Archive for the ‘ebook readers’ tag
Kindle DX 2 – PDF no comments
I’ve just made a video of viewing a PDF file on the latest generation Kindle DX (Kindle DX 2). The Kindle DX is the best e-ink based ereader I’ve seen so far for handling PDF files.
With its larger screen, in many cases zooming in will not be required – especially with the magnification that the landscape mode provides.
I’m really happy with the Kindle DX. I do find that I like reading on a larger screen, but in my case I mostly use my ereaders at home, so portability is not really an issue for me.
It is rather suspicious that Amazon is out of stock of the Kindle DX for several weeks. Is a new DX incoming? If so, I imagine more than a few people who purchased the “latest generation” Kindle DX will be unhappy that their generation was so short-lived.
If Amazon is about to release a new Kindle DX 3 it will probably have only incremental improvements. There will no doubt be a Wi-Fi only version that will cost less, and the PDF handling improvements introduced with the Kindle 3 (contrast adjustment, annotations and dictionary lookup on non-scanned PDFs) will also be included.
Hopefully the better PDF handling features can be ported over to the Kindle DX 2 as well – this should only be a matter of a software update.
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Sharper Image Branded Literati eReader no comments
There is word of yet another
lower priced LCD ereader. This one is called the Literati and carries The Sharper Image branding while being supplied by MerchSource.
MerchSource is a California-based company that specializes in the design, development, and production of consumer products to companies such as The Sharper Image, JCPenney, CVS, Rite Aid and others. A lot of the company’s prior efforts seem to have been directed at toys and games,
The Literati has a 7-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 480 x 800 and is limited to reading books and other printed content. There is no web browser, no games or video. Input is via the keyboard at the bottom of the device – no touchscreen here. The ereading software is by Kobo, and you can use the Wi-Fi connection to buy books from Kobo.
The Literati comes with a cover and will cost $159. There will be two colors – white or a black model with silver keyboard. The Literati comes preloaded with 25 public domain titles and a coupon that will let you download another 125 pre-selected public domain titles free.
Beginning in October the new ereader will be sold in the usual places: Bed, Bath and Beyond, Kohl’s, Best Buy, etc. The press release says that the Literati will be available in 7,000 stores, so this one should be pretty easy to find.
"The majority of eReaders available today are either too expensive with too many features, or the manufacturer has slashed key functionality and overall device quality to lower the price," said Kirk McLean, co-founder of MerchSource, the company that designed and distributes the Literati under trademark license from The Sharper Image. "We designed the Literati from the inside out — starting with the bookstore — to give booklovers exactly what they wanted: a simple, dedicated device that lets them get right to the book."
I would say that the Literati is going to have a hard time at this price. It is being presented as an inexpensive and simple ereader that “bypasses high prices and feature bloat, offering instead an affordable, stylish and simple device for those who just want to read.” Yet it is more expensive than the Kindle 3 Wi-Fi, which has way more features and with its e-ink screen will be much better for those “who just want to read.”
Well, you say, but it has a color display. True, true – it does have a color screen. That should come in really handy for reading all of those color ebooks over at Kobo.
There are a number of other color LCD ereaders available at around the same price range; some for more, some for less. Most of them have at least a semblance of multifunctionality.
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Kogan eReader 1 comment
This is a new ereader for the Australian market.
The Kogan ebook reader sports a 6-inch e-ink screen and is Linux based. Some of the other features:
- e-ink display: 800 x 600 resolution; 16 grayscales
- Ram: 64 MB DDR2
- Battery life: 10,000 page turns
- Internal memory: 2GB
- SDHC card slot (up to 32 GB)
- eBook formats: PDF, CHM, EPUB, TXT, HTM, HTML, RTF, PDB, DJVU, DJV, IW44, IW4, FB2, OEB, PRC, MOBI, TCR, OPF; Adobe Digital Editions
- Language support: English, Italian, French, Russian, Dutch and German
- 5 font sizes
- Comes pre-loaded with over 1,500 classic books – including Australian titles
A leather cover, earphones and USB cable/charger are included, as is a one-year warranty (looks like the warranty on the items Kogan sells is only good in Australia).
The Kogan ereader is expected to ship towards the end of next month at a price of $189 AUD (about $165 USD) with free shipping. Kogan is taking pre-orders now.
This looks like a rebranded ereader made by China-based Acuce Co. (model number CL-EBK007), if I’m not mistaken. Edit: Oops! Acuce is a distributer, this ereader is from Gajah International.
Kogan Technologies is an online only consumer electronics retailer based in Melbourne. The company was founded by Ruslan Kogan in 2003 while he was still in university, which appears to be a bit of an interesting story.
via itwire
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Barnes and Noble Gift Cards Will be Usable for eBook Purchases 2 comments
I have speculated before that after the holidays there may well be a number of nook ereader owners that are disgruntled with the Barnes and Noble ebook store, leading to some backlash if B&N doesn’t fix some of the problems. There is already some evidence of this in the B & N forums, and the nook is not even out yet.
Barnes and Noble apparently found yet another way to antagonize their customers – gift cards are not usable for purchasing ebooks at this time. This means that if you gift a nook ereader and wish to add a gift card for the purpose of stocking it with reading material it won’t work for that. There are some reports that B&N salesclerks are not aware of this and are cheerily suggesting gift cards to go along with your nook ereader gift.
Barnes and Noble has heard the complaints, and has announced that beginning in mid-December gift cards and online gift certificates will be allowed for the purchase of ebooks either online or through the nook ereader and on other devices using B&N’s eReader software.
That’s one problem solved; now if they can do something about their ebook pricing and the inferior selection of non-public domain titles offered in their ebook store.
Barnes and Noble also announced that their ebook store will be available in Canada around the first of December. At the present time the nook ereader is not available in Canada, but if you do have a nook in Canada you will be able to sync it with your B&N eBook library on your computer or access their ebook store via Wi-Fi. Canada is still a glaring omission in the Kindle ereader’s international coverage, though Amazon is working on this.
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Barnes & Noble eBook Store no comments
This week Barnes and Noble launched its new ebook store which is said to contain 700,000 titles. This number includes approximately 500,000 free public domain titles available through Google Books. Next year Plastic Logic’s ebook reader will hit the market and Barnes & Noble will be supporting it with their ebookstore.
By using Barnes & Noble’s reader software the ebooks are currently readable on Mac and Windows computers, iPhones and iPod Touches and several PDA phones.
There is a thoughtful article about Barnes & Noble’s new ebook service in the Washington Post, where it gets a mixed review; and some also interesting follow-up thoughts at TeleRead concerning DRM.
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It’s an Orwellian World 1 comment
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.
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A Busy Week for eBook Readers 1 comment
This has been one busy week for ebooks and related news. Perhaps most welcome was the announcement by Amazon that it was lowering the price of the Kindle 2
In other news, Amazon was reported as having patents for a method of including advertising on an ebook reader device. This would, if implemented, have some pretty obvious pros and cons: for one thing, advertising could subsidize the price of readers and/or ebooks. On the other hand, if not implemented correctly, it could be very annoying. I would at least hope that a choice would be offered to consumers: cheaper products with ads, or pay more for ad-free. You can read more about this at www.mediapost.com and www.geek.com.
A new ebook reader was introduced in the UK. The Elonex eBook 600EB is made by Elonex for Borders. It comes preloaded with 100 classic ebooks and sudoku. There is an SD card slot, and the device comes with a one year guarantee. This reader seems to be pretty basic but functional and its main competition will probably be the Sony ereaders, as the Kindle is not available in Europe.
Speaking of the Sony ereaders; if you have one of these and your computer is a Mac, you will be happy to hear that Sony has apparently announced upcoming official Mac support for the Sony eBook Store. You can read more here. Read the rest of this entry »
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Amazon Reduces Kindle 2 Price no comments
Just a quick note; Amazon has announced that it is reducing the price for the Kindle 2
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Kindle and Kindle Books Outside of USA no comments
Currently Amazon’s Kindle 2 and Kindle DX are only sold by Amazon in the US. While it is possible to have someone in the US buy a Kindle for you and ship it to your overseas location, or you can buy one on eBay, you then have the problem of not being able to access the Kindle book store unless you have a credit card issued by an American bank with a US billing address. If you are an American, or have a credit card billed in the US, then you can download books while overseas to your PC and then to your Kindle.
If the Kindle 2 or Kindle DX is the ebook reader you are set on, there is a workaround that some are using to purchase books from Amazon, even though they are living in other countries. This involves buying Amazon gift cards and using those to pay for your ebooks. You can find out how to do this here: http://www.nerdgirl.com/2009/03/20/amazon-kindle-outside-the-us/
At some point Amazon will presumably make the Kindle Family available worldwide, but it will need to be rebuilt to have wireless access via the systems in place outside the US. Also Amazon will no doubt have to negotiate with publishers as different publishers usually have the rights to publish a particular book in different geographical areas.
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eBook Readers and Textbooks no comments
One major path to wider implementation and use of ebook readers will be their use for reading textbooks, but are the current devices up to the task?
In May of this year, When Jeff Bezos introduced the Kindle DX, one of his focuses was on textbooks; which this new, larger addition to the Kindle family should be better suited for than it’s smaller sibling, the Kindle 2. Definitely the screen shots of the Kindle DX displaying diagrams are looking good. “We’re going to get students with smaller backpacks, less load”, he said. He also announced five colleges and universities that will be trying out the Kindle DX in the upcoming fall session: Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Reed College, and University of Virginia.
Mr. Bezos also announced that Amazon has reached agreements with three of the leading textbook publishers: Pearson, Cengage Learning and Wiley.
Some pilot programs at universities have met mixed results. In several cases, students requested print textbooks after becoming frustrated with the digital textbook. Most of the problems seem to arise from navigational problems. Results so far would seem to indicate that additional features are needed on the devices before the use of ebook readers for reading textbooks can really take off. Advanced search functions, annotations (including shared annotations), and reliable multiple bookmarking functionality for example. And wouldn’t it be great to have easy access to Wikipedia! Another problem is mismatched pagination between users of printed and e versions of books. And finally, of course, color would be much better for those anatomical drawings! Looks like we’ve still got a ways to go. Certainly the Kindle DX is currently best of breed when it comes to digital textbooks; it does include many of the features necessary. It will be interesting to see how well the device is accepted by the students in the trials this fall.
