The download link is on the FAQ page.

Robot Comics is also experimenting with comic releases specifically designed for higher resolution touch screens. Currently they publish mobile comics for the iPhone and iPod Touch, Android mobile phones, Nintendo DSi and the Kindle.

The books, as usual, are DRM free and the catalog is implemented using a prototype of the OPDS specs, part of the BookServer architecture.

The post says that books purchased through the app will receive a 15% discount for a limited time.

As for the Google OS netbook, it’s to include “HTML5 local caching for offline use.” Including with e-books?

If you’d rather read about Android and that OS’s impact on e-books, check out a Kindle Review post and an earlier TeleRead item.

Related: Different perspectives on netbook sales from SlashGear (upbeat) and China Daily (not so upbeat). Latter is the source of the photo.

In the Android world, the top free e-book reader is apparently WordPlayer Art of War, from Andrew Sacher. Here’s what the Market listing says: “WordPlayer is a book reader that allows you to add to your library from amongst thousands of instantly downloadable books or load epub books. WordPlayer’s page navigation, highlighting, bookmarking, and customizable settings make reading a breeze. Comes with Sun Tzu’s classic book of strategy, Art of War, already installed.”

Oh, and get this—from the WordPlayer site: “Use our seamless integration with the Calibre ebook library management application to transfer many types of ebooks to your phone, including CBZ, CBR, CBC, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, MOBI, ODT, PDF, many PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, and TXT formats.” It would be great for everything to be ePub from the start, especially without DRM. But I like WordPlayer’s approach of leveraging on Calibre’s popularity.

Does Art of War live up to the ballyhoo? Anyone here used it? Or can you do so for fellow TeleRead community members and share your impressions?

Other apps of possible interest

Meanwhile here are other Andorid apps of possible interest, beyond two already-familiar ones, FBReader and the Aldiko reader (both of which also can display ePub, among other formats). Not owning an Android device—this could change!—I haven’t tested them.

–JETCET PDF, a demo app. “Download PDFs using the browser or view your PDF attachments in gmail.

–Documents to Go (demo and paid). “Allows you to use Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint & Adobe PDF files – all in one complete package. Easily create, view, edit, save & send attachments while our InTact Technology maintains 100% of the original file formatting. Supports Office 2007 & password-protected files.”

–Scan2PDF Mobile ($14.99 for paid version), shown to the right. Also available for Windows Mobile and coming for the iPhone. “a revolutionary new software release which uses your mobile phone to scan documents and convert them to PDF files.”

–Quickpedia., from NextMobile Web “Wikipedia formatted for your Android phone. With Quickpedia, you can do most of what you already do on Wikipedia: search, browse articles, featured pages, and current events. Plus, Quickpedia can find Wikipedia articles near your current GPS position!”

–Free Dictionary. “To Begin, just type! Words starting with what you are typing will appear automagically under the textbox. Also if you do not know the spelling just keep typing. Possible typographical error will appear as “Did you mean:”

–SpeedyMarks thesaurus. “Retrieve the synonym for every word. If available you will get antonyms, related terms, similar word and user suggestions too.”

–USA Today.

Usual reminder/disclosure: I own a tiny tiny speck of Google (the real people behind Android) for retirement investment purposes, though you might not think that if you go by my warnings against Google and Amazon dominating too much of the e-book biz.

B&N’s $259 Nook e-reader will let you lend books to friends, sync the last-read pages with other devices, and offer WiFi and 3G wireless capabilities. That’s according to info available from the B&N site today.

Other features: Six-inch E Ink screen, 3.5 inch color touch screen, direct PDF-reading.

Key links: Feature comparison vs. Kindle. Also see other feature info and ordering page from B&N. Plus tech specs, accessory list and B&N e-book blog, as well as support information.

Other features: 6 inch E Ink screen, 3.5 inch color touch screen, direct PDF-reading.

Format info and other details picked up by Felix: “Pdf, epub, pdb, Not clear which pdb flavor or which format has drm. MicroSDHC support is good, wifi is good. Lots of bragging about the google crapscan, though. Will be interesting to see if it supports Android apps.” Decent Web browsing possible, if so?

More to come: Paul Biba will be at the 4 p.m. news conference.

Your reactions—and mine: Thoughts? In my opinion, the Nook is about what we expected, more or less, no? The WiFi capability will be nice. But I’m sorry not to see text-to-speech.So far, however, as of this 3:39 p.m. update, Twitter reaction seems favorable.

Related: Wall Street Journal article from this afternoon, Google News and Techmeme roundups.

(Via Reading 2.0 and Amgela James.)

Spring Design today announced Alex™, the first Google Android-based e-book with full browser capabilities and patented dual screen, the Duet Navigator™. The revolutionary Alex livens up text with multimedia links, adding a new dimension to the reading experience and potentially creating a whole new industry for secondary publications that supplement and enhance original text. Alex’s revolutionary dual-screen display design brings together the efficiency of reading on a monochrome EPD (electronic paper display) screen while dynamic hyperlinked multimedia information and third party input on its secondary color LCD screen, actually an integrated Android mobile device, opens a rich world of Internet content to support the text on the main screen.

Alex, the first Google Android-based e-book device to provide full Internet browsing over Wi-Fi or mobile networks such as 3G, EVDO/CDMA and GSM. With its dual-screen, multi-access capability, it provides the entire Web universe as a handy reference library, prompting users to delve into its vast information base to complement, clarify or enhance what they are reading. Alex is the first truly mobile wireless e-book device that gives users their own personalized library on the go, whenever and wherever they need it.

Spring Design pioneered its patented dual-screen device with ‘touch and extend’ capability in 2007, and has been working with major book stores, newspapers and publishers over the past two years, sharing the vision and the capabilities of the dual screen device. This dual screen device brings together the efficiency of an EPD display with the responsiveness and richness of navigational convenience of the LCD screen. Its removable SD card gives users extensive storage, allowing users to expand their text with multimedia “add on” editions.

Ideal for professional, educational and entertainment markets, Alex dynamically transforms the reader’s experience with images, videos and notes inserted as ‘Web grabs’ or with custom text created by the user or other secondary authors pertaining to the subject being displayed. Users can create their own images and notes and capture them to augment the original text or just dynamically grab relevant content with Link Notes™, Alex’s innovative multimedia authoring tool to enhance multimedia publishing.

“This is the start of a whole new experience of reading content on e-books, potentially igniting a whole new industry in multimedia e-book publishing for secondary authors to create supplementary content that is hyper linked to the text. We are bringing life to books with audio, video, and annotations,” said Dr. Priscilla Lu, CEO of Spring Design. “This gives readers the ability to fully leverage the resources on the Web, and the tools available in search engines to augment the reading experience.”

Alex™ features a 6″ E-Ink EPD display and 3.5″ color LCD display, earphones and speakers. A removable SD card will free up library space on the device while letting users archive content for future reference. The enhanced Android OS is optimized to support integration between the color and monochrome displays while preserving battery life. Users can capture and cache web content from their online experience on the LCD screen, and toggle to view it on the EPD screen without taxing the battery life. Browser features such as bookmarking, history, and security settings are built in, and the device with full Android browsing capability, is mobile enabled with smart phones capabilities.

Spring Design is currently in discussion and enlisting major content partners and plans to release the Alex device for selected strategic partners by the end of this year.

In fact, might the new reader use the Android operating system?  Gizmodo has heard a whisper to that effect. Cool if so. Imagine the multiple uses that might be possible for the device. A few details from Giz:

Think about it. At six inches, it’s a smallish device, and we’ve seen Android on similarly-sized screens already. Wireless connectivity is built into the OS. Extraneous, inappropriate software and settings could be easily stripped out and replaced with relevant ones. A custom-designed interface could be easily dropped in. Apps—oh, sweet apps—could be a huge boon. And hey, E-Ink Android drivers have already been demonstrated on video. Not to mention the fact that B&N has conveniently skirted releasing an Android app, despite putting quite a bit of effort into iPhone and BlackBerry versions of the mobile ebook software.

Here’s my little addition to the speculation. What if B&N adapted the Aldiko reader? Aldiko’s partners include “Publishers and Content Distributors” and “OEM and Carriers,” among others. Just for fun, I’ll shoot a note over to Aldiko’s Tiffany Wong, a TeleRead contributor, and see if she has anything to say on this topic.

They should do e-readers, too, for the Android operating system that Google is promoting for cellphones and other devices. Why risk letting Steve Jobs control e-bookdom, especially with a large Apple tablet said to be on the way?

Since I don’t own an Android device, I have not tried Aldiko, an e-reader app for that OS (memo to self: check out emulation options).

But from afar, based on the feature set, it looks like an interesting example of the possibilities within the Jobs-proof Android world.

Over the weekend, the Aldiko blog announced that the company had added full-text search, dictionary lookup, orientation locking, an alignment option and a go-to feature. Could Aldiko end up the Stanza of  the Android world—most of the most popular apps because the ergonomics and feature-sets are right?

Ah, but it’s too early to say, especially without having tried Aldiko; and I’d love to hear from Android-savvy readers who believe they see better alternatives out there. While Aldiko’s Tiffany Wong is a much-valued TeleBlog contributor, I don’t want play faves—so speak up! What do you think of Aldiko and the others such as Libris (screenshot to left) and FBReaderJ (right)? Pros and cons? Specifics such as features? Meanwhile let’s remember that an Android version of eReader is on the way.

Related: Earlier Aldiko mentions.

Diaz explains that with the Cliq, the phone dialer is reduced to a little green button in one corner of the phone’s display—which is otherwise filled with other applications such as Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, etc. The interface is called “MotoBlur,” and features these applications as always-open “widgets” on a “homepage,” rather than apps that you tap on to launch as in the iPhone.

It is interesting to me that smartphones are suddenly dropping the emphasis on the “phone” part in favor of all the other things the device can do. It reminds me of what happened ten years ago, when the first primitive Handspring Treo integrated the telephone into the Personal Digital Assistant. Within a few years, PDAs had all but died out as the “smartphone” emerged to replace them.

Now the same thing is happening again, but in reverse: smartphones are getting more functions added to them, and the “phone” part is fading away into only one aspect of the overall communication and application device.

At the same time, Farhad Manjoo writes in Slate about the same kind of convergence approaching from a different direction. As the iPod Nano adds a video camera and an FM tuner, Manjoo writes, it heralds the end of the “dedicated music player.” Writes Manjoo:

The new Nano signals an inevitable, though still remarkable, transition: The iPod is dead. I don’t mean the name won’t stick around or that people will stop buying Apple’s devices. Rather, the sun is setting on what the iPod once was—a device you bought to play digital music.

He goes on to suggest that it won’t be long before the Nano, like the Touch, gains Internet access, a touchscreen, and so on.

Before long, the term “mp3 player” (and, for that matter, “e-book reader”—Manjoo also mentions Jobs’s remarks about the Kindle) may be just as outdated as Sam Diaz thinks “smartphone” is about to be.

Diaz writes:

And doesn’t it feel kind of silly to keep calling them smartphones when the phone itself is just another app these days – and not even the most-used one, at that. I thought about just calling them “handhelds,” as in “Has anyone seen my handheld?” but that didn’t work for me, either. We definitely need a better name for this category.

Any suggestions?

Might I suggest “Personal Digital Assistant,” or “PDA” for short?

Or, as Manjoo says, “The rest of us have another name for such a machine: a computer.”

They are also offering LibrisDesktop which is a tool that enables you to import books from your personal computer to your Android device. It gives you access to your existing collection of books, books you obtain from various sources, and books that require format conversion. Book files should be in one of the following formats: text, PalmDoc, non-DRM eReader, non-DRM Mobipocket, Libris. Books in other formats need to be converted to one of these formats before importing.

Since the developer is in Canada they can’t offer the software through the Android Market, but you can get it here for $2.99 USD.

Update: Ars Technica also weighs in.

In a nutshell, here are what the statements say. I will discuss Arrington’s article after the jump.

AT&T (TechCrunch article; Scribd has the actual statement)

AT&T again denies having anything to do with the rejection of the Google Voice application. The company does have an agreement with Apple that Apple not approve apps that would cause undue network congestion on AT&T’s 2G and 3G networks (streaming video, for instance), and that Apple not approve apps that allow VOIP via 2G/3G without asking AT&T first. (In light of recent developments, AT&T adds, it will be taking another look at its stance on prohibiting VOIP apps from using its network.)

Apple (TechCrunch article (which also includes the entire text of Apple’s statement); another TechCrunch article)

Apple explains that it did not actually “reject” the application, but rather “continues to study it,” and did not consult with AT&T in the matter. Apple expresses concern that the Google Voice app replaces the iPhone’s core functionality for telephone calls, text messaging, and voicemail. The statement also goes into some detail about criteria for app rejection (most apps are rejected for bugs rather than content or terms-of-service violations).

Google (TechCrunch article; Scribd has the actual statement)

Google explains what its Google Voice app would have done, discusses other apps it has had approved by Apple, and talks about the standards for approving or rejecting applications for the Android app store. However, the potentially most interesting part of the statement—about a full page of text going into the nature of communications between Google and Apple concerning the app—has been left blank in the public version at Google’s request.

TechCrunch

After reading these statements, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington accuses Apple of malfeasance in its response to the FCC. Arrington says that third-party Google Voice app developers told him they had heard in no uncertain terms—one from Apple’s own SVP Phil Schiller (the same man who has been going around lately trying to mend fences with publicly annoyed developers)—”that Google’s own app would be or already was rejected”. This is also what TechCrunch heard from Google itself.

(On the other hand, John Gruber reports hearing from someone who heard from someone at Apple as early as July 28th that “Apple did not reject the application”—which would suggest that Apple had decided to “further consider” it even then. Of course, from Google and the public’s point of view, there’s not a whole lot of difference either way.)

Arrington also explains why Apple’s “core functionality” arguments are inaccurate, untrue, or misleading (he suspects that the real reason is that Apple is getting alarmed at just how much of the iPhone’s functionality Google already provides), and hazards a guess that the redacted part of Google’s statement will tell the FCC a very different story than Apple’s did. He suspects that Apple’s backpedalling means that they are preparing to approve the app in some form as a face-saving move.

I hope Arrington is right. But whether he is or not, I doubt Apple will be able to stop the FCC scrutiny by approving the app now. Apple has woken the sleeping dragon, and it may not be so easy to put it to sleep again.

And lo and behold, in the wake of talk about $100-$200 Android tablets, comes word of little slate-style machines intended to outdo the iPod. Maybe Archos prototypes, out of China? Or just fun concept machines? Don’t look for these babies at BestBuy next week.

The screens would be bigger than the 3.5 inch iPhone and Touch displays—somewhere between 4.3 and 5 inches. Hey, I can imagine FBReader on that. The CPU might be the RK2808, says a report from Pocketables. Essentially, I suspect, we’re talking about more robust, more flexible versions of the Nokia Internet tablets.

Excerpt from second Pocketables item:  “…the unknown Android MID sports an undeniably familiar design with its curved metal back and rounded corners. However, if the first photo is to be believed, this device differentiates itself by having an SD slot and what could be phone functions. I know the photo is grainy and the face of the gadget shows no sign of a microphone or speaker, but you can still make out the words "SD card & phone storage" at the top of the screen.”

Not-such-good Android news: Some developers have reservations about the adequacy of phones from Google’s partners. As if to confirm this, we hear hear via jkOnTheRun that the operating system in the G1 can’t be upgraded. Time for Google to get into the smart phone biz—and maybe the tablet one, too—while keeping the system as open as possible?

Related: Techmeme roundup.

While a San Francisco p-bookstore pokes fun at the Kindle via YouTube, Amazon has fired a new shot in its battle with the brick-and-mortar world.

Via the new Amazon App for Android, you can use bar codes or photos you snap—to find Amazon pages for the products you see in old-fashioned stores.

Yes, that almost surely would include bookstores. They won’t feel much pain at first. But if apps like these catch on, you can bet the damage will be serious.

The new Amazon app also lets you “access your existing Amazon account, cart, wish lists, payment and shipping services, order history, 1-Click and Prime membership benefits.”

So is a Kindle e-book app for the Android OS on the way, too? I wouldn’t be surprised.

 Too bad! But the Symbian OS, offered in Nokia phones and others, is big, big, big outside the U.S.

If Nokia did do Android, of course, that would make it much easier for some e-book app developers.

Image is of a typical Nokia S60 interface under Symbian. Not exactly Android-snazzy.

Related: Nokia/Android reports in the Guardian and elsewhere.