Basically, nobody wants to shut up about the new Apple tablet (supposedlydubbed the iPad–consider it nominated for this week’s dumbest new ereader name award). It’s slated to be revealed today, so I’m not going to bother parsing out the rumors. This one bit about pricing strategies and the coming battle between Apple and Amazon is interesting though. Not sure where B&N is in all this. I guess they probably shouldn’t have f-ed up the Nook launch so badly. Perhaps they are waiting for a boost from Apple? If you’re foolishish enough to get a first generation iPad (thus ignoring Apple’s track record of vastly superior second gen devices), here are some other fun uses for it.
Amazon has quietly laxed their DRM policies. So quietly that hardly anyone has noticed. In what could be an enourmous shift, Apple will allow iTunes users to store libraries in the cloud, rather than their harddrives (hopefully it doesn’t require a .Mac subscription). Besides fighting with China, Google is also in a tiff with its old buddy Apple. This may lead to Apple dumping Google integration from their devices and adopting Bing, which is of course owned by–Mac geeks are fainting left and right over this, I’m sure–the evil Microsoft. Regardless of Google’s early success (maybe) with Android’s apps, Apple is still the undisputed ruler of App-land.
It’s kinda old news, but apparently colleges are being sued for using ereaders in classrooms because blind students can’t use them. How using a braille edition to supplement a Kindle (which reads books–poorly–out loud) is less fair than if the other students use deadtree, I do not understand. It won’t help the blind, but if you’ve no backlight on your ereader and can’t figure out how to turn on your lamp, try this dongle. This Boogie Board doodle toy isn’t an ereader (and probably isn’t much use to anyone not a basketball coach) but it does seem pretty cool, and uses no power at that.
We’ll be posting on Friday about some of the many changes we have planned for our second year. There’s a lot of good stuff planned, and we’ll be getting bigger and better as time goes on. Check back Friday for that.
Here’s our last links update of the decade. First though, we’ve updated our eReader Comparison page as well as our Best Ways to Get eBooks, so check them out. Both will be seeing quite a few more updates in the coming weeks and months as much is happening with ereaders and ebook sellers. In fact, we’ve got a lot of changes planned for C4 in the near future as well; we’ll be posting on many of them at some point in January. Also, be sure to check out our Best Books of 2009 series if you haven’t already. We’ll be continuing the series through January.
Before we get to the links, a little site promotion: I was Christmas shopping for books today and I wanted to get a mystery novel for my grandfather. Where did I look? Why the C4 Book Reviews section of course. Give it another peek, maybe you’ll find some gift ideas of your own. Also, check out our Best Books of 2009 feature, which will be updated Mondays through January. Well, enough of that…
I walked by a SonyStyle store the other day, and I have to admit they’re doing a good job of pushing their Readers in brick and mortar stores (I’ve also seen them in Best Buy stores amongst others as well). And while they have a decent selection of models, I’m not sure these themed Readers are quite necessary. In other ereader news, the Aiptek Storybook inColor is pretty neato looking, though I still don’t think an LCD ereader is ever going to really fly. The Aluratek Libre has a nice pricetag, but the same LCD concern still applies. (Before you poo-poo me, electronic ink–in our opinion–really does make a huge difference. Here are my initial impressions of the tech from last spring.)
The COOL-ER is getting a hardware upgrade, making it marginally cool-er in the eyes of the other wallflower ereaders. And there’s lots of Applet Tablet rumors floating around this week, but I’m not going to link to any, beacause I’m sick of them. We’ll discuss an Apple Tablet and its secondary ereader abilites only when (if) it actually gets announced. Here’s a review of the Sungale Cyberus, which also doesn’t look all that impressive.
So after taking last Wednesday off for haiku, we’re back with two weeks’ worth of scuttlebutt:
Creative (maker of the iPod’s poor, homely, and ignored cousin) threw their hat into the ring with the Zii Mediabook. I’d like to go on the record as saying this is an even dumber name than Nook or Alex. Speaking of, the makers of the Alex have sued Barnes & Noble over the Nook’s dual screen design. Also with dual screens, I can’t decide if the Entourage Edge looks cool or crappy, but I’m leaning toward crappy.
The inexpensive Jetbook Lite is available now (thanks to reader Ben for the heads up). And on the horizon, ASUS wants in the ereader game after all their netbook success. And so does Bridgestone, after all their tire success? It’s bendy, which is cool. Apparently there are some snazzy new E-Ink processor chips in the pipeline, so hopefully we’ll seem even more creative new tech soon. Lots of ereader hype this selling season, might we finally be at the verge of the Great eReader Adoption?
Outside of ebooks, a new Beatles b-side has been discovered, as has the creepiest thing I’ve seen–except for maybe Wii Baby and Me–in a long while: a ventriloquist choir singing “Yesterday.”
and finally, I’m mesmerized by this Carl Sagan auto-tune video:
Sorry for the lapse last week. Got a little catch-up to do this week now.
A bunch of ereader announcements in the news lately. Asus announced an upcoming clamshelling tablet PC type thing (though they’re calling it a full color ereader, it clearly won’t utilize E-Ink if they plan to hit their $164 goal). “Kindle-killer” is once again being bandied about by a mysterious device, this time it’s the iriver. Slate offered up a few suggestions for Kindle-killing of their own. Apple won’t be tossing their hat in the ring anytime soon, but Time Inc. might be. From a little while back, ad firm Dentsu released a cool magazine app for the iPhone called magastore. Hopefully something similar gets popularized stateside, we know Hearst is keen.
(You might have seen the outline for this post pop up in your RSS feed last week; my apologies for the oversight.)
A couple of weeks ago, I summarized new and recent ereader additions. This week, let’s look forward at some upcoming devices. If there’s a trend emerging, it’s that touchscreens and 3G access are quickly becoming standard features, which is great news.
A quick note before we start: take the information here with a grain of salt. I’ve tried to cite my sources when possible, but even cited information should be considered rumor until these devices actually come out.
The Plastic Logic Whatzamawhoozit
Even though it doesn’t have a name yet, this is the device I’m most excited about. Even the earliest videos of the PL in action (this one was posted a year ago) showed a slick touchscreen with no contrast compromise and a sleek form factor.
Barnes & Noble hopped on as the primary book provider, and AT&T’s involvement combined with the large screen suggests newspapers will be a big target.
It’ll be crucial to see exactly how the touchscreen works. Is it fast? Is the contrast still as good as it looks? Can you write freehand on it? If this video features the same screen used in the ereader, it looks pretty much unbreakable, so that’s nice.
The other big question is price. Some have reported that the PL will be competitive with the Kindle, which we’re hoping means a $300 price point. Realistically, I think that’s a little too good to be true. I’m guessing closer to $500, but I’d be happy to be wrong. I also heard a rumor about a smaller size somewhere, but I can’t find any evidence of that now.
Last, B&N is reportedly developing “their own flavor” of ePub for the PL. I’m not sure why. Incompatibility kind of defeats the purpose of using a universal file format.
I’ve been listening to a lot of audiobooks recently. They oprovide a great way to multitask (at work, the gym, driving) while plowing through some new books. Paying hardcover prices on iTunes for audiobooks seems a little rediculous to me, especially seeeing how more or less useless audiobooks are once you’ve finished them. That is, if its not a book you plan to re-enjoy soon, there’s little it can do besides waste space. Revisiting sections and searching for quotesor passages is more cumbersome than it is worth.
So I though about getting into a subscription based audiobook program to keep up with newer books, but then I decided just to start borrowing audiobooks from the library and ripping them to my computer. In the meantime, I began getting audiobooks from a site called LibriVox, where volunteers upload recordings of readings from public domain books. I was immediately (and still am a little) astounded at the high quality of the readings and recordings. They are pleasant and professional. They are also free. … Continue reading »
Shortcovers is a sort of cross between the Kindle app and Wattpad. Like Wattpad everything is online, customization and formatting are limited, and a degree of user conectivity has been implemented (via sharing chapters via email or twitter, and posting comments). That it is web-based is really the main letdown, as it was with Wattpad, since users are left with little security in their purchases (there’s very little free content) because they are unable to download them, and need web access to read them. And if Shortcovers goes belly up, poof goes your library. … Continue reading »
In what could be terrible news, Lexcycle, the producer of the best (by far) reader app for the iPhone, Stanza, has announced their sale to Amazon. If Amazon uses this move to try and strangle the market and push their proprietary Kindle format on mobile devices, this could be very bad news indeed and indicate a big step backwards for mobile device ereading. If however, they stick to their claim to leave Stanza unchanged, or better yet, they open Stanza to the Kindle format without locking out other formats, it could be a step forward. We’ll have to wait and see, but don’t hold your breath.
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REVIEW: Hell;
from May 26th, 2009--
"I’ll come right out with it: the language of this novel is great, phenomenal in fact. The book is saturated in detail, but not in the soggy paper towel sort of way."
The Plastic Logic Whatzamawhoozit
I’ve been listening to a lot of audiobooks recently. They oprovide a great way to multitask (at work, the gym, driving) while plowing through some new books. Paying hardcover prices on iTunes for audiobooks seems a little rediculous to me, especially seeeing how more or less useless audiobooks are once you’ve finished them. That is, if its not a book you plan to re-enjoy soon, there’s little it can do besides waste space. Revisiting sections and searching for quotesor passages is more cumbersome than it is worth.
Shortcovers is a sort of cross between the 
