Chris Roth animated this little video spot for a new children’s book coming out in August. It’s message is all about books being books and they don’t have anything more to them than the story they’re telling. I love a good e-reader perfectly well, but I still want a real book more than my e-reader. Every good book should have a cover. It’s as simple as that.
Tag Archives: ebook
Reading On a Kindle Is a Pleasure
After two years of reading reviews, watching products come out and compete, listening to people gripe about DRM and ebook pricing, I jumped directly into the fray and opted for the Kindle from Amazon.
Barnes & Noble Nook is a Dreadful Failure
I’ve been so waiting with my bated breath and all for this magical Nook machine from Barnes & Noble. I was in a right dither tonight about an hour and a half ago as I shoved my reading glasses into my pocket, put my regular glasses on my face and piled into my car for the short ride to my nearest Barnes & Noble bookseller. But I stopped first at the Lenscrafters to run in and have them adjust my frames because my glasses are so new and have been drifting over lopsided all week. So the woman there fixed them up nicely and shined them good. Then I drove on toward my Nook encounter.
The store had a lone unit attached to an anti-theft device that scared the hell out of me because I tend to demonstrate new devices to myself until nearby customers think I’m a lunatic and I certainly didn’t want to raise any alarms. The Nook said, ‘Press the Power Button to Wake Up.’ I spun the device around several times until I located said button embedded in the upper edge of the Nook. I pressed it.
I waited.
Then I pressed it perhaps fourteen or fifteen times to try and make something wake up. Then the screen went through a series of blinks, flashes and some rather frightening symbols appeared and then disappeared. And then the machine said, ‘Press the Power Button to Wake Up.’
I Take it Back: Apple Tablet is Dopey
So after all the hoopla the Apple company has decided that it’s a good idea to sell an iPod Touch that you can’t carry.
The just-announced iPad is big, with a fullscreen display instead of widescreen, has no camera, and cannot multi-task. So only one application at a time will run. The fullscreen thing may make sense when you consider that people will need to be typing on a virtual keyboard, but I’m not sure that it will fly. I see it as going out to buy a fullscreen monitor somehow.
I think I’m finally ready to go get myself a Kindle from Amazon!
I’ve been yawning all morning and I’m still yawning.
Apple About to Announce Extraordinary New Tablet Device
Apple really could be preparing to announce something pretty extraordinary for content publishing, creation and consumption today. Its widely rumored tablet device will very likely put most other ebook reader devices out of business simply because the Apple product will be a real computer, useful for reading and for creating. It will most likely build a seamless content-creation universe that ties directly to online sales platforms. It will be a ‘publishing’ tablet really. Not just an e-book device.
Wired is covering the Apple press conference event all day with blog entries.
I have not purchased any kind of an e-reader device, in spite of the hysteria surrounding them, specifically because of Apple’s plans. There is no way under the sun that anyone else is going to compare favorably to what Apple is about to drop on us today.
Problem With Nook eBook Reader?
I’m looking at this new e-reader from Barnes & Noble called the nook and I’m a little worried. It’s that split screen. The top is an e-Ink display for reading your books. But the bottom is a color LCD. Look at that picture. I don’t know about most readers, but I certainly don’t want that row of book covers staring me in the face as I read. Can one totally black that screen out while reading? What else shows up in there? Ads? Does anything move around to distract the reader?
I don’t know about this nook thing. I’ve got doubts.
Barnes & Noble eReader Device Might Blow the Kindle Out
Amazon’s Kindle could be headed for the woodpile. The new Barnes & Nobel ereader device is coming at the end of November.
The new device is called the nook. Like book nook, I guess. But this thing has a color touch screen virtual keypad like an iPhone and it displays book pages on an eye-friendly E ink display. It appears to be sleek and well-designed. It will also allow ebook owners to lend their ebooks to other people who own Nook devices for up to 14 days. That’s a big deal.
Another thing it has going for it is support for formats like ePub, eReader, PDF, MP3, JPG, PNG and BMP files. One article compared this device to Amazon’s by saying it was like the internet compared to Amazon’s AOL. It has free 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity.
After the ongoing grotesque behavior by Amazon and its apparent lack of concern for owners’ rights it won’t take much for Barnes & Noble to turn Amazon’s ugly duckling of a closed-system ereader into a bad joke.
I never took the plunge to buy a Kindle from Amazon because I don’t trust their intentions. I have no hesitation to run out and buy the Barnes & Noble device as soon as it comes out in November.
Booking the Future: An Article About Where Publishing is Headed
Here’s a reprint of a fascinating and well thought out CC-licensed article by Ransom Stephens on the openDemocracy Network about the future of books and publishers. The main thrust of the article is that books will survive mainly in hardback versions, electronic on-demand publishers will take over the bulk of book publishing, this takeover will begin the day Stephen King releases a major novel through an online self-publishing outlet, major publishers will whither and eventually be outmoded, and bookstores will thrive in a healthy relationship with electronic publishing.
Booking the Future
Ransom Stephens (openDemocracy Network)
Though the role of publishing has not changed – connect readers to writers – the revolution will not be led by an established publisher. To date, no established player has prospered through, much less led, the transition to the digitally-based economy. What’s left of the recording industry is still pursuing the fascinating how-to-best-prosecute-our-customers business model. No one was better positioned to profit from the web-based economy than Sears, with its legendary catalog, but Amazon all but killed it. Even IBM barely survived the computer revolution.
For some reason, even when entrenched companies can see the iceberg they can’t turn the ship. In 2000, at the height of the “Napster Crisis,” Time-Warner/AOL’s CEO, Richard Parsons said, “It’s an assault on everything that constitutes cultural expression of our society… And the corporations won’t be the only ones hurt. Artists will have no incentive to create. Worst-case scenario: the country will end up in a sort of Cultural Dark Age.”
Have YouTube, Facebook, iTunes, Blogspot, et al reduced cultural expression? Here’s a better example. In 1977, Ken Olson, President of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) which, at the time, built the best computing hardware, said, “There is no need for any individual to have a computer in their home.” Time-Warner/AOL, Sears and IBM survived, but are swimming in the wake of Dell, Google, Amazon, etc.
Is Apple Ready to Burn Amazon’s Kindle?
This image is floating around the internet along with rumors that Apple is ready to unveil a much larger version of its iPod Touch that might be called MediaPad. Apparently, it has a 6-inch HD touchscreen and will have cellular wireless connectivity. So people are writing about this thing as a Kindle-killer. Apple is also rumored to be preparing an ebook reader application that will allow book purchases through the iTunes store.
I think this has been coming for a while and I am almost certain that Steve Jobs will implement the first serious major competition for Amazon.
Storybook: The Adventures of Molly and Ho Ho – Moon Balloons
Here’s an ebook version of a children’s story we released in 2000. It’s by David Lawrence Parker and is about a determined little girl with an inventive mind and her kitten, Ho Ho. They take off on a great balloon adventure.