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Kindle – a Made in Israel success story?

If yyou are particularly tech savvy (and a little OCD), then you might now that the Kindle is running a fair amount of software written in the Java programming language.  What you might not know is that a lot of the programming work was done by Sun Microsytems, and in particular it was done by a team based in Israel.

I found an article yesterday on an Israeli news blog. I think it’s worth a read, even though they got some details wrong. The article only discusses the Kindle, but I’m pretty sure that this code was first used by Mobipocket. The Bookeen Cybook came out in late 2007 (before the Kindle), and it shipped with a firmware that used Java code for the reading app. As far as I can tell, it’s the same code as on the Kindle.

I was a little surprised, actually. Some time back I built an organizational flow chart for Lab126, the Amazon subsidiary that designed the Kindle. they had enough people with Java experience that I honestly thought the work was done in house.

Israel21c

P.S. If your wondering why I made that flow chart then you must not know me very well. It was a Saturday night and I was bored.

Next3 Android tablet now available from HSN.com

Do you recall that tablet with an odd screen size that I showed you last month? It’s now available from the Home Shopping Network for $199.

The Next3 is based on a 8.4″ LCD screen (800×600). According to the spec sheet it has 2GB Flash, a SD card slot, Wifi, accelerometer, headphone jack, and speakers. Like the Next2 I reviewed last week, the Next3 is tied to the Borders ebookstore.

But unlike the Next2, the Next3 runs Android v2.1. This is very good news; it means that you shouldn’t have trouble installing apps.

I’d want to get my hands on it before making a recommendation, but at $200 i think this might be a good value. The Next2 was a decent tablet, and I expect the Next3 to be a good one, too.

What’s wrong with e-reader reviews

There’s no feeling so good as when I read a rant about how everyone is reviewing ereaders wrong and I  find out I’m getting most of the points right, not wrong. It’s a good day.

Mike Cane forwarded this rant to me today. It was written by Beranger, and it’s a pretty good critique of the common mistakes made bloggers when they review ereaders.I don’t claim to catch all these details but I do catch most of them and I’m rather pleased with myself. If you want  to read his entire rant, it’s over here.

There are 5 key points to his rant:

  • reviewers don’t look beyond the hardware
  • the obsession with Wifi
  • library features
  • covers
  • OS independence

I’m going to take his points in reverse order. The last 2 points I generally assume as a given. All ereaders are show up as a USB drive when plugged into a computer, and most screw up covers (if they show them at all).

His chief complaint about library features is that no one discusses how you can organize titles. I do, and I can understand his gripe. This is a relatively simple detail to catch. Heck, just providing a list of sorting options would cover most of it.

I disagree with him on the importance of Wifi, but I do understand how he feels about reviewers harping on it. If the device doesn’t have it, just say so. Don’t turn this one point into the ereader’s biggest weakness.

And as for software features, most reviewers don’t have enough experience with ereaders in order to intelligently critique the software.  Heck, some can’t critique the hardware all that well.This reminds me of a question I was asked by my contact at Entourage way back when. He was bothered by the quality of the reviews for the original Entourage Edge. It still makes me laugh at the reviewers:

Can you tell me why all reviews to date compare us to a Kindle?  Not a Kindle DX, but the 6” version? I didn’t know we weigh 5.5 Kindles, but I guess we do.  I really don’t see the relevance as 5.5 Kindles cant surf the internet or take handwritten annotations.

I think the rant is worth reading. Check it out: Beranger.

Amazon is in the Book Banning Business

This just got forwarded to me over Twitter:

On December 9, 2010, I was contacted by CreateSpace (Amazon’s Print on Demand service) who publishes my print books. They informed me that my title, Back to the Garden, had been removed for violating their “content guidelines.” When I consulted their guidelines I found them so vague as to be useless—were they saying my content was illegal? Public domain? Stolen? Offensive? (All of these were on the list). When I inquired as to the specifics of the violation, they were not forthcoming, and sent a form letter response stating that Amazon “may, in its sole discretion, at any time, refuse to list or distribute any content that it deems inappropriate.”

On Sunday, December 12, the print title that had been removed had now disappeared from the Kindle store, as well as two of my other titles, Naughty Bits and Under Mr. Nolan’s Bed. I have over fifty titles selling on Amazon, all of them in erotic fiction categories. The only thing these three singled-out titles had in common, besides being written by me—they were all erotic incest fantasy fiction.

If right now you’re thinking "eww, I’m glad they dropped those titles" then you missed the point. When it comes to fiction, "inappropriate" is a matter of opinion. The stories you loath might appeal to someone else. Whose standard is Amazon using, exactly? They don’t say.  How will anyone know whether their ebooks will still be listed tomorrow inappropriate?

Also, do you realize that by banning only these titles, Amazon are expressing approval of rape scenes, BDSM, and every other questionable activity in fiction? This is the biggest problem with this kind of censorship. The content allowed in makes you look just as bad as the content blocked. That’s why I think it’s best not to judge at all.

Bookeen Cybook Orizon clears the FCC

Bookeen’s new ereader, the Cybook Orizon, cleared the FCC today. It’s based on a 6″ Sipix screen, and it has Wifi, Bluetooth, 2GB Flash, a microSD card slot as well as a web browser and support for Adobe DE DRM.

At this point you should be feeling somewhat confused. Bookeen have been shipping the Orizon to the US for about a month now, even though they didn’t have certification. Basically it was illegal to import them (I think).

I have a review unit (finally). It’s on my To-Do pile, and I’ll get to it when I can.

Bookeen via FCC

Maybe connectivity isn’t as important as I thought

So this past week I’ve been having problems with Verizon DSL, my ISP. I decided to turn lemons into lemonade and have a serious attempt to switch over to Virgin Mobile. They have a pay as you go broadband plan with unlimited internet for $40.

Other than the Kindle, this was my first wireless plan. I liked the price, and I liked that I could take the connection with me. I’ve been using it since Monday (yes, my Verizon connection has been down for 3 days). BTW, this is the second time I used it. I also used it on my trip to Philadelphia last month, with similar speeds.

Virgin Mobile are using the Sprint network, and supposedly have good data coverage in my area.  Would you be surprised to find out that good coverage means a download speed of 20KBps? I was. Let me give you some details to compare it to. An old dial up modem can download at 56KBps. My Verizon DSL had a download speed of 200KBps (when it worked).

I can’t beleive anyone is actually paying for this.  Yes, it’s great to get information whenever, but I think of it this way: I’m paying how much for how little?

This is giving me a whole new understanding of 3G data networks. I really don’t understand why anyone would get a 3G equipped iPad or tablet. The benefits do not outweigh the cost.

Interactive Fiction comes to the Kindle – Dusk World

Do you recall when I told you about KindleQuest, a website that runs adventure games like Zork for your Kindle? Amazon just released an app that removes the need for an internet connection.

It’s called Dusk World, and after playing with it for a few minutes I’d say it’s closer to the old Choose-your-own-Adventure books than it is to Zork. The price is $5.99, and it only works on a Kindle (not the apps).

Here’s what Amazon had to say:

Dusk World is an interactive story for Kindle devices that combines interactivity with a graphic novel. The story takes place in Dusk City and combines crime, mystery, superhero and classic noir elements to create a vivid landscape full of colorful characters for you to interact with. The choices you make as Agent Patriot will lead you down different paths that determine the fate of both Dusk City and the world, not to mention Agent Patriot himself.

Here’s a demo video (which may or may not work):

Click to watch this video
Amazon
Video


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Dusk World

Apple still selling pirated ebooks in Japan?

There’s a story going around today about an open letter to Apple  from 4 Japanese publishing industry trade groups.  According to the complaint (translated by Google), they are upset by the quantity of pirated material in the Japanese iBookstore as well as the difficulty in getting Apple to remove the pirated content.

I almost missed this story. When I first came across it in the WSJ, I thought it was just a rehash of the iBookstore piracy story from a few weeks ago. I didn’t understand why everyone was reporting on it; it was old news. I was wrong. It’s a month later and we have 4 publishing trade groups that are so annoyed with Apple that they released an open letter. Yikes. How bad must the piracy problem in the iBookstore be that they did this in public?

Is apple trying to let the iBookstore die by benign neglect? I thought they usually functioned better than this.

Review: Elonex 500EB

This ereader has popped up in several places over the last year. We first saw it on the JCPenney website last November, and it then showed up under the Copia brand. Both fell through, and it finally showed up under the Elonex brand. I’ve also been told by the manufacturer, Gajah,that it will be sold in Russia by Nexx.

Table of Contents

Hardware

The Elonex 500EB is based on a 5″ (800×480) LCD screen and it has a SD card slot, accelerometer, and headphone jack (but no Wifi or touchscreen). Yes, it’s a basic ereader, but it’s the prettiest one I’ve seen in a while. Format support includes Adobe Epub, PDF, FB2, and txt. BTW, Elonex are also selling a 500FB with the same hardware specs but without support for Adobe DE DRM.

The power button is on the upper edge, and the page turn buttons are on the right edge. Below the screen are 6 buttons and a d-pad.On either side of the d-pad are the menu and back buttons. Below the d-pad are a second set of page turn buttons, font size, and music.

The d-pad has the standard problems shared by most d-pads, so I won’t cover them here. (I’ve been meaning to post on d-pad and joystick design – someday.) Actually, the d-pad would only bother people who know what’s wrong with it, so never mind.

I should probably tell you that my review unit developed a hardware fault. It now has a high pitched whine which surprisingly is in one of the few tones I can still hear. I still like the ereader, though.

One important detail that I almost forgot: The 500EB does charge over USB, so you don’t have to bother carrying the power supply around.

Software

The 500EB also has music and video players, a photo viewer, and a file manager. They’re all accessible under the menu button on the library screen. The video player can take a 720p at 30fps and show it without dropping frames. The image quality isn’t all that great, though. A lot of the subtleties in color and texture are lost.

The only annotation option is bookmarks. But, you do have some customization options: screen brightness, font size (6), font color (6), background color (6), and screen orientation. It also offers a page jump option and auto page turn option.

It does support PDF reflow, which is great. But you need to remember that if you reflow a PDF with graphs or charts, you’ll lose them.

The library menu has a couple serious shortcomings. First, the font size for all the menus is small and you can’t adjust it. Second, you can’t sort the ebooks by title. Instead the 500EB mistakenly offers you the file name (but you can see the author, which is weird). This will be a problem for me becuase a lot of my ebooks have numbers for file names.

Opinion

Pictures don’t do it justice. Seriously.

Right now I’m waitting to hear back from Gajah on whether they’ll send me a replacement. If they won’t, then I’ll start bugging Elonex.  If that doesn’t work I’ll seriously consider buying one.

I like it becuase it has a near perfect placement of page turn buttons. They are in the middle of the right edge, which puts them in just the right spot for me to hold the 500EB in my (rather large, male) left hand and read one handed.

Addendum: I just now noticed that it has a neat trick in the menu. If the file name is to long to fit the screen the 500EB will scroll the file name left and then right.

Update: NookColor to NOT get FroYo, Android Market in January

SmartphoneMag are reporting that according to the B&N rep they spoke to, the NC will be getting an official update that brings Android v2.2 and legitimate access to the Android Market.

The 2.2 update, or overhaul if you prefer, will give you access to a retooled Android Market, the typical Android home screen and even has pinch zooming with the browser. The Android Market app was still under development and was not on the device to see. I was told that Nook users may not have access to the full market. The Nook I looked at had apps loaded via the SD card slot and seemed to run fine. The device will still give you access to all of your Nook material via the current interface that will be switchable for the user.

I’m a little surprised, myself. If they are going to open the tablet, then why did they lock it down in the first place? It took time and money that will basically be thrown away in January.

This story doesn’t make sense.

Update: And now we know why it makes no sense. Android Guys are reporting that B&N have denied this story. The Nook will be getting its own app store, not the Android market. And there are no plans to have the Nook App Store available in January, either.

Google Ebookstore to sell ebooks from the US Government Printing Office – Um, what?

The GPO announced today that they will be partnering with Google to sell government documents through the Google eBookstore.

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) and Google have entered a partnership to offer the public, for the first time, federal government titles in an e-book format.  The titles will appear on Google’s recently launched Google ebookstore, which can be searched, purchased and read on any connected device with a capable browser.

HAHAHA

These documents are (for the most part) in the public domain. They were created using our tax dollars, and now someone want you to pay for them again! What drugs are they on? And what’s worse is that Google will be crippling these ebooks with DRM.  They’re public domain, for pete’s sake! Google have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do with them.

Okay, I hope you understand that I am laughing because this is one of the more absurd examples of a convenience tax. Basically you’re paying so you don’t have to search for the titles yourself.  In fact, the press release clearly states that you can get all of the ebooks from the GPO from the Federal Digital System. (At least, you’re supposed to be able to get them there; the site is down.)

The future of ebooks (from 2000)

Over the weekend, the BiblioFuture blog posted a set of ebook predictions that Microsoft made back in 2000. Where they dug it up, I have no clue. But I’m glad they did. It’s fascinating what some anonymous MS employee that would happen with ebooks over the past 10 years.

I’m going to go through the list and dissect it. I do find this list rather interesting. A lot of the missed predictions could have come true if MS had gotten behind ereaders back in 2000.

And they could have, too.  By 2002 Microsoft had released their reading app (MS Reader) for Windows CE.They also released Windows CE 2.11 in 2002, which was a pretty decent mobile OS (and the best at the time). And in 2003, Mobipocket released kick but reading apps that worked on multiple platforms. (Amazon killed them.)

The technology was there; what was missing was support from MS and acceptance from the publishing industry.

2002– PCs and eBook devices offer screens that are as sharp as paper, with 200 dpi physical resolution, and an effective resolution of about 500 dpi with ClearType.

2003– eBook devices weigh less than a pound and run for eight hours on a charge. Costs run from $99 for a simple black and white device to about $899 for the most powerful, color magazine-sized machine.

Okay, these 2 were insane. There’s no way these could come true in only 2 and 3 years.

2004– The Tablet PC becomes a mainstream option for computing. It is a pad-sized device that supports writing as well as eBook reading, and runs powerful computer applications in a slate form factor. More than half of all eReading is done on PCs and laptops, but dedicated eBooks, handheld machines and now Tablets account for the other half.

2005– eBook title and ePeriodical sales top $1 billion. Many serial publications are given away free with advertising support that now also totals more than $1 billion. An estimated 250 million people regularly read books and newspapers on their PCs, laptops, and palm machines.

2006– eNewstands (kiosks) proliferate on street corners, airports, etc. As usual, airlines offer customers old magazines on the flight, but the magazines are now downloaded to eBook devices.

2008– eBook titles begin to outsell conventional volumes in most countries. The price of a new bestseller title is about $8-$10, but unit sales are much larger than average paper sales for similar titles a decade ago.

Nope.  None of those predictions came true. Tablet PCs were a niche  in 2004, but until the iPad it was a very small niiche. I find it particularly surprising that the advertising revenue prediction was so off base; ad revenues have actually dropped since that prediction, not grown. On the other hand, the digital kiosks don’t surprise me, nor does the fact they didn’t happen.  There wasn’t enough content to make them worth installing. And as for ebooks outselling paper books, *snort*. That will never going to happen, IMO. There are many things you can do with ebooks, but there are many more that you cannot.

2009– Several top authors now publish directly to their audiences, many of whom subscribe to their favorite authors rather than buy book-by-book. Some authors join genre cooperatives, in which they hold an ownership stake, to cover the costs of marketing, handle group advertising sales and sell "ancillary" (that is, non-electronic) rights, including "paper rights." Major publishing houses survive and prosper by offering authors editing and marketing services, rather than arranging for book printing. Printing firms diversify into eBook preparation and converting old paper titles to electronic formats.

This prediction was slightly off, but it’s now coming true. J.A. Konrath now makes more money from his self published titles than from his contracts with a Big 6 publisher.  And as for Genre Cooperatives, I know of several (Book View Cafe, which was founded in 2008).

But the rest of the prediction for 2009 weren’t quite as accurate. The Major Publishers are still holding on without any serious change in their behavior (aside from trying to strangle the ebook market), and some printing firms are diversifying  but not that many. Most conversion and ebook prep is done by tech companies or handled internally.

2010– Popular eBook devices weigh eight ounces, run for more than 24 hours, offer beautiful non-backlit displays, are available in flexible/foldable form factors, and hold more books and magazines than most university libraries. They cost less than $100 and are often given away free with the purchase of several books or a magazine subscription.

This one almost came true. The weight battery life, screen tech, and storage capacity are about right but we’re not quite there on price.  I also don’t think we’ll ever see the folding form factor.

The rest of the list is predictions for the next 10 years. I was going to pass on discussing them, but one caught my eye.

2012– The pulp industry mounts its pro-paper "Real Books" ad campaign, featuring a friendly logger who urges consumers to "Buy the real thing – real books printed on real paper."

That’s already happening, sort of. The magazine industry  have been running a "we’re not dead yet" campaign this year to try to regain the readers they lost to the Web. It’s not quite the same, but it is similar.

Review: Next2 e-reader

I finally got my hands on one of the Next2 ereaders I showed you a couple months ago. This is a pretty decent ereader, and it was slightly better than I expected.

Read on for my review.

Hardware

This is a minimalist ereader based on an Android tablet. It has a 7″ (800×480) resistive touchscreen, 2GB Flash, a SD card slot, Wifi, accelerometer, a headphone jack, and 2 page turn buttons. It runs Android v1.5. It ships with a reversible case, USB cord, and power supply.

You can’t swap the page turn buttons, but I didn’t find that to be such a problem. And TBH, I’m pleased just to have the buttons. I have the feeling that this was a hybrid design. They took a tablet and changed it just enough to make it a usable ereader.

The resistive touchscreen is the good kind (trust me, there’s a difference) and I thought it was easy to use and more responsive than some I’ve had my hands on. This tablet lacks the 3 standard Android buttons, but that’s okay. They’re on the taskbar at the top of the screen.

Apps

Since the Next2 runs v1.5, you will have trouble installing apps. So it’s good that it ships with certain basics such as a file manager, web browser, email, an app store, as well as a Youtube app. All are the basic apps you’d find on any Android tablet and they work fine, with the exception of the Youtube app.

Update: The Next2 got a firmware update early this year. Current models should be running Android v2.1, a much newer version of the OS.  it should be a lot easier to find and install apps.

As you might know, the Youtube app for Android can’t play all Youtube videos. But this one might be kinda funky. I’ve searched for my standard test clips and I can’t find them. This is rather odd. I’ve found them with other versions of the Youtube app, so I really don’t know why they don’t turn up on the Next2.

The app store is one I’ve seen before. It’s okay, but it’s one of the smaller stores and the selection isn’t very good. It also doesn’t help you screen for compatible apps.

Sidenote: if you’re interested, one of my test videos on Youtube is "High on Firefly". I use it for an audio test because there is one particular word that poor speakers will screw up. Play the video and listen for the line "he lives by one law – Murphy’s". If the last word sounds like "herpes" then the speakers are poor quality.

Video & Audio

It ships with video and audio players, yes. I don’t have the hearing to judge audio, but I watched the included  clip and it was shown full screen at 30 fps without dropping any frames. For a budget tablet, that is impressive. But then I played a couple clips I shot myself. The Next2 can’t handle MOV 720p at 30fps.The video and audio don’t stay in sync.

I don’t expect it to play full screen, but I think it should at least be able to handle the file and gracefully downgrade it. I have other tablets that can do that much.

Reading Experience

The Next2 is tied to the Borders ebookstore, and the registration process is a pain. They want me to enter my Adobe ID, which tells me that this isn’t using the borders/kobo app, just the Borders ebookstore. Fortunately, you don’t have to have a Borders account to read your own ebooks.

Sidenote: I usually don’t bother to authorize my ereaders. I will do it sometimes in order to make sure a particular device can or if I’m helping someone troubleshoot. But it’s generally too much of a nuisance. As a rule I download an ebook and strip the DRM right away. It’s much less hassle to just get rid of it right away. DRM is a pain in the ass.

The only annotation option is bookmarks, and the only font option is font size (5 sizes). But it does at least have TOC support and a jump to page option.

Page turn speed was okay for both Epub and PDF (when not in zoom mode). When you zoom in on a PDF, page turn is quite slow. But on the upside you can use the touchscreen to scroll around each page of the PDF.

The Next2 can’t reflow PDFs, only zoom. This isn’t much of a problem for a 7″ screen, but the Next2 also can’t crop the PDF (remove the white space around the edges). That is a shortcoming, because on 7″ screen the standard PDF is quite readable if you can crop it.

Opinion

All in all, I’m rather pleased with this ereader. It’s comfortable to hold and page turns are reasonably fast. But it’s also rather heavy, and I’m concerned about the battery life when it’s left in standby. Be sure to turn off the Wifi when you’re not using it. I didn’t and the Next 2 kept trying to stay connected to my home network (even though it was in sleep mode). This drained the battery in only a few days.

 

Dorling Kindersley to launch app store

The UK publisher Dorling Kindersley have just announced the launch of their app store where they now sell Android apps to the public. You can also vist their store to find links to Tunes so you can buy iOS apps.

Technically, the store is being run by Handango, not DK. Not that I’m criticizing; it makes sense that they’re using someone’s platform (it costs less than developing their own).

The app store currently has 2 sections, one for the US and the other for the UK. DK are also planning to add more sections for Canada and Australia, but I don’t understand why they’re hamstringing themselves this way. A digital market is a digital market; geographic restrictions shouldn’t matter.

ALso, I spent a few minutes looking at apps for phones that DK don’t have apps for  (Symbian, Blackberry).  DK aren’t doing a very good job of excluding other company’s apps from their app store. I suppose that’s okay, but how is it a DK App Store if it has everyone else’s apps?

DK App Shop via The BookSeller

Open Library release updated BookReader app

The Open Library have just announced an updated version of their BookReader. This web baed reading app is designed to work with Open Library’s ebooks as well as the Internet Archive’s collection.

You know that the Internet Archive, the patron saint of deceased websites, try to archive everything, right? Well, the IA have a pretty extensive collection of scanned pd works converted to PDF as well as a large library of CC and user uploaded titles. That’s what the BookReader is for.

Some of the improvements include:

  • Redesigned user interface that maximizes the amount of space given to the book. Click the down arrow on the navigation bar to hide the user interface. (The Origin of Species)
  • Navigation bar that helps show your location in the book and navigate through it. Search results and chapter markers (if available) show up on the navigation bar.
  • New Read Aloud feature reads the book as audio in most browsers.  No special software is needed – just click the speaker icon  and go!
  • Tables of contents are being automatically generated for most books and can be edited or added manually through the Open Library site.  The chapter markers appear in the new navigation bar. (Launching Out Into The Deep in Wake of the War Canoe)
  • Vastly improved full-text search.  Search results are shown on the navigation bar and include a snippet of text near the matched search term. (Search results for “hawk” in book of birds)

The read aloud isn’t that bad (Blio is much worse). If you’d like to see a live demo, click here: