Chamber Four

Wow, been a while. Here’s a healthy collection of links to make up for the last few weeks. And if you’re sick of my style, fear not: Nico is back and will be helming next week’s edition.

• Good news for Amazon and bad news for everyone who wanted one in 2009, the Nook has apparently been delayed until January 11. Sony’s having trouble getting stuff out the door for the holidays too. The second ereaders started running Android we all saw it coming: the rise of the clones… and clones… and clones… and clones. The Nook and the Alex showed a fair bit of innovation this (next) year, so lets hope other companies keep up with experimentation and competition–or at least something not-white.
• Amazon added pdf support to their Kindle, and there might be a large scale software upgrade on the way. After surely catching a lot of flak for not, Barnes & Noble will be accepting gift cards for ebook purchases. Here’s a creative use of the iPhone for interactive books. Step aside Tom Waits, ecomics are big in Japan; Sony even stuck an ecomic reader on their PSP firmware. Smashwords bought indie publisher BookHabit and formed an alliance (oooh) with Shortcovers. And…this week in stupid names: iMagz.
• Three years from now in London: will the Cloud be cool or stupid? Right now in NY: I think these hamster pictures are hilarious. Dads in Short Shorts is currently my favorite blog.
• For videos, Pigeon Impossible is a really cool animation (which I won’t embed here because it’s better when bigger). Also, check out this cool, literary video:

Introducing our new webcomic Books I Would Read… If I Could Read by Aaron Block. Check back regularly for more issues, or (soon) read more by clicking The Back Page on the navigation bar. If you have a hard time reading the web post version, you can download the .pdf below.

This week: A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway.

Downloadable PDF (click to view PDF in your browser, right-click and “Save as…” or the equivalent to save it)

While Nico’s on hiatus, we’ll try our best to keep up with the Wednesday links. We’ve been having some techinical troubles so far this week, so I’ve kept this one short (since I was worried I might not even be able to post it). Bear with us while we work out the kinks: we can’t all be all-star internet scourers of Nico’s caliber.

I’m not very versed in comics. I never really read them when I was a kid, and though I’ll occasionally read a graphic novel, serialized comics just aren’t something I can get into, mostly because I don’t know where to start. So maybe it’s no surprise that ClickWheel Comics app has a whole bunch of titles I’ve never heard of before, and a couple of which I have. It’s a free download that gets right down to business: a menu offers the available series and then you select the issue within each header, then the format (or more to the point the provider) and you’re off. …
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A French TV Book, whatever that is, circa 1932.

In his post the other day, my esteemed colleague mentioned his preference for watching televisions shows online with sites such as Hulu. He mentioned the “brute force” distributor control that is slowing things down.  He said more, and I agree with most of what he said.  I won’t repeat it; you can read it on your own.  I want to chime in though (be forewarned, I can ramble like the best of them).

I derive a geeky pleasure from reading tech blogs like DVICE, and reading about future technologies being worked out by company labs now.  Sometimes, though, the technology we are aching for as consumers is actually a few years old.  Our economy and our society’s technological gumption both rely heavily on competition.  When companies are locked in battle, fighting for market share by creating the best product, the consumer and technology both benefit.  When their hearts aren’t really in it (as I would assert is the case going on with Sony and Amazon with their readers), the consumer and technology suffer.

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