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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
LATEST NEWS
December 2009
Another Entrant in the Colour e-Ink Stakes
Qualcomm has developed a 5.7 inch colour e Ink display screen. Well technically it's not strictly e Ink, but the effect is the same. It looks great too, with XGA 1,024 x 768 resolution, and pixellation at around 220ppi.
This new screen will also play video, although doing so chews through battery life, otherwise a point of excellence in e Ink-type devices. The science is truly esoteric, involving the mimicry of butterfly wings (or charged, colour-inducing membranes here reflected over a mirror, if you prefer a more prosaic explanation). E-readers using this "mirasol" screen will be available "sometime" in 2010, probably the second half of next year.
Colour Brings a Moment of Truth
Amazingly, the new colour e Ink-type screen panels may wholesale for no more than monochrome ones. That gives e-reader sellers a critical set of choices. They can go the usual "early adopter" rip-off route, by charging a higher price for colour readers as a new "extra" for the privileged few. OR they can introduce colour models priced as for existing devices, and make monochrome ones an inexpensive alternative (at last the $99 e-reader?). OR they can cease manufacturing monochrome ones altogether, and mass-produce colour models at a much cheaper price than existing e-readers, a concept economically feasible with economies of scale.
The first strategy, in our opinion, would be yet another mistake on a path littered with them. Whereas, the second and third options both hold appeal. The strategy in the latter cases might be similar to the introduction of DVD players, which fast-tracked the adoption of a new technology by short-circuiting the usual staged rollout process with irresistible prices. In both cases, a trade-in value could be established for existing monochrome readers to assuage their many present owners. That might lead to a brisk secondary market for students, children and the financially-strapped in general, for whom any inexpensive e Ink device would be welcomed.
The third option might also be a breakthrough moment for e-readers in general. Which way will it go - or will different companies go for different strategies & collide head-on in the marketplace? We'll just note cynically that the sellers have got it wrong many times in the past, not comprehending that they are really selling e-reading, not devices. By the end of 2010 we should know whether the penny has finally dropped.
*
Sony Creates Space Too
Current Sony e-reader models
Leading e-reader makers are pulling out all stops lately, in an effort to swing market share their way. Sony, battling gamely against Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's new Nook device plus a host of other rivals, rushed to release its first wireless e-reader (the $399 Daily Edition) in time for Christmas orders. However, demand was such that the initial production run was sold out by 19 November. The misestimate may have cost Sony lots of acreage beneath the mistletoed boughs.
Sony did better though in matching Amazon by offering would-be authors a sales opportunity at its e-bookstore. Independent authors can self-publish at the Sony store in as little as 10 days. The online companies Smashwords and Authors Solution are also collaborating to offer the works of their existing authors at the same Sony store.
On 11 December, all the books in Sony's e-book store (now called the Reader Store) became available in the non-proprietary ePub format. This switch from Sony's original tied BBeb file format makes both Sony Reader devices and Sony e-books more useful to consumers than previously, and more viable in the long term. Note that all Sony's ePub books are still encoded with Adobe DRM, however. Customers who previously bought BBeB e-books can now download them again in ePub format if they wish, although Sony e-readers will still support BbeB books.
Then on 20 December Sony also managed a side deal with News Corp, although one mainly of interest to the well-heeled or those so aspiring. Owners of Sony's wireless Daily Edition device will be able to download a special evening Wall Street Journal PLUS version of the venerable WSJ, as well as the usual morning edition. Other newspapers are also being made available for the wireless device, including digital editions of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Financial Times. Magazines are coming in 2010.
*
Games in Reverse
Continuing the infiltration of books onto devices hitherto used by kids just to play electronic games, publishers FLIPS on 4 December introduced a range of children's' e-books for the Nintendo DS. Each of the new (& in this case misnamed) "game cards" features six to eight titles, with quizzes and interactive elements included. Perhaps this coming electronic Generation Z will turn out to be competent and even keen readers after all - although of e-books, of course.
Library Use of E-books
A 2008-2009 edition of a report on this topic has been released by Primary Research. The stats are mostly about US academic libraries, so need to be viewed in that light. Of interest though is a strong trend by academic libraries towards buying more e-books. Most librarians still felt that their patrons were less skilled in using e-book collections than databases, however. Use of e-books in the physical sciences was particularly high.
Booked by Phone
ScrollMotion, one of several start-up companies competing in the "e-books for the iPhone" market, has reportedly sold over 200,000 books in its first year. Previously each title was sold as a separate "app" at Apple's iTunes store. Now they've released a new Iceberg Reader 3.0, free software that includes access to an in-app bookstore. The buzz is that it's a goodie, but expect to pay more for best-sellers than elsewhere.
Bordering on Disaster
Meanwhile, the dreaded GFC has accelerated a decline in both book purchasing and the profitability (or otherwise) of retailers overall, especially in the USA. As a result the major book chains have been showing large losses. Barnes & Noble reported a loss of $24 million in the third quarter of 2009, and must be hoping that e-reading through the Nook device might save its bacon. Borders, whose sales dropped 12.7 per cent in the third quarter, lost $37.7 million in that period. However that was encouraging compared with the debacle of a $175.4 million Borders loss in the third quarter of 2008.
Pay Now, Obtain it Later
Physical bookshops in Australia participating in a new "TitlePage" programme will make e-books available for download in the first half of 2010, in a new system endorsed by the Australian Publishers Association. However downloads under the scheme will not be made in-store, as is the case with a few bookshops at present. Rather, a customer will pay for the book on the spot and supply an email-address. A unique web URL for downloading a dedicated copy will then be emailed to him or her for subsequent use. Whether customers will warm to such a delayed arrangement remains to be seen.
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November 2009
Kindle snippets
Kindle Book Sales Boom
*Amazon reported this month that it is now selling 48 Kindle e-books for every 100 physical books. Six months earlier, in May 2009, the figure was 35 e-books for every 100 p-books. This astonishing statistic attests both to the burgeoning popularity of the Kindle device, and to the fact that e-book enthusiasts buy more books per capita than their p-book counterparts.
Possibly, in part that's because e-books are cheaper, and also very easy to obtain using wireless access to the Kindle store. Another reason could be that in general only keener readers would fork out the cost of the device in the first place. At any rate, Amazon's investment in the Kindle is mainstreaming e-reading as never before, in the USA and Canada at least.
* The standard Kindle 2 has come down to $US259 in price. International purchasers will have to pay as much as $US20 extra for delivery though, plus possibly a customs charge in some cases.
*Following the kiss-and-make-up after its Orwellian deletions scandal, Amazon has issued a policy to define the only circumstances in which content can be removed remotely from the Kindle. Here's the policy in full: "Amazon will not remotely delete or modify such Works from Devices purchased and being used in the United States unless (a) the user consents to such deletion or modification; (b) the user requests a refund for the Work or otherwise fails to pay for the Work (e.g., if a credit or debit card issuer declines to remit payment); (c) a judicial or regulatory order requires such deletion or modification; or (d) deletion or modification is reasonably necessary to protect the consumer or the operation of a Device or network through which the Device communicates (e.g., to remove harmful code embedded within a copy of a Work downloaded to a Device)."
* Amazon has released free beta software to allow Kindle edition books to be read on Windows PCs, with a version for Macs to follow later. The new Amazon "app" is notable for allowing synchronisation of both last page read and annotations between devices, a valuable feature also sported by rival Barnes & Noble's new Nook e-reader.
*
Nooks and Crannies
B&N's Nook Spring Design's "Alex"
The Nook! Many were wildly excited at the very thought of this new B&N e Ink device, now "with colour". This column less so.
First up, the Barnes & Noble publicity person we contacted lacked the common courtesy to reply to our email. Not a good look. Secondly, we blenched on hearing that B&N were being sued for allegedly ripping off the key "point of difference" idea in the new device, viz. the "colour" claim in the form of an extra mini-screen at the base. Whether the lawsuit by the Spring Design company concerning their own "Alex" e-reader has any merit or not, such a challenge was certainly cause for concern.
Third, when we realised that the secondary LCD colour screen is just a clever attention-seeking gimmick rather than a fundamental advance, we began to wonder whether the Nook device is not itself just a holding strategy, an attempt by Barnes & Noble to obtain a stake in a rapidly-growing market until a genuine colour e Ink e-reader puts in an appearance next year.
Which is not to say that the Nook does not have considerable appeal. The specs are decent, it looks OK, & you get wireless connectivity (via AT&T's mobile broadband network, plus Wi-Fi) just like the Kindle; only in this case for the Barnes & Noble online store. A price of $US259 keeps it in competition with its present rivals, too. Unlike the Kindle and other devices, the Nook is not available for purchase outside the USA yet, however.
The gimmickry is that the secondary "colour touch screen" is LCD-based, not e Ink, and is not for viewing text. As well, its presence compromises battery life, otherwise an excellent feature of e Ink devices. A better description of the Nook would be "a monochrome e Ink e-reader with a colour navigation bar added to jazz it up versus its rivals. Oh, and gee whiz, the navbar can also be used to show colour front covers in your onboard library or the bookstore."
That's not all though, the extra screen serves as a virtual keyboard for typing in notes. In another showy virtual feature, B&N will even let you use the Nook to browse all of their e-books for free, via Wi-fi, when you're inside their physical stores. The bedazzlement doesn't stop there - you can also load photos onto the Nook as screensavers. To top all that off there's super cleverness in that the Nook allows not only synchronized last page read between different devices, it can synchronise notes & annotations too.
If you discount the "gimmick" LCD screen, there is still some core level originality. The Nook is the first e-book reader to run on Google's Android operating system, OS version 1.5. Techies and consumers alike will be interested to learn how that pans out.
Specs? We're talking 16-level grey scale e Ink display, just like the Kindle, with a 6 inch primary display screen (same again). There's 2 gigs of internal memory, plus a MicroSD slot for lots more if needed. Sizewise the Nook is 196.2 x 126 x 12.8 mm (7.7 inches long, 4.9 inches wide and half an inch deep), and weighs 317 grams (11.2 ounces). The battery is rechargeable Lithium Polymer, and charges take three and a half hours,
What's valuable good news is that the device supports both ePub and PDF formats in addition to FictionWise's eReader proprietary files. Also applause-worthy is an ability to "lend" books temporarily to other devices - the loans are programmed to self-destruct after two weeks. That feature only works for other registered B&N customers though.
*
Pixel Qi : LCD or e Ink - why not both at once?
An irony of fast-moving technology is that Barnes & Noble and Spring Design could have saved themselves their fierce dispute if they'd both just waited a while. For as e Ink becomes the norm for modern e-readers, replacing glare-prone, battery-guzzling LCD screens with a power-conserving, paper-like experience, more display alternatives are emerging. One of these is made by the Pixel Qi company. Their offering features an intriguing dual mode screen, for which a single command provides alternatives of either black & white e-paper, or full colour, high quality LCD in the same screen space, to suit the moment.
Pixel Qi's monochrome mode has a much faster refresh rate than conventional e Ink, making it well-suited for reading text. The company's Mary Lu Jepsen, a woman who was instrumental in the development of the Netbook, describes this alternative as a "crisp high resolution epaper experience", implying a quality similar to e Ink. Then at a flick of a switch you can have LCD colour whenever you want it. As Mary Lu's a lady with a lot of credibility this all sounds very promising. However, the new screen technology is likely to be seen on tablets and netbooks before it reaches dedicated e-readers. Whether this hybrid will compete effectively with the arrival sometime in 2010 of viable colour e Ink is anyone's guess at this stage.
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The Google Wars, Part Two
Back in September we reported on issues bedeviling Google's "settlement" with authors and publishers over its ambitious digital book scanning and sales initiative, from which the giant company hopes to open an online e-book store next year.
Subsequently, an Oct. 7 2009 hearing on the settlement was postponed after a motion for a delay filed by the (US) Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers in a New York District Court was unopposed by Google. "Clearly, fair concerns have been raised," noted Judge Denny Chin. He added that: "…the objectors include countries, states, non-profit organizations, and prominent authors and law professors". The US Justice Department also submitted a number of legal and antitrust objections. Protests even came from China, where about 100 authors reported their books scanned without permission. In the event, the court gave Google until November 13 to file a revised settlement deal, which it did on the last day possible.
The new settlement excludes EU nations except the UK, and indeed limits Google's scanning & online placement to works from the English-speaking countries of the USA U.K., Australia, and Canada. Authors will also be allowed to specify their works being distributed under the license of their choice, including Creative Commons licenses. As well, the deal now requires a registry to seek out copyright holders who do not come forward.
The new settlement excludes EU nations except the UK, and indeed limits Google's scanning & online placement to works from the English-speaking countries of the USA U.K., Australia, and Canada. Authors will also be allowed to specify their works being distributed under the license of their choice, including Creative Commons licenses. As well, the deal now requires a registry to seek out copyright holders who do not come forward.
Significant dissension remains however, especially from the Open Book Alliance, which admittedly includes some of Google's commercial rivals. Criticisms include the point that authors must still opt-out rather than opt-in to a deal they had not necessarily consented to - or in plainer language, the settlement upends existing copyright law in Google's favour. Some feel that in essence Google has been able to create a new commercial situation, perhaps even a monopoly to suit itself, by first acting outside the law, then in effect ushering new, unlegislated regulations through the courts by "conceding" issues it had no rights to deal with in the first place.
Other Google fans however cheer on the development as a great leap forward for digital book availability, and predict it will be regarded with enthusiasm in years to come. The broader question of whether Google as a company is gaining too much power and influence, now eclipsing even Microsoft at its height, bothers others. But whether the announced settlement will "take" or be further challenged - especially if it proves a huge money-spinner for Google that arouses envy and anger in other quarters - remains to be seen.
*
*The Internet Archive will make 1.6 million public domain books available free to children who have "the little green laptop", the XO PC made by the One Laptop Per Child Foundation. These copyright-free titles, originally scanned using OCR software, have been specially reformatted into the open ePub format to work with the Foundation's low-energy laptop. Meanwhile the Internet Archive is going ahead with its larger Book Server project, in a challenge to the ambitious efforts of Google to dominate access to books on the Web.
*Adobe is to expand its investment in e-books and digital publishing, despite staff cuts of almost ten per cent. A grievous loss at Adobe, though, is their chief e-book enthusiast Bill McCoy. Bill, a mainstay of the push for the open e-book ePub format and a board member of the International Digital Publishing Forum, is leaving the company, but will maintain his interest independently.
*e-books lag in Germany
The German e-book market remains in the doldrums. Why? Well it's actually a case study in how trade practices can affect a market. Books in general are expensive in Germany, just like in Australia. In Germany though, e-book titles are deliberately kept unavailable until after the paper back version has been released, and then they're never priced at less than the cheapest print version. As long as it also costs a significant sum to buy an e-reader, German consumers rightly identify poor value for money.
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September-October 2009
Hot news: Amazon's Kindle will be available in Australia from 19 October 2009. The Aussie Kindle will be one variety of new international Kindle versions priced at $A313, operable wirelessly in around one hundred countries. However we don't recommend buying one until much more is known about some important issues - for example, what books will be available, and what the wireless access service details will be (updates in due course). Meanwhile the US base model Kindle has dropped $US40 in price to $US259.
E-Readers Galore
The relentless proliferation of book or near book-sized e-readers must mean something (!). One possible conclusion is that we are reaching a critical point in the evolution of e-reading, where the digital habit is now making a fateful crossing into the mainstream.
Of course, the majority of these devices will carve out only a relatively small circle of followers, or may fall by the wayside altogether. Indeed, with a colour e Ink device yet to emerge in the international marketplace we can go further, and predict that all present e-readers will later be labelled as "early transitional" models. Which is not to say that they won't suit some people very well and be eagerly retained for many years.
Meanwhile, what a feast! Even Asus - maker of the Eee family of minimal laptop netbooks - is to field an entrant or two, possibly by the end of this year or soon thereafter. Allegedly this stripped-down device will be "the planet's cheapest" e-book reader, with an upmarket alternative model also available for those wanting extras. Reports indicate that the eeeBook or Bookeee will possess a dual screen and sell for as little as £100 sterling (around US$160). What's more it will be a colour e-reader, but clearly not feature e Ink, as the first of those devices will inevitably be expensive.
* Other startling news is that more than a million of the Cool-er devices (see May-June news) are reported to have been sold already, and that the arrival of a wireless Kindle in the UK is "imminent".Some of the newbies…
Sony Reader Daily Edition (PRS-900)
In December, Sony is to release yet another e-reader model; the Reader Daily Edition. Yep, this one has free wireless Internet access via AT&T, finally putting Sony back there in head-on competition with Amazon's Kindle. It even aces one over the Kindle by featuring touch screen capability.
As its name suggests, the Daily Edition aims to be a platform for newspapers and magazines as well as books. That's confirmed by the size - a seven-inch screen - and the display quality, with a whopping 16 levels of grey scale. You get an impressive 2GB of onboard memory too. Tell them the price, son - oh right, it's US$400, which makes it cheaper, although not as large, as Kindle's maxi DX model.
That free 3G access (in the USA only, so far) is limited to the Sony e-book store by the way - they don't want you wandering off to buy titles elsewhere on a connection Sony is paying for. However, you can always shop at other Web bookstores via the old-fashioned PC to USB connection method, now that Sony is supporting the ePub non-proprietary book format. You can also download PDFs, Word and other text formats, as well as Sony's proprietary BBeB format (their BBeB books are in the throes of conversion to ePub anyway).
Useful extras: you can employ a stylus to take notes and add highlights, or use a virtual keyboard instead. A library finder service also enables you to borrow e-books free from your own local library (input your postal code and Bob's your digital uncle).
Our verdict: a worthy advance, and likely to grace quite a few Christmas stockings. However, only a colour e Ink model will set the e-book world on fire, especially where magazine and newspapers are a focus for display.
The Eco Reader
An Australian e-reader? No, not quite. Like the UK's Pixelar, the Eco is actually a rebadged (Chinese) Hanlin V3 model. It sports a 6" (15cm) e Ink rotatable screen offering 5 levels of zoom, and runs on a Linux OS. The specs are a bit ho-hum however, with only 4 levels of greyscale, a USB 1.1 port, a light 32 MB of RAM and just a 200 Mhz Samsung processor. Powered by a 3.7V Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery, the Eco weighs just 220 grams (7.7 oz), including battery. It offers 512 MB of book storage memory, expandable to 4 GB via SD cards.
Two major issues are price - at $A449 the Eco is $50 cheaper than the Bebook's Australian RRP - and build quality. Actually, the Eco price is cheaper still in that it also includes a free leather case, whereas the Bebook folk want $50 more for the latter. We're awaiting feedback on the quality factor, which is sometimes a concern with Chinese manufactures.
The most appealing feature of what is otherwise a rather basic e Ink model is its open format approach. The Eco Reader supports firstly ePub and PDF formats under Adobe Digital Editions, plus non-DRM Mobipocket books. Beyond that though, you can import PRC, TXT, RTF LIT, PPT, WOL, DOC, CHM, FB2, HTML, DJVU, RAR, and ZIP files, with TIFF, JPG, GIF, BMP and PNG images, and MP3 audio. Language-wise the Eco will cater for Bulgarian, Chinese, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian.
This device is being offered by Melbourne-based company Central Book Services, in partnership with Allen & Unwin, and may be purchased through a variety of outlets including the Dymocks and Readings chains. It will surely tempt many Aussies who've been putting off an e-reader purchase and who would really appreciate an open-access e Ink device, since there is no immediate prospect of a wireless e-reader down under. (OR IS THERE?)
www.ecoreader.com.au/
Samsung SNE-50K
Samsung has also leapt into the e-book fray with the SNE-50K e-reader, restricted to Korea to begin with. This one has a 5-inch screen, weighs 6.5 ounces and has 512MB of built-in memory. All in all a pretty standard affair, but there's also support for handwriting recognition so that you can add your own notes with a stylus, plus provision for memos and a schedule.
Reportedly, the SNE-50K also allows users to view their own personal files (text, Office and PDF files) by converting them into BMP graphics, which sounds a trifle bizarre given the memory-hungry nature of BMPs. Anyway, Samsung has partnered with South Korea's Kyobo Bookstore Co, and is talking with other publishers to expand the range of e-books available from that company. Device price is 339,000 Korean won (around US$270).
Abracadabra, it's the Merlin (or is it?)
Rebadged Hanlin e-readers are popping up all over, even apparently in Dubai. Or if the UAE's new "Merlin ebook" isn't a Hanlin clone (or variant thereof), I'm going rapidly blind. Good marketing fellas! Enables countries or regions to have their own badge of honour product without wasting years of research.
Anyhow, the Merlin is a 6-inch e Ink digital reading device that weighs just 6.4 ounces (176 grams) and is a tiny 0.4 in (just under 1cm) thick. It offers 512MB of internal memory and you also get a free 2 GB SD card, for a slot capable of 4GB cards. This device comes preloaded with 100 free classic titles and costs US$407.
There's the usual built-in MP3 player and variable font size (eight sizes), plus PDF reflow capability, and vertical to horizontal screen rotation. The device supports multiple e-book formats including ePub.
www.merlin-digital.com/
The iRex Wireless DR800SG
IRex, of iLiad fame (that's a modern e-book device, not Homer's epic), has jumped on the wireless, touch screen e-reader bandwagon. Their new offering, officially announced on 23 September, will be a large model with an 8.1-inch screen and stylus navigation. The DR800 model will be available in the USA within two months and in Europe in the first half of 2010, and will have global wireless connectivity via Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm's Gobi 3G technology.That's for free, folks. It sports built-in 802.11B/G Wi-Fi plus optional external 10/100MB Ethernet networking. A weighty (435 grams =15.3 ounces) device among the modern lightweights, it's a quality build with 16 levels of grey-scale, 768 x 1024 pixels resolution, 2GB expandable book memory and plenty of grunt thanks to an Intel 400MHz XScale processor.
The nominated price when in stock will be US $400 (or to be precise $399.99), with a leather cover thrown in too. That's much cheaper than its iRex predecessors. This new iLiad will allow personal content to be added, and will support PDF, ePub, eReader and other common formats. A partnership with Barnes & Noble as primary book supplier has already been announced for the USA, along with LibreDigital, and Newspaper Direct for press downloads.
Astak Pocket PRO
Astak Inc of San Jose, California, maker of the 6 inch EZ Reader, has now released a new 5-inch e-reader dubbed the Pocket PRO. Like the Eco Reader mentioned above, this entrant supports a huge range of file formats and so forms parts of the gathering reaction against devices tied restrictively to proprietary files. The Pocket PRO comes with Adobe Digital Editions (now packaged with its EZ big brother too), and will accept PDF files with copyright protection in addition to over 20 DRM-free formats.
The Pocket PRO may weigh a mere 6 ounces (170 grams), but it's not a lightweight in other respects. A 400 MHz processor makes this a gutsy little number and hastens page turning, for which (thank goodness) there's also a Scroll Wheel included. Meanwhile an 8-level greyscale e-Ink screen provides good reading quality for the user. Connectivity is thankfully USB 2.0, and it runs with Linux as the operating system.
Features include PDF reflow and text-to-speech function, while a range of six different colours adds to market appeal. The device will also play MP3 music files while you read, if desired. Like the Eco Reader the Pocket PRO offers 512MB of on-board memory, plus a SD card slot for adding more - in this case up to a surprising 16GB. At an attractive initial promotional price of US$229 (which includes a carry-case), this model certainly holds appeal. A promise from Astak to introduce touch screen and more importantly WiFi models in the future propels this company to the frontline of e-reader device makers.
Han e-readers hitting for a home run
Chinese manufacturers Jinke Electronics and Hanvon Corp are now testing their own wireless 3G e-readers. Jinke makes the ubiquitous Hanlin e-reader, and plans to sell models in Europe with a direct Web connection provided via the Orange telecom. A price equivalent to US$350 has been mentioned as a kick-off point.
Meanwhile Hanvon (aka Hanwang) is concentrating on the home Chinese market, where it has already had some success. Hanvon is hoping to sell half a million devices this year (in 2008 the company sold some 200,000 e-readers), and two million in 2010. The company aims to connect its wireless Web access via state-run local telecom China Mobile, and is developing an online e-bookstore to support its ambitions.
*
We said it long ago and we say it still…
A new survey by Forrester Research confirms what we've always maintained. Apart from e-book enthusiasts, most people won't pay a lot of money for an e-reader as a stand-alone device. In fact, those people who don't consider themselves as digiterati won't consider buying one at all until it's priced between $50 and $99. Overall the survey found that only about 14% of online US consumers would be willing to buy an e-reader at $199 or higher.
Our own favoured concept is that e-readers should be free with a tied book purchase plan, with a pay-for-it-now alternative available for the more casual reader at $99 or even eventually $49.99. Someday, someone will implement this essential idea and win our gold star of approval.
Meanwhile, we're all still waiting for e Ink in colour. The inside word is for such a model to be on sale during the first quarter of 2010. Here's hoping they've solved the agonisingly slow screen refresh problem that bedevils the FLEPia, the Japan-only first of its kind. But don't hold your breath just yet, folks. There'll almost certainly be premium (or should that read predatory?) pricing on the early colour versions.
*
Google Wars
Google's "settlement" with authors and publishers over its ambitious - opponents say illegal - digital book scanning and sales initiative is not yet a done deed. Amazon.com has hotly opposed the deal, and many other heavyweights have now joined the naysayers. The latter include Microsoft, Yahoo, and even the French and German governments. Moreover, Marybeth Peters, the head of the US Copyright Office, has declared that the draft settlement violates "fundamental copyright principles".
Most recently (on 18 September) the US Justice Department advised the New York District Court, which is ruling on the issue, to reject the present version of the proposed agreement. Citing copyright and anti-trust issues, the department has suggested changes in at least four areas of the deal. The next hearing is due on 7 October, but we predict that Google will be obliged to offer amendments.
A postscript to the Amazon "1984" and "Animal Farm" debacle: Amazon is to replace all deleted books with legitimate copies, with the alternative of a $30 payment or gift certificate. For those who had annotated their copies the annotations have now been restored. It turns out that the latter were never actually deleted from Kindle devices, but merely "disassociated" when the texts were removed, rendering them useless.
On the (thirty-third) level
Dan Brown's new Freemason-themed thriller The Lost Symbol marked a digital advance, in that publisher Knopf Doubleday decided to release the e-book version simultaneously with the hardcover edition, instead of relegating it to also-ran status. Startling follow-up news was that the Kindle e-book actually outsold the hardback in early sales on the first day of the book's release.
Although that trend is unlikely to have continued for long, it nevertheless represented a further significant marker in the mainstreaming of e-reading. Since people can now read e-books on a large variety of devices including their 3G phones, and since a huge number of people will inevitably read this book, how many will opt for a less expensive (US$9.99) digital version? Forthcoming sales data should tell us a lot about where the public consciousness is now moving to in relation to e-reading…
Update: Of the first two million copies sold, around 100,000 (5%) were e-books. From tiny acorns...
Back to the Future
Meanwhile Sony has announced new reading software for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) console. Sony's new e-reader program will be made available in December, and will allow youthful users to download "hundreds" of Marvel comics to read on the popular device. So, instead of madly gaming all the time kids may well start reading again. As in reading comic books, just like - surprise, surprise - their parents used to, way back when. Just call them graphic novels kids, and then no one will get all prissy about it.
Selling well
In June 2009 US e-books sales rose by 136.2 percent compared with June 2008, continuing a year of rapid growth despite the economic downturn. Moreover second quarter 2009 wholesale USA e-book sales rose to $37.6m, compared with only $11.6m in the second quarter of 2008. The June monthly figure of US$14.0 million was still dwarfed by physical book sales, but is no longer insignificant, especially as the publishing industry did poorly overall.
BBeB beeped off
Sony, hot on the fight back trail against Amazon's Kindle, is now to support the non-proprietary ePub format as standard on its e-reader models. This will liberate buyers from being stuck with Sony's BBeB format, and end the limitation on where they can purchase their books. If all goes to plan, Sony's own e-store stock will be converted to ePub by the end of 2009. The process is therefore a two-way one, in that it also means that the Sony e-book store will now be available to customers with non-Sony devices. As well, Sony will in future use Adobe Content Server 4 as its DRM (digital rights management) platform.
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August 2009
There's an awful lot of ??? in Brazil
The all-Brazilian e-reader? When? June 2010, perhaps. Name? The Mix Leitor D. Look? Silver sleek. How much? Unknown. Credibility? Likewise. We've seen the pics and read the specs, and it sounds and looks fine. HOWEVER we were floored to see that the primary format cited is BBeB, which is a Sony proprietary format. What gives? www.leitord.com.br/
Two new Sony Readers
Meanwhile, back to the self-admitted Sony Reader. It's now official that a new Sony PRS-300 Pocket Edition, a smaller model with a 5 inch display, will be available at the end of August for an encouraging US$199. Way to go! Then there's the larger new Reader Touch (the PRS-600). This will be a de luxe (& obviously touchscreen) 6 inch model retailing for US$299, same price as the base model Kindle 2 was just reduced to. Both models have 8-level gray scale displays with 800 x 600 pixel resolution.
As well, Sony's best-seller e-book prices will be pulled back to US$9.99 to match both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Still no Sony Reader wireless capability though. It's rumoured that Sony are working frantically on this behind the scenes, as otherwise even the open-format Bebook will beat them to the punch, while B&N's Plastic Logic tablet is due early next year to pile on more pressure there. That leaves Sony little time to avoid being left right out. Our prediction for their touchdown - Novemberish.
Elonex 600EB
Borders UK are busy people! Having offered the iRex Iliad and more recently the Hanvon EBK 520 e-readers for sale, they're next to promote the new Elonex 600EB device. Even better, at £189 their prices are continuing to decline, and you get 100 free classic e-books thrown in, plus the Sudoku game.
With a 6-inch e Ink screen the 600 EB is only 9mm thick and weighs a trifling 180 grams. The device allows 8 different font sizes and the option of landscape mode, while the user interface is described as "incredibly straightforward" and minimalist. Book storage memory is supplied by a 4GB card for an SD slot, although a leather case and other optional accessories will set you back £29 more. Borders claims that the Elonex will last for around three months of reading between charges. There's no wireless access, you download from a computer via a mini-USB port, preferably from Border's own e-bookstore, the company hopes.
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Google versus Amazon
The US Justice Department has confirmed that it has been investigating Google's $125 million settlement with authors and publishers since last April. The deal allows Google to upload millions of books to the Web, but accusations that the agreement violates antitrust laws are understood to have motivated the Justice Department's action, which comes ahead of an October final Court hearing on the settlement. Other critics argue that the deal breaches copyright laws in some cases, as the legal status of many books that may be posted online is unclear.
Clearly, some of the complaints come from Amazon.com. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, when asked at the Wired Business Conference for an opinion on Google's digital book initiatives declared: "We have strong opinions about that issue … clearly, that settlement in our opinion needs to be revisited… it doesn't seem right that you should… kind of get a prize for violating a large series of copyrights."
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The KINDLE Report
Amazon meanwhile is forging ahead with plans to launch the Kindle device in the UK - and possibly Europe-wide - by this Christmas. The two key deals to be done to make this possible are the necessary agreements with major publishers and obtaining an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) licence to enable wireless access. The European Kindle may well have a few differences to the US model, sources say.
Back in the USA, the price of the Kindle 2 dropped by sixty dollars on 8 July to US$299. With a slew of competitors emerging, some of them likely to be wireless too, expect the price to drop further over the next year. Once a colour version emerges, probably at a premium price initially, the greyscale model may well continue as a lower cost model for beginners and for those who only want it to read fiction and PDF documents. That logic does not really apply to the Kindle DX model however. The latter is intended particularly for use with textbooks, magazines and newspapers, all of which crave colour, so expect a multihued DX to cause massive obsolescence for its predecessor model.
* Another new Kindle first is the availability of digital sheet music for the device, with over 20,000 songs recently made available.
* ADD-Ons
Meanwhile, three recent patent filings now published indicate that Amazon is becoming as resourceful as Google in the rush to make lotsa moola from the Web. Patent One would allow Amazon to insert advertisements in e-books, either as separate full pages on in the margins of existing ones. Moreover the ads could be made relevant to context or to consumer profiles, techniques Amazon already uses on Web pages and in customer emails. Another filing refers to ads in print-on-demand (POD) books, and a third to some kind of online social networking connected to the Kindle, possibly again including advertising.Net comment has been very negative on the "ads in e-books" idea however, with some critics saying it would put them off the Kindle device altogether. It seems that many people accept advertisements in magazines and newspapers but not in books. However some past printed editions of books have carried a few pages of ads for other titles at the end, so if Amazon limited itself to that concept the plan might be better received. The proposal is most likely to be resisted if it involves interruptions to novels and other imaginative literature, whereas with non-fiction the concept may be less problematic. However, it appears that Amazon's e-book ads scheme may possibly involve an opt-in model, as in if you agree to ad inclusions you get the book a bit cheaper.
*
More "e's" in Service
A number of US hotels (e.g. the Epic in Miami and the Algonquin in New York) are now offering their guests free use of e-reader devices…
Barnes & Noble - Back for a second try, and instantly into battle
Major US book retailer Barnes & Noble has released a free e-book reader as a software application for the iPhone. The B&N app also includes 2 free classic titles (Sense and Sensibility and The Last of the Mohicans). However to use the app readers need to first create an account, and there have been reports of glitches in the new software and criticism of clumsy procedures in the whole process.
Teething troubles aside, the new B&N e-bookstore allegedly contains some 700,000 titles, although in fact half a million of these are public-domain books available free elsewhere. Some of the e-book prices (in a number of cases exceeding paperback prices at other stores) have been criticised too, although more often the asking rate for best-sellers seems designed to match Amazon's.
Where Barnes & Noble beats Amazon hands down is in providing access for a wide range of devices and operating systems. These include Windows & Mac computers; iPhone and iPod Touch; newer Blackberry phones; and Palm, Windows Mobile & Symbian OS devices (the latter through eReader, courtesy of B&N's purchase of Fictionwise). There is even supposed to be a super-nifty app for iPhone users enabling them to photograph a book cover and translate the pic into a purchase within a few seconds, though how well this will work in practice we have yet to hear. As well B&N is now offering a free Wi-Fi service in all of its bookstores, via telecom AT&T.
This open approach above is not mirrored in another related project, however. The Plastic Logic company of Cambridge UK is apparently to release a closed system 8.5 inch by 11 inch eReader tablet early in 2010, at a price comparable to that of the Kindle. This device will also emulate the Kindle by allowing direct wireless acquisition of e-books (in this case using the AT&T telecom's 3G network), but exclusively from the B&N e-bookstore.
Readers with long memories will recall that Barnes & Noble ventured into e-books once before, way back in the year 2000. It subsequently closed its e-bookstore in September 2003. Since then however the physical book trade has generally gone into decline, while sales of e-books have increased substantially. In addition, Amazon's Kindle has become the first dedicated e-reader to possibly top a million devices sold. Barnes & Noble's investment is larger this time and the stakes are higher too, so the Amazon-Google stoush looks like becoming very much a three-way contest within the next twelve months.
*
Major UK & international academic bookseller Blackwell is also getting into the online e-bookstore game. Partnering with distribution biggies Gardners, the e-book shop on Blackwell's website opens with over 45,000 titles and plans for many more. They'll also be selling an open-access e-reader device soon, the Dutch-origin BeBook. BTW, a BeBook Mini model ( with a 5 inch display) is expected to be available by early September, with a wireless Bebook 2 version a few months later.
All Scribbdding furiously… Simon & Schuster is to sell some 5,000 e-book titles through new wave website Scribd, in PDF format. Tech people O'Reilly Media Inc and travel guide folk Lonely Planet have also signed up to offer their books for sale in digital form on the burgeoning Scribd, which takes a 20 percent cut on sales from publishers and individual authors alike.
***
July 2009
A Virtual Storm, a Real Scandal
18 July 2009 was, well, doubleplusungood for Amazon.com, to use the terminology made infamous by George Orwell (real name Eric Blair) in his chilling masterwork 1984. On that day the giant online company reached through the ether to delete the 1984 book and another powerful Orwell title, Animal Farm, from Kindle devices it had sold them to, an action most Kindle owners were not even aware was possible. In doing so however Amazon overreached itself decisively, provoking a massive storm of criticism on the Web and causing severe, though probably temporary, damage to the company's reputation.
At one level, Amazon's behaviour was commercially correct. Firstly nobody was swindled as customers who had bought the books were promptly refunded. Legally speaking what Amazon did was to remove content it had no commercial rights to anyway and should not have sold in the first place. Moreover Amazon was itself a victim of unscrupulous third parties who had taken advantage of automated procedures to on-sell titles through the Kindle store that they had no rights to deal in.
Ethically however the situation was very different. This "virtual invasion" of their devices shook consumer confidence as few other deeds could have. "It's like they broke into my house, stole the books they'd sold me and then left a note offering their reasons and a refund - completely unacceptable behaviour!" was a typical kind of response.
As well, 1984 was really the worst possible book to do this to, the action appearing to confirm some of George Orwell's own far-sighted fears for the future of global society. Although it was the action of a private corporation and not a totalitarian government, the "digital break and enter" pointed up the dilemma of technological advance in modern societies, where "progress" can be used against citizens in ways which cumulatively pose a huge danger to democracy and freedom.
So for example in the new novel The Lion and the Covenant an odious Washington insider named Stephen Alcock enthuses about the possibility of developing a "great, really neat new device", the idea of which, he has heard, exists in "some old book". He speculates that it could be used by his nefarious organisation, which has infiltrated the US government and aims to completely eliminate privacy on the road to seizing power. "… we could sell that… to the public as some kind of easy new way of communicating," Alcock muses. The device is in fact Orwell's infamous telescreen by which the authorities in 1984 can constantly monitor and continuously intimidate the thinking population.
In the world of 1984 history is continuously re-written to suit those in power, and any information contradicting the latest "narrative" is simply eliminated and replaced. That is an act now chillingly easy in theory in the context of the digital era if the right to do so rests with authorities or corporations. So the alarming precedent set here by Amazon is one reason why the Web digiterati were almost unanimously hostile to - and indeed furious beyond measure about - this hasty Kindle action.
At another level, Amazon's behaviour rattled consumer confidence in the idea that anything purchased digitally is really "bought" in any sense. The act of anonymously deleting the books and only informing those who believed they were the owners afterwards was therefore a monumental blunder in public relations terms. "What's yours is debatable" is no way to sell a product, and never will be. After all, the Kindle license agreement does say ""Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times." If Amazon no longer 'sells" e-books but kind of provisionally lends them, maybe and depending, and with a discretion to later delete them from devices Amazon has already and undeniably sold to consumers, at any time and on Amazon's own terms, why should they imagine anyone would want to "buy" such books or devices with real, incontrovertible money in the first place?
As the proverbial hit the fan, Amazon's executives began to realise the enormity of their blunder. First their Director of Communications Drew Herdener issued the following terse statement: "These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances."
As a mea culpa this bland bulletin was woefully inadequate. So Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos then bit the bullet and personally made the following online apology: "Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission." Onya Jeff. Go choke on it, Big Brother. And you too, Stephen Alcock.
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Pushing ahead with POD
After a successful pilot project from November 2008, Springer Science/Business Media are now offering patrons of U.S. and Canadian academic libraries the option of purchasing a Print on Demand paperback copy of their e-books by means of a simple button click. All will be priced at $24.95, including postage. The MyCopy service shows that for libraries -and possibly the wider community - the concept of e-books plus Print on Demand represents a new publishing paradigm, and a means by which previously "uneconomic" titles can be sustained and even flourish.
e-Arnie
Former macho movie star and more recently Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is out to terminate physical textbooks in his state's high schools. Rather than being part of a SkyNet plot to take over the world however, the idea is to save the all-but bankrupt US Pacific coast state millions of dollars from its future education budgets. Arnie hopes to see a transition to e-books begin from August 2010, starting with maths and science texts.
The announcement stirred a significant amount of controversy in his sprawling state though, particular issues being who will pay for the e-readers and whether sufficiently attractive deals can be done with textbook providers, who have been heavily chided USA-wide for not offering very attractive discounts for digital editions so far. There have also been mixed results in student tests on e-readers for textbooks at US universities, with students finding much-desired features absent from some devices. As this market is potentially massive, evolutionary pressures to improve devices and sharpen the financial incentives involved in the purchase of digital textbooks are likely to be intense.
Two Taiwanese companies to take note of: in June 2009 the Netronix company (largely owned by Prime View International) bought Cambridge Massachusetts-based e Ink's display screen patents for US$215 million. This gives Netronix a monopoly to produce all e Ink screens for the Kindle and many other devices if it so desires, potentially a hugely expandable market (although there are other forms of electrophoretic display available elsewhere). Meanwhile the processors for many leading e-readers are made by Freescale Semiconductor, another company with a massive potential for growth in any e-book boom.
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The Sincerest Form of Flattery
A Kindle clone? Not quite. But a prototype new "WeFound" e-book reader exhibited at the 9 -12 July 2009 Digital Publishing Fair in Tokyo showed a marked similarity to Amazon's market-leading device. From Peking University's Founder Group, the WeFound is expected to be released in China at the end of this year and in Japan some time thereafter, running the Apabi reader software already common in China. This e Ink device will be wireless too, so at an estimated US$210 the price will be nicer than that of its "inspiration". If the build quality is similar to that of the Kindle then this competitor might well scoop up Amazon's potential north Asian market.
***
May-June 2009
Kindle DX
And now, news of the imminent release (early August?) of a new, super-sized e-reader model from Amazon, the Kindle DX. In fact, the 9.7 inch screen provided represents a display size two and a half times as large as the standard Kindle model. Fortunately the price is not pro rata, although at US$489 it will cost significantly more than the base model, which is itself expected to get cheaper soon. Some 3.3GB of usable storage memory is enough for a huge number of" ordinary" books in text, and probably enough multimedia ones to get by. BTW, the device itself weighs about 1 pound 3 ounces (540 grams).
For many a most desirable feature will be the DX's built-in support for PDF files, an annoying omission from the rest of the Kindle family. This inclusion highlights the fact that this is a machine aimed more at the study and work markets than the leisure reading sphere. With three open formats here - PDF, MP3 and TXT - the restrictive, proprietary nature of the Kindle to date is less a problem now than previously, although further progress in that direction would still be welcomed by many.
Those who like their books big will certainly be drawn to this model. Textbooks, often large of course, are promoted in DX publicity, and Amazon seems to be hoping that tertiary students and teachers in general will appreciate this device. In fact Amazon has already announced partnerships with three major textbook publishers, while five US universities are to test the DX with their students.
An appealing new feature in the DX is display auto-rotation, meaning that if you turn the device sideways the screen automatically switches from portrait to landscape mode, very handy to look at maps etc. iPhone owners are about the only others to experience that magic, although its value is much greater with a large device, particularly in educational and business applications.
As with the Kindle 2 the most unpopular feature of the DX seems to be the navigation joystick, with some unhappy trial users calling for a return to the original Kindle's scroll wheel. The keyboard isn't lighting any fires either, so hopefully a future second model will improve these aspects.
For those wondering, the previous Kindle text-to-speech feature is reprised here in this slimline (one third of an inch thick) gadget. In fact, most DX attributes mirror those of the current smaller Kindles. Will, this large model take off though? That's an even bigger question than the DX's mega-screen. We can say that text looks very good indeed on this machine, and it's wonderful for reading novels and articles. However there's no getting around the fact that most textbooks need colour, so do magazines, and so do most newspapers too these days. So it's difficult to see the DX really hitting the big time until a colour version is available.
In the meantime, the DX is another piece in place for Amazon's grand strategy. A strategy that would have much broader appeal, though, if Kindle owners could buy e-books wherever they choose, and for that matter owners of other devices could buy Kindle e-books.
*
The Fox Eyes the Barnyard
On the prowl in the e-book coop these days is News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch. The Sun King is reportedly interested in challenging the likes of Amazon now it's clear that the Kindle is a buzz item. Rumour has it Murdoch wants to beat the book giant to the draw with a large, colour e-reader of e Ink quality, and is "in talks" with a company that may produce such a device for him, with Plastic Logic mentioned as possibly the firm concerned. Don't expect early details though, given the Lord of Page Three's penchant for secrecy. The former Australian, long a global news and movie mogul, may be less interested in the book angle though. Instead, he may see instantly downloadable and even automatically updating wireless electronic editions as the future for newspapers and magazines sold by subscription. He may well be right.
*There's talk too of a Linux-based, large colour e-reader being developed primarily for newspapers by a startup company called FirstPaper, funded by the Hearst Corporation. But does News Corp have a finger in that pie too? Meanwhile another source reports that major US book retailer Barnes & Noble is itself trying to set up a new e-reader deal, with AT&T a possible partner for wireless coverage.
*
The prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology is to release fewer books physically and publish more electronically instead. MIT Press now boasts a new e-bookstore , and has also released its first journal to be restricted to a digital edition; symbolically perhaps it's the International Journal of Learning and Media. And interestingly, MIT Press has revealed that many of its e-book sales are to Kindle users. MIT, Yale and Cornell are all suffering falls in their print book sales, possibly due to recession and high prices, and all three are showing signs of veering in a digital direction in response.
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Random Extras
Publishing major Random House has released the first ten of a series of "enhanced e-books", somewhat in the manner of DVD bonus items. Additional content may include videos, games, quizzes, photos, author interviews, interactive graphics and introductory audio narration, as Random moves to take advantages of the sales-enhancing possibilities of digital extras.Penguin dives into the China Sea
Penguin Books is to sell its e-title range in China, thanks to an agreement with Chinese company Apabi. Some 2,000 titles will be on offer, in the first major venture into the Chinese e-book market by a global Western publisher. China's e-book consumer market has been estimated at about 79 million, huge by world standards although only a tiny proportion of Chinese readers.*
Catalogue Standards on the way?
There's talk that Adobe and Lexcycle (the Stanza people) are working with the venerable Internet Archive to produce a draft open standard for e-book online catalogues, called OPDS. If finalised and generally adopted, such a standard would make it a lot easier to find and obtain wanted e-books if all types of e-book software and devices can directly interact with established catalogues. Of course, this would not be in the short-term commercial interests of some major players, but would put a major building block in place for a seamless e-book future. Bit of a no-brainer really - physical print books just sit in a shop awaiting purchase without major dramas about software and device compatibility, and it's astounding that e-books are still left behind in that respect in 2009. With Amazon subsequently acquiring Lexcycle it will be interesting to see what transpires with this development…*
Borders UK is now selling a Chinese Hanvon e-book reader, the EBK-520, for £193.86. This is an e Ink model, with 8 level greyscale and a 5-inch screen. It supports only TXT, HTML, and PDF text varieties, JPG & PNG images and mp3 audio. The EBK-520 takes SD Memory Cards and includes a Lithium-Polymer rechargeable battery, running on a Linux OS using a 312MHz processor. With only 64MB of built-in storage this 160 gram (5.6 ounce) device is a light-weight in more ways than one. The chief advantage seems to be that it's quite a bit cheaper than the iRex Iliad previously offered by Borders, and so could hit the spot for those who don't expect top quality or any razzle-dazzle features provided the price is right.
PS: Borders UK has also launched its own e-book store as part of its website. Over 45,000 titles, mostly academic so far, are already available in two formats (ePub and PDF).*
The Cool-er
Then there's the Cool-er from Interead, a weird-looking product name that presumably stands for cool e-reader. A little cheaper (yes!) than the Hanvon EBK-520 at £189* and larger too with a six-inch screen, the Cool-er aims to please with eight bright colour options and a full gigabyte of built-in memory (there's support for 4 gigs more with an SD memory card slot). The device connects to PC or Mac via a mini-USB port.
At only 178 grams (6.2 ounces) the Cool-er is another lightweight to carry, with the same 8 level greyscale e Ink display as its EBK-520 rival, same Linus OS and Lithium-Polymer battery type, but a little more grunt from a 400MHz processor. There's more in text format support too - PDF, ePub, FB2, RTF, TXT, and HTML - as well as jpeg and PNC pictures and mp3 audio. You can also add your own documents in supported formats. So overall the Cool-er tries harder. Just reciting the colour options - Ruby Red, Blue Sky, Cool Pink, Hot Pink, Silver Shine, Vivid Violet, Racing Green, Black Jack - might make some fashionistas swoon, and this e-reader adds extra class with its own website allegedly offering access to more than 750,000 titles. *The price again? UK £189, US $249, €225.
With a click wheel like the iPOD, slimmer (a mere 8.6mm thick) than an iPhone, and throwing in quick (though not automatic) change between landscape or portrait mode plus eight language support, there's lots to like here. With its hot looks and nicer price, if the Cool-er had wireless connectivity it might be a serious threat to existing models of the Kindle.
Gripes include button press not soft enough, cumbersome menus, slow page refresh rate and a number of lacks as compared with the market leaders - no protective cover, no text annotation, no inbuilt dictionary and no text to speech capability. The books on its website seem dearer overall than say Amazon's, too*, and the website itself is not exactly in Amazon's league. Still, Interead is new and can hardly be expected to be fully competitive so soon, especially as this is not the work of a major corporation. Like things Apple though, it may swiftly acquire a major fan base for its X factor appeal. Indeed an improved second model might really take off, especially if the price came down further. If so, many may feel that it's, er, pretty cool?
* although Amazon allegedly makes no profit on many of its e-book best-sellers at present
*
*Here's a fantasy freebie: "The Lone Star Stories Reader", an anthology from the first 25 issues of Lone Star Stories, is available as a free download in pdf format from:
http://www.freeebooksblog.com/free-fantasy-ebook-the-lone-star-stories-reader/*
BRIEFLY…
* The Bebook e-reader is now available directly in Australia for $A549.00, from www.bookhampers.com.au. Far be it from us to crimp their success, but in fairness we feel obliged to point out to readers that even allowing for postage you may well do better price-wise buying it direct from Bebook's own website.
HOT NEWS/ APOLOGY: Book Hampers now have the Bebook on special for $A499.00.
Crackberry addicts - sorry, BlackBerry users - may now listen to audio e-books, thanks to a handy innovation from Audible.com. Or at least those who own Curve, Pearl, 8800, Bold or Storm models of the very merry Berry. Audible's new player software is available free here.
And now, Terengganu
In Malaysia's Terengganu state, all primary school pupils are to eventually have their own e-readers. The device looks more like a netbook or small laptop PC to us, but anyway it'll contain a complete school syllabus, and also religious study programmes. The rollout begins with 25,000 of the Taiwan-made device being distributed to Year Five pupils.
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March-April 2009
What's in a name - the FLEPia
The dream is almost here - but still flawed, and way too pricey. On 20 April 2009 (exactly two years after a prototype was first announced), the world's first e-paper colour e-book reader became available for general sale - but in Japan only, and at a cost of 99,970 yen. Which translates to over US $1,000. Note the term e-paper, not e Ink. That's because Fujitsu, the makers of the "FLEPia", have developed their own version of the "good as print" text and image display.
The new FLEPia device has an eight-inch touch screen, with a scroll key and buttons too. It can run for 40 hours continuously, which is great battery life. Screen refresh is an agonising 1.8 second wait though, and worse, sometimes much worse (8 seconds!), if display goes beyond a minimum 64 colours towards the full 260,000 shade potential; so obviously improvement is much to be desired there.
The FLEPia's weight is 385 grams (13.5 ounces), and the gizmo is a mere 12.5 mm (half an inch) thick. There's Bluetooth and WiFi for wireless downloads, plus USB 2.0. Oh and a virtual keyboard, and a 4 gigabyte SD card slot if you want some serious additional book storage. After all, colour and all the image potentiality that colour entails may require lot more memory than the greyscale texts and line drawings displayed on present e-paper type devices.
The OS is Windows CE 5.0, and a browser, e-mail and other applications such as Word - and in fact the full MS Office suite - will be available on the device, making it a Tablet PC, really, as well as an e-reader. In terms of book and image files, in addition to proprietary files the FLEPia will also display PDFs, plain text (TXT), Word docs and JPEGs, so far. You also get stereo speakers, and a headphone jack. Some 20,000 proprietary titles are available so far; they can be viewed with two forms of installed Japanese e-reader software, BunkoViewer (XMDF format, for smartphones) and "T-Time" (book format). Oh and yes, it will be on sale later outside Japan.
Comment: This is not yet the ultimate colour e-reader, but more likely the first of a series of rival models, one of which will be good enough to be the brave new device that leads us into the golden age of e-reading.
Pixelated
Oh yes, there's another new device just released in the UK. The Pixelar e-Reader - wait a minute, this isn't new! No indeed, it's a rebadged Hanlin VE folks. Still, the lovely thing about it is that's it's an open device, so you can read books or documents on it in just about any format you choose. Such as PDF, MOBI, DOC, EPUB, LIT, PRC, WOLF, HTML, TXT, PPT, CHM, FB2, and RSS feeds too, plus a large range of image files. Oh, and play music MP3s while you're at it.
This device has a 6-inch display screen and features (only) 4 greyscale (tsk!) e-paper display. It has 512 Mb of internal memory with a 1GB SD card also included, expandable to 4GB. It's definitely lightweight at only 220 grams. A bad point is that users can only add content via a USB connection or the card slot, so no wireless downloads are possible here. Screen refresh is slow, too. At £220 or so sterling, case extra, it's priced comparably with the Sony Reader in the UK market. That seems a bit on the high side considering the Sony's appeal, but if you're not after new books or commercial content but mainly interested in open source possibilities, the Pixelar could be your thing. Or at least, until an improved model comes along...
Amazon makes its plays as e-book struggle heats up
Kindle 2
Amidst economic gloom and doom elsewhere, Amazon.com is going great guns. The Internet book giant reported a massive boost in sales revenue for the last full year, up 29% to US$19.17 billion. Profit for 2008 rose 36% to US$645 million, with the 2009 first quarter figures looking good too. E-book news relevance? A booming business in "physical" sales puts the company in a strong position to pioneer and follow through with its digital book initiatives.
Some of these:
1. the Kindle e-bookstore added a further 45,000 titles in the last quarter of 2008, making 230,000 all told, and they haven't slacked since then.. Of those Amazon titles available in both print and Kindle form, 10 percent of sales are in the Kindle e-book format, according to Amazon head honcho Jeff Bezos. The Kindle device also supports the popular MobiPocket e-book format, long favoured by owners of numerous types of hand-helds. That's not surprising really, since Amazon now owns the MobiPocket e-store. Also new is Whispersync, a technology launched by Amazon in February to synchronize e-books among multiple devices.
2. On 4 March 2009 Amazon released "Kindle for iPhone", an e-book reader "app" for the Apple iPhone & iPod Touch*. This software is available at the unbeatable price of free from the iTunes App store. In a single stroke Amazon.com massively extended the reach of its Kindle e-book titles. Not just physically to two new devices, but also to a large and mainly youthful market segment so far fairly cool to the appeal of e-books. And especially, a youthful market segment unwilling so far to outlay $359 just for something to read them on. It was a bold step that answered some previous criticism of the Kindle direction.
However the new app is nowhere near as smooth to use as the Kindle device itself. To begin with, books have to be located through a web browser rather than the Kindle's direct access into Amazon's e-book store, and "Kindle for iPhone" has less functionality than rhe original in a significant number of areas.
Although Apple itself gained by enhanced versatility for its own devices, Amazon may well obtain additional Kindle device sales too from the new app, by stimulating youthful interest in the "Kindle" itself. Unsurprisingly, the app release encouraged rumours that Apple will yet produce its own, Kindle-competitive device in the form of a larger iPod Touch, reputedly with a 9in screen. If it doesn't, Apple may well be missing a major sales opportunity while Amazon proselytises by stealth.
*iPhone OS 2.1 or later required.
3. Release of the Kindle 2. Meanwhile Amazon's Kindle 2 model e-reader lived up to expectations. It's much slimmer (0.36 inches), feels lighter, and is considerably more attractive aesthetically than its geekish predecessor. At the technical level there are several worthwhile improvements, too. With 16 shade greyscale instead of the previous 4 shades the screen image is significantly better, while page-turn speed, a real gripe issue with the first Kindle, is now faster. No less than 2GB of onboard memory is a welcome enhancement compared with the previous 180MB. There's also a proper QWERTY keyboard below the screen. Amazon also claims the battery lasts 25 percent longer.
As predicted in our preview last October, screen display size is unchanged but a joystick replaces the scroll wheel, and the positioning of buttons is improved. Some owners have picked fault with absent features however, such as the lack of a backlight for reading in the dark, no touch screen, and deletion of the previous wireless-off switch. The price? US $359, but you'll need to buy a protective case for it as well (they start at around US$30). The price is an improvement on the previous $399, but may still be too much for many punters, especially in these cautious times.
* All-up though, this is now a device that many e-book enthusiasts are lusting after. What next? Given the Kindles's killer advantage of wireless connectivity, a future colour-capable model, plus access to any e-book format and any Web bookseller rather than just Amazon.com, are the only features needed now to make this a dream e-reader device. Oh, and world-wide availability (for both the Kindle and its Net connection) too, of course.
The critics
Back in January, Computerworld.com columnist Mike Elgan wrote that he believed Amazon may "screw up" its e-book potential however, by failing to open the Kindle e-store to other devices, and by keeping the price of the Kindle device high even in recessionary times. Elgan argued that a long-term strategy aimed to "defer major profits for later" would preserve the golden e-goose for the giant Web company, instead of slaying it. He suggests that Amazon should attempt to maximise the uptake of Kindles by slashing their device profits, "to get Kindles into as many hands as humanly possible so the maximum number of people are buying eBooks from Amazon."
This column does agree with Mike on that point - in fact we've always argued for dedicated e-reader devices no dearer than $99, and preferably available free when combined with a committed book purchase plan. If Amazon's core book business is, precisely, to sell book content, then it can surely be argued that pursuing other aims that may be at variance with that goal (e.g.. seeking maximal profits from selling a limited number of a physical reading device) may be self-defeating in the long-run.
* Meanwhile a small contretemps arose over a Kindle 2 feature allowing users to have their books read out loud to them, thanks to a text-to-speech feature. Well, perhaps not quite so small when you learn that back in 2007 sales of audiobooks surpassed one billion US dollars. Anyhow, the (US) Authors Guild felt that this ability might undermine the sale of audiobook versions of writers' works. Whether a synthesised, robotic voice could really compete with the "feel" and emotion of capable human reading seems wildly improbable (although there are male or female voice options, and a choice of speed too), but Amazon was forced to allow copyright holders to opt out of the feature for their titles.
* The boot was on the other foot when Amazon itself invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) during March, & issued a legal notice to the major enthusiast's site MobileRead.com, which has hosted a link to Igor Skochinsky's Kindle-related download, Kindlepid.py. This surprised many, as apart from it being a year and a quarter since the download was first made available by Skochinsky, his software is not a means to load pirated books. Rather it allows a Kindle owner to read books legally purchased at other e-bookstores than the Kindle store. However, it is arguably reverse engineering prohibited under the Kindle's terms of use. Mobilread complied with the Amazon demand, although insisting that it did not believe the program violated the law.
Some Kindle owners using the Mobilread site then complained that the Amazon directive was "alienating", and made the device less desirable. From the legal point of view there's another angle. It seems from the circumstances of this action that the DCMA is much broader in its application than many believe it was intended to be (do legislators always properly read the laws they pass?). That's because the law seems to make circumvention of software in a reading device illegal even when used for purposes that do NOT involve the infringement of end material copyright. Arguably however, this case could be appealed to a a higher court as to whether or not this is a valid interpretation of a copyright law.
At a broader level all these issues, particularly the "more useful versus more secure" argument bedevilling such proprietary devices, are part of the creative tension inevitable as the struggle to define - and control - the future of the e-reader hots up. As companies struggle for market share they may, as these two incidents involving Amazon show, be both defendants and accusers in continuing struggles for commercial rights. It's not just companies but readers too who have rights and aspirations to gain or loose in the outcome.
GOOGLE Searches for its Answer
2. Google's counter-thrust to all this Amazon activity has been to make public domain titles from its own mobile Book Search service available for reading on the Apple iPhone, or indeed any phone running the new Google phone OS, Android. However the Net colossus has not so far entered the fray in respect of recent, commercial titles. Google extended its move by announcing on 20 March that those Google public domain titles would be available for the Sony Reader too, boosting Sony's e-book library collections to over 600,000 works.
3. The Sony/Google versus Amazon line-up heralded a real clash of the titans ahead. However an important difference is that in the book field Sony is a hardware company and Amazon more a content company, so the two may have different priorities at key points of contention. Sony's adoption of the .epub standard means it is leaning more towards an "open device" than Amazon is, including that books on the Sony Reader could be transferred to or from other devices. However it seems that just as Sony is talking of matching the Kindle's wireless connectivity at some stage, both companies will try to equalise on the other's "sweet points" of advantage.
Adobe Mobile
Meanwhile Adobe has announced that the Adobe Reader Mobile 9 SDK is now generally available for manufacturers of mobile devices. This is a software that allows reflowable PDF content. Which is to say, PDF format text that is able to adapt automatically to the screen size on any gizmo. It also supports the non-proprietary .epub digital book format. Reader Mobile 9 replaces Reader LE as the mobile equivalent to Adobe Digital Editions. Several companies manufacturing e Ink e-readers have announced plans to incorporate the Adobe development shortly (it's already available in the Sony Reader).
BeBookalula
A new model BeBook e-reader is expected in mid-2009. It will apparently support Wireless connectivity, with data from either a 3G phone connection, Wifi, or both, and accept RSS feeds, and .epub book files with DRM. The new BeBook will also feature touch screen navigation.
*Canadian company Shortcovers is another entrant into the rapidly-expanding field of e-reading apps for smartphones (Stanza, from Lexcycle, has been the most successful so far with reportedly more than 1.3 million users). This Canadian one will work on the iPhone, the BlackBerry, and Android OS phones, so far. Offered by Indigo Books & Music, Canada's largest book retailer, the company's links to publisher have enabled it to offer a significant front list of new and recent titles.
An innovation in Shortcovers is the ability to buy a single chapter at a time if desired, usually for 99 cents. Whole titles range from $10 up. Short stories, news, magazine articles and other goodies will soon be available too. App options include adjustable font size and standard or landscape mode; and there's automatic bookmarking on closure. A range of Web community features also add zing.
* Then there's Wattpad, another Canadian innovation which doubles as a user community for reading and sharing e-books. Wattpad makes user-generated and public domain e-books available for mobile/cell phones, and is now available for the iPhone/ iPod Touch, as a free download from the iTunes App Store.
E-books in the Punjab; a Pakistani e-first ?
In the Pakistani province of Punjab, e-books for secondary students will soon be available free online. From the next academic session, digital textbooks will be accessible on the Web for Classes 8, 10 and 12, and for other classes later, in an initiative from the Punjab School Education Board.
China still keen on civilisation
Meanwhile, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has donated no less than 200,000 electronic books to Cambridge University in the UK. The gift comprises Chinese books published since 1992 in the humanities, including classical and modern Chinese language and literature, history, geography, politics, economics, law, philosophy, religion, social sciences, military affairs, culture, education and art.The gift was made as part of the university's 800th anniversary celebrations, at which Premier Wen delivered the 2008-2009 Rede Lecture. As a result of the gift, Cambridge University now has one of the world's largest collections of Chinese monographs and "spectacular" electronic holdings in Chinese texts.
Fictionwise barnstormed
Barnes & Noble purchased e-bookseller Fictionwise early in March, ending the ten-year independence of the most popular of the "smaller fry" on the Web. For US$15.7 million the massive B&N chain obtained a company that after a single decade had already sold around 5 million e-books.
Fictionwise is itself only a year and a quarter out from a January 2008 acquisition of eReader.com, once the Palm e-bookstore (they bought it from the once-was Palm Motricity entity)*. The company also retails versions of the original, pioneering Rocketbook/Gemstar e-reader (on sale in the USA and Canada only). These are branded as the two eBookwise models, at a separate website.
Initially at least B&N will keep Fictionwise going as a separate subsidiary, with the company's founders, Pendergrast brothers Steve and Scott, continuing to run it. Ironically B&N itself began selling e-books in 2001, but gave up two years later due to low sales. The Fictionwise acquisition is seen as another step in major companies absorbing smaller but successful e-book operations, in preparation for a massive expansion of the overall e-book market.
* the Pro version of eReader the software is now also available for the RIM BlackBerry, free.
February 2009
The Foxit eSlick
From Foxit, a company that very decently gives away the nifty little Foxit PDF Reader for the widest range of operating systems, ta tarum, the eSlick. But what's new here? Precious little it would seem. The eSlick looks like your standard e Ink e-reader with a 600 x 800 six-inch greyscale display, and it closely resembles the Cybook Gen 3. The OS is embedded Linux, like the Cybook too. OK, it weighs only 180 grams (6.4 ounces), so sure it's a little thinner and lighter than the Kindle and the Sony Reader, but the Lithium battery conversely takes longer to recharge than the former, and also lacks Kindle's wireless connectivity. You load books through a USB port the old-fashioned way. It runs with a Samsung ARM 400MHz processor, so it has more grunt than the 200 MHz Cybook at any rate
You do get an MP3 player and earphones. Memory-wise there's 128 MB of internal RAM, and they give you a 2GB SD card as well, while SD cards as large as 4GB are supported if you need more memory still. The eSlick supports PDF, TXT, Doc, Powerpoint, HTML and, um, that's it? We looked at the specs and apparently so. Which is a HUGE worry. The rationale appears to be a focus on PDFs, as there's lots of PDF software included. For those who want to buy books in other formats, this is not your machine - so far, anyway.
A bright spot is that they'll ship to many countries world-wide. Get this, though. The initial "promotional" release price was $229.99 until the end of January 2009, which then rose to $US259.99 for February-March, after which the RRP will rise to $US299.99. What? This "strategy" will encourage consumers? Sounds more like a kiss of death to us. With the Kindle now at $359, only $50 more, and the Sony Reader base model at the same price as the eSlick will end up, c'mon guys. In an age of recession the company bean-counters at Foxit appear to need their heads read. The big (or only) deal here appeared to be a nice price advantage, but if they're going to whittle that away to nothing then - Carruthers, sell my Foxit shares immediately.
The eSlick comes in black, white and grey. Which is either a colour range or some kind of statement.
www.foxitsoftware.com/ebook/
Kindle Flaring
Sold out over Christmas and still sold out in February, the Kindle must be doing pretty well. Unless, that is, production is being deliberately held back because of components lacks or to fan the market into excitement. The only reason such base suspicions as the last arise, though, is because Amazon obstinately refuses to release any sales figures for the device. Citigroup however estimates 2008 Kindle sales at 380,000, a more realistic figure than some sky-high estimates (our own guess is 250,000-300,000). Sony meantime reports total sales of its own e-reader since 2006 through 2008 at 300,000 units all told.
UK publisher Canongate is e-booking with a vengeance. Not only is the Edinburgh-based company going to digitise its entire 450 title back catalogue, with their new titles you'll now get extras, DVD movie-style, with the electronic text. For instance bad seed Nick Cave has written a novel The Death Of Bunny Munro, and you'll get a specially-composed song from the mostly musician as a freebie with Canongate's e-book version.
Says Canongate managing director Jamie Byng: "We're doing some really cool stuff that will turn some heads and break ground in the area of e-books. We are using the medium, not just replicating content." He added, "It would be foolish not to take seriously both the opportunities and the changes that are going on in publishing and the ways people are going to read books and digest content. It's sobering as a publisher when you look at how they screwed up in the music industry… You have your head in the sand if you are not recognising there are fundamental things going on."
Rise of the Phone Reader II
Gutenberg on the phone
The venerable Project Gutenberg, justly renowned as the original home of free books, has also gone mod and connected with all this phone-e business. They're currently launching "PG Mobile" for those who like to read on the itty-bitty screen. PG Mobile is not a device however, it's a piece of reader software that will allow phones to convert Gutenberg's mostly plain text files into books viable on your crowd-disturber, with page turning, bookmarking and landscape mode features handily available. For those who need to know, PG Mobile is based on a Java file format (JAR) and was developed by good guys QiOO Interactive. The good oil, though, is that you should be able to download PG's books from your PC to any smart mobile (cell) phone via one of four possible methods, Bluetooth, data cable, infrared or serial connection. Or directly on WAP-enabled phones.
www.gutenberg.org/*Oh, and did we tell you there's a Project Gutenberg search plug-in for the Firefox browser? If you're interested, get it here.
January 2009
The MiBook
This recent e-reader focuses on the multimedia potential of e-books. In fact, content made available so far consists entirely of instructional videos. The device comes from Photoco Inc, a bit of a clue to its intended direction. You get two free video books included, and more of the company's books are $US20 each.
Titles available to date are on such topics as cooking, gardening, DIY home projects, childcare, exercise and travel. The videos proceed in paused stages so that you're not constantly scrambling to freeze them, particularly useful in following recipes or construction instructions. For real relevance in cooking the MiBook will usefully sort recipes by main ingredient, cooking time, method and even nutritional value.
With a 7 inch LCD screen the device is not too tiny, and has colour too. There's also a display stand and remote control to make it practicable in the kitchen or workshop. The MiBook has a rechargeable battery (2 hour charge), or can be left mains connected via an AC adapter. The price is nice - officially $US120, but it's been seen for as little as $US75, so if you're thinking of buying one a value search is recommended.
You load MiBook content on SD memory cards. As well as Photoco's own video books you can also add images, music files, homemade videos or regular text e-books, so this is a genuine media player/e-reader as well. The screen however won't win any prizes, and you surely would not want to read War and Peace on it. Neither are there many frills, but as a modest, starter e-reader for the acutely budget-conscious who are accepting of limitations, this newcomer is unbeatable for value at present.
www.mibook.com/
Malaysian state gets the e-bug
While Australia's progressive new government is planning to issue Year Eight secondary students with a laptop each to, among other things, access digital texts in the classroom, a Malaysian state has actually beaten them to the punch. In Terengganu state January 2009 saw the beginning of a release of 25,000 broadband-enabled laptops to Year Five pupils. The programme is expected to be fully implemented by April, and students will then be able to quickly download electronic textbooks instead of lugging heavy physical books around.
*Meanwhile in the good ol' USA everything's up to date in Kansas City, ta dum. Or at least it is at Northwest Missouri State University, where come the (northern hemisphere) spring semester, most students will likewise have dumped their overweight physical textbooks in favour of the digital variety. About 4,000 students will instead use either a dedicated e-reader device or a laptop computer to access their texts.
Retiring (but clearly still up-to-the-moment) university president Dean L. Hubbard says he hopes the institution could be totally out of the printed textbook business in three years time. His university is already unique in renting texts to students rather than requiring them to buy them.
*Orange, the Hutchinson phone mob, have been trialling the iRex Iliad e-reader for a wireless & automatically updated daily newspaper service, delivered via their 3G network. These European trials have apparently "gone well". However device & particularly screen robustness is an issue for busy, on-the-go folk, and there may be changes there before an actual commercial venture is launched.
Nintending to Read II
A recent "game" release from Nintendo for the DS device is actually a collection of one hundred classic books called, accurately if unimaginatively, the 100 Classic Book Collection. Funnily enough the Dual Screen DS device has two areas suitable for text, a bit like - well an open book, really. As well you get digital book goodies such as stylus page advance (or just brush with your finger), variable font size, word search and electronic bookmarks.
Previously there were amateur fan efforts that enabled reading on this kid's' gaming device, but now Nintendo has made it official - the DS is an e-reader too. Which in our humble opinion is great. The screen is not ideal for reading, but considering that many sharp-eyed young adults are actually choosing to read on their mobile (=cell) phones these days, it seems the young 'uns will read on anything that's like, basically, cool man. There may be hope for the future of literature yet… Price for the book set is £18 (eighteen pounds sterling) in its initial UK release.
www.nintendo.com/
Rise of the Phone Reader I
Reader "Apps" the buzzword as iPhone trickle starts to flood
It's starting to look as if the Apple e-reader device for the iPhone generation is, wait for it - the iPhone itself. Meanwhile, application developers are flat out producing mobile phone apps in the form of a slew of e-book reader software* to lock customers into varieties of DRM'ed books for their communication devices, Apple or otherwise. Many are available from the iTunes store, which these days is about a lot more than just music.
The most surprising thing is that so many publishers are responding with alacrity to do the necessary deals with the phone people, whereas before they were mostly reluctant toe-dippers in the e-book field. There seems to be some really weird thinking here. Apparently, that dedicated e-readers were long regarded by publishers as more of a threat than anything else, whereas phone obsessives are viewed as book pagans ripe for conversion to reading.
A factor there may be that print book sales are flat overall or actually in decline due to a negative generational shift. In plain language, affluent young people are reading fewer books than before. So until the e-book industry finally gets its sales model together, books on the phone may be seen as the only option for publishers who see themselves as otherwise missing out altogether with generation Y. Meanwhile the young kids of generation Z must be wondering where it will all end. But aha, they can get books on their Nintendos now!
* ScrollMotion out of New York is the latest. Each book is a separate app using their full-featured Iceberg reader, & they have youth appeal titles like Twilight and The Golden Compass. Lexcycle's Stanza is already well-established with over 500,000 users. Originally Stanza was mostly used for free classic books, but the latest version has been enhanced to support the more than 40,000 eReader titles, and there's now a dedicated Stanza eReader webstore at Fictionwise. There are other contenders too such as MPS Mobile's Global Reader. In addition e-reader applications are also reported in the works for Googlish Android OS phones and RIM's Blackberry device.
Fancy being ravaged by a Viking? No? How would a medieval lord, A Wild West gunslinger/ginslinger or a sensitive WWII air ace do then, instead of the usual bodice-tearing Regency bucks? You can get all of them now from Harlequin, the famous women's romance publishers. They've released a new range of racier short stories (one to fifteen thousand words each) exclusively as e-books. Priced at $US2.99, they're set as indicated in a broad range of historical eras and locations. Many formats are available, including Adobe PDF, Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket, Palm, Kindle and Sony.
www.harlequinhistoricalundone.com/
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