I just came across this video on Youtube. It was shot last week at 27C3, a security and hacking convention hosted by the Chaos Computer Club. The speaker is Jérémie Zimmermann. This was an one hour session on the current state of copyright enforcement. It’s a general summary of the growing encroachments on personal freedoms, and I think it’s worth watching. I’m still waiting for it to queue up, but what I’ve seen so far is interesting.
So CES is next week and I haven’t done any of the posts I did last December. Sorry about that; I honestly didn’t know that I could afford to go until the 23rd. I’m not going to go into the same level of detail as last year; there’s not enough time left and I’m too busy getting ready.
Parties & Events
Last year I got invited to 4 parties; this year I don’t have any invites, at least, not any that interest me. I don’t think I’ve pissed off that many people (I’m good but not that good) so my guess is that no one had the budget this year.
On the upside I did get credentials for the Pepcom event Wednesday night. This isn’t a party; it’s a trade show run separately from CES. I’m really glad I’m going because I’ve seen the exhibitor list and I found a number of companies that won’t be exhibiting at CES. They’re only going to be at the Pepcom event.
News Coverage
I’ve touched bases with my competition and it turns out that neither TeleRead nor EbookNewser will be sending anyone.This is great because it means I won’t have any direct competition, but on the other hand there are far too many stories for me to cover on my own. I’m going to run myself into the ground again.
On the gripping hand, my list of booths to visit is only a third the size of last year’s. Even factoring in the many tablets I’m expecting to appear out of nowhere I’m still going to have fewer things to see.
Schedule
My flight leaves on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I will likely attend a couple of the press conferences. Last year I only went to the tail end of one press conference and that was only because Samsung had an ereader on hand. Wednesday night I will be at the Pepcom event.
I only have a tentative plan for Thursday and Friday. On Thursday I plan to work in South Hall and on Friday I’ll be in North and Hilton Halls. I’m leaving the weekend open in anticipation of something interesting happening.
Gear Bag
This year I’ll be carrying around my 9″ Novel tablet, paper, pens, and a camera. I was planning to go laptop free this year but I I’m just not comfortable with leaving it in a hotel room.
P.S. If you’re going to be at CES keep an eye out for me.
If you have any Borders gift cards laying around, now would be a good time to spend them.
I just got off the phone with a Borders PR rep. She read me the official statement about Borders' current financial crisis. I’m going to quote it in its entirety because this one is scary. If I were a Borders vendor this statement would probably give me a panic attack. (Please pardon the transcription errors.)
In response to media inquiries, Borders Group Inc. today stated that, as the company previously reported, it is in discussions regarding the potential refinancing of its existing senior credit facilities. As part of this potential refinancing, Borders has determined that it is necessary to restructure its vendor financing arrangements and is delaying payments to certain of its vendors.
Borders has notified these vendors and will be working with them to restructure their arrangements with the company. Borders stated that there can be no assurance that it will be successful in refinancing its senior credit facilities or restructuring its vendor financing arrangements. As the company previously reported, the absence of the refinancing could cause the company to violate the terms of its existing credit agreements in the first calendar quarter of 2011 and the company could experience a liquidity shortfall.
I’m sorry, but if you’re not paying vendors and you’re worried about making loan payments then you’re experiencing a liquidity shortfall right now.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve heard reports that their servers were running slow on the day after Christmas.
Anyway, Overdrive have posted some traffic stats for Christmas weekend. This was the first time ever tjat ebook traffic surpassed audiobook.
To show you what happened in one month, we’ve compared usage from Nov. 26-28 (around US Thanksgiving) to Dec. 25-27 (around Christmas).
eBook checkouts increased a staggering 93%
Visits to ‘Virtual Branch’ websites were up 60%
Pageviews were up nearly 70%
Needless to say, Christmas and the days following were the three biggest for library downloads ever. As a whole, 2010 was even more impressive. We’ll have the full stats for 2010 coming next week, so stay tuned.
This is an update to my post from earlier this week. Now that I’ve worked out how to do it I thought this was worth a repost.
I found a post on MobileRead the other day where someone demonstrated that he had managed to visit Wikipedia on his Kobo Wifi. I’ve tried it and I don’t think this is very useful. But I wanted to share the news anyway. Hopefully some more experienced hackers can work out the bugs. First be sure to save a backup copy of any file you plan to change.
What you need to do is look on your Kobo wifi in the .kobo/kobo directory for the conf file. Open it (it’s a text file) and change all the website names to whatever start page you want. When you pick the URL, be sure to add a '?' to the end. You’ll need the question mark to because the Kobo will add /home.html to your link and the question mark tells the browser to ignore it.
I would suggest that you pick the mobile Google homepage or that you find a way to make a homepage full of links. You might also decide to point the browser at the mobile version of one of the free ebook sites. If I were going to use this feature a lot, I’d probably have Feedbooks as my home page.
Given that you have to enter text with the d-pad I don’t think this will be a very useful feature. Also, navigating around a page moves the cursor from one link to the next. This can take forever.
P.S. With a little refinement Kinstant could support the Kobo wifi. But I think it needs more customization first.
I just got word over twitter that Amazon have enable ebook lending for the Kindle. Here’s the summary from the help page, and you can find out ore from Amazon.
Eligible Kindle books can be loaned once for a period of 14 days. The borrower does not need to own a Kindle — Kindle books can also be read using our free Kindle reading applications for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices. Not all books are lendable — it is up to the publisher or rights holder to determine which titles are eligible for lending. The lender will not be able to read the book during the loan period.
There’s a story going around today about B&N and the trademarks they’ve filed with the USPTO. All the gadget blogs are focusing on the Nook2 trademark and it looks like everyone has missed the big story.
A few weeks ago B&N filed for a trademark for the term "Nooksellers" and that is the big story. Did you know that the license terms for Pubit include a line about affiliate sellers? That was very curious at the time because B&N didn’t have any. Now we can see that they’re planning to.
I wonder if the Google eBookstore was what finally made up their minds?
Speaking of affiliated sellers, Amazon have had them for the longest time. So really it’s Google and B&N that are playing catch up.
UPDATE: A friend pointed out on Twitter that B&N already have an affiliate program through Google. Problem is, it sucks. That makes me even more certain about what the term Nooksellers means.
BTW, I don’t care about the Nook2 trademark because I already knew about it. B&N filed a trademark for Nook 2 (note the space) back in June, which is when I guessed that B&N were planning to call the next Nook by that name. The new trademark is a footnote, not a revelation. I’m also not amazed by NookKids, Nookcolor, Nook Wifi, or any other term that’s already shown up in use by B&N.
P.S. To be fair, the original source did notice the term but they didn’t realize what it meant.They only discussed it in terms of the description attached to the filing, which doesn’t jibe with the connotation of the word NookSellers. The word sounds like bookseller, which to me suggests an affiliate program.
Everyone’s writing about an article on WWD Media blog about the declining sales of iPad magazine apps. I’m not sure why this is news; we’ve already seen this happen.
Many magazines that are available on the iPad, such as Esquire, People and The New Yorker, have not posted their digital single-issue sales to the ABC. But Vanity Fair sold 8,700 digital editions of its November issue, down from its average of about 10,500 for the August, September and October issues. Glamour sold 4,301 digital editions in September, but sales dropped 20 percent in October and then another 20 percent, to 2,775, in November. GQ’s November edition sold 11,000 times, which was its worst performance since April (when the iPad was released) and represents a slight decline from its average digital sales of 13,000 between May and October.
To be honest, the only part that surprises me is that the sales didn’t drop off as fast as I expected. I was expecting Wired to crash, not plateau.
You might recall that I posted a couple months ago that I thought magazine apps weren’t a good value. TBH, I was late to the game. Almost everyone I’d listen to on this topic had already said the same. I can also recall that we saw much this same story back in the spring with GQ magazine. That magazine debuted on the iPhone with excellent sales that dropped off the next month. Now most of the other magazines are following the same pattern.
Infibeam continues to make significant additions to its eBook store. For the first time in India, technology ebooks from publishers like Cambridge University Press, Tata McGraw Hill, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Pearson and John Wiley & Sons have been made available on a single platform.
Readers can now legally purchase and instantly download digital eBooks from each of these publishers. These eBooks can then be ported and read on 5 devices including laptops, computers, tablets, mobile phones and eBook readers.
Speaking on the new initiative, Ms. Neeru Sharma, VP Corporate Development, Infibeam.com said, "After the success of Infibeam Pi, India`s first EBook reader and the launch of eBook titles on Infibeam, we had a constant demand for technical eBooks for students and professionals. To be able to cater to this specific segment, Infibeam introduces eBooks from renowned technical publications today". He added, "The present catalog of almost 1 Lac technical eBooks are from the largest publication houses and we look forward to enhancing the catalog".
With this addition the total number of eBooks on Infibeam crossed 5 Lacs, making it India’s largest eBook store. eBooks besides being cheaper than physical books provide the advantage of instant access as soon as you purchase them. Further they are also eco-friendly and save paper.
Infibeam.com is India’s leading eCommerce portal with a selection of more than 100 lac products across books, media, lifestyle, gifts, electronics and automobiles. Infibeam.com is known for its innovative navigation, lowest prices, free shipping and dedicated customer service.
Infibeam.com also offers its web-store technology and associated infrastructure as a service to well-known brands and retailers such as NDTV, K Sera Sera, Hidesign, TTK Prestige etc.
Infibeam.com was founded in 2007 by a group of ex-Amazon employees with expertise in e-commerce and technology. Headquartered in Ahmedabad, Infibeam has 250 employees based out of offices in Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai. The leadership team consists of MIT, IIM and IIT graduates amongst others with more than 100 years of combined experience in Retail and eCommerce.
I just came across a thread over at MobileRead. One MobileRead member went through the effort to find links to firmwares for all the different versions of this ereader made by BenQ.
BTW, I’m talking about the Pantigital Novel with a 6″ Sipix screen, not the LCD models. If you’re confused by the naming convention, this might help.
I’m not sure that you should risk your Novel, though. I don’t have the original firmware for it so if you flash a new one you won’t be able to go back.
I really think you should go read that thread.He also found instructions on how to enter the various debug modes as well as Frank’s Wiki, where Frank is beginning to develop his own apps for this ereader.
I’ve just heard over at MobileRead that someone is starting a project with the goal of hacking Augen’s ereader. His long term goal is to be able to use The Book as a limited netbook computer.
This could be shiny, but only if Augen follows through and hands over the source code (as required by the software license). I’m excited because I can see the potential of the design.
The The Book is a Kindle clone with a 7″ LCD screen, Wifi, and support for Adobe Epub. It runs Linux and it has a reasonably useful keyboard. I reviewed it in August.
This general design could be the next netbook. Right now the only thing stopping that from happening is the limited software on these devices. If the Book gets hacked it will be so much more useful.
I’m also thrilled to finally meet someone who gets it. Here is why Chris started this project:
Well, that’s a good question. TheBook really doesn’t have the battery life to be the greatest book reading device, but the software platform is mostly based on open stuff, and it’s an interesting little piece of hardware. The same LCD display that makes it hard on the battery makes it respond more quickly than the E-Ink based readers for things like web browsing and games. It might be nice to adjust the built-in software bundle so that it does more of what it does well. Also, I have one.
Of course, they didn’t have a Christmas season last year, but that’s beside the point.
Earlier today I was snide about Hanvon’s announcement that they’d achieved 1 million users. Look at the following Kobo announcement and you’ll understand why.
From the press release:
Kobo, the only pure-play global eReading service built on an open platform, today revealed its Holiday 2010 momentum. This Christmas, readers around the world received new eReaders and iPads and other eReading devices under their tree. Over a million people connected to Kobo, and hundreds of thousands of devices were activated each day since Christmas Eve, fuelling the highest eBook download rate in the company’s history. People around the world chose Kobo this Christmas, with the popular easy-to-use Kobo Wireless eReader, dozens of compatible eReaders, top-rated applications for iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and one of the largest catalogues in the world with over 2.2 million eBooks, newspapers and magazines.
“The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest”
“Earlier this month we predicted that Christmas would be a record breaker for Kobo, and we have exceeded our expectations driving several ebook downloads per second since Christmas Eve, or an equivalent number hardcover books stacked as high as 50 Empire State Buildings,” said Michael Serbinis, CEO of Kobo. “I would like to thank our customers for choosing Kobo to start building their digital library this Christmas. Our success this holiday season is a pre-cursor to a New Year with people reading more than ever thanks to eBooks and Kobo.”
Kobo’s holiday growth also included:
Total registered users nearly doubling from the six weeks prior
A 50X increase in purchases from previous Holiday weekend last year
A 5X increase in purchases from the previous biggest weekend (also in December)
Customer purchases from over 130 countries, with some of the biggest gains outside of US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, occurring in Germany, Netherlands, and Singapore
A significant increase in device mix, with eReaders and Tablets accounting for the largest percent in sales
iFlow Reader is getting a lot of attention today. This is a new reading app for iOS, with different versions for iPhone and iPad. While it comes with a good set of reading options, iFlow’s one big pitch point is that it abandons page turns in favor of scrolling.
This is so not a good idea.
Did you know that the new trend in long form web content is pagination? Yep, designers are starting to use HTML5 to move away from scrolling because if the article is long enough pagnation provides a better experience.
You might recall that I showed you a demo project last month. Of course, they were looking at it as tablet style reading, but I liked it for the pagination.
I don’t have any hard data on this, just my personal experience. (But if you know anyone else who examines the act of reading while they’re reading, I want to speak to them.) As I mentioned in the related post, I’ve found myself abandoning web articles because they were too long to read comfortably. I believe my discomfort was caused by scrolling.
Of course, there’s a chance that the iFlow Reader will prove me wrong. But I don’t expect that to happen.
Steve Weber, editor of the Plug your Book blog, got this email from Amazon a few days ago.
Soon, publishing for distribution in the Kindle Store will no longer be available through Mobipocket.com.
Publishing and selling in the Mobipocket.com store and other Mobipocket partner retailers will not be affected, but the Digital Text Platform (DTP) will become the preferred path to publishing on Kindle. In the coming weeks, we would like to begin consolidating your titles into one location – DTP.
We’re writing to remind you about our earlier message, and to again offer assistance with moving your Mobipocket.com titles to DTP. By making the move, you’ll be able to take advantage of the new royalty options and great features available only on DTP.
You may already have a DTP account, but if not, please sign up today at http://dtp.amazon.com/
When I first read this, I could have sworn that Amazon already did this months ago. It’s been so long that I honestly couldn’t remember when it happened. But with a little digging, I found this notice on the Mobipocket EbookBase website from last year:
Effective September 2009, we will no longer open new accounts for publishers to sell titles through the Kindle Store or MobiPocket.com. If you have an existing account, there will be no change and you can continue to upload and sell titles using Ebookbase. New publishers with a US address and bank account can sign up to sell ebooks in the Kindle store via our self-service publishing channel at http://dtp.amazon.com
Now this is a delicious story. I’ve written before that I don’t like the app store as a concept, and every so often Apple like to give me another example why app stores are a bad idea.
I awoke this morning to find a tweet waiting for me. A friend had bought the new Skyfire browser for the iPad, and before he downloaded it he had to confirm that he was over 18. Why? Becuase according to Apple, this app has:Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity. It’s a web browser, for crying out loud!
I did some digging, and all the web browsers in iTunes have ridiculous ratings. Opera got an NC17 for: Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes. Terra was rated NC17 for Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity.
But the really good rating was stuck on the Atomic web browser. I wonder if Apple thought this one was better and decided to respond with a harsher slap? Here’s the warning label on the Atomic web browser:
Frequent/Intense Horror/Fear Themes
Frequent/Intense Simulated Gambling
Frequent/Intense Profanity or Crude Humor
Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes
Frequent/Intense Realistic Violence
Frequent/Intense Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity
I’m going to demonstrate Apple’s hypocrisy in one sentence: Safari didn’t get this rating, and it can access all the same websites.
