TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘2B1’ Category

By Branko Collin

- Geek.com lists the 10 lessons to be learned from the OLPC project, and why it will revolutionize the laptop world, although it’s more like six actual lessons, and four for padding the list to ten. Ils sont fous ces Americains… #1: the laptop is the type of computer that is most prone to physical abuse and theft; OLPC shows price matters for a laptop. #5: energy consumption need not be as high as that of a traditional laptop if you are willing to let go of preconceptions of what a laptop should be. And so on. Via Slashdot.

- FON is a company that sells Wi-Fi routers with a twist; any member can use the Wi-Fi of any other member. It has now struck a deal with BT that will create hundreds of thousands of FON hotspots in the UK, according to BoingBoing. The advantage for members with OLPC XOs and Irex Iliads could be considerable. Cory Doctorow seems to be a fan of this scheme, although a scheme he suggests in his novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town differs a bit. (Yes, go read the novel. It’s not bad.)

- In September Slashdot celebrated its tenth birthday. Slashdot is a website for technical news that has sported numerous blog like features from even before blogs were invented. It has had a journal like structure from its beginning, as well as the opportunity for anyone to comment. The Slashdot software is Free Software, and is used among others by the library news site Lisnews.org. Slashdot became very popular very quickly; so popular, in fact, that a link posted at the site would often cause the linked website to crash or stall, so heavy would the traffic from Slashdot be — a phenomenon called “the Slashdot Effect”. Now Network Performance Daily has an interview with founder Rob Malda. Via BoingBoing.

By Branko Collin

If, like me, you get easily confused by the recent wave of ultra-cheap ultra-mobile announcements, you may enjoy this comparison chart I just posted at the MobileRead wiki.

Ultra-mobiles make great potential e-book readers, but until recently these devices were marketed (and consequently specced) as high-end machines. They would come equiped with power-draining features that you really do not need to read an e-book. This new generation of subnotebooks, such as the announced Asus EEE and VIA Nanobook, is deliberately lighter specced, and might introduce an era of light devices with good battery performance.

By David Rothman

Dell’s coming out with a laptop selling for less than $500. Great, Michael. Now why not see if you can’t drive down tablet prices? Tablets with detachable keyboards are easier on people’s backs than laptops are, and they’d be great for e-reading.

Psst! I know of at least one possible K-12 effort that is begging for affordable machines.

Of course, if you and AMD could team up with OLPC’s $100 laptop project to take advantage of the existing work on an e-book friendly machine, I wouldn’t mind.

The OLPC laptop uses a convertible design, making it a tablet in disguise—see photo. I’d earlier feared it would lack this capability. For inspiration, also see a Lenovo design.

Related: Laptop ergonomic information.

By David Rothman

Below are the TeleBlog’s highlights from the past week. Graphic is from My Publishers Weekly essay on the Tower of eBabel

Schools and libraries
Kids and e-books: Good news from Ball State’s e-dictionary studies
Prof. Ivancevich to Prof. Stross: F grade for New York Times column on ad-supported textbooks
‘Saying no to School Laptops’: Lessons for OLPC?
Wikipedia-bashing New York Times columnist draws major accuracy complaint

Writing and publishing
Google Book Search boosting sales of books
Didn’t you get into e-books to become Jeff B’s banker?
Mobile phones: A way to spread e-books around in Africa
‘The imperiled writer: Robotic scribes and outsourcing on the way?
Tools for creating e-books
Best design/layout/content for e-books?
P-mags for teens losing out: E-book angle

Reading and listening
‘Free e-book on security engineering technology’
Episode 3 of Silent Universe sci-fi drama posted
eReader for Symbian: Review link
Web Search Pro: Firefox add-on—great for search fiends, book-shoppers and word buffs
So what do you think of the Firefox 2.0 beta 2?
In search of a more useful Goobrary
How do Google e-book files display on your PDA—and why can’t I find a free download of Around the World in Eighty Days?
Hooray! Blackmask may return with 20,000 titles: Several hundred classics already back online
‘Digitized by Google’: Corporate graffiti on public-domain classics—every page
‘What Does Google Want Us to Do With All These Free PDF eBooks?’: Problematic downloads
Online preview of last Robert Heinlein novel
Foxit Reader and creation tools for PDF: A way to mitigate the pain?
jkOnTheRun excited about dotReader
Manybooks.net is back up

Hardware
Pepper 3 Linux tablet about to ship (and a useful comparison of Net tabs)
The 2B1: Yet another name change for the $100 laptop—plus VGA-resolution video camera
Roll-up screens from Philips: Just when you thought it was safe to buy an E Ink machine

E-book formats
eBabel article in Publishers Weekly draws rickety reply from Adobe e-booker
My Publishers Weekly essay on the Tower of eBabel
Microsoft Times Reader looks slick—but should news-reading be linked with operating systems?
‘The ‘E’ Doesn’t Stand for ‘Easy to Use”: Tower of eBabel mention on Chronicle of Higher Ed site

Copyright and DRM
Who killed Wowio on my Documents to Go program? (Continued)
Mystery: Who killed my Palm TX’s access to Wowio’s free books? Library DRM involved?
Of piracy, DRM and the China market

By David Rothman

Below are the TeleBlog’s highlights from the past week. Graphic is from Reading Wowio’s free books (and other PDFs) on a PDA.

Schools and libraries
Google vs. libraries

Writing and publishing
Blogs and creativity: F. Scott Fitzgerald as a WordPress guy
Ambulance worker’s book offered free on Net
Freeload Press makes New York Times column
‘Publishers Fight Back against Google with New Book Search Service’
Tools for creating e-books

Reading and listening
‘The New Yorker magazine: Coming to a portable hard drive near you’
Test-drive of the HarperCollins Reader
Public Domain Books, Ready for Your iPod’
Mystery: Who killed my Palm TX’s access to Wowio’s free books?
Reading Wowio’s free books (and other PDFs) on a PDA
Recent English sci-fi at Project Gutenberg
Digital textual studies
Harlequin’s 99-cent e-story offerings
‘Where reading paper books is like having sex’

Hardware
Women, purses and PDAs (redux)
$100 laptop is now the CM1, aka ‘the Children’s Machine’: Score one for Aljazeera
OLPC/CMI in the U.S.
Dear Ja(y)ne: So can purses save the PDA market?
Hello, Palm? You need jog-wheel dials on all your PDAs
Behind $100 laptop’s high-res display
Next-gen Palm Treo

E-book formats
Did accessibility issue hurt OpenOffice?
JEP article and OpenReader

Copyright and DRM
Michael Geist’s ‘30 Days of DRM’
Poll on DRMed books: Give up resale rights, etc., if the price is right?
Yes, Virginia, there are e-book pirates

By Robert Nagle

Here’s a place to pledge to buy a CM1 for $300. You’re not making a financial commitment, only indicating preliminary support. They are looking for 100,000 pledges; so far they’ve received only 3000. Still, it’s a start.