Tag: E-BOOK

As the iPad inches ever closer to its official release, few people are more excited than magazine publishers, who, after years of watching their revenue evaporate under the blazing sun of the Internet, now hope to finally be able to charge users for enhanced digital content. But, as tricked-out as the e-reader magazines of the future may be, the simple significance of an enticing cover will ...

Back in January, Amazon tried to strong arm Macmillan into abiding by its e-book pricing rules. When the publisher demanded the ability to set its own prices in the Kindle store, Amazon simply yanked its books off the virtual shelves. Macmillan held fast to its demands, however, and, in the face of an impending challenge from the iPad, Amazon relented. Now, other publishers have begun ...

As the menacing, iPad-shaped shadow looms on the horizon, Amazon's Kindle has apparently braced itself for the oncoming storm by expanding its smartphone wingspan. After having already introduced Kindle e-reader apps for the iPod Touch and iPhone, Amazon has now expanded the software to the BlackBerry, as well. According to Amazon, the new app will be compatible with BlackBerry's Bold 9000 and ...

Like it or not, e-readers are here to stay. For instance, recall that one day near the end of 2009 when Amazon sold more digital books for the Kindle than it did physical books. But, as more and more folks turn to the screen instead of bound paper, some questions are being asked. For instance, is using an e-reader bad for your eyes? According to The New York Times, there's no cut and dry ...

While the Kindle has been met with nearly universal (and, at least in this writer's opinion, undeserved) praise, its most visible competitor -- the Nook -- has been dogged by issues including a generally lukewarm reception and an almost complete lack of availability. Well, Barnes and Noble has finally ramped up production and removed the "out of stock" label on its Web site. Just in time for ...

With Google's recent announcement that it will be hopping into the e-book market, the door's been flung wide open for e-readers that might not have otherwise had a chance against Amazon's dominant Kindle. Among those contenders is a forthcoming device developed by Plastic Logic. Set to debut at January's CES, the Que was briefly detailed in a statement released today by Plastic Logic. Aimed ...

Like it or not, the face of the Church is rapidly changing. U2-esque guitars are increasingly taking the place of organs, praise songs the place of hymns and gospel favorites, and the New International Version (NIV) the place of the old King James. Some churches are even tweeting about it all. In keeping with those changes, one transatlantic pair of entrepreneurial believers is carrying the ...

Google is finally trying to make some money from its controversial Google Books project. Sometime early next year, Google Editions will be launched as an outlet for e-books, thanks to deals the search giant has struck with publishers. Right out of the box, Google will offer some 500,000 books, both direct to consumers and though retail channels like Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. Of course, ...

Aspiring authors, take note. In response to the popularity of Amazon's Kindle and the Sony Reader, a journalism professor from Chicago's Columbia College decided that books on the Net might help out the little guy, too. "Thankfully, the death of print meant discovering something much more valuable: mobile publishing," Professor Dan Sinker wrote on his site, CellStories.net. Sinker (who also, ...

We've give the e-book trend plenty of coverage, and, as we've stated before, there are still major hurdles in front of the emerging format. One of the highest is the absence of many notable books and authors from the e-book market, according to USA Today. There are many reasons why some books haven't yet made their ways to the Sony Reader or Kindle e-book devices -- contract negotiations, low ...

In order for e-books to really take off it's going to take more than just the Kindle. To reach a breaking point, it's going to take social networking (and probably file sharing) for people to accept reading literature in electronic form. While we've seen a few services aimed at connecting book lovers, such as Shelfari and Goodreads, we haven't yet seen a book site that has so fully embraced a ...

2009 marks the 200th birthday of Louis Braille, the ingenious inventor of the eponymously named letter code that enables the blind to read by touch. Aside from Samsung's award-winning Touch Messenger (which featured Braille touch pads for text-messaging), the system has remained largely ignored by evolving technology -- until now. Just in time for the bicentennial birthday celebration, a team of ...

You know how it is: Amazon refreshes the Kindle, makes some upgrades, and everybody's happy. Almost. It seems that a small but vocal minority is really, really not into the way that fonts are rendered on the new device. For real. Y'see, the newest iteration of the e-reader sports font smoothing algorithms and sixteen levels of gray (as opposed to four levels on the original). For sure, these ...

Everyone else is doing it, so why not Barnes & Noble too? That's the talk following last week's CTIA at least, where mysterious "insiders" were reportedly abuzz about the possibility of a B&N e-book reader that, like the Kindle, would supposedly be tied to a cellular carrier for some Whispernet-like connectivity. According to one of those insiders, Barnes & Noble had apparently first ...

If you've ever thought that the iPhone might be a lawsuit magnet, we now have even more proof for you. It looks like a company called MONEC Holding Ltd., based in Berne, is suing Apple for patent infringement, unfair trade practices, monopolization, and tortious interference (whatever that means). MONEC's January, 2002 patent (No. 6,335,678 -- titled "Electronic device, preferably an electronic ...