TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘ebook readers’ Category

By David Rothman

Will you be able to buy e-book files from B&N and read them on your Sony Reader, just as your friends can read them on their B&N Nook e-readers?

This depends on Sony and the others updating their Adobe-supplied firmware for their dedicated e-readers. So there are gotcha indeed (yes, I’ve revised this post). Let’s hope that other companies will include the new DRM for compatibility’s sake—even though the best solution would be no DRM. See a helpful explanation from Adobe’s Jim Lester.

On the social DRM front…

Meanwhile another question arises. Could Adobe and B&N also be moving social DRM in time? With help from a reader, I noticed the following in an Adobe release:

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By David Rothman

News release from Adobe follows. Please note the quotes in the headline. DRMed ePub is not "open." And now the big question: Will Amazon do ePub soon, now that B&N has moved forward? And with Adobe DRM or an Amazon flavor?  For info on the Nook e-reader from B&N, see the basics plus Paul Biba’s report from the press conference announcing the product. – D.R.

SAN JOSE, Calif. and NEW YORK — Oct. 20, 2009 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced further advancements for eBook distribution by joining forces to standardize the open EPUB and PDF eBook formats and collaborating on a content protection standard based on Adobe and Barnes & Noble technology.

The collaboration makes Barnes & Noble the most portable and compatible eBookstore, and provides customers of nook, the new Barnes & Noble eBook reader and other compatible devices, as well as users of Barnes & Noble eReader software for iPhone, PCs, BlackBerry and other smartphones the ability to access digital content from thousands of content providers that is protected with Adobe technology. In addition, customers with devices that use the Adobe Reader Mobile software development kit (SDK) will soon be able to purchase and read content from BN.com, the world’s largest eBookstore.

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By David Rothman

Update: See Paul’s report from the news conference.

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.)

By David Rothman

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By David Rothman

Could B&N be screening its marketing people too well—to filter out job applicants or contractors with dirty minds?

Just how could a leading book chain end up with a name for its e-reader as wildly untoward as “Nook,” the name reported in the New York Times?

Danny Bloom and other skeptics are right on target. I don’t care if Book Nook stores, etc., exist. The N word for the reader just isn’t right, especially if B&N wants to, er, pick up readers in their 20s. You can bet they’re thinking of things to do in bed besides reading.

Beyond that, I’ll be interested to know if the Nook has text-to-speech capabilities. Whether it’s walking or driving, I’m finding the Kindle’s TTS to be more than just a minor wrinkle. Oh, and, as much as dislike Amazon’s DRM and closed approach in general, the name certainly beats that of the B&N reader.

Stay tuned for the press conference today. Will a reporter have the nerve to pop a question about the use of the N word?

By David Rothman

“With BookServer, the Internet Archive is hoping that for the first time, consumers everywhere will be able to buy or borrow any text they want while leaving control over pricing and terms of such distribution in the hands of the content owners.” – CNET.

The TeleRead take: BookServer, from Archive founder Brewster Kahle (photo) and colleagues, is a worthy project. I don’t want any company, Amazon or Google, to dominate book distribution.

Even so, the Archive will have to work hard to equal Amazon’s interface and its rich collection of customer-written reviews. Here’s an example of the issues at hand. Will BookServer capabilities be built into hardware e-readers, so to speak, the way the Amazon catalogue is part of the Kindle? Update, 12:32 p.m.: The existence of an RSS-style spec (draft here) is a good start, but that’s still not a full solution.

Might an Archive collaboration be possible with OpenInkpot—which provides software for users to install on dedicated e-reading devices? Imagine manufacturers including OpenInkpot from the start. Jeez, Brewster, you need to think more about the user experience—whether the device is an E Ink tablet, a commercial netbook, an OLPC laptop or regular desktop. This could mean anything from OpenInkpot to browser-plug-ins to dedicated apps.

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By David Rothman

Shouldn’t it be a crime to call certain books literature—even the popular kind of lit? A certain side of me applauded on hearing that the FTC would force bloggers to reveal the receipt of review copies of the titles they reviewed. Next? Truth in reviewing provisions?

But where to draw the line? Do we really want the feds policing the free press, and I don’t just mean “free” in the freebies sense? Aren’t free review copies part of the game? Don’t recipients still feel free to pan titles?

Well, we worrywarts are in luck, going by our friends at GalleyCat, which, via the GalleySmith blog, picked up info from a kidlit converntion.

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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

“Effectively BookRiff allows publishers to upload chunks of content, most likely chapters and short stories, to a database. A user can then search the site for interesting chunks and create her own anthology which can then be submitted automatically to a print on demand facility.” – Richard Nash on the service, now in beta (via Michael Cairns).

Details: Nonfiction such as textbooks, cookbooks and travel guides, not just short short collections, could benefit.

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

Reason #999,667,322 to show healthy skepticism toward the mainstream media:

“On Monday, the Kindle 2 will become the first e-reader available globally. The only other events as important to the history of the book are the birth of print and the shift from the scroll to bound pages. The e-reader, now widely available, will likely change our thinking and our being as profoundly as the two previous pre-digital manifestations of text.”

So writes Esquire’s pop critic, Stephen Marche, in the Wall Street Journal. This isn’t satire, but rather his serious opinion.

In real life, Kindle owners like Affiliate, seen in the Creative Commons photo above, would probably express enthusiasm but show far more commonsense and restraint. Here’s my own take on the Kindle 2. It comes away a number of negatives: onerous Digital Rights Management, focus on a proprietary format, high price, less than perfect contrast between text and the screen background. I myself took great pleasure in knocking the original Kindle (right photo below) for its adding-machine looks and ergonomic challenges such as hair-trigger page controls. What’s more, Amazon needs to treat writers and publishers better—much better.

That said, I’m pleased to give the Kindle 2 (left) its due. The positives:

1. The hair-trigger problem is gone and page turning controls are mostly just where I’d want them—in fact, better positioned than those on various Sony Reader models. While my fingers are over the controls, I feel as if the 10-ounce weight is distributed well. I like the controls off to the side rather than on the the bottom (or present in the form of minuscule buttons). One improvement for me would be to put both the previous-page and next-page controls on the same side.

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By Paul Biba

Got this email that I thought I should share with you:

Hi,

I think TeleRead missed this announcement at the Frankfurt Book Fair:

The German text is about the planned improvements of the German eBook portal libreka!, which is the official eBook shop of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (federation of German publishers and book stores). The interesting part for non-Germans is the announcement of the release of a libreka! iPhone app in the beginning of November. With this app it will be possible to buy and read the eBooks sold at libreka!—which are EPUB with Adobe DRM. So this will be the first official iPhone eBook reader for EPUB with Adobe DRM.

Best regards,
Tobias Steinke

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

Could an OLED-based e-reader come from Sony in time? In CNET Japan, Rick Martin writes: “There are other promising e-book readers in the works, as I saw from last week’s Ceatec conference here in Tokyo. Sony was showing off OLED prototypes, and while these likely won’t go into production anytime soon, the ‘Contrast’ e-book reader looked absolutely stunning.”

One issue with OLEDs is power consumption—for example, the challenge of lighting up the background against which the text appears. But then again, OLEDs, unlike LCDs,  don’t need backlighting. Let’s wait and see what the Sony’s battery life will really be."

A positive is that the Contrast could live up to its name and offer much better text-screen contrast than E Ink currently can.

Image: The photo isn’t of the Contrast—rather, of the Sony XEL-1 digital TV using OLED tech.

By David Rothman

Free e-book-reading software from inventor Ray Kurzeil and a blind-advocacy group will offer text to speech.

ePub, PDF and other formats will be handled, with a variety of fonts to choose from.

Developed with help from the National Federation of the Blind, the product will be launched late next month in the U.S. for blind and nonblind people alike.

Name of the Kurzeil-NFB joint venture involved is knfbReading Technology.

Among other capabilities, says Publishers Weekly, the knfb software can highlight words as they’re read. This is great news for people with learning disabilities such as Amos Bokros. An alternative to expensive special-purpose software?

knfbReading’s technology will even let plays be read aloud in different voices. A whole new market for plays in book form? I wonder what the voice quality will be. Any possibility of a capability to handle inflection well, based on language patterns?

The knfb product is to work with a variety of desktops, laptops and mobile phones.

Biz model is to use the reader to sell books. At the same time, the joint venture will let other companies brand the product and offer themselves.

Let’s just hope that publishers will be enlightened enough not to interfere with the general use of the TTS for books, despite the obstinacy they’ve shown in the case of the Kindle. As I’ve noted, the general book market is much, much bigger than the one for audio books. Priorities, please!

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