TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Canada’ Category

By Ficbot

With Amazon, and now Barnes & Noble, coming out with major new releases, it looks like competition is heating up at last in the emerging e-reader marketplace.

Like most e-book fans, I read the news with interest. Following the not unexpected but still disappointing news that neither the international Kindle nor the B&N Nook would be made available to Canadians soon, I started wondering about people who shop based on features and people who shop based on brand loyalty.

I always thought I was a tough customer who researched every purchase carefully and shopped on the features. But as I read the details about these spiffy new products—available to everyone but YOU, Ficbot, you CANADIAN, you—I looked at my Sony in a new light.

Canada love from Sony

Sony loves Canada. They want me to buy their readers. I got mine in a store, even! Retail! From a clerk who even was properly trained and knew his stuff! Sony has given me the Mac software. They have given me the Google Books access.

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By Paul Biba

How weird is that!! An Amazon search shows that there is no Kindle edition of the award winning book.

Here, however, is an excerpt from the news report:

The winner of this year’s Amazon First Novel Award is Winnipeg author Joan Thomas, who won for Reading by Lightning (Goose Lane Editions). A coming-of-age tale set in rural Manitoba around the time of the Second World War, the novel previously won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book in the Canadian and Caribbean category.

By Paul Biba

From the wonderfully named Quill & Quire:

Deborah Windsor, the executive director of The Writers’ Union of Canada, told Q&Q Omni that the union isn’t telling its members what to do, but is simply advising them to be informed and make a decision they are comfortable with. The union is, however, alerting members to a little-known loophole pertaining to the opt-out deadline. According to Windsor, even those who opt out still have the chance to opt back in before the Oct. 7 fairness hearing in New York.

TWUC is also preparing to send a letter of objection to the U.S. court prior to the objection deadline of Sept. 8.

By Paul Biba

More and more newspaper digitization projects are appearing around the world. From the Canadian Heritage site:

[The Canadian government] announced funding for Athabasca University’s “Connecting Canadians: Canada’s Multicultural Newspapers” project.

This project will digitize and deploy to the Web up to 20 multicultural newspapers on an open-access basis. In addition to making multicultural newspapers freely available to anyone on the Internet, it will include audio and video streaming of selected articles and teaching and learning activities that will be of interest to students, teachers, and researchers. A key driver of this project is the use of technology to facilitate access to the content, which will be PDA- or mobile-friendly.

By Paul Biba

According to The Bookseller, the largest bookseller in Canada, Indigo, will be launching a new e-book service for consumers which will not require a Sony Reader or a Kindle, and will offer free and paid downloads to any internet-connected device. The story was originally published in Quill & Quire (what a great name!), but that portion of Quill & Quire’s website is by subscription only so I can ‘t give you any more information. Our Canadian correspondent, Ficbot, can keep her sharp eyes out for new developments.