This just happened a few minutes ago on eBay:

Click = big

Look, stop throwing away your dignity and money like this!

It’s not something that will save your soul!

It’s crappy eInk with an LCD grafted to the bottom!

Save your money for next year! You’ll have your choice of the Apple iTablet or one of a ton of Android mini-tablets. Barnes & Noble’s eReader software will run on all of those. DRMed Adobe ePub will also make its way onto them too — because Adobe isn’t about to pass up that money!

If you must line up on December 7th, do it only if you want one for yourself or to give personally as a gift. If you try to sell it on eBay, you will get burned.

And you will deserve it too.

The internet has completely changed the way we buy and use music and even films, now it’s going to the same with books…

Amazon, the biggest online retailer launched its first eBook about a year ago with much fanfare. When I talk about eBooks with my friends I notice that most people are still pretty skeptical about them, they don’t see themselves reading the latest novels on a screen. Neither did I, until last summer when I laid my hands on an Amazon Kindle.

A friend of mine brought an Amazon Kindle and I had a chance to take a closer look at it. If you compare books and ebooks like the Kindle, what ebooks bring is a major jump in convenience: you can download new books from anywhere in a few minutes, it’s cheaper, it’s light and portable (you can put thousands of books in a small device) and, of course, we don’t need to cut a tree to publish an eBook.

But eBooks faced a few obstacles to adoption. First, a book doesn’t run out of batteries and second, it’s not the same thing reading a piece of paper than reading on a screen, particularly in the sunlight. While eBook batteries will never beat a regular book’s battery life there have been some technical breaktroughs in screen technology that make the eBooks screens pretty similar to regular books.

So who knows when people will start moving on to eBooks but as technology progresses, it’s pretty clear that convenience will be more an more attractive.

All this is a revolution that is starting today and a few companies are fighting for this very appealing market with different business approaches.

Amazon.com has been the pioneer launching a mass-market device and is using the sheer force of its online store to heavily promote the device. The problem with the Kindle is that it’s proprietary, meaning that you can only use books that you buy on Amazon.

Barnes & Noble (the company that used to be the biggest bookstore chain in the USA before Amazon) recently launched a device named Nook.  The Nook looks better than the Kindle, has a colour screen with book covers and uses Google Android. The Nook is open and allows people to buy books on B&N website and also let’s you read many eBook files. Also, it allows people to exchange books.

Sony’s eReader is the most open because it’s the only one that doesn’t have a bookstore behind it. It allows you to read books from multiple stores and formats. They have partnered with Google Books to get access to 1 million free books, which are mostly books in the public domain like War and Peace or Darwin’s ‘The origin of species’.

On the other hand all portable devices, from smartphones to iPods have their own readers.

So you can bet there will be a lot of action and opportunities in this new market which will just boom. You might be interested in joining one of the main players, although there will also be many national and local companies that you should research in your own area.

International jobs at Amazon or jobs at Sony or at Barnes & Noble (in the USA)

Qualcomm has just released a technology under their mirasol division that looks to be the number one contender in replacing e-ink. Not only does the display not use power when the display is stable, the frame rate is fast, 30fps, fast enough for video, and let’s not forget it COLOR!!! The question remains, how much. To see how it works just click here. There’s a video below demoing the technology.

more about “Qualcomm’s mirasol showing color vide…”, posted with vodpod

Qualcomm’s mirasol showing color video @ 30fps! from IntoMobile on Vimeo.

Earlier, in the back to school period, I discussed the benefits and costs of going paperless as a student. I think it’s a really worthwhile choice which has a lot of benefits down the line. My main concern is simply the high initial cost of converting from paper to paperless which means that it is a better option for people who are making money from doing it as a job because it will severely cut into your beer money.

I think it’s hard to talk about people going paperless in 2009 without mentioning the eBook reader, the new group of devices which are being marketed as a way to replace the printed book.

The science bit

The market has pretty much expanded from very little into the next big thing based almost entirely on the invention of a small (but growing) American company that worked out how to make very small magnetic objects reliably rise and fall in a grid pattern. Unlike the great majority of modern technology this relies on moving part because once you’ve moved the parts to where you want them you can leave them there with no extra energy use. This means that the ereader expends energy “printing” the page – putting the eInk particles where they’re supposed to be – but then doesn’t need any more to keep the text on the page.

This differs from a traditional display because earlier technologies do not create a fixed image – a CRT monitor draws images onto the screen with a scanning electron beam on a phosphor screen and an LCD monitor uses an arrangement of gates which produces a coloured filter for a backlight to shine through. That electron beam and that backlight both require continuous power to operate. The main benefit of a fleeting, dynamic way of generating images is that it can be very good for conveying moving images, whereas eInk is limited by the physical speed of the particles. That’s bad for movies but text has never moved in its life and that means the technology is good for dedicated book readers.

This is really all by to the by, because how the underlying technology works rarely affects how good it is for users.

Ebook readers

The message to take away is simply that because it’s not a continuously operating device means that you don’t measure the battery life by how long it can be on for (because the device is only on for short spurts) but by how many times the display changes. That’s why the Sony Pocket Edition is rated as having enough “battery life for nearly 6,800 page turns.” The amount of time that is depends on how quickly you can read that number of pages.

Ebook readers have the option of, generally, being used to display books licensed from the sponsoring bookseller’s shop which is great if that’s how you buy books (it isn’t personally). I think it has great potential for updateable textbooks which apply their own errata and apply the differences between editions if that’s the way publishers want to play it. Right now I think the potential lies in the ability of these devices to display your own documents. I think the ability to load up an ereader with a load of case reports and then read that on the bus is paradigm shifting.

This has additional benefits in that because the image is static it doesn’t cause headaches from forcing people to squint at flickering displays and because there’s no backlight you aren’t forced to stare at a light.

The competition

Just because the underlying technology is well suited to displaying text this doesn’t mean that you should buy every product which uses it and displaying text on its own is something that computers have been able to do for a very long time. Ebooks readers are not the only option available here.

Your laptop

The obvious alternative is just a laptop – it will read any format you should care to name, runs off a battery, is portable, does more than just text and you probably already have one. It’s not ideal for reading on the bus, the LCD screen is backlit and the battery won’t last particularly long. But it does so many other things as well and it is likely to be a product that many people will already own, and that makes it practically free to use as an ebook reader.

The mobile phone

An unexpected new contender is the mobile phone, people have been using PDAs to read text for many years and the phone is converging on the same areas. These are good because they’re so much smaller and more portable and have long battery lives. On the other hand, this all depends on the quality of the screen. One of the most often recommended devices for reading books is the iPhone, which has an undeniably pretty screen, on the other hand it is an excruciatingly expensive way to read on the bus. It’s a good product and if you use it as a phoning, mobile emailing, mobile webbing, app running device then it’s really good. If you’re only using it to read Westlaw PDFs on the bus, though, the initial cost and monthly fees make it a difficult purchase.

The photocopier

A good photocopier costs many thousand pounds and weighs an unbelievable amount. It is beyond the dreams of any student to own. However, many facilities give you access to such a photocopier for around 3-5p a sheet. That means that you can have a 5 page report to read on the bus in black and white for about 25p, and the truly frugal student will take steps to get that price down further – by printing on both sides of page or by fitting more than one page onto each physical page. I think the photocopier is the main enemy of the ebook reader because you need to print between 3600 and 6000 pages before you would have saved money by buying Sony’s cheapest ebook reader (the Pocket PRS-300). That’s a really long term investment to save a bit of paper. I think you’d need to really need the extra advantages of the ebook reader to make it a more convincing option.

Reasons to buy right now

This is the hard thing, I don’t see a reason to buy just right now. I think the technology is extremely impressive and I think the datapad from Star Trek is nigh but at present buying one is a huge expense, particularly because you know it will get better and cheaper as time goes on. It’s hard to justify the expense when centralised photocopying exists. Once prices come down I think we’ll really reach a point where it’ll be hard to tell why you’d ever print a document out but we’re really not there yet.

The main reason to buy now is simply if you want one, it’s not long til Christmas, but I imagine this will rapidly change as prices come down (and they will).

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Woe Is Me, Etc: A Failing Writer Writes

It really is becoming as stark as that. I decided over the weekend, after interviewing James Ellroy, that it is actually immoral of me to steal time to write fiction when I could be writing freelance material that will actually earn real money. And that’s not even factoring in the time I steal away from my family on the ‘writing’, a catch-all word which includes, these days, reading and blogging too. Someone who liked my books asked me over the weekend, rather facetiously, how come I haven’t sold a million books. I said, rather facetiously, that it was because no one put a million dollars worth of advertising spend behind them. It’s not quite that simple, of course, but there’s a significant element of truth in that.

I can’t argue with his priorities in this post.

However, he acts as if he’s some obscure bloke no one has ever heard of.

Hell, I haven’t read him yet — but I’ve heard of him. I’ve seen him cited or mentioned by writer after writer in that genre!

Sarah Weinman beat me to a post about this, so I get to link to her too: On Giving Up the Fiction Ghost

Like her, I hope he’ll change his mind.

This is a tumultuous time in publishing. People such as myself won’t buy print any longer. I want digital. So do all those others out there who have spent lots of money on Sony Readers, abominable Kindles, other crappy eInk devices, as well as the sleek iPhone and iPod Touch. We don’t want to have to decide which damned paper brick to lug around. And we’re too smart to be suckered into paying exorbitant print prices for lightly-tarted up text files under the guise of ePub for Seniors. This is seriously hurting many writers who are innocents in the crossfire between the pearl clutchers of print who won’t publish most writers in e at a reasonable price and a new marketplace with demands that are bound to change very soon.

For all writers who are contemplating throwing in the towel: Just keep writing. It will all work out.

Confessions of an Apple Manager-Turned-iPhone App Creator

How was Air Sharing received?

We gave it away for two weeks and later set the price at $7, lowered it to $5 and then introduced a more capable one for $10. I was optimistically thinking maybe 100,000 people would download it. But really I thought that was crazy talk.

As it turned out, a million downloaded it in two weeks—168,000 in the first day. That’s without advertising, no banner ads. It was just word-of-mouth and the power of the Internet.

I await figures like those for a digital book!

The Rise of Motion Comics Online

Somewhere between standard cartoon strips and full-blown animated work lies what’s known as the “motion comic.” This emerging style of entertainment is increasingly being put to use online, either to promote big-name offline works, or in some cases, just to make an extra buck.

The article is a bit dismissive of motion comics as an art form. Several have spoken up in the Comments there to point out their own works.

Swastika Night: Nineteen Eighty-Four’s lost twin

Though a huge leap of imagination, Swastika Night posits a terrifyingly coherent and plausible alternative history. And considering when it was published, and how little of what we know of the Nazi regime today was then understood, the novel is eerily prophetic and perceptive about the nature of Nazism: its violence and mindlessness; its irrationality and superstition; its emotional immaturity and cod-mysticism; the mundane, stifling horror; the way it ultimately dehumanises and destroys everyone, even the powerful; most importantly, the inextricable link between misogyny, patriarchy and fascism. A ferocious but subtle and brilliantly controlled “j’accuse” against misogyny, Swastika Night is one of the few fictions to emphasise this key element of the Nazis: man, the world-conquering hero; woman, know thy place.

I must read that book!

Is Your Book Worth It?

So let’s put this in Shark Tank terms. When you’re pitching a publisher, you’re asking them to invest $50,000 to $90,000 in YOU and your product. Are you giving them something that will make them confident it’s a good investment?

She’s not playing fair there, citing Shark Tank — a program I think everyone should watch.

And she doesn’t realize it, but she’s also made a real argument for writers to bypass all of that and do it themselves.

The mathematics of publishing a professional e-zine

In the first twelve months of running Apex Magazine, the published original fiction average length was slightly over 5,000 words. That’s two stories for a total of 10,000 words each month. At $.05 a word, that’s a baseline cost of $6,000 a year. Reprints pay anywhere from $10-$50 a month and in our first year we paid $500 for reprints. Server costs are minimal ($100 last year). Occasionally, I try to pay our editors and art directors ($500 last year). Marketing runs around $500 a year (mostly in banners and the occasional cheap ad in a print ‘zine). For one year, the average cost is $7,500. Over two years, we’re looking at $15,000 (though we dropped our word count max, so our cost of fiction should go down 10%-20%).

I like posts that cite real-world numbers. Too many people don’t understand what things cost and what the value of “free” actually is.

Speaking of value and free … this is exactly what I said would happen:

Value Perception of eBooks is going to zero

No idea at what point Publishers and Authors are going to figure this out. They are destroying the value perception of their work.

In fact, we might already be beyond the point of no return.

What’s hilarious is that he opens with this boast:

You heard it here first.

If that’s so, it’s only because the idiot Kindle owners never pulled out their thumbs and read this blog:

Smart Digital Books Vs. The ePub FAIL Model
The Coming Collapse Of eBook Prices
Would A US$50 eBook Reader Be A Disaster?
The Devaluation Of The eBook
The Axis Of E Book Holocaust
The Issue Of eBook Pricing
Why eInk, ePub, And eBooks Will Fail
Dumb eBooks Must Die, Smart eBooks Must Live

But thank you for temporarily waking up. Now go back to sleepily sucking on that WhisperNet teat while the rest of us try to fix this goddammed disaster.

Original French: Art hypermédiatique sur iPhone et iPod Touch, troisième partie: applications musicales
Google English: Art hypermedia iPhone and iPod Touch, third party: music applications

It’s nice that the iTunes Store offers some applications that are hypermedia musical works of art. But while the iPod can be considered a laptop whose primary function is to serve as a very sophisticated player, there are many ridiculous applications made by unscrupulous developers that make an iPod more on the order of the gadget intended to divert consumers for ten minutes in the hope of making a quick profit. Fortunately, some designers are intent to offer a quality product that transcends the intention of low commercial interests, to venture into the arts.

I seriously edited the Google English of the opening paragraph. Although this article is about musical applications, their interactivity and the imagination they incorporate will be important for anyone contemplating the creation of digital books.

Click for the answer:

If you were taking a trip which would you want to pack?

Previously here:

The Horror Of Paper Books

I’ve done 10 interim CEO / interim COO gigs during the last 10 years.  In my view, there are four cases when hiring an interim CEO make sense:

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1. For The First 3 – 18 Months of a Startup: As detailed in this post (which in turn was prompted by Flybridge Capital Partners venture capitalist Michael Greeley’s recent post) there are times when hiring an interim CEO at the formation of a startup makes sense.  Adding the experience of a senior, successful entrepreneur to the passion and vision of the founding entrepreneurs can increase the likelihood of the venture’s success.  (This is the role I played at Ember Corporation.)
2. Helping a Founding CEO: Often, later in a startup’s life, a founding CEO can use help.  Rather than terminating the founder and “throwing the baby out with the bath water,” a better solution might be to bring in an interim COO to counsel the founder, and – in many cases – to actually assume some hands-on, day-to-day duties for some number of months.  When the company moves to the “next level,” then the founder can again assume full control. (This is the role I played at Eink.)
3. Clean Up to Attract an Industry-Specific CEO: Sometimes a company wants to hire an “industry-specific” CEO to have the venture really take off.  But often an executive search firm will say that – until things are “cleaned up” – top-notch CEO candidates from the industry cannot be attracted.  An interim CEO has the very clear remit of cleaning up the place for the next person.  (This is the role I played at HeartSine in the UK.)
4. Due Diligence for Further Investment: Often the investors have been asked to invest further in a company that has not met plan. For a variety of reasons, the investors often want a person of their choice placed inside the company to manage this next round of investment.  (This is what I was charged with doing at CR2 in Dublin, though the way I started the assignment was a bit unorthodox.)

Do these interim CEO / interim COO assignments always work out?  No.  Startups and turn arounds are both high-risk ventures.  Some turn out well.  Others do not.  But in all cases I’ve worked with great people; and it was these great people – and not I – who, with a bit of guidance and leadership, took the company to the next level.

E-books’ holiday charge

Epps doesn’t think that today’s e-readers will do for e-books what the iPod did for MP3s. Even if 10 million people are toting an e-book reader at the end of next year, that’s less than 1 percent of the 110 million people who have MP3 players. And at current prices, she believes the market for e-readers will top out at 25 million.

Emphasis added by me.

I think even with significantly lower prices it won’t go beyond that.

The leisurely pace of limited eInk is well suited to the geriatric set.

And as they die off, you think the young will take their place?

They’ll have been busy reading digital books.

The Next Hot e-Reader: The iPhone

Unless the Apple Tablet becomes a reality, I think there is going to continue to be a market for dedicated e-readers, mostly because it is impossible to read large amounts of text on a smaller screen.

Emphasis added by me.

What century is Om Malik living in again?

After Playing Games, iPhone Gets Serious about Books

The data in this report is computed from a sample size of over 2,500 applications …

Um, what? There are near one-hundred thousand in the App Store.

In October, one out of every five new apps launching in the iPhone has been a book.

But what kind of book? If it’s the tenth incarnation of Think and Grow Rich, it’s meaningless!

Do-It-Yourself iPhone Apps

Book-app maker eBookApp.com charges nothing to create apps that help authors and publishers promote books through the App Store but receives 50% of sales of books sold through the apps.

The thing about these places is, in some — if not all — cases, they are listed in the App Store as the publisher, not you. This could also mean having to go through that intermediary in order to do things like promotional price changes and other modifications to the App Store listing.

Caught in the Middle: Publishing’s Other Customers

In most cases, the days of monstrous advances are over. Publishers can’t afford them and the few superstar authors who can command them will at some point recognize their ability to self-publish and distribute far more profitably (and quickly) than their current publishers can. Stephen King is a brand. Nora Roberts is a brand. They don’t need a publisher’s imprimatur or antiquated logistics to sell truckloads of books. Those folks will be fine.

By the same token, writers who do not rely exclusively on income to pay the bills can also self-publish. Tools and services are readily available and mostly easy to use so that the aphorism, “We’re all publishers,” is true. Some will use self-publishing as a stepping stone to more traditional publishing. Others will master it and create work comparable to the best traditional publishing has to offer. A thousand flowers will bloom.

In Comments there, someone brought up the “price vs. value” argument. Like Moriah Jovan, I bit my tongue. Here, I don’t have to: Look at real estate, what is that telling you? And there’s this:

Why advertising needs behavioural economics

Price perception

In theory, price should be a consequence of the value people attach to something. We should be willing to pay what we think something is worth. In practice, this causality runs backwards. The price that is demanded for something makes us value it more.

Blind taste tests have long alerted us to the fact that consumers do indeed “taste the brand” with many food and drink products.

However, behavioural economics has gone further.

- Studies have shown that the efficacy of a soft drink that claimed to help mental acuity was affected by price. People who paid more for the drink performed better on mental acuity tests, benefiting not just from a trivial taste effect, but apparently gaining extra mental powers.

- Similarly, people who paid more for the same over-the-counter pain- relief products reported more effective pain relief despite price being the only variable.

- The effect is also observed with cultural products. In a notorious example, a violinist who could sell out concert halls above ground struggled to gain a few dollars underground busking in the subway. The context determined the value.

Price-cutting can, and does, reduce perceptions not just of product quality, but of experienced efficacy.

Emphasis added by me.

The race-to-the-bottom pricing for eBooks will doom them. If you haven’t read Predictably Irrational, buy it today and schedule it to read for this coming weekend.

9 simple words to live by in the digital age

I do know that if you live by a few simple principles, no matter what trend, tool or technology comes next, you will have a good chance to succeed. By keeping the following words and concepts in mind, you’ll be able to navigate whatever twists and turns lie ahead for you and your brand.

And three words to live by too: Never sell out. Plus this advice.

The ePUB Format for E-Books – Everything You Wanted to Know
Under How to Create ePub eBooks he has spectacularly ridiculous advice. All you need to know is Atlantis, period.

Could Vook Be the Future of Publishing?

With people reading more on electronic devices, extra information doesn’t have to be static.

Precisely why digital books will win and ePub will die.

Entelligence: Of ebooks and suburban moms

3. Higher refresh rates. Electronic ink has gotten a lot faster since my first Sony Librie, but it’s still not good enough and I continue to find the pageturn flash distracting. So will most mainstream users.

Not just that, but its limitations too. Just let them get a glimpse at a Vook and they’ll want that capability.

Six Implications of Digital Vertical Niches

One of the ways to react is to develop vertical niches in product categories where you are, as Dominique Raccah put it at TOC, “Essential to the conversation!”. A vertical niche is a community organized around a particular type or genre of content, for instance, Irish History, Military History, Science Fiction or Cookery. I’ll leave it up to you to find the niches and communities that suit your market, you might even decide that you can do better than the existing ones (if there are existing ones), or indeed you may need to create some because they do not exist yet.

Months ago, I would have agreed with that. However, there are already so many niche publishers that are well-known. I believe that brilliant Ayn Rand observation: “The smallest minority is the individual.” Thus, Stephen King, James Patterson, Tom Clancy, create their own niches. When writers such as those — or others on the edge of similar prominence — break away from the dying dinosaurs of print, the rupture will be irreparable. I don’t see the current in-denial snobs of print rallying around to promote writers. They haven’t and they won’t. Ask any Hollywood director how they had to hustle to score — and they’ll tell you the bottom line is the bottom line: money talks. No studio (“publisher”) promoted them or rallied behind them. This is the future of publishing in one — literally one: the writer. And there’s this too:

Niche Publishing Math And Trashing Art

Large trade publishers can’t afford to develop a deep understanding of a market that won’t support the salary of the editor assigned to learn it.

Ah, welcome to the nightmare world of Jules Verne’s Paris in the Twentieth Century — a book everyone should read for what’s up ahead.

The small beauty of Tindal Street Press

Unlike many London publishers, Tindal Street Press always has launch parties and knows that a band of loyal supporters will turn up and buy books. There’s a ready-made local market with regional newspapers and radio programmes willing and keen to do interviews. I suspect that many authors with big publishers do not necessarily receive as much publicity or even sell more books.

Notice: this is a small publisher. They choose what they like, what they think will matter.

Why Twitter “Lists” Change Everything

People can then follow those lists, which really is more like “bookmarking” them, as they do not appear in your Twitter stream. Those lists in turn keep track of how many “followers” they have, and you can see how many people “follow” the lists you create.

There’s a lot here about Twitter lists I didn’t know.

Jane Friedman is on Twitter via her OpenRoadMedia account.

And Dave Winer has created a Twitter List Browser.

iWork secret life as ZIP file revealed, includes PDF preview

In the case of the new iWork files, changing the file extension to .zip and expanding the archive reveals the as-expected XML document and plist files (for the document and its formatting) as well as a little PDF surprise — a preview version of the file. What this means for you is that you can send an iWork file to a friend or co-worker and regardless of their operating system choice or installed software base, they can “view” your document by unzipping it and opening the PDF.

Yes! It’s true!

It’s XML down there! An unZipped Pages file:

Zipped up just like any ePub eBook file! Except it can do much more!

This is XML from Keynote:

Notice the capabilities: animation, UI status, and soundtrack!

This is XML from Pages:

Notice the capabilities: video, footnote, bibliography, annotations!

Check out Apple’s developer page about XML — this one is about Keynote (notice especially how they changed the 1.x file format for total XML!).

Let me spell out what this means.

You will not need a developer to create a digital book.

You will be able to do something just like what Vook:

and Enhanced Editions:

and CSI creator Anthony Zuiker:

are doing — using iWork, iMovie, and all standard software tools on any Mac!

No programming required!

This will break open the door to real artists who can envision what digital books can be as things in themselves.

Going all XML like this, making things simple, is how Steve Jobs wins:

Hop to 3:22 in this video to see a demo of Pages:

Creating a digital book will be that simple. The only things currently not in Pages are Preview and Create Digital Book menu options.

These digital books will be launchable, just like apps. Apple will not go the file route, making people first launch a reading application and then scroll scroll scroll through a list of files.

People might object that this will fill Home Screens with too many things. I insist that Apple has already thought of that and there will be a method to segregate and organize digital books.

All of this is the fatal stake in the heart of ePub and all eInk devices.

Because once people see digital books, they won’t settle for tarted-up text files.

If you’re a writer who has been sitting impatiently, thinking the digital book movement has been passing you by due to its expense and complexity, your day is coming. Get your plans together to bring them into creation.

Thanks to snoslicer8 and Jonathan (copyhacker) Vaught for supplying sample iWork files for this post; to Moriah Jovan for some XML parsing, and Gear Diary for the Level 26 screensnap.

The love of novelty is the modern form of enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm for new technology is  its most seductive, numbing form.  The old Schwärmer sought to leap into the unconditioned.  Religious fanatics in contrast are seldom Schwärmer these days — there outlook is legalistic, fundamentalist. The technological Schwärmer is a dialectician: he starts out from the absurd detour that techne poses between himself and reality, and every innovation is gratefully received for bringing him one step closer to his goal.  Absolute spirit à crédit.  The end point: artificial intelligence, virtual reality — the world within and the world without, restored to him as the product of human imagination.

The perfect technology, the telos of all technology, is intellectual intuition.  But all existing technologies are merely reproductive, mimetic.  The desire of technology merely reproduces in a material form the paradoxical intention of  early German idealism.

Hi Jet,

Thank you for your reply. That’s what I think because my friend at Shenzhen also went to Dubai fair last week.

I am a students at IU Law School and a coordinator at Center of Applied Cybersecurity Research. I was thrilled by the coming out of E900 because Kindle DX has been monopolizing the market for so long. I am not working for a company. Hopefully that would not disappoint you. But personally, I would like to market the product in our school if possible.

If E900 could have a perfect support of pdf format (we will see when it comes out), people at law school would love to give this product a shot cuz we read tons of cases, most of which are available as pdf files. Plus its wifi capability, E900 would be a huge hit in the market.

Market your product as an environmental friendly tool for immersive and enjoyable reading experiences. Environment concern is an important aspect of marketing in US. For example, many Universities in the US are trying to implement some environmental friendly projects. Promoting the common use of Eink reader is a good way to achieve that goal.

I predict that by this time next year we’ll be wading in Android mini-tablets up to our knees.

It’s going to be the next Netbook Flood.

Why I say this is due to two things.

1) Google released Android OS version 2.0 today. This is a significant improvement that simply cannot be dismissed by anyone — certainly not by Palm (webOS) and especially not by Apple. Even what I’ve seen of just Android 1.5 on the Archos 5 Internet Tablet has increased my interest in that OS — thanks in great part to the Aldiko ePub-reading program.

2) I was looking at this video of the Alex eBook reading device:

That’s really a very, very strange way to overcome two shortcomings: the limited functionality of eInk and the battery-eating predilection of a color LCD screen.

That Alex device would be blown out of the water by any device with a Pixel Qi screen. The Pixel Qi can go from battery-chomping full-color to battery-stingy eInk-like e-paper monochrome with the flick of a switch.

Why build a device with two screens when one will do?

(Yes, I know the Nook is built like that too. But it has Barnes & Noble behind it to keep it alive for at least a few months. The Alex is basically dead on arrival.)

We’ve already seen Asus shake up the entire computer industry by creating the netbook category.

That category is beginning to dry up. The new Intel CULV designs are really for machines priced a bit higher than the netbook price point. These machines are also considerably larger than a grab-and-go tote-anywhere netbook.

This leaves a hole in the market for the next grab-and-go tote-anywhere device and the next sell-like-crazy-mad device.

That’s where an Android mini-tablet would fit.

One thing people tend to forget is that the madmen behind Android were previously employees of PalmSource, the spin-off of the Palm OS. They have tons of experience with small devices. And while I wouldn’t expect them to hit an Apple-level of excellence (due to a lack of Steve Jobs to harangue them), they have already hit the Good Enough mark with Android 1.5 and easily surpassed the craptastic Windows Mobile botch. They could soon leave webOS behind too.

Intel has been trying to define this space with what they’ve termed Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). They’ve been creating an OS called Mobilin. How many of these devices have you seen for sale despite two years of prototypes and hype from Intel’s partners?

Um, right: zero.

Intel has already lost that gamble. And with ARM chips ramping up their speed, Intel might also find itself shut out of the CPU socket of all these Android mini-tablets.

Apple’s upcoming iTablet is going to revolutionize everything and will again goad every tech company to imitation — as with the iPhone.

So: Android mini-tablets to sop up the money from all the people who can’t afford the iTablet (just as the Commodore-64 grabbed all those people who couldn’t afford an Apple II+ way back when — that would have been me!) as well as appeal to all those people who already have Android phones yet desire a bigger screen experience from time to time.

And then there is the huge factor of eBooks, which will really drive this market, especially for devices that use the Pixel Qi dual-mode screen. I’ve already shown that Aldiko’s software is probably the best eBook software out there right now because it can do ePub. While it can’t do Adobe DRMed ePub, I can envision a device manufacturer getting an Adobe license, getting an Aldiko license, and marrying the two for an eBook-friendly Android-based mini-tablet.

What’s great about such a product flood — as we’ve already seen with netbooks — is that inspires companies to ruthless innovation as well as aggressive pricing. But there will be more innovation with Android mini-tablets than was ever possible with netbooks — because there isn’t a Microsoft lording over everyone dictating hardware limitations.

This blog post explains how to create a style file in ConTeXt. I have an eink reader, IRex digital reader DR1000, and I occasionally use it read novels from Project Gutenberg. (Most of the time, I use it to read research papers, something that DR1000 is perfect for). Most novels are available as plain text files, html files, and in mobipocket and epub formats. The DR can read all of these, but the quality is usually really bad. I have become accustomed to TeX output and things like bad hyphenation, large inter word space, bad kerning and no ligatures become a big distraction. So, I thought that it will be nice to use TeX to typeset these novels.

I needed a style that

1. Matches the paper size of DR. DR can ignore margins and stuff, but since setting paper size is easy, why not just do it once.
2. Extremely small margins. I do not want any page numbers (the DR already shows that) or any other info in headers and footers. I want as much space as I can get to read the text
3. A readable font with a large x-height. No, computer modern and latin modern and not readable fonts
4. Reasonably attractive chapter headings
5. The ability to convert the plain text file from PG to a usable tex file with the minimal amount of markup.

This is how I went about creating such a style.

Paper size

Roughly the DR screen is 8in x 6.25in. To use a non-standard paper size in ConTeXt, the paper size must be defined

\definepapersize[irexpaper][height=8in,width=6.25in]

and then we have to tell ConTeXt to use that paper size.

\setuppapersize[irexpaper][irexpaper]

Layout

As I said, I want very small margins, because the DR hides the margins. Moreover, if I ever get a marvellous idea while reading the novel, the margin will be too small to place it anyways . I decided to use 5mm margin on all sides. This can be done by

\setuplayout
  [location=middle,
   topspace=5mm,
   width=middle,
   height=middle,
   bottomspace=5mm,
   bottomdistace=0mm,
   bottom=0mm,
   backspace=5mm,
   cutspace=5mm,
   leftmargin=0mm,
   rightmargin=0mm,
   header=0mm,
   footer=0mm,
   headerdistance=0mm,
   footerdistance=0mm,
 ]

Since I am not going to use headers, footers, or margin notes, I actually only need to set backspace, cutspace, topspace, and bottomspace. Nevertheless, I keep all of them, in case I ever decide to modify the layout in future.

Fonts

The most important reason for moving to a TeX solution was fonts. I really like Fontin and Museo by Jos Buivenga. Fontin is good font for reading because of its large x-height. Both these fonts are Open Type fonts. To use an Open Type fonts in ConTeXt, it needs to be placed in a location where ConTeXt can find it: either
$TEXMF/fonts/opentype or $HOME/.fonts. I placed Fontin and Museo fonts in my local texmf tree $HOME/texmf/fonts/opentype/exljbris, and then ran

luatools --generate

to tell ConTeXt about these new files.

Using Open Types fonts in ConTeXt is easy. Using Fontin and Museo is particularly easy, because Wolfgang Schuster has already created typescripts for these fonts as part of his typescripts module. I installed that module. I set Fontin as the main text font by using

\usetypescriptfile[type-exljbris]

\definetypeface [mainface] [rm] [serif] [fontin] [default] [features=default]
\definetypeface [mainface] [ss] [sans]  [fontin] [default] [features=default]
\setupbodyfont    [mainface,12pt]

Museo looks good in headings with Fontin. To use a different font in headings in ConTeXt, you first need to create font synonyms.

\definefont [interludefont]   [name:museo700 at 28pt]
\definefont [chapterfont]     [name:museo700 at 32pt]

Then the headings macros should be configured to use these fonts. I will explain later how to do that.

Drop capital

A drop capital at the beginning of a novel looks nice.
In ConTeXt, such drop capitals are called initials. These need to be enabled by using

\setupinitial
  [state=start,
    n=3,
    distance=.15pc,
     font=SerifBold,
  ]

The option n=3 tells ConTeXt that the drop capital should be three lines high. Other options are self explanatory: distance is the distance between the drop capital and rest of the text, and font is the font to be used. To tell ConTeXt to use drop capital at the beginning of a paragraph, \placeinitial has to be used before the paragraph. I only want the first paragraph of a chapter to have drop capitals. So, instepad of manually keying in \placeinitial at the beginning of each chapter, this macro can be plugged into the chapter headings macro.

Headings

Most novels just have a chapter heading; no sections, or subsections. Moreover, in the plain text files at Project Gutenberg, the chapters are already numbered, so I do not want ConTeXt to do anything fancy with the chapters. Just set up them in a nice font and create a bookmark for them (the DR can view pdf bookmarks). And, plug in the \placeinitial macro. All this can be done by

\setuphead[chapter]
          [alternative=middle,
                 style=\chapterfont,
                number=no,
                before={\blank[2*big,force]},
                 after={\blank[4*big]\placeinitial},
          ]

Again, most of the options are self explanatory: alternative=middle places the chapter title in the middle, style sets the font to be used (remember, \chapterfont is defined to be a synonym for Museo 700 at 32pt), number=no tells ConTeXt not to number the chapters, the before key sets the amount of blank space before the chapter title, after sets the blank space after the chapter title and also tells ConTeXt to use the \placeinitial macro on first letter of the next paragraph.

Next, I enable interaction and tell ConTeXt to place chapters as bookmarks.

\setupinteraction[state=start]
\placebookmarks[chapter]

ConTeXt MkII had a useful feature that was lost in the translation to MkIV: any section head command could be used in two ways. Either as a conventional TeX command where the argument was written in curly brackets, like

\chapter {An example of a chapter}

The contents of the chapter ....

or as a par delimited macro, where the argument ended with a \par (or equivalently, an empty line), like

\chapter
    An example of a chapter

The contents of the chapter ...

Since I want to make minimal changes to the text files from PG, the second option is really convinient. In most cases, the chapter heading in the text file is already followed by an empty line. So, all I need to do is add a line with \chapter above the chapter title. No need to worry about the curly brackets.

Unfortunately, this feature was removed from MkIV. But, I decided to resurrect it for this style.
The main idea is to add \dowithpargument in the right place in the heading code.

\unprotect
\def\dodohandlestructureheadnop[#1][#2]%
  {\dowithpargument{\dododohandlestructureheadnop[#1][#2]}}

\def\dododohandlestructureheadnop[#1][#2]#3%
  {\setfalse\currentstructureown
   \dohandlestructurehead{#1}{\c!reference=#2,\c!title={#3}}{}} % name ref nr title --
\protect

Interlude

Most novels have a title page, and sometimes a page with just some text in the middle of the page. I did not want to write fancy macros for such things as I want to keep the markup to the minimum. So, I decided to club all of them together using a single macro: \Interlude. This macro takes it argument and typesets it in the middle of the page using a big font (interludefont defined above). I use the same trick of using \dowithpargument so that I can just type \Interlude before the text and not worry about adding curly brackets.

\def\Interlude{\dowithpargument\doInterlude}

\def\doInterlude#1%
  {\page
    \null
    \vfill \vfill
   \startalignment[center]
     \let\\\crlf
     \interludefont
       \setupinterlinespace[big]
      #1
      \endgraf
  \stopalignment
   \vfill \vfill \vfill
   \page}

Style

I am almost done. The only other thing that I want is setting indentations and inter paragraph space.

\setupindenting   [medium,yes]
\setupwhitespace  [medium]

Thats it!

Adding markup to plain text file

My first project to typeset was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.
I downloaded the file 74.txt and just made the following changes to it:

0a1
> \starthiding
27a29
> \stophiding
28a31
> \usemodule[irex]
29a33
> \starttext
31,34c35,38
<
<                    THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
<                                 BY
<                             MARK TWAIN
---
> \Interlude
>                    THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER \\
>                                 BY              \\
>                             MARK TWAIN          \\
39c43,44
<
---
>
> \chapter
59,62c64
<                                                             THE AUTHOR.
<
< HARTFORD, 1876.
<
---
> \rightaligned{THE AUTHOR.}
63a66
> \leftaligned{HARTFORD, 1876.}
65d67
<                           T O M   S A W Y E R
66a69,70
> \Interlude
>                           T O M\ \ \   S A W Y E R
68a73
> \chapter
423a429
> \chapter
645a652
> \chapter
865a873
> \chapter
1233a1242
> \chapter
1408a1418
> \chapter
1919a1930
> \chapter
2182a2194
> \chapter
2375a2388
> \chapter
2652a2666
> \chapter
2933a2948
> \chapter
3110a3126
> \chapter
3294a3311
> \chapter
3584a3602
> \chapter
3796a3815
> \chapter
3965a3985
> \chapter
4313a4334
> \chapter
4435a4457
> \chapter
4787a4810
> \chapter
4894a4918
> \chapter
5078a5103
> \chapter
5321a5347
> \chapter
5428a5455
> \chapter
5697a5725
> \chapter
5743a5772
> \chapter
6072a6102
> \chapter
6424a6455
> \chapter
6547a6579
> \chapter
6681a6714
> \chapter
6953a6987
> \chapter
7264c7298
< "BECKY & TOM" had been found traced upon the rocky wall with
---
> "BECKY \& TOM" had been found traced upon the rocky wall with
7312a7347
> \chapter
7651a7687
> \chapter
7757a7794
> \chapter
8171a8209
> \chapter
8287a8326
> \chapter
8476a8516
> \chapter
8494c8534
<
---
> \starthiding
8531c8571,8572
<
---
> \stophiding
> \chapter
8858a8900,8901
>
> \stoptext

As you can see, I just hid a few parts of the legal notices, and added a \chapter command before each chapter. At one place I needed to change & to \&. For the titles, I needed to add explicit spaces, or explicit newlines. Very minimal change for a novel with around 9000 lines.

I saved the resultant file as 74.tex and compiled using

context 74.tex

I am not posting the tex file or the resultant PDF because I am not sure how the copyright stuff for Project Gutenberg works.
Here is how the first four pages of the result look like:

The input of these four pages looked like

\Interlude
                   THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER \\
                                BY              \\
                            MARK TWAIN          \\
                     (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

\chapter
                           P R E F A C E

MOST of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or
two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were
......................................

\Interlude
                          T O M\ \ \   S A W Y E R

\chapter
CHAPTER I

"TOM!"

No answer.

"TOM!"

No answer.
.................

As you can see, the markup is really minimal.

Summary

(yeah, this is a long post, so it deserves a summary)
In summary, the complete module is below. Save it as t-irex.tex. To use it, add

\usemodule[irex]

in the preamble.

\startmodule irex

%D Paper Size

\definepapersize[irexpaper][height=8in,width=6.25in]
\setuppapersize[irexpaper][irexpaper]

%D Layout

\setuplayout
  [location=middle,
   topspace=5mm,
   width=middle,
   height=middle,
   bottomspace=5mm,
   bottomdistace=0mm,
   bottom=0mm,
   backspace=5mm,
   cutspace=5mm,
   leftmargin=0mm,
   rightmargin=0mm,
   header=0mm,
   footer=0mm,
   headerdistance=0mm,
   footerdistance=0mm,
 ]

\setuppagenumbering[location=]

%D Fonts

\usetypescriptfile[type-exljbris]

\definetypeface [mainface] [rm] [serif] [fontin] [default] [features=default]
\definetypeface [mainface] [ss] [sans]  [fontin] [default] [features=default]
\setupbodyfont    [mainface,12pt]

\definefont [interludefont]   [name:museo700 at 28pt]
\definefont [chapterfont]     [name:museo700 at 32pt]

%D Drop Capital

\setupinitial
  [state=start,
    n=3,
    distance=.15pc,
     font=SerifBold,
  ]

%D Headings

\setuphead[chapter]
          [alternative=middle,
                 style=\chapterfont,
                number=no,
                before={\blank[2*big,force]},
                 after={\blank[4*big]\placeinitial},
          ]

\setupinteraction[state=start]
\placebookmarks[chapter]

\startmode[*mkiv]
\unprotect
\def\dodohandlestructureheadnop[#1][#2]%
  {\dowithpargument{\dododohandlestructureheadnop[#1][#2]}}

\def\dododohandlestructureheadnop[#1][#2]#3%
  {\setfalse\currentstructureown
   \dohandlestructurehead{#1}{\c!reference=#2,\c!title={#3}}{}} % name ref nr title --
\protect
\stopmode

%D Interlude

\def\Interlude{\dowithpargument\doInterlude}

\def\doInterlude#1%
  {\page
    \null
    \vfill \vfill
   \startalignment[center]
     \let\\\crlf
     \interludefont
       \setupinterlinespace[big]
      #1
      \endgraf
  \stopalignment
   \vfill \vfill \vfill
   \page}

%D Style

\setupindenting   [medium,yes]
\setupwhitespace  [medium]

\stopmodule

Thanks to @jane_l on Twitter!

See it here.

This is puzzling:

Apparently someone did not do careful proofreading of this site. Under Support this is what it says:

Q. What File Formats does nook support?

Nook supports all eBooks, eMagazines and eNewspapers sold at Barnes & Noble.com. You can also load many other files, including MP3s and PDFs, as well as ePub and PDB files.

You can also load images for wallpaper and screensavers using the JPG, GIF, PNG, or BMP formats.

And this must confirm it is using eReader format:

Q. Can I read my nook’s eBooks on other devices like my mobile phone?

Yes, you can read your eBooks across a wide range of devices in addition to your nook. All you need to do is download the free Barnes & Noble eReader app on your iPhone and iPod touch, BlackBerry® smartphone, or Windows® and Mac® laptops and desktop computers. And the eBooks purchased from BN.com will sync between your nook and other reading devices with the Barnes & Noble eReader app, so you always return to the last page you read.

Well, Barnes & Noble does the official unveiling at 4PM EDST today. All of you can go find out more then.

My advice stands.

I do start ups and turn arounds, both high-risk ventures. Some turn out well; others do not.  Everypoint — a turn around — did not.  Here’s why.

In the spring of 2008, I joined Everypoint as interim COO, after nearly 85% of the original VC investment had been spent by the previous two CEOs.  During my first weeks people at our target customers — mobile phone makers like RIM and Nokia — told us they did not believe that Allan MacKinnon could invent what he claimed; an entirely new platform for developing apps for mobile phones that (a) were stunningly beautiful, (b) consumed virtually no battery, and (c) ran on 92% of the phones in people’s pockets, i.e., “feature” phones.

“Write once, run anywhere” had been promised for years and never delivered.  It was clear the only way to prove we could do what others could not do was to

hunker down and get the product finished.

By the winter we had done just that; and we were then able to create stunning apps in a matter of days.  The doubters were now believers; they were impressed that Allan had done what no one else had been able to do.

But, though they were impressed, they no longer cared.

Why?  Because their world had dramatically changed with the overnight success of the Apple App Store.  The senior execs of our target customers had instructed their troops to come up with their own app store on their own “smart” phones.  Suddenly no one cared about feature phones anymore.

For example, Motorola was a natural to buy Everypoint; their fledgling mobile unit could have leap-frogged their competition by rapidly adding the Everypoint software onto their entire line of feature phones.  But their new CEO, Sanjay Jha, faced a huge cultural challenge and he rapidly decided on major surgery, basically killing their entire feature phone line, and “betting the farm” on the Android smart phone technology, packaged as Droid.

Yes, Everypoint delivered on the product promise we made.  But by the time we delivered, it was simply too late.  The feature phone market had passed us by.

Everypoint is working on selling its core underlying technology.  Who should buy it?  Any company that wants to compete with RIM / Blackberry’s hugely successful “push / synch” capabilities without violating RIM’s patents.

I regret Everypoint did not turn out as we had hoped.  I prefer turn around gigs that eventually have nice exits; like my first interim assignment, at Eink.  And I prefer start up gigs that eventually grow into industry-leading companies, like my second interim assignment at Ember.  But I met some great people on the Everypoint assignment; people I hope to work with again down the road.

Alex το πρώτο Android based ebook reader! | AndroidGreece.gr

Alex το πρώτο Android based ebook reader!
Διαθέτει οθόνη 6” E-Ink electronic paper display (EPD) στο πάνω μέρος και μια 3.5” έγχρωμη LCD οθόνη απο κάτω. Η συγκεκριμένη συσκευή είναι η πρώτη που διαθέτει full browser capability πάνω απο 3G, EVDO/CDMA και GSM αλλά όχι Wi-Fi.[next]

Does Plastic Logic have the “Kindle-killer?” Engadget just published some specs: 8.5 x 11 x .33 inches. But, according to Engadget, it supposedly uses the AT&T .3G “less bars” network…

Stiil, something like this could change the newspaper business.

Details are scarce, since the official launch won’t happen until January 7 at CES next year, but Plastic Logic is looking to crash into the “pro” segment of the e-reader market (currently mostly occupied by the Kindle DX) with its upcoming QUE proReader. The unit uses E Ink Vizplex tech in a shatterproof display the size of a regular piece of paper at 8.5 x 11-inches, and has 3G wireless capabilities courtesy of AT&T and a business-centric ebook store at QUEreader.com which will be powered by Barnes & Noble. There’s also a touchscreen interface, but it’s unclear if that covers the entire display, or is something more akin to the leaked photos we’ve seen of the Barnes & Noble reader. The device is “less than 1/3-inch thick,” and can handle PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents, including tools for “interacting with and managing the content,” which sounds beyond the scope of most e-readers on the market currently. We’ll have to wait and see how useful the interface really is, and how much damage (if any) that touchscreen sensor does to readability, but a bit of diversification in the ebook space sounds like a good thing on paper. Full PR is after the break.

by Paul Miller posted Oct 19th 2009 at 12:01AM

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• Barnes and Noble’s e-reader gets revealed (dvice.com)
• e-Book Echo – Barnes & Noble Begins Assault on Kindle (jkontherun.com)
• Barnes & Noble Reader Deets Appear (jkontherun.com)
• Barnes and Noble to Sell Ebooks For Plastic Logic’s Device (readersread.com)
• Kindle rival Plastic Logic partners with Olive Software (news.cnet.com)
• Spring Design Dual Screen e-Book Reader Announced – Yes, it Does Exist (jkontherun.com)

Oh my god. It’s getting like fleas hopping off a stray dog.

Plastic Logic Shows Off a (Quick) Look at its Kindle Killer: Meet the Que

Que Reader website

Spring Design Announces Dual Screen E-book Reader,
Hyperlinking Text with Multimedia

And tomorrow Barnes & Noble is due to announce its “Athena” eBook device, which somewhat resembles the Spring device scheme: eInk screen grafted to a minor color touchscreen.

All of these are due to be a passing fad. Don’t fall for them.

Want evidence this is a bubble? The price of the jetBook recently went from $299.00 to $199.00. If they could suddenly afford to cut the price by one-third, why didn’t they do it sooner to really compete? I have to wonder if they’re simply dumping their stock now in order to exit!

There are several important factors that work against buying all of these devices:

1) eInk is a rotten technology. It is. It’s slow and limited in functionality and no amount of software/hardware tinkering by Sony or anyone else can make that sow’s ear into a silk purse. eInk should be used for advertising, period.

2) Pixel Qi has a superior screen and it’s going to be here within a few months. How widespread this screen will be depends on whether or not Asus sees the wisdom in picking it up for its own eBook device. If Asus picks it up, it’s game over for all of the eInk pushers.

3) Apple will announce its mythical iTablet soon, perhaps as early as January. Yes, it will cost more — but so did the iPhone. Now the iPhone dominates. The iTablet will likewise take over the entire “print media” market, bending all of it to its will — just as the iPod did with music.

4) Digital books versus eBooks. Vook, Enhanced Editions, Disney, Electronic Arts and even the government have skipped eInk and are pioneering digital books, which are clearly superior to the lightly tarted-up text files ePub offers. ePub will be dumped — because Apple won’t settle for such an low-end abomination.

5) Consider your money to be for an investment instead of a purchase. This will put the matter in perspective. Do you want regret or satisfaction later? If you buy now, you’ll sow upcoming regret. If you wait, you will be satisfied beyond anything being offered today.

Save your money. Let all these companies spend theirs.

Prior eBook Bubble posts here:

eBook Notes For Friday October 16, 2009
eBook Notes For Thursday, October 15, 2009
Qisda (Formerly BenQ) To Do eBook Reader
Toshiba: We’ll Do An eBook Device Too!
Yet Another eBook Device: Oaxis
The eBook Bubble Coming To CES 2010
eBook Bubble Notes

Fecha: 18 de octubre de 2009

Aunque el eBook o libro electrónico ha sido una promesa casi permanente desde hace varios años, ha habido una serie de acontecimientos estos meses que precipitan a los lectores electrónicos como una de las estrellas para los regalos de Navidad este año.

De hecho desde el 15 de octubre está disponible en España el popular lector Kindle de Amazon por 279$ (versión Kindle 2 Internacional) aunque los libros en español tardarán en llegar unos meses. De todas formas Kindle no es el único lector disponible en nuestro país donde ya hay más de una docena de ellos de entre los cuales podemos destacar el Sony Reader, el Papyre o el iRex. El formato de los lectores es un punto actual de desencuentro porque no hay uno común y el PDF tradicional como se podría esperar no es el recurso (probablemente el no soportar word wrap para corte de líneas es un punto demasiado débil), aunque podemos hablar del formato ePub como el más asentado tras la decisión de Sony de soportarlo. Ninguna de las 4 versiones de Kindle soportan ePub y utilizan prioritariamente el forma AZW creado en exclusiva por Amazon para la descarga de sus libros a través de su Whispernet a 10$ la unidad.

Seguramente muchos de los que lean este artículo nunca han tenido un ebook en sus manos (el 85% de los internautas nunca lo ha utilizado) y se pueden preguntar sobre las ventajas del ebook. Sin duda la principal ventaja del eBook es que no cansa la vista ya que la tecnología eInk (por tinta electrónica) que utilizan los eBooks no emite luz sino que la refleja aunque por contra a día de hoy tengan una resolución baja si lo comparamos con las astronómicas resoluciones de los monitores convencionales. Pero la sensación de lectura es realmente cómoda y no se echa de menos el papel como normalmente ocurre cuando se va a leer un documento en un ordenador. Los eBooks son cómodos, transportables, su consumo es realmente bajo y su peso no supera los 200 gramos en casi todos los casos (un ordenador portátil siempre estará por encima del kilogramo de peso).

Lo único que podemos echar en falta a día de hoy es la disponibilidad de títulos en castellano (sólo Amazon tiene 300.000 en inglés) que es de esperar que se vaya arreglando poco a poco con la venta de estos dispositivos y con las iniciativas que ya se van visulumbrando entre las que destaca sin duda el proyecto 36L que agrupará a la mayoría de las editoriales españolas para primeros de diciembre y que distribuirá libros (no será tienda ni editorial) a precios muy competitivos.

En poco tiempo el eBook será un elemento tan común como lo son los ordenadores hoy en día y los libros en papel no serán más que una reliquia del pasado que sólo se utilizarán con ediciones muy concretas. Tal vez a los lectores les falte incorporar algunos elementos más de movilidad que los hagan realmente populares como cámara, dispositivos GPS, funcionalidades básicas de edición de textos e incorporar servicios de información asociados a los periódicos o incluso la radio y la televisión, aunque todo llegará porque son una apuesta segura.

German Parliament to Bulk Purchase Hanvon E-book Reader

Hanvon also welcomed some special guests on the opening day — staff from the German Parliament. They were satisfied with the quality and functionality of the Hanvon e-book reader after successful demonstrations. They plan to purchase Hanvon e-book readers in bulk for their MPs. According to Hanvon staff, the German Parliament is going to invite Hanvon sales and R&D staff to parliament to give them a detailed introduction to the e-book reader. The cooperation will be fulfilled later.

I wonder if they will actually purchase them?

Inflate that eBook Bubble, baby:

Netronix preps Cookie, Grace and Swiftie ebook readers

A Taiwanese company called Netronix has a few new ebook reader models coming that might just appeal to those that want more than the ablility to read books on their ebook reader.

Really, save your money. The way things are going you’ll be able to buy two eInk devices for US$99.00 this time next year — as failed overstock on eBay.

Beginning Ruby Author: Publisher Wouldn’t Let Me Give eBook For Free… So Pirate My Book (Sorta)

… he begged his publisher, Apress, to offer the ebook version for free, believing (strongly) that it would promote sales of the paper book. He even notes that the original version’s ebook barely had noteworthy sales, so it seemed reasonable to offer up the ebook for free to drive more attention. No dice. Even though Apress has done that with other similar titles, it wouldn’t agree. So, his response is to tell people that he doesn’t mind if you download unauthorized copies of the book…

The Power of Perseverance

Although I got many requests for full reads and lots of kudos on my writing style and the story, every interested agent said, “This is beautiful, but I can’t sell it.”

Go read.

And now some Android:

Schmidt: “Android Adoption Is About To Explode”

“Android adoption is about to explode,” declared CEO Eric Schmidt, explaining that all the “necessary conditions” are set for growth: There are now 12 Android phones out there (most recently the Motorola Cliq) across 32 carriers in 26 countries.

Android seems to be gaining traction while the Palm Pre lacks recent excitement (at least in the US: it’s just been released in the UK).

Archos 5 Internet Tablet: It Doesn’t Suck!

After reading and Watching Chippy at UMPCPortal.com review this device, I immediately wanted it. I’m on AT&T in the USA, and so far, there are no Android phones available on my carrier. Here was a device with a nice screen for viewing videos, a nice size flash drive for loading on music, plus a web browsing tablet and an ebook reader. I was hooked.

This is worth a read. It had several bits of info I’d not seen elsewhere.

My source at Archos provides more information on the new stable Firmware

According to forum reports (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), the new firmware update 1.1.01 that Archos released this past monday (changelog) fixes a lot of the bugs that were present in the early firmwares. Those early firmware bugs probably also caused that temporary freeze of orders on Amazon has been reported by some blogs since my guess is early users complained to Amazon about the bugs, but those should now be mostly fixed.

I’ll need at least one more firmware update to be kicked out before seriously thinking of putting out money for this. I need to see that Archos is really committed to this device.

PHOTOS: Acer Liquid A1 — go look. They show it in delicious red. This could be the best Android phone yet. I’d really like to see this in person.

Gizmodo broke the news about the new Barnes & Noble eBook reading device. You can go there for what they have. Then come back for what I have to say.

All ready?

Barnes & Noble owns some very weird trademarks. See this post. Could this be called Mightywords? Quamut? Qwiki? Gizmodo said it has a name they’d rather not see Barnes & Noble use.

Well, it’s a monstrosity anyway, isn’t it?

eInk screen at top, multitouch color capacitance screen at bottom.

But I think Sony is gnashing its teeth right now.

And Amazon should start being very afraid too.

This is not the first eBook device to mix separate screens, by the way. Jinke did it in a few Hanlin models:

Everyone saw that as a kludge.

Barnes & Noble has gone one step further.

I’m not sure I exactly understand what they’re doing, though.

Look at these two pictures (all photos from Gizmodo, by the way). They seem to contradict one another:

This illustration seems to show the presence of a web browser.

This one shows a line of color book covers.

At first, I thought the color area would be used for actual book ordering. It’d make sense to have a fast custom-designed web presence in that area. Looking at it some more, it could suggest that is acting as a CoverFlow area, getting around the slowness of eInk to jump to a book. (We can clearly see James Patterson’s The 8th Confession and the novel Breaking Dawn among those selections.)

This next photo contradicts a prior report about the FCC filing:

It looks nothing like the drawing in the FCC filing:

Click = big

Now, the thing that’s very telling is this photo:

That’s the opening to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead:

HOWARD ROARK laughed.

He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone–flowing. The stone had the stillness of one brief moment in battle when thrust meets thrust and the currents are held in a pause more dynamic than motion. The stone glowed, wet with sunrays.

Why is it interesting?

Because Barnes & Noble does not sell this book in ePub format!

At Barnes & Noble (which uses eReader format — and weirdly offers it with two prices):

Click = big

And here it is at Fictionwise, which is owned by Barnes & Noble:

Click = big

And it’s not like The Fountainhead isn’t available in ePub. It is! Here’s Books on Board:

Click = big

So let me tell you what this device is going to do:

It will read DRMed eReader format only. It will be able to do ePubs from Google Books because those are DRM-free.

This means no loans from public libraries. And no eBook buying of DRMed material from anyone other than Barnes & Noble’s (and perhaps Fictionwise/eReader) store!

So we will officially have a battle of three — count them! — formats:

Kindle from Amazon
ePub from Adobe/Sony, many other stores and public libraries
eReader from Barnes & Noble

And before you dismiss Barnes & Noble: remember that like Amazon it also offers an iPhone eBook app. In fact, it offers eBook reading apps for more than just the iPhone. It does:

Blackberry
PC desktop
Mac desktop

Sony is only on two of those: the desktops.

Amazon Kindle is also on only two one: iPhone and Blackberry. [Correction: I mistook an Amazon bookstore app for Blackberry for an actual Kindle eBook reading app.]

Barnes & Noble has the clear advantage.

And when the Apple iTablet comes out — Barnes & Noble will be there with its iPhone app, all ready to clean up.

I’ve already recommended to someone who went from using eReader to buying a Kindle to dump the Kindle.

And Sony should cancel that Daily Edition right now. It’s dead in the water.

If you have a library of eBooks in eReader format, your wait for a dedicated eInk device is over.

Would I buy this? No. Someone asked me to format-shift some eReader books for them earlier this year, to protect their investment. It was an ugly process that wouldn’t come out anywhere near satisfactory no matter how much I banged on the files. It’s not a file format I have any fondness for. Besides that, I’m against eInk.

But I think this is going to be hugely popular, despite my own experience and prejudice.

Suddenly, the eBook world has shifted.

And Barnes & Noble could be the surprise dark horse winner.

So it looks like some of the first pictures of Barnes & Nobles infamous E-Reader have surfaced. From the looks of it we’ve got an interesting announcment to look forward to next week when this is rumored to be announced officially. Accoriding to the post from Gizmodo the only other information we have at the time is that it has a “freaking terrible” name.<img class="alignnone" title="Barnes & Nobles E-Reader"
[via Gizmodo]

Women, Gays Apparently Ruining Sci-Fi For the Rest of Us
– which critiques this post:

The War on Science Fiction and Marvin Minsky
– which actually does raise one interesting point here:

What has happened is that science fiction on television has for the most part become indistinguishable from most other television shows which are written for women filled with moronic relationship drama.

Lifetime in Space!

Twitter’s unlawful Newsom contribution

Does being on Twitter’s SUL constitute a non-monetary contribution? YES.

Twitter is providing this free service to Gavin Newsom, a declared candidate for governor. Newsom uses Twitter to send his Twitter followers links to his campaign website and to campaign news stories promoting his candidacy.

It would be personally very satisfying to me to see the children who (mis-)run Twitter meet the real world of real-life consequences. I hope they get a big fat fine for this.

Remixing the Book

We’ve always had abridged versions and “selected-essays-from” and audio versions and made-for-TV adaptations. But in a more open rights schema (say, Creative Commons licensing), there is something thrilling about the idea that dedicated readers – the most engaged of all stakeholders, beyond the original writer & editor – might legitimately improve texts for certain audiences.

I’m both intrigued and horrified by this idea. Several weeks ago I was mulling over how I really hate fantasy novels — I just can’t get into them with their bizarre names and use of magic or other such things. Beneath that veneer, however, could lurk an actually good story. It crossed my mind that such writers might want to consider remixing their own works for fantasy-averse people like me. Take away the weird names and the other things I find too alienating and set it in the present day. The King becomes, say, a CEO or just The Boss, the magic becomes a lawsuit or some other real-world device … and now not only does the writer quickly have a second book out there, but one that might even attract me and others like me.

Subject: Our Marketing Plan

The vi-spi is cross-platform, but don’t worry if you think you’re not on Facebook, because you actually are. Jason enrolled you when you signed the contract last year, or at least he was supposed to, and he told Sarah Williams he did before he had to retire and Sarah left for nursing school. You currently have 421 Friends, 17 Pending Requests, 8 Pokes, 5 Winks, and 3 Proposals of “Marriage.”

Oh. My. God.

I’ve attached a list of celebrities we think would be great to blurb your book, so find out their numbers and call them up.

Oh. My. God.

Once we get back from Frankfurt, we’d like to see you on morning talk shows like the “Today” show and “The View,” so please get yourself booked on them and keep us “in the loop.”

Oh. My. God.

F.Y.I., we’ve migrated all the photos out of your book and onto the Web page. It makes the hard-copy version cheaper to produce (fewer pages; no photos) and the e-text more “Kindle-friendly.”

Oh. My. God.

Why I Think E-Ink Readers Are Dumb

BINGO!:

I fell in love with the Kindle last year, but I think you’re a fool to buy one now—let alone any of its lesser competitors—when so much new technology is about to hit over the next six months.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Exactly! One such better device might already exist.

I’m still investigating it; more posts to come.

Sony’s E-Reader: A Nice Device at the Wrong Price

Several of the test-drivers pointed out that $199 is close enough to the price of a cheap netbook or an iPod touch and that it made more sense to buy either of those devices rather than a reader that can only do one thing.

Bingo! See above too.

”OMG! Exactly is like a newsstand in the palm of your hand. A journalist dream!”

Exactly is literally like having a newsstand in the palm of your hand. It is amazing. I can’t put it down!

– this is a prime example of how touch will change everything.

It’s a Video! It’s a Book! It’s a Vook

A key part of Vook’s appeal is that, unlike a conventional e-reader, users do not purchase a separate device for accessing their vooks. Instead, they choose between a web browser-based platform or an iPhone/iPod touch mobile application. While Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps believes that the web-based option will have limited appeal due to its lack of portability, she points out that “More people have iPhones than Sony Readers and Amazon Kindles put together.”

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Take a look, it’s in a Vook: Will the Reading Rainbow look the same in a hybrid book?

Sound samples in a book on music theory, for example, could help students in the same way that color printing improves the quality of books on art history.

What about texts for economics? Any text that requires charts — and more importantly, charts of time series?

Sarah Vowell: A Litquake Author-on-Author Interview

JB: Will we still be reading books in 30 years?

SV: I hope so, but I have my doubts. But there’s this new thing called a “vook” — an electronic book with embedded videos. This is probably one of the landmarks on the path to the robots taking over the world.

Vook Blog: WE’RE ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE ITUNES APP STORE!

But they didn’t do it right, so here’s my version of the screensnap done pimp-properly:

Click = big

Creative Profiles – iPhone Developers – The real price of iPhone piracy

This month, pirated downloads have outpaced paid downloads 3:1 and more than 800 pirated copies have phoned home in the last week.

If you can afford an iPod Touch or iPhone, you can damned well afford to pay for software. Do it!

Building on iPhone App Success, Dictionary.com Launches Blackberry App

Dictionary.com launched their iPhone app six months ago and over 3 million people have downloaded the app. Now, they’re branching out with a mobile app for Blackberry phones.