Archive for the ‘Multimedia eBooks’ Category
Random House Children’s Books and Smashing Ideas partnership releases its first children’s book app for iPad 3 comments
Random House Children’s Books and digital media 
agency Smashing Ideas are about to launch their first book-based children’s app for the iPad. Wild About Books for iPad will be released tomorrow, December 16, 2010.
Based on the bestselling children’s picture book by Judy Sierra and illustrated by Marc Brown, Wild About Books for iPad will initially be available at a reduced price of $4.99. The regular price will be $7.99.
The award-winning picture book now roars to life in 16 animated and interactive scenes where kids can tilt, swipe, and tap their way through Judy Sierra’s rollicking rhymed story. Readers can choose to listen or turn off the narration and read at their own pace. Whether they’re making monkeys flip, beach balls bounce, animals stampede, or bears burp, parents and kids are sure to laugh, learn, and get wild about books together.
"Wild About Books for iPad capitalizes on a groundbreaking 3-D interpretation," said Ben Roberts, Director, ePublishing, Smashing Ideas and co-creator of Alice for the iPad. "Marc Brown’s gorgeous illustrations are linked to iPad movements so that each page becomes a scene in a 3-D world that you can twist and turn to intimately navigate and explore."
Wild About Books, Judy Sierra’s funny animal tale about librarian Molly McGrew, who introduces animals to reading, was published in 2004 to critical acclaim, winning the coveted E. B. White Read Aloud Award. With playful art paintings by Arthur creator Marc Brown, it was also named an ALA Notable Children’s Book and a Book Sense Book of the Year. Having sold nearly 500,000 copies to date, it has found a permanent place on bookshelves in libraries and homes across the country.
Wild About Books will be available from Dec. 16.
UPDATE: Wild About Books was delayed but is now available at iTunes.
The iPad version looks like a pop-up book. I love pop-up books — they make everything so easy for me to understand!
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eReader & Tablet News – 12/1/2010 no comments
Catching up here with some of the happenings of the past few days.
Netronix is expecting to ship 3-5 million ereaders in 2011, according to the company’s chairman Arthur Lu (via DigiTimes). Lu also says that, due to cheaper SOCs and expected lower epaper costs in the second quarter of 2011, he expects ereader retail prices to continue falling to below $50 by the end of 2011.
Netronix is planning on selling a line of ereaders under its own brand name and will also open GreenBook — a Taiwan-based ebookstore.
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Google Editions was originally due to launch this past summer. According to the WSJ, Google is finally expected to launch its ebook store sometime this month.
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The Business Journals announced today a partnership with Handmark to launch mobile applications for their 42 Business Journal website properties. The new apps will be available for iDevices, Blackberry (remember them?) and Android. The St. Louis Business Journal is the first to launch.
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The Pearl e-ink display, which is used in the Kindle 3, Kindle DXG and new Sony ereaders, has received a Popular Science Best of What’s New award for 2010.
In July, E Ink introduced E Ink Pearl, a new electrophoretic display platform that raises the bar for eBook displays with crisp images and text that looks like ink on paper for improved readability, even outdoors in sunlight. Found in the newest eBook devices, E Ink Pearl has the whitest reflective display in the industry with a contrast ratio approximately 50 percent greater than previous products. E Ink Pearl is the lowest power display on the market for eBook applications and is also ideally suited for commercial and industrial applications. Pearl is completely image persistent, requiring no power to hold an image or page of text, and it is also compatible with the latest touch technology solutions. ePaper displays are also a sustainable and socially responsible alternative to paper.
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Yesterday Barnes & Noble reported financial results for its fiscal 2011 second quarter. Sales at B&N’s brick and mortar stores continue to decline, while online sales were up 59 percent. B&N has been expanding their Toys and Games department, and sales were up by 42 percent for that section. B&N lost $0.22 per share in the quarter, which was at the low end of forecasts. The stock fell yesterday, but seems to have recovered most of the loss.
Barnes & Noble says that sales of the Nook Color ereader have exceeded expectations. The company also claims to now hold 20 percent of the ebook market.
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Richard Branson and his company Virgin have launched Project — the first iPad only magazine. The new monthly multimedia magazine will be priced at $2.99 and will be focused on international culture and style. Now available at iTunes.
Rupert Murdoch is also said to be working on a new daily newspaper that will be iPad specific, at least initially.
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I’ve written before about The Mongoliad project by Neal Stephenson and friends. You can now subscribe to The Mongoliad serialized novel on the iPhone and iPad. If you have not read Neal Stephenson yet, you should. His book The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer features one of the coolest ereaders ever.
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ChangeWave has released the results of another study of the ereader market. One of the findings of the study is that the relative percentage of ereader owners who own iPads is growing vs the number of those who own Kindles. As of November, 47 percent owned Kindle ereaders (down from 62 percent in August) vs 32 percent who own iPads (up from 16 percent in August). The Sony ereaders hold 5 percent and Barnes & Noble Nook 4 percent of the market.
Another finding of the study is that more iPad owners report being “very satisfied” than Kindle owners with their devices. Kindle owners were found to read more books, while iPaders read more newspapers, magazines and blogs.
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Random House to publish Mortal Kiss book 1 comment
Random House Children’s Books has announced that it will publish Mortal Kiss as a physical book. Mortal Kiss is an interactive
virtual story the publisher created with Stardoll. The book will be published on Jan 6, 2011 at an expected price of GBP6.99. No word on whether or not the Mortal Kiss book will also be published outside of the UK, but the story has an international following so I would expect so.
Update Jan 5, 2011: Amazon UK has the Mortal Kiss book listed as a pre-order. Amazon.com (US) does not have a pre-order option yet. It does appear that you might be able to order this book from the UK and have it shipped internationally. I was able to put one in my shopping cart even though my shipping address is in the US. I did not complete the order, but usually I cannot get that far if there are geographical restrictions.
The Mortal Kiss pages on Stardoll have received over 13.9 million page views, with the campaign page receiving over 3.8 million. The Mortal Kiss Stardoll fan club has 51,788 members, against 33,347 for the Harry Potter club. Each of the main characters in the story has character Stardolls; the most popular of these, Faye, received over 600,000 views.
Mortal Kiss is the first interactive story Random House has published on a social networking platform. A paranormal mystery, created in collaboration between writers and editors at RHCB and artists and programmers at Stardoll, Mortal Kiss was serialized globally via the Stardoll website over the 8-week period leading up to Hallowe’en. The book will be published on 6th January 2011 by Bantam Books, price GBP6.99.
Philippa Dickinson, MD of RHCB, comments, ‘We are absolutely delighted to be publishing Mortal Kiss. The extraordinary enthusiasm shown by the Stardoll community for this, our first web-based serial, shows the power a good story has to connect with readers both online and offline.’
Mattias Miksche, CEO of Stardoll Network, comments, ‘We are thrilled to be reaching new heights with RHCB, as the virtual story Mortal Kiss is published as a book early next year. The response from the Stardoll community around Mortal Kiss has exceeded expectations and they have been asking for more. RCHB are making it a reality for our members and teens around the world.’
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Voyage of the Dawn Treader enhanced ebook 1 comment
HarperCollins will be releasing an enhanced ebook version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. There is no release date yet, but the ebook should be out before the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader hits theaters on Dec 10.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will feature video, read-along audio excerpts, Narnia trivia game, illustrations, a map of Narnia, a blueprint of the Dawn Treader and a guide to the creatures and people of Narnia.
The enhanced Dawn Treader ebook will be available for a number of handheld multimedia readers and touchscreen devices and will be priced at $9.99.
Update: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is now available on the iPad via iBooks.
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Is This the Future of Enhanced Books? no comments
Researchers at Keio University are working on an ink-jet printer that can print aromas. The system uses the same technology as a standard inkjet printer, though to synthesize a wide variety of scents you would 
need thousands of scent components — unlike printing color pictures where you just need inks in the primary colors that can be mixed as needed.
Could we someday see pbooks enhanced with smell? And if that works will the technology migrate to ebooks? That is a scary thought — could Kindle 14 come with a scent emitter that would release smells associated with whatever you are reading? Perhaps the smell of decaying paper for those who miss paper books?
Trying to recreate the olfactory aspects of a recreated scene is nothing new. AromaRama and Smell-O-Vision both famously tried and failed to make movies into smellies. Even the idea of printing out scents using an inkjet is not new. A few years ago HP apparently filed for a patent on a camera that had a miniature gas chromatography probe to capture scents that could then be printed out using a special inkjet printer.
Source — NewScientist
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More Children’s Interactive Book and Learning Game Apps no comments
A couple more companies have announced new interactive children’s books and edutainment apps for the iPad and iPhone.
The first is iStory, produced by Apps
of All Nations, LLC (publisher of the iCooking apps). This is a reading app that uses animation and features auditory and visual interaction. For example, if the story has bubbles, bubbles can appear on the page and the child can touch them on the screen and pop them. iStory also lets children read stories for themselves or listen to a narration while watching the animation on their iPad.
There are a number of iStory titles available, all of which are read through the iStory app, rather than having separate apps to install for each story.
Knowledge Adventure has also launched a couple of adventure-based learning game collections for young children.
JumpStart Preschool Magic of Learning Volume 1 is the first title to be available, and is exclusive to the iPad. This app costs $2.99 at iTunes and includes the following four learning games which teach math, pre-reading and critical thinking skills:
- Bug Catcher – practice colors, shapes and number recognition while searching for the perfect little bug for your collection
- Present Search – follow directions and watch for hints to see if you can find out which cuddly pet is hiding a special prize
- Matching Duckies – use memory skills to match the quacks and uncover a special message
- Barnyard Fun – match the upper and lower case letters with the help of fun barnyard friends
A second free title, JumpStart’s Punk Punk Blitz, will be available free for both the iPhone and iPad soon.
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Vook to Make Entire Library Available in iBookstore no comments
Vook announced today that it will be making its entire existing library and all new titles available in the iBookstore. Currently there are 47 of Vook’s enhanced ebooks available there.
In the three weeks since Vook’s launch in the iBookstore, the company has surpassed all players in the digital publishing space to deliver the largest selection of enhanced ebooks currently available. Vook’s current offering in the iBookstore includes enhanced titles from best-selling authors such as Seth Godin, Anne Rice and Sherrilyn Kenyon, among others. Enhanced titles across all genres are scheduled for release throughout the rest 2010.
Featuring high-profile authors and top-quality video, Vook’s enhanced ebook titles have already become some of the most popular titles for the iPad. Recently "Reckless Road: The Making of Appetite for Destruction," produced with Slash, was number one on the iBookstore’s Entertainment chart, "The 90 Second Fitness Solution" was featured on the front page of the store and Seth Godin’s "Unleashing the SUPER Ideavirus" was also highlighted in the Business section of the iBookstore.
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PadWorx Announces First Interactive Title no comments
A few days ago I wrote about PadWorx Digital Media, a new publisher of interactive multimedia ebooks with gaming elements. The company has announced its first title, Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Dracula is built using PadWorx Digital Media’s proprietary game engine, and combines text, animation, gameplay, social media, an original soundtrack, sound effects and 300 pages of text.
Dracula for the Apple iPad puts a new twist on the classic novel written by Bram Stoker in 1897. The interactive eBook features 300 pages of text, animation, gameplay, and touch screen technology that creates the definitive interactive, user-driven experience. From lighting up the words of the page with a lantern, unsealing the mysteries of letters and journal entries, blowing the leaves off of tombstones to reveal the writing beneath, and even using their own “blood” to reveal hidden text on a page, readers will bring Dracula to life page after enthralling page.
Included in the soundtrack are 18 songs from the bands Adaline, Eve and the Ocean, Ingela, Nadia and Emily Spiller. The soundtrack will also be available separately at iTunes. Pricing for both the ebook and the soundtrack TBA.
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eReader & Tablet News – 9/15/2010 no comments
Kobo Wi-Fi ereader incoming? The confidentiality agreement with the FCC for a new Netronix ereader has just expired, making a number of case photos viewable, including one for Kobo. The shell looks the same as the current Kobo ereader.
Wi-Fi will be a good step for Kobo, especially if the new ereader has some other new features as well, but how will Kobo price it? Their current ereader is $129, while the Kindle Wi-Fi is only $10 more.
(via The Digital Reader)
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If you have been feeling left out because your local Best Buy doesn’t carry the iPad, there is good news for you. Best Buy has announced that beginning September 26 the iPad will be available in all 1,093 US stores.
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Blio has announced that its ereading application will be available for download on September 28 at Blioreader.com. Initially only Windows-based devices will be supported, but versions for iOS and Android should be following soon.
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E Ink Holdings, which makes the e-ink displays in our ereaders, is expected to see a 70 percent sequential jump in revenue for Q4 this year. September revenues could jump by over 50 percent sequentially. This is according to a Chinese business newspaper as reported by Digitimes.
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Another new mobile media company has been launched to make interactive book apps for children. Former head of children’s books at Simon & Schuster Rick Richter has formed Ruckus Media Group. The company will focus on children’s story apps for various devices and expects to have more than 26 titles available by the end of the year.
From the press release:
Ruckus Mobile Media is developing original apps with bestselling and award-winning authors and illustrators including Jon Scieszka, Rosemary Wells, Sandra Boynton, Andrew Clements, Patricia MacLachlan, Alan Katz, David Carter, Kevin Lewis, Mike Austin, and Caitlin Friedman, among several others, to create interactive works not possible within the pages of a printed book.
The Ruckus launch list of apps will include the award-winning Rabbit Ears Library of classic children’s tales told by top Hollywood celebrities (including Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Robin Williams, Denzel Washington and many others), now digitally re-mastered and optimized for mobile applications and with several added interactive features.
The company’s first apps for iPhone and iTouch (sic) will be available for $3.99 each from the Apple App Store beginning September 28 and include the Play-Read-and-Record-Along animated stories Tom Thumb and the Knights of the Round Table, told by John Cleese with music by Elvis Costello, and The Velveteen Rabbit, told by Meryl Streep with music by George Winston, among others. All Ruckus apps will be iPhone and iPad compatible and will enjoy frequent upgrades. Droid apps are planned for release later in the fall.
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The first interactive pbook? Author Lynn Manning Ross’ new book, How to Develop a SmartPlan for Your Business will include 2D barcodes that readers can scan with their smartphones to access further information and view videos, webinars, listen to related podcasts, etc. The book is at Amazon (link above), so you can see samples.
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The iPad hasn’t killed dedicated ereaders after all. According to research firm In-Stat ereader shipments will grow from 12 million this year to 35 million in 2014, while tablet shipments are expected to reach 58 million by 2014.
"Tablet PC shipments are taking off, fueled in particular by the Apple iPad introduction. Yet, there will still be a revenue opportunity for e-reader suppliers and OEMs since tablet PCs and e-readers target different consumers," says Stephanie Ethier, Senior Analyst, In-Stat. "Standalone e-readers will address the needs of avid readers, to whom the reading experience is central. Tablets are better suited for consumers who prefer a stronger multimedia experience, and only light reading."
In-Stat also expects to see a $99 ereader by the end of the year. Well, the jetBook Mini is already there.
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New Britannica Learning Apps for Kids no comments
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. is releasing three multimedia learning apps for kids on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
The three apps—Volcanoes, Dinosaurs and Ancient Egypt—are meant for students ages 8-14. They’re the first titles in a series that Britannica says will provide children in the middle grades with engaging new ways to learn about major school topics using the digital devices they prefer.
From the press release:
Each app combines a rich mixture of reliable information and age-appropriate games that together provide extensive coverage of the subject. In addition to overview articles from Britannica editors on key aspects of each topic—such as plate tectonics, the world of dinosaurs, the dynasties of Egypt—each app also includes a host of multimedia elements, maps, puzzles, photos, videos, narrated slide shows and quizzes. Each app has an innovative navigation wheel at the bottom of the screen designed to make browsing through the features easy and fun.
Among the special features are memory-match games, virtual jigsaw puzzles, media galleries and quizzes in which students can test themselves on what they’ve learned. There’s a list of the most dangerous volcanoes, with an article on each; major dinosaurs from Allosaurus to Velociraptor; and the Egyptian gods, from Amon to Thoth. The apps also make it easy to share the information on Facebook and Twitter.
At the moment there are only iPhone versions of the three apps available at iTunes for $4.99. Britannica will be releasing HD versions optimized for the iPad later this month. Android versions are also planned for later in the year.
