Finally the Kindle Fire gets its own iPod-ish speaker dock.
An email is going around this morning from Grace Digital Audio. They’re showing off their newest gadget, the FireDock, which is going to be $130 speaker dock for the Kindle Fire.
That might seem a little expensive, but it comes with 2 speakers, a remote control, and an optional li-On battery. It’s also designed to charge the KF while it’s in use, and you can set the dock to hold the Kindle Fire in either landscape or portrait mode.
That is a fair amount of hardware, and it looks to be a better value than similar Nook and Kindle Fire docks that showed up a few months back. I’m usually not one to invest in a dock, but this one looks pretty enough that I might get it.
Forty-two hours. That’s how long it took for the first pirated copies of the official Pottermore Harry Potter ebooks to show up on a pirate site.
A reader tipped me to the story this afternoon. One not terribly intelligent pirate uploaded a complete set of the Pottermore ebooks, in Epub, last night. I looked them over, and they are clearly not one of the earlier sets of pirated ebooks.
Now, I’m not being rude in calling the pirate stupid; he didn’t put all that much effort into anonymizing the Epubs before he pirated them. All he did was remove the warning statement from the copyright page. He didn’t do anything to remove the digital watermarks I reported on yesterday. I found the serial numbers in the title elements of the images, right where Booxtream put them.
And BTW, now that I have a second copy of HP1, I can see that the files inside that Epub have different file names than in the Epub I bought. This tells me that the file names might be another watermark added by Booxtream. Good. That means that the DRM embedded in the Epub is more subtle than I thought.
Frankly, I’m surprised this took this long. I recall that the later additions to the Harry Potter series were pirated within a day of hitting the bookstore shelves. In fact, I believe it was HP7 that was pirated before the print edition officially shipped.
I’m also surprised that someone would pirate these ebooks at all, given the widely known DRM buried inside. I mean, there already were pirated copies of these ebooks available, if you know where to look. Posting a new set doesn’t make much sense, given the risks involved.
If anything, this act of piracy tells me that I don’t understand pirates as well as I thought I did. The risk is too high and the need too low, and yet someone still pirated these ebooks. If anyone happens to think that increasing the penalty for piracy is going to have an effect, think again. This pirate is almost certain to get caught and yet he did it anyway.
Barnes & Noble gave us another hint about their expansion plans this week. Sources in Germany report that B&N has formed a local LLC (it’s called a GmBH, there) in Berlin on 15 March. The managing director is listed as Eugene DeFelice, who is listed elsewhere as being a VP, General Counsel & Secretary at B&N.
Some would say that B&N is going to have an uphill battle in front of them. According to the latest figures from Bowker, Amazon has a 43% share of the German ebook market, with Apple coming in second at 10%. Figures from a University of Hamburg poll back in October suggests that Amazon and Apple have 57% and 27%, respectively, which would make B&N’s position even worse.
But I’m not so sure. Germany has allowed publishers to control the price of books since long before the idea popped in the heads of the Price Fix 6 here in the US. That means that B&N won’t have to compete on price – just support, hardware, and marketing. Which means that if B&N finds a local chain to partner with, they will be in a position to offer a hands on expereince that the other 2 do not. Amazon doesn’t have a store presence in Germany. While Apple does have 8 stores there, I’ve always gotten the feeling that Apple was far more interested on selling hardware, not content.
And we already know that B&N is probably going to work with local partners (instead of opening their own ebookstore). There are several possible partners in the German market already, and at least 2 (Weltbild and Thalia) are heavily committed to ebooks. Either one could make a decent partner.
LG announced this morning that they’re about to start mass production of a new E-ink screen. This screen is promised to be more durable than anything currently on the market and it can flex at an angle of up to 40 degrees.
So how does this differ from older E-ink screens? LG buys the screen source material from E-ink in giant rolls. They then cut out the 6″ screen size and mount it on their own backplane. With the screen mentioned above, it’s the backplane that is flexible. That is also why this screen is more durable than past E-ink screens, which had a glass backplane.
On a related note, I’m pretty sure I already showed you the new screen. NextPapyrus has been working on an ereader that uses this new, more durable screen with this resolution, and I’ve posted on it once or twice. The LG screen mentioned above is likely the same screen being used by NextPapyrus. And it is durable. A few weeks back NextPapyrus posted a Youtube video showing the screen being repeatedly hit by baseballs. It survived.
The new screen is going to have the same resolution ( XGA , 1024×768) as on LG’s current E-ink screen, which is being used on the iriver Story HD. LG is planning to have it on devices in the European market next month.
Press release:
LG Display Begins Mass Production of World’s First Plastic E-Paper Display
With advancements in functionality and design, Plastic EPD to revolutionize E-Book market
Seoul, Korea (March 29, 2012) – LG Display [NYSE: LPL, KRX: 034220], a leading manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display, announced today that it has started mass production of the world’s first plastic electronic paper display (EPD) for use in E-Books. The 6″ XGA (1024×768), e-ink, plastic EPD is expected to revolutionize the E-Book market with its advancements in functionality and design.
"With the world’s first plastic EPD, LG Display has once again proven its reputation for leadership and innovation with a product we believe will help greatly popularize the E-Book market," said Mr. Sang Duck Yeo, Head of Operations for LG Display’s Mobile/OLED division. "Based on our success in mass-producing plastic EPD, we are excited as we look toward applying concepts from this experience to future developments like plastic OLED and flexible displays."
Innovations in Functionality and Design
The world’s first plastic EPD from LG Display offers users a paper-like reading experience with a plastic substrate that is as slim as cell phone protection film, and a flexible design that allows bending at a range of 40 degrees from the center of the screen. Compared to glass EPD of the same size and resolution, LG Display’s plastic EPD realizes a super slim thickness of 0.7mm which is 1/3 slimmer than existing glass EPD; as well as a weight of 14g which is more than 1/2 lighter.
E-Book users have long expressed a desire for more durable EPD, since around 10% of them have damaged their product screens from accidentally dropping or hitting them. When LG Display’s plastic EPD was put through repeated drop tests, from 1.5m above the ground or the average height of reading when standing, no damage resulted. When put through a break/scratch test involving hitting the display with a small urethane hammer, no scratches or breakage resulted.
As EPD gets thinner, lighter, and more durable with the introduction of plastic EPD, E-Books will be able to offer certain unique benefits compared to smart devices and tablets, including reduced eye fatigue and more efficient electricity consumption in addition to lower prices.
A Manufacturing Breakthrough
LG Display developed a unique technique to utilize the high TFT process, typically employed in general LCD manufacturing and with temperatures exceeding 350 degrees, in the production of its plastic EPD. By overcoming the obstacles associated with applying the existing production process to heat susceptible plastic, LG Display achieved a breakthrough with the successful mass production of plastic EPD able to maintain strong durability in high temperatures.
Availability
The world’s first mass-produced plastic EPD from LG Display will first be supplied to ODM companies in China, followed by completed products to be released in Europe at the beginning of next month.
Finally the Kindle Fire gets its own iPod-ish speaker dock.
