Find eBook Readers Blog » Third Party Software

Blio Still Incoming – to Wal-Mart?

Richard — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 19:41:45 +0000

The NYT reports that Ray Kurzweil’s Blio ereading software should be more widely available over the next couple of months. This as PC makers start to include it on their machines. The article also suggests that Wal-Mart may offer the Blio software on a device of its own.

So will Wal-Mart have its own ereader? Kurzweil won’t elaborate, but he does say that Wal-Mart is “very excited” about something. Recent press releases have indicated that Wal-Mart is enlarging its consumer electronics department and it would not be inconceivable that it may try to develop its own ereader as it tries to take over the electronics section of the retailing world.

The Blio eReader software presents ebooks in the original format – layout, fonts and images are the same as in the original book. Blio is especially suited for graphics-rich books such as cookbooks, travel guides, textbooks, children’s books, etc. Purchased ebooks are permanently stored in a virtual library and can be transferred to your favorite device.

Blio also supports multimedia and includes study tools such as translation, sticky notes, highlighting and bookmarking. You can even insert voice, image or video notes into your books and these can be exported to create study materials.

The Blio website lists the following as platforms the Blio eReader software will soon be available for:

Windows and Mac
Linux
Android
Symbian
Windows Mobile
iPhone
Supported ebook formats currently are: XPS, PDF, ePub

I saw Blio at their booth at CES and it was pretty impressive, although I personally don’t like reading ebooks on my desktop or laptop. Blio should be very nice on the iPad and on smartphones though.

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New Version of Calibre Released

Richard — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:32:19 +0000

Goyal Kovid has released version 0.6 of his Calibre ebook conversion software. Calibre, which resides on your computer, is free, open source and cross-platform in design and works well on Linux, OS X and Windows. The software converts ebooks to different formats. Supported formats in the new version are:

Input formats: CBZ, CBR, CBC, EPUB, FB2, HTML, LIT, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, TXT

Output formats : EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PML, RB, PDF, TXT

Any of the supported imput formats can be converted to any of the supported Output formats. You can find out more at the Calibre site.

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Silly Computer Could Find No Related Posts

It’s an Orwellian World

Richard — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:10:58 +0000

This week Kindle owners were shocked to learn that certain titles by George Orwell had been disappeared from their Kindles, and their accounts refunded the amounts paid for the titles. What apparently happened is that Amazon got a hold of unauthorized additions of some of Orwell’s titles and when the mistake was discovered, Amazon’s system automatically removed the ebooks from purchaser’s Kindles via the wireless connection. It’s kind of fitting that Amazon should choose a title such as 1984 to introduce us to the dark side of the Wispernet.

Because of the outrage this incident has caused, Amazon has said that in the future it will not just automatically remove purchased books from Kindles if a similar situation arises.

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Mobile is reporting that Amazon is close to finalizing a launch date for the Kindle in the UK, presumably in time for Christmas. Agreements with book publishers have already been finalized, and negotiations with a mobile operator and with newspaper and magazine publishers are in progress, according to the article.

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FreeHand Systems, a global leader in digital sheet music publishing, has announced that its Novato Music Press catalog of over 20,000 classical, traditional and American music titles is now available for the Kindle.

“This is a wonderful boon to musicians who want instant access to a vast library of in-demand sheet music,” said Kim Lorz, CEO of FreeHand Systems, Inc. “In addition to the convenient and comprehensive content selection that we offer, musicians never have to fumble through paper scores or worry about forgetting a piece of music. Everything is wirelessly downloaded and stored in the Kindle and is available for easy recall.”

This is the first time such a comprehensive collection of sheet music has been made available on an ebook reader. FreeHand Systems’ goal is to make all of their more than 130,000 titles available for the Kindle.