TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘e-readers’ Category

By Chris Meadows

I have spent the last two weeks reading e-books on the Astak, and am ready to give my first impressions.

The Screen

First of all, the 800×600-resolution screen. I love the screen. Of course, it is probably the same screen that any non-touch-sensitive e-ink reader has, but compared to the Sony I tested before the difference is like night and day. The touch-sensitive Sony had a huge amount of glare—but on the Astak, the glare is not there.

The words are ink-on-paper clear; if the background is greyer than normal book-quality paper, it is not much darker than the newsprint on which daily papers are printed.

The screen is quite legible for reading, as the photo at left should show. Even (especially) in bright sunlight, it is readable without screen glare. Of course, it does lack the sidelighting of the Sony, but so do “real” books. If reading in the dark was really important to me, I would invest in a clip-on booklight for the snap-on case.

Page-turn time is about comparable to the Sony; it takes a second or two but is not an undue burden (unless you suddenly need to flip back 3 or 4 pages to reread something you missed; then it is a slight hassle but only slight).

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By David Rothman

Looking for an “exhaustive” Kindle/Nook comparison? Jim Fallows of The Atlantic served up some thoughts last week. He passes on opinions from a B&N-related source, then shares his own analysis.

Excerpt: “Nook and Kindle aren’t grossly different cost-wise. So for me, the only reason to switch to the Nook (or if I were a virgin ereader, to buy the Nook rather than the Kindle) is if I thought I’d get a wider selection of the sorts of books I’m likely to buy for my Kindle at a better price from B&N than from Amazon.”

Jim wonders if Amazon will imitate B&N’s friend-lend arrangement. What do you think? He also says Amazon focused too much on the Kindle for its own books and not enough on it as a general-purpose e-reader. Amen to that!

Related: All-in-one post on all-in-one devices, another Fallows post. He himself is sold for now—with the current tech—on the use of dedicated readers.

About the Kindle photo: Yes, that’s a DX instead of the Kindle 2 Jim compares with the Nook. The DX is more expensive than the 2 or the Nook.

By David Rothman

What if a Kindle rival could display videos and do Facebook and Twitter while also offering a touch screen, text to speech, an SD memory slot and Internet capabilities? Those are among the features of the Creative Zii MediaBook—and get this: the company has just displayed a working model. Breaking the news, complete with the apparently Photoshopped image to the left, was EpiZENter.net, which also reports use of the Zii-System-on-a-Chip technology

Ten publishers are said to be in talks with Creative, whose new baby can display newspapers and magazines, as well as textbooks and, of course, educational multimedia. Significantly Creative is a partner in the Singapore government’s FutureBooks initiative. A bit of a TeleRead going on over there? Tech in Hiding says: “By teaming up with the Singapore government, it allows the company to fund much of the production. It’s similar to how the US defense industry works—the government gives money to Lockheed Martin (or similar) to build new fighter jets. The government will still end up paying for the jet, but the company can also sell to other partners- Canada, UK, Germany, etc.” See a Techmeme roundup for more details on the MediaBook.

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By David Rothman

The Que e-reader from Plastic Logic—not just Barnes and Noble’s own Nook—will go on sale at B&N for those who want a large shatter-proof E Ink-based screen. See Plastic Logic news release, Wired News, CNet and Google roundup. Best guess is that the price could be at least $400, or far more than the $259 Nook.

As reported by Wired: “The Que proReader will handle eBooks in the PDF, ePub, eReader, and eReader DRM formats; magazines and newspapers in the GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP, and TXT formats; and documents in the Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint formats.” Plastic Logic is continuing to position the Que as a versatile document-reader for business, rather than simply an e-book reader.

B&N already had said it would serve as Plastic Logic’s content partner after the the Que goes on sale next year. The latest wrinkle is that Que owners will be able to use WiFi browse entire e-books while they’re at a B&N store—just as Nook owners can.

Other hardware news: Bridgestone announces flexible touchscreen color e-reader, in Engadget, via MobileRead. Specs: “5.8mm thick, features a 13.1-inch touch-sensitive e-paper display (with 4,096 colors and a refresh rate of about 0.8 seconds), and some sort of unspecified mobile phone connectivity.”

Related: Not enough bricks to make the Nook click? B&N will sell take-home Nooks at only ‘certain’ stores.

By David Rothman

E-books, alas, are not among the most popular apps in the Android Market. Let’s hope that changes. Get ready for an Android invasion over the next year—-not just phones with that operating system, but also tablets and other devices. Android has attracted its share of gung-ho fans, with Windows Mobile under serious siege.

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.

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By David Rothman

Since the early 1990s I’ve urged publishers to take e-library model seriously and even work toward well-stocked national digital library systems in the United States and elsewhere.

Now, in real life, some U.K. libraries are finding a friend in E. The Telegraph reports:

“After years of library membership declining and fears that the public no longer wanted to borrow books, some institutions are reporting a spike in interest since they started to offer e-books.

“Only a handful of libraries have started to offer the service, but many in the library world are hopeful that the revolution in digital reading can help transform libraries’ fortunes, and that the majority of libraries will soon offer downloads as a matter of course, alongside the latest Dan Brown paperback.”

If nothing else, remember that fairly or not, many consumers have trouble paying cash for a bunch of electrons. The library model is a great way to help address that.

I know. Publishers worry about becoming too dependent on library funding, but one way to address that would be a small tax on telecommunications goods and services, as well as cost justification of the kind that I describe in the TeleRead plan, the most recent version of which you can read in the Huffington Post.

Among the reasons why e-books are a hit at libraries, as noted by the Telegraph: “Readers do not need to remember to take their books back on time—a perennial problem for many consumers, because the digital book automatically deletes itself from their machine after 14 days.” Result? Cash-strapped families needn’t worry about library fines. Bingo! A whole new market for publishers.

By Paul Biba

Important news for Mac users.  Previously we reported that the Kindle software will soon be released for the PC.  Well, The Unofficial Apple Weblog is reporting that Amazon has said it will be available for the Mac as well.  Hooray!

By Court Merrigan

David and others may see some double entendre in Barnes & Noble’s new Nook<, but not me.

Maybe I’m just hopelessly naïve, but not only does the Book Nook in my hometown represent my earliest childhood memory of a bookstore, but I also have a two-year old in my house.  So naturally the first thing that came to my mind was Dr. Seuss:

We took a look.

We saw a Nook.

On his head he had a hook.

On his head he had a book …

(I didn’t have to Google that quote, I’ll have you know.  No, I have the entirety of One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish memorized.) 

Think the Marketing folks in at B & N are big Seuss fans?

By David Rothman

“The next move in the ereader space belongs to Amazon. That sound you heard was the air being let out of the Kindle’s tires. Amazon is now forced with the decision to be pragmatic and support the open .epub format or risk being locked out of the market.” – Allen Weiner, Gartner analyst, reacting to Nook announcement.

Reminder: DRMed ePub still won’t be an open, nonproprietary standard. Alas, big publishers are still insisting on DRM.

By David Rothman

Earlier we pointed you to documentation for the new OpenInkpot with an improved interface. Now here’s a download link for a release candidate. List of improvements here, installation manual here and users’ guide here. Please remember, this is just a candidate—not the final software. OpenInkpot replaces proprietary software in some E Ink machines. (Via MobileRead.)

By David Rothman

• B&N on Nook: Android SDK possible—plus other goodies from news conf with B&N online-biz prez
• So what do I think of the Nook? Great for getting the ebook word out there
• B&N’s DRMed ePub comes with compatibility gotchas for now—plus the possibility of social DRM
• ‘Barnes & Noble adopts open EPUB eBook Format, PDF and Adobe Content Server’
• Report on Nook news conference: B&N switching to ePub—plus other news conf tidbits
• B&N’s $259 Nook: Friend-lend, sync between devices, WiFi AND 3G, Android operating system, ePub, PDF capabilities
• The Nook e-reader: Why B&N needs to hire marketers with dirtier minds
• Barnes and Noble’s new e-reader and the Donner Party

By David Rothman

I’m a Kindle 2 owner myself and have talked up the K2’s good points and shared tips with fellow users.

Even so, as long as Amazon taints bestsellers and so many other books with proprietary DRM, I’ll consider the Kindle a closed system—at least in ways that count for many readers.

Open systems, moreover, don’t include the capability for the hardware provider to zap books—even 1984! Nor do open systems let publishers prevent disabled people from using text to speech.

Looking beyond the machine, if the Kindle is so open, how come my publisher can’t even get a DRMed edition of my novel removed from Amazon.com. She couldn’t offer The Solomon Scandals at the Mobipocket Store without tolerating a DRMed version of my novel at Amazon.com in addition to the nonDRMed file. Trouble is, the DRMed edition remained at Amazon.com even when we withdrew from the Mobi store. Is that really openness?

Dave “Evil Genius” Slusher is a good guy, but I’d very respectfully disagree with his recent thoughts on the Kindle’s so-called openness. And the same for you, Paul.

Related: Mitch Ratcliffe’s comments.

Image credit: Creative Commons photo from Quinn Anya Domrowski.

By Ted Treanor, publishing consultant

Note: Ted Treanor, founder of NetGalley, has just joined the Gilbane Group as a senior publishing strategies consultant. Congratulations, Ted. – P.B.

The video shows a Sony prototype of an OLED color e-book reader that rocks. One complaint of my speed reading friend is that page-flipping on any current e-reader interrupts his reading when he flips to the next page while the screen pulls in the content. Wait until you see the smooth and rapid page-flipping technology from Sony. The video is from last week’s Ceatec conference in Tokyo. To succeed in publishing over the next five years, we will need to embrace digital publishing and engage e-books, e-reader technology and social media.

Related: Earlier TeleRead items mentioning Sony OLEDs.

By David Rothman

Dave Law and I both plunked down $3.99 to try out Readdle’s BookReader 1.0 for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Just how would BookReader compare with free rivals such as Stanza?

Well, for now, the others haven’t much to worry about. Both Dave and I were disappointed, for example, by the limited font choices available—an embarrassing flaw in a reader touted as “elegant.” Stanza actually is much better in the font area. But look, this is Version 1.0 of BookReader. Maybe Readdle will do better with the next incarnation, while allowing us pioneers to update at no charge.

Thanks to Dave for writing, in effect, a mini-review via his TeleRead comments. Here it is for the benefit of those reading us on RSS and via email:

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By David Rothman

News release follows, slightly edited. Those are two separate screenshots below, not a double-page arrangement. One wrinkle is the ability to pipe in books from your desktop via USB. Twitter reaction is here. So, gang, how do you think BookReader compares with the free Stanza? Worth the $3.99? – D.R.

Readdle today announces BookReader 1.0, a stylish e-book reader for iPhone and iPod touch. BookReader lets people read digital books from their collections like the paper ones.

It opens nonDRMed TXT, FB2, RTF, EPUB, HTML, and PDF e-books that could be copied from reader’s computer to the iPhone as well as searches and downloads books from Project Gutenberg.

BookReader has a number of handy functions like animated page flipping, night mode for reading in the dark, and more.

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By David Rothman

The Kindle in Russia will cost 47 percent more than Americans pay for the same hardware—so calculates Kindle Review.

But what if the MTS phone company in Russia can negotiate a Kindle exclusive and import the machines directly from the Far East? In fact, negotiations are underway now.

Kindle books in Russian are said to cost a mere $12 on the whole, with 100,000 under $6. Total number is 290,000. Could a new deal drive the price down even more?

Note: I don’t know where the above picture, from Amazon, was taken.

By David Rothman

Check out Barnes & Noble teams with Google Android for eReader, in Net World, where among other things NW contributor Tony Bradley argues for ePub in effect.

“The proprietary Kindle format is a handicap though that will turn off many users who are waiting for the dust to settle on the ebook standards so they don’t get saddled with obsolete technology like a Betamax video tape machine or an HD DVD player.”

Fictionwise, owned by Barnes &Noble, is moving in the direction of ePub as a core format for its eReader program. Will the hardware reader branded by the parent company (photos) follow? I suspect so. If that happens, Amazon’s Kindle format will appear to be more and more of an oddball approach.

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