Remember the Gvido, that dual-screen sheet music reader which is expected to ship later this year?

Charbax has found a second such device from another Japanese company, Design M Plus. He caught up with the company when it was exhibiting its Musik device at CeBIT earlier this year.

As you can see in the following video the dual-screen version of the Musik looks a lot like the Gvido. However, the single-screen model does not. That looks more like the Sony DPT-S1 or any other large-screen ereader (this is why I don’t think the Gvido and the Musik are the same device).

While the Gvido and the Musik could be the same device, the one looks a lot more complete in the software dept and there is no obvious connection between the two companies.

In a way, the Musik reminds me of the Kno, a dual-screen textbook tablet that launched in 2010. The Kno started out with two 14″ screen, and for a short time before the device was canceled there was also supposed to be a single-screen model.

The Kno never shipped, however, and and it’s not clear that the Musik will either.

The Gvido, on the other hand, has a retail price of $1,600 and is set to ship in September. (I have updated my earlier post with all the new info.)

The latest 9-inch Pandigital Novel tablet has officially debuted on QVC.com, currently priced at $213.80. This marks a minor price hike from its initial appearance, when it was briefly available for just under $200. As the larger successor to the 7-inch black Pandigital Novel, this device enters the market as a budget-friendly option for those seeking a larger display in a handheld device.

In terms of technical specifications, the hardware features a resistive touchscreen and includes a stylus for navigation. Connectivity is handled via built-in Wi-Fi, and the device offers 2GB of internal flash storage. To supplement this, the tablet comes bundled with a 4GB microSD card. Like its predecessor, the 9-inch Novel is integrated with the Barnes & Noble ebook ecosystem, allowing users to access that specific digital storefront directly.

However, some technical details remain underwhelming. According to updated information from Pandigital’s own product page, the screen resolution is a modest 800×480. This resolution is relatively low for a screen of this size, which may impact image sharpness and text clarity. Furthermore, the specific processor and Android version remain unconfirmed. This is a point of concern for some, as the smaller 7-inch version operated on the outdated Android 1.5, which led to performance issues.

Early visual evidence suggests the device features a standard Android home screen, indicating it may be an open tablet rather than a strictly locked-down e-reader. While the price point makes it one of the most affordable large-screen tablets currently available, potential buyers may want to wait for more detailed performance benchmarks regarding its CPU and software version before committing to a purchase.

Amazon has launched a new tool that lets you make an ebook out of a Word file.

It is called Kindle Create, and was released this week for Windows and macOS.

Amazon has released a number of tools you can use to make Kindle ebooks, including an epub conversion tool as well as Kindle Kids Book Creator, Kindle Textbook Creator, and Kindle Comics Creator.

Those apps produced picture books, PDF textbooks, and comics books, variously. Kindle Create, on the other hand, was built to make all those things, as well as novels.

Edit: And just to be clear, this app makes a file you can upload to the Kindle store. it does not make an ebook you can read yourself.

You can give it either a DOC or a PDF file, and once it ingests the file you can edit the text, format the chapter and section headings, embed audio and video clips, and make other changes.

From what I have seen this morning, what you can do with an ebook project is limited by the format you started with; the audio and video clips, for example, can be embedded when you start with a PDF but not a DOC. (Or maybe the app just didn’t want to cooperate with me?)

In any case, I am still playing with the app, and so are authors on the KDP support forums and Chris McMullen.

At least one of the authors on the KDP forums is really impressed with the app:

Pros:
*Very easy app for Wordsters to use.
*You can use a Word doc, docx or a PDF file in Kindle Create.
*Automatically detects and splits chapter heading styles according to heading layout.
*Easily and manually allows you to create a TOC, add chapter subtitles and add separators to your Kindle ebook.
*You can also restyle your ebook text just using point and click.
*You can also directly edit your text in the app in Text View. This is a huge plus!!
*You can test your ebook in-app using their modified version of Kindle Previewer 3.8 Beta.
*You can also use their Template to create your ebook from scratch.
*Gives a reliable and quick conversion using Advanced Typesetting.
*Kindle Create Help documentation is fairly thorough and easy to follow.
*When I converted my Word doc without cover(its an old ebook on amazon now) to kbc — the total file size was 1.2 Mb. When I converted the same ebook as a pdf doc with cover to kbc — the total file size was 1.4 Mb. So this Kindle Create app has a converter that also uses efficient file compression.
*It’s a fast app — no waiting.

Kindle Create

When Shelfie shut down its ebook bundling platform in January, founder Peter Hudson told me that "In the end the unit economics of ebook sales just don’t make much sense if you don’t own the platform like Apple, Google, or Amazon."

Today Shelfie found its platform.

Kobo just sent out a press release with the news that it has acquired the now-shuttered Shelfie.

You can find the press release at the end of this post – here’s what this deal means.

• Shelfie spent four years developing a platform where users could make a post-sale bundle consisting of a print and ebooks.
• When promoted in bookstores, Shelfie’s service almost doubled one bookseller’s sales of bundled titles
• Many of Kobo’s partners around the world are bookstore chains or media retailers, including WHSmith, Coles, Indigo, and FNAC.

All in all, this is a deal that makes a lot of sense, and what’s even better is that it puts Shelfie in the position to kill a clunky part of its platform.

Under Shelfie’s old platform, users had to prove they owned a paper book by personalizing it, taking a photo, and then either buying or downloading the matching ebook.

That was just too clunky for words, and it defintely discouraged adoption.

But now that Kobo owns Shelfie, they will be able to tie it into their partner booksellers' servers and automatically suggest that readers get the matching ebook to go with the paper book they just bought. The ebooks can be added automatically to a reader’s Kobo account – no muss, no fuss, and no foofing around with a smartphone app.

If I were Amazon, I would be wincing today.

Sure, Kobo is a tiny compared to Amazon, but one of its advantages is that it has partners in many markets where Amazon has no presence.

This deal reinforces Kobo’s strength by giving their local partners a new way to sell books.

This could be huge in the long run.

O O O

Rakuten Kobo Inc., one of the world’s most innovative eReading companies, today announced it has acquired Shelfie, a service that was built to enable customers to get free or discounted eBook versions of books in their print libraries, and get recommendations based on print books they already own. The deal includes technology assets, IP, and the infrastructure on which the ecosystem runs; it also includes hiring Shelfie’s skilled team, which specializes in the application of big data and machine learning for book discovery.

Shelfie ceased operations this January. Kobo worked with Shelfie to offer its customers the opportunity to transfer their eBook libraries to Kobo’s platform, ensuring they would continue to have access to their digital books. Over the coming months, Kobo will work to integrate the Shelfie platform into its Android and iOS apps, enabling readers to add their print libraries to their reading history to generate ever more tailored eBook recommendations, as well as the option to get digital versions of print titles they already own.

Founded in 2013 by Peter Hudson and Marius Muja, as BitLit Media Inc., Shelfie grew to offer more than 450,000 eBooks and audiobooks that booklovers could purchase at a discount or download free of charge. Via any iOS or Android device, users snapped a photo of their bookshelf, and through patented technology, Shelfie scanned the spines of every book to identify titles and give readers a complete inventory of their collection, and served them the available equivalent titles in digital—free of charge or at a promotional price. The service also used the titles on the shelf as data, combined with digital reading data, to generate personalized recommendations.

“We know our best customers move fluidly between formats, reading digitally and in print, and we welcome this opportunity to bring their entire reading life together. People who come to Kobo already have a history of reading in print that we don’t want to ignore. This acquisition will allow us to expand our ecosystem by incorporating Shelfie’s innovative advances in book recommendation, discovery, and bundling, which is especially interesting considering our large network of bricks-and-mortar bookselling partners,” said Michael Tamblyn, CEO, Rakuten Kobo Inc.

“We’re proud of what we’ve built, and in Kobo, have found the perfect platform to expand on what Shelfie has to offer, on a global scale,” said Peter Hudson, CEO, Shelfie. “Finding the next book to read is a challenge that resonates with many booklovers, who increasingly are looking to personal recommendations as opposed to algorithm-based suggestions. With Shelfie’s technology, avid readers will easily be able to find the next must-read book.”

image by ActuaLitté

The dual-screen Yotaphone may have been abandoned after its parent company was sold off and the remaining stock sold out in clearance sales,  but that doesn’t mean that development has stopped.

A reader has tipped me to the news that the Yotaphone 2 has been updated. There is what appears to be an official announcement on the VK social network that Yota Devices’s Russian team has released a system update with Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

The improvements include the addition of the Gmail app, better support for pushing apps to the E-ink screen, better power management, and of course Android 6.0 and support for the latest Android apps.

The firmware has been under development since at least December 2016, and is only valid for Yotaphones running on an RU firmware. (According to my source, you can install the firmware on the $140 Yotaphones sold by GearBest.)

This release comes only a few short weeks after rumors that Yota Devices was working on a Yotaphone 3, and it will surely add fuel to the speculation.

Unfortunately, the official word is that there will be no Yotaphone 3. The Chinese company that bought Yota Devices last year had initially shown interest in releasing a new model but later decided that they didn’t want to invest the capital.

So if you were holding out in the hopes that the next model would be better, it’s time to settle on the Yotaphone 2 (which is a pretty good phone, especially if you got it for $140).

A specialized electronic reader once presumed to be a dead project is officially making a comeback. Originally introduced in 2008 by Philips spin-off Polymer Vision, the Readius was a groundbreaking device featuring a 5-inch expandable E-ink display. However, the company’s trajectory was halted in 2009 when it lost its financial backing after a primary investor became embroiled in a Ponzi scheme.

Before its collapse, the Readius had made high-profile appearances at industry events like Mobile World Congress 2008. Following the company’s bankruptcy, Wistron acquired Polymer Vision and continued refining its proprietary screen technology. Because the original hardware had become dated during the transition, the engineering team pivoted toward a modernized design utilizing improved display panels.

While small updates regarding the project’s survival have circulated for over a year, a new conceptual rendering of the redesigned Readius has finally been made public. Although a specific commercial launch date has not been announced, the new design confirms that the project remains active. The updated concept showcases a versatile form factor that can fold into a compact size similar to a mobile phone or expand to offer two different viewing configurations. This development marks a significant resurrection for a device that was a pioneer in the foldable display market.

This hub for writers and self-published authors is a project in progress, intended to eventually house a comprehensive library of resources for the indie publishing community. While new content is being added regularly, a variety of templates, guides, and tools are currently available to assist writers throughout their creative and professional journey.

For those in the early stages of storytelling, the site provides a downloadable PDF worksheet designed to help brainstorm character names and settings. Aspiring novelists can also explore a massive collection of nearly 200 different generators for plots and names, alongside a list of thirteen essential tools to improve writing quality and fourteen tips for streamlining book production within Google Docs.

Visual presentation is also a primary focus. Writers can access lists of free stock image repositories and various software options for designing book jackets. Specifically, the site offers tutorial content on using Canva for cover creation, including a specialized guide for the fantasy and science fiction genres. For technical assembly, the site reviews fifteen applications for ebook creation and explains seven different open-source digital book formats.

The resource bank extends into professional development and digital strategy. It includes a series on author blogging, covering practical link construction and the nuances of guest posting for visibility. Marketing advice is a significant component, featuring a comprehensive directory of both free and paid book promotion services. Authors can also find guidance on how to facilitate book giveaways through their own sites, identify common financial mistakes in book marketing, and evaluate fifteen different email marketing platforms for audience building.

Website management is a central pillar of the site’s offerings. Writers can consult checklists for author websites and book listings, as well as guides on SEO for Blogger platforms. Technical advice covers critical areas such as identifying if a site has been compromised, safely migrating WordPress hosting, and optimizing SEO plugins. Cost-saving tips are also highlighted, particularly concerning the selection of domain names and the configuration of specific web tools.

Additional information is categorized into recommended WordPress themes and curated lists of plugins and services. For ongoing updates, the site offers a weekly newsletter that summarizes recent posts and industry insights. Readers can also reach out for professional consultations via email or contact form, and stay connected through several social media platforms including Twitter and LinkedIn. The Digital Reader is funded through reader donations and participation in the Amazon Associates affiliate program.

Released last summer, the Onyx Boox Max was a pricey but worthwhile alternative to the Sony DPT-S1.

It ran Android 4.0 on a 1GHz CPU with a 13.3″ screen, stylus, Wifi, and BT. As I pointed out in my review, it was not your typical ereader, but since it shipped with Google Play its functionality was limited only by the apps you installed (and by the CPU).

But now it is getting a little better.

eReader-Store.de is now taking pre-orders for the Onyx Boox Max Carta. This is an update to the Onyx Boox Max with a new higher-resolution Carta E-ink screen. But it has essentially the same guts, though, so there are arguments against paying the extra 45 euros at the register.

Like its predecessor, the Onyx Boox Max Carta runs Android 4.0 on a 1GHz single core CPU (last year I misreported the processor as a dual-core CPU). It comes with 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, stylus, Wifi, Bluetooth, a headphone jack, a card slot, and can be upgraded to Android 4.4.

The one key difference between the Onyx Boox Max Carta and the previous model is that the Max Carta has a Carta E-ink screen with a resolution of 2200 x 1650, or 207 ppi. The original Max had a screen resolution of 1600 x 1200, oe 150 ppi.

The retail price is 796 euros (~$853), or about 45 euros more than the first model.

The new model has a considerably sharper screen, which is great and all, but I for one was hoping for other upgrades: a faster CPU, capacitive touchscreen, or Android 5.0.

This is hardly an upgrade at all.

eReader-Store.de

Microsoft confirmed yesterday that the next version of Windows 10 will include an ebookstore and reading app built into the Edge web browser.

References to the reading app and store had been found in previous beta releases of Windows 10, and yesterday MS told us:

With the Creators Update, we’ve added new features like advanced tab management to help you find, organize and open tabs you’ve set aside without leaving the page you’re on. You can now discover and get your favorite e-books in Windows Store and read them in Microsoft Edge across all of your Windows 10 devices.

The Creator Update will be released on 11 April, but that is really all we know for certain at this time.

Beta versions of the Edge browser have supported Epub since November, though the user reports I have heard suggest that the app is buggy and still only semi-functional.

The store, on the other hand, was spotted in the code in a January beta release of Windows 110 mobile. It didn’t work at that time, but we did get a screenshot of the storefront:

Whether the store uses this layout remains to be seen.

According to a press release Yahoo Japan has outsourced its ebook operations to a company called eBook Initiative Japan. The handover will take place on 1 April, after which eBook Initiative Japan will be responsible for all aspects of running the ebookstore and marketing its content.

Coincidentally, the parent company Yahoo only controls a minority stake in Yahoo Japan; Yahoo owns about 35% of its Japanese subsidiary, while Softbank owns 36%. So Verizon, which is still in the process of acquiring Yahoo, doesn’t quite own a Japanese bookstore.

In any case, outsourcing operations made sense given the relatively small size and slow growth of the Japanese ebook market.

According to Japan’s Research Laboratory of the Publishing Science, Japanese ebook sales rose 13% in 2016, to 25.8 billion yen. In comparison, book sales alone accounted for 737 billion yen.

image by abhisawa

Proposed changes to Australia’s copyright law should make it easier for people to create and distribute versions of copyrighted works that are accessible to people with disabilities.

The Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and other Measures) Bill was introduced to Parliament on Wednesday.

If passed, it would enable people with disabilities to access and enjoy books and other material in formats they can use, such as braille, large print or DAISY audio.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has long been calling for action to end the “world book famine” – only 5% of books produced in Australia are available in accessible formats. This means that people with vision impairment and other reading disabilities are excluded from a massive proportion of the world’s knowledge and culture.

Under the current law, educational institutions and other organizations can produce accessible copies of books, but the system is slow and expensive. Only a small number of popular books are available, and technical books that people need for work are often out of reach.

Technology should make accessibility much easier, but publishers have been slow to enable assistive technologies.

People with disabilities have long complained that they are not able to take advantage of new technologies such as inbuilt screen reading software on computers and smartphones.

Amazon’s Kindle, for example, used to allow text-to-speech to help blind people read books, but Amazon gave in to publishers’ fears and allowed them to disable the feature. Apple’s electronic books are much better, but there are still major gaps.

Our research looked at books available through electronic academic databases, and found that most ebook libraries have some features that frustrate full accessibility.

The Copyright Act in its current form does grant statutory licenses for copying by institutions that assist people with disabilities, but there are no comprehensive exceptions for individuals. Research shows that even students in resourced universities have trouble accessing the materials they need to study.

A fair right for people with disabilities

The new Bill aims to create a clear right for individuals to copy materials into accessible formats. Critically, this new “fair dealing” exception also allows other people to help out by creating and sharing accessible versions of books and other materials.

This is a major milestone in making copyright law more fair. It implements Australia’s obligations under the Marrakesh Treaty, a landmark international agreement designed to stop copyright getting in the way of accessibility.

The Marrakesh Treaty, once implemented around the world, will enable organizations to share accessible books to the people who need them in other countries. This is an extremely important change as the costs of scanning and making a book accessible are so high that most blind people are denied access to most works.

Once the laws are clarified, the accessibility of books will increase dramatically. Google has been busy digitizing the world’s books, and it has given those books to a charity called Hathi Trust. Soon, Hathi Trust will be able to share those books with blind people around the world.

Google’s partnership with Hathi Trust means that blind people will soon be able to access more than 14 million volumes almost overnight. This figure may grow quickly as Google has already digitized more than 30 million books. Very soon, the proportion of accessible books might jump from 5-10% to closer to 30%.

A missed opportunity

The Bill also proposes a number of other long awaited updates to Australian copyright law. But one thing the Bill does not do is fix a drafting error that has plagued Australian copyright law for the past decade.

When Australia signed the Australia – US Free Trade Agreement, we introduced a system of “notice-and-takedown” that would protect copyright owners. The system provides a way for people to ask online service providers to remove content that infringes copyright.

But the law was poorly drafted. It applied only to a small number of Internet Service Providers (such as Telstra, Optus, and iiNet) but not the larger category of search engines and content hosts.

This means it does not apply to giants such as Google and Facebook. It also means that other organizations that host content uploaded by users, such as The Conversation, are also excluded.

These safe harbors provide a shield in case people – outside of the service provider’s control – use their networks to upload content that infringes any copyright laws.

The reason they are so critical is that it is often prohibitively expensive for the companies that host internet content to check all content before a user uploads it.

But the safe harbors aren’t free. The quid pro quo is that the ISP must introduce a notice and takedown scheme. This is one of the few effective mechanisms to get content removed from the internet, and has been a crucial part of protecting the rights of publishers and authors online.

When the new Bill was first drafted, it was set to fix the drafting error that excludes content hosts, search engines, universities and other organizations from the scheme. But the Bill introduced this week contains no such fix.

The extension of these safe harbors has become highly politicized, with major rightsholders warning that it looked like a win for Google and Facebook.

The past two decades of the internet in the United States have shown how critical the safe harbors are to all developers, both large and small. They reduce uncertainty and allow innovation in the ways that people access content.

So while this new Bill is important, it is also a missed opportunity. The drafting error in Australia’s copyright safe harbors means that neither tech companies or authors and publishers are well protected.

reposted under a CC license from The Conversation

images

After four and a half years of floundering around, trying to find a viable business model, Medium has finally chosen one – only it is from the 19th century, not the 21st.

On Wednesday Medium announced its subscription service, which (when it finally launches) will cost $5 a month and give readers access to … something.

The service is in limited beta at the moment, but when it is more widely available subscribers will get access to:

• exclusive content,
• beta access to reading features,
• an offline reading mode.

That really doesn’t look like much; readers already have offline reading modes in apps like Pocket and Instapaper – which coincidentally offer a better reading experience anyway. So Medium isn’t offering much of value – just "exclusive stories from top writers":

As a founding member, your contributions will be used to directly pay writers and publishers. That means new content that wouldn’t otherwise be on Medium—or wouldn’t exist at all. You’ll have access to exclusive stories from leading experts, including your favorite Medium writers, on topics that matter not just today, but tomorrow too.

Basically, Medium is making the same offer as countless other publishers in the past two centuries; pay us for our unique content. (To be fair, a lot of news publishers couldn’t even make that claim; their content was closer to filler than unique.)

Nevertheless, I am in favor of paying for content where it is worthwhile; this is why I have been a paying member of Medium since January 1970.

There was something wrong with their date system, yes.

Snark aside, here’s what I really think:

Finally, the hype bubble has burst.

When it launched in 2012, Medium was pitched as a new and unique solution to the problem of poor content on the web, but it was pretty clear by 2014/2015 that Medium had little to offer that couldn’t be found on just about any other platform.

• Sparse page layout? WordPress had those as optional themes years ago.
• Instant audience through a recommendation engine? Again, WordPress – and social media.
• A simple user interface for writing? Okay, this is nice if you like minimalism, but why bother going to a site’s admin pages to write when Open Live Writer offers an MSWord-like interface (the app works with most blogging platforms, too)?

Nevertheless, the hype persisted in the media coverage of Medium until early this year when Medium laid off a third of its staff and announced that it would be seeking a new solution to its finance problem.

That new solution is quite old, and even in its current web-only incarnation is already being used by a number of other sites, including Pando Daily, Financial Times, The Bookseller, and the NY Times.

And unfortunately, the hype isn’t dead yet; Medium founder Ev Williams still believes it. Here’s what he wrote back in January:

We believe people who write and share ideas should be rewarded on their ability to enlighten and inform, not simply their ability to attract a few seconds of attention. We believe there are millions of thinking people who want to deepen their understanding of the world and are dissatisfied with what they get from traditional news and their social feeds. We believe that a better system?—?one that serves people?—?is possible. In fact, it’s imperative.

Lofty ideals are great and all, but this is the same guy who pursued these same ideals for five years without stumbling across a business model.

It is past time for an injection of reality. Someone who knows how to turn a profit needs to take over before Medium runs out of money.

image by tvorbaweb-stranok.sk

Some segments of the legacy book publishing had good news in the AAP’s latest month report, but overall the news was bleak.

Trade book revenues were down 7.5% in the month of October, and as a result the industry revenues (for the 1,200 odd publishers which submit data to the AAP) were down 0.7%.

Surprisingly, Adult ebook revenues were up for the month (2.6%) but the format as a whole was still down 17.2% for the year to date.

O O O

Press release:

Religious presses and Childrens & Young Adult Books Publishers’ revenues increased for Oct. 2016 and for the year to-date. Despite those increases, the challenging month for adult books and educational materials resulted in a decline in overall publisher revenues of 9.3% in Oct. 2016 and 6.4% for the year-to-date in all tracked categories (Trade – fiction/non-fiction/religious, PreK-12 Instructional Materials, Higher Education Course Materials, Professional Publishing, and University Presses).

Trade book revenues fell 7.5% in Oct. 2016 vs Oct. 2015, and were down 0.7% year-to-date. The cause of the decline was Adult Books, which was down 13.1% for the month. Interestingly, after 19 months of decline, Adult eBooks grew 2.6% in Oct. 2016 vs Oct. 2015; eBooks, however, remain down for the year-to-date in all trade categories – Adult Books, Childrens/YA and Religious Presses.

Publisher revenues include sales to bookstores, wholesalers, direct to consumer, online retailers, etc.

Trade Books

From Jan. – Oct. 2016 vs. the same time in 2015 trade books were down 0.7% year-to-date.

• By Category:
  • Adult Books were down 3.2% to $3.9 billion
  • Childrens & YA Books were up 4.4% to $1.4 billion
  • Religious Presses are up 7.0% to $401.8 million

• By Format
  • Paperback books grew 6.8% to $1.8 billion
  • Hardback books were flat at 0.2% $2.1 billion
  • Downloaded audio grew 27.3% to $219.5 million
  • eBooks were down 17.2% to $971.4 million

Educational Materials and Professional Books

• Educational Materials had a revenue loss of 8.6% for PreK-12 Instructional Materials and 11.4% for Higher Education Course Materials from Jan. – Oct. 2016 vs. the same time in 2015
• Professional Publishing was down 21.5% From Jan. – Oct. 2016 vs. the same time in 2015. These categories include business, medical, law, scientific and technical books. University presses were down 3.8% for the 10 months.

image by investmentzen