is that most libraries in the survey -majorities in all three groups - don't loan out e-readers (only 11% of academic, 7% of public and 6% of school libraries do). So it's bring your own device, or download to a PC. Whether this will change as e-readers become cheaper and more ubiquitous remains to be seen.

Oh, and most respondents expect expenditure on and holdings of e-books to rise substantially over the next five years. That's no surprise.

PS: If you have funds and to spare on your own budget and are really interested, you can buy the whole survey from LJ and School Library Journal advertising sales director Roy Futterman,, at rfutterman@mediasourceinc.com.

To Quest and Conquer

The rapidly-expanding information resources & technologies company ProQuest has acquired its own e-book platform by buying ebrary. Based in Palo Alto, California,  ebrary is an e-book lending pioneer founded in 1999. ProQuest which supplies research information to academic and reference libraries worldwide, was itself acquired by the privately-held Cambridge Information Group (CIG) in 2007.

 

Google purchase raises questions and showcases some e-reader history

Google has bought "eBook Technologies Inc." a mostly old-hat company owning essentially legacy systems. However eBook Technologies (eBT) does hold a few interesting patents that may give Google the "legal necessities" of in place ownership if it decides to produce its own (corralled) complete e-reader system, i.e. hardware, software and secure distribution, to rival Amazon & Apple in particular.

Whether such a strategy would make any sense at all in the face of an already over-crowded e-reader marketplace could be argued fiercely, so it's a moot call as to whether Google has any serious plans there. Why else would they bother, though? Does eBT have something clutched tightly to its chest that the rest of us don't know about yet? If so, we'd speculate in particular in the direction of cross-platform conversions on the fly, offline catalogue shopping on e-reader devices, and something called eBook Express Manager.

Pretty well everything else shown off at eBT up till now seems several years out of date. In particular, company info. refers to OeB, the now-obsolete open format predecessor to ePub. They also mention their own ETI e-book format. The latter now seems as redundant as the company's ETI-1 and ETI-2 e-reader device designs. Redundant, but core e-reader history.

The ETI-2 (c.2004) is actually the old eBookwise EB-1150, descended from Gemstar's GEB 1100 take on the original Rocket eBook re-issue, the REB 1100 (2001). That's a worthy device if you have it (very durable, & much loved by many), but surely no candidate model for a new release in 2011 when we're up to the Kindle 3, the Nook, the iPad and so on already. As for the ETI-1, that's an update on Gemstar's GEB 2150, previously the REB 1200, an LCD colour e-reader descended from the SoftBook.. For all those who don't know, which is most people, the Softbook and the Rocket eBook (1998) are really the two original dedicated e-reader devices, as we now know the term.

 

Apter Kindle app

Version 2.5 of Amazon's downloadable Kindle app for the iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch, plus MAC computers, supports Project Gutenberg's free e-books. There are over 33,000 of them, mostly copyright-free older works. You can also use the updated app to access the (rougher, scanned) texts in the Internet Archive, and various free but legal works elsewhere.

*As foreshadowed last year, Kindle "Singles" - approx. 30-99 page short stories, novellas, essays, longer articles etc - are now on sale in the Kindle Store..

 

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