Amazon aims to promote digital reading around the world and has established a new program called Kindle Reading Fund to achieve that goal. The Fund will be in charge of donating Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets and ebooks to various recipients, such as...
There's something to be said about a printed book. It's easy to read outdoors, you can lend it to a friend and, unlike a top-end Kindle, it doesn't spell disaster if you lose it. E-readers have their place, but today The Publishers Association (PA) h...
Amazon's Kindle Oasis is like a feast with the world's finest caviar. It's an all-you-can eat Wagyu steak dinner. It's an $80 cup of coffee. Simply put, the Oasis is a $290 extravagance meant only for the few who can afford it. For the rest of us, it...
Jeff Bezos probably wasn't pleased to see his surprise spoiled this week, but e-book fans still have reason to get pumped. Amazon just pulled back the curtain on its new premium reader, the Kindle Oasis, and it's the slimmest and sleekest model the c...
The following article is brought to you by Gobookee. -Ed.
Security is a huge deal these days. There are so many scams floating around these days that attempt to gain access to your personal information by hacking into your email, perhaps in a bid to steal your identity or obtain your bank account details. For example, the Nigerian and “You just won the lottery!” email scams have been extensively reported on for the past few years, but there are still people who fall for it every day. For sure, a resource like the Email Security ebook would be helpful to would-be victims.
This title is just one of the many digital books, manuals, and guides on gadgets and gizmos that you can find on Gobookee. As you would expect from a typical library, the site also offers resources on a variety of topics, including Arts, Business, Family, Food, Health, Law, Medicine, and Sports, among others. Titles are featured regularly You can browse through the books in the different categories if you’re not looking for anything particular. If you are, then simply type in the relevant keywords and hit search to see what Gobookee can find on the topic. You can find out more about the book by clicking on the title. You then have the option to buy the book or find a similar free ebook elsewhere.
Check out http://www.gobookee.org/ and start reading!
Turns out Google Play Books' arrival in India was merely the beginning of its burgeoning love affair with Asia. From the land of the Taj Mahal, it has made its way to eight new locations in the region: folks living in Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan and Hong Kong can now buy digital tomes from Mountain View. Play Books' latest journey doesn't stop there, though -- it has also donned its best hobbit garments to travel even more south and go on an adventure in New Zealand. It often takes a long time for services born in the US to land in other locations if they even do, so this counts as a huge victory for potential users living in those countries. Now, if only Google Music could follow suit...
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile, Google
Via: Android Police
Source: Google
As of today, Amazon Publishing is entering the wonderful world of sequential art publishing with its new imprint, Jet City Comics. Its inaugural issue, Symposium #1 by Christian Cameron, is sure to please fans of Neal Stephenson's The Foreworld Saga. Also joining Jet City Comics are sci-fi/fantasy luminaries like George R.R. Martin and Hugh Howey. Martin will be teaming up with artist Raya Golden on an adaptation of Meathouse Man, a story so twisted, it makes Game of Thrones look like a Disney fairytale. Writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray (currently tearing it up on Batwing) will translate Howey's series of dystopian novellas, Wool, into a six-issue mini-series this October with a collected print edition to follow in 2014. For more information, check out the full press release after the break.
The issue of e-book prices, and alleged price fixing, has come up again and again in recent years, with the focus most recently shifting to a Manhattan courtroom where Apple is at the center of an antitrust trial. After revealing new details of the company's market share yesterday, Apple's Eddy Cue has today offered another piece of surprising news: that he and Steve Jobs once discussed a potential deal that would see Apple stay out of the ebook market if Amazon agreed stayed out of music. There's no indication that went beyond the early discussion phase, or actually involved any discussions with Amazon, but it would obviously raise considerable antitrust questions had it gone any further.
As CNET and The Verge report, the DOJ is hoping that revelation will bolster its case that Apple engaged in antitrust practices to inflate ebook prices across the market. On that front, Cue, who the DOJ describes as the "chief ringleader of the conspiracy," reportedly acknowledged that the prices of some ebooks did go up from April of 2010 (when it opened its iBookstore) through to 2012, but he attributed that to publishers unhappy with Amazon's $9.99 pricing. Cue's facing further questioning from Apple's attorneys this afternoon, with the trial expected to wrap up by the end of next week.
Filed under: Apple
Few people understand the magic of libraries better than Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials, but all is not well when it comes to digital lending. As the soon-to-be president of the Society of Authors, Pullman is leading the charge against publishing houses that may be shortchanging writers on e-book loans. In a letter to major publishers like Random House and Bloomsbury, Pullman argues that selling e-books to libraries as single sales rather than licenses costs authors up to two-thirds the income they receive from print loans. The Society's brief calls for the industry to reconsider existing models for compensation so that writers can continue producing books with which to line library shelves. After all, without authors, there would be no books, and as Pullman himself wrote, "Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all."
Filed under: Misc
Via: The Guardian, The Telegraph
Source: The Society of Authors (PDF)