ECTACO jetBook: Built-In WiFi Coming?

I’m asking ECTACO directly about this.

I got a bit of a shock with YahooMail moments ago. Not one of their usual useless banner ads. This one was aimed right at me:

Composite image. Click = big.

Of course I had to click on that M218!

Click = big

I knew as of last night that this was being sold in China. I never thought it’d be sold here in America.

And yet here it is listed on ECTACO’s American store!

This is the paragraph to note, the built-in WiFi and its unique feature:

Click = big

The text of that:

With built in high-speed Wi-Fi, Chinese eBook reader M218B can easily connect to wireless network. Then you can immediately search and download numerous eBook, Pdf files and music. Another exciting feature of Chinese eBook reader M218B is that it supports end-to-end transmission. You can copy and exchange files, music, picture with another user, who can be your friend or just another “eBook-pal”.

Emphasis added by me.

I can hear the nascent heart attacks of the dying dinosaurs of print out there!

Alas, the beauty photo of the M218 highlights the calculator-like nature of its screen, and not its ability to be mistaken for eInk under direct lighting:

But I have to wonder: Will ECTACO be releasing an English-language jetBook version of this?

Would WiFi then justify its $299 price tag? Well, not just WiFi — but its upcoming ePub and MobiPocket capability too!

An ePub/MobiPocket WiFi eBook reader would suddenly help shake things up.

Both Amazon and Sony would have a formidable new competitor, I think.

Previously here:

ECTACO jetBook And ePub
Eejit Geeks. Things Should Just Work!
Micro Fondle 2: ECTACO jetBook eBook Reader
ECTACO jetBook Ups ePub Stakes
ECTACO jetBook At Blowout Price!
More About That ECTACO jetBook eBook Reader
Micro Fondle: ECTACO jetBook eBook Reader

Free eBook By Ken Wohlrob

“Happy Bus” now available as a free eBook for iPhone, Sony Reader and more.

I’m proud to announce that I’ve made “Taking the Happy Bus on Home,” a short story from my collection The Love Book, available as a free eBook for the iPhone, Sony Reader, Kindle and a just about every other device on the planet.

At FeedBooks for ePub, Mobipocket/Kindle, PDF, Sony Reader, iLiad, Custom PDF (the last option requires registration; all others do not):

One of the short stories from Ken Wohlrob’s new collection, The Love Book. An epidemic of suicide hits a retirement community in Ohio and one couple begins to question the value of their final days together. These are very modern fables, with a great heart, a very biting sense of humor, and fully-fleshed out characters that you can sink your teeth into.

Buy a copy of the book or learn more about the author at www.kenwohlrob.com

iPhone/iPod Touch users can grab it using Stanza. See details here.

ECTACO jetBook And ePub

My curiosity won’t let me rest, of course.

I found out the jetBook is also in China, called the Dr. Yi. (I don’t, however, know if this means the jetBook is of Chinese creation. But I wouldn’t be surprised.)

Of particular interest to me is this:

CPU: ARM9 200MHz

Because look at this for the Sony Reader 505:

CPU: Freescale i.MXL, ARM920T core, 150-200 MHz

That says to me the jetBook should have the horsepower needed to deal with ePub files. I had been wondering about that.

Apex Book Company Needs Some Sales!

Brother, can you spare $15.95?

The economy has taken a huge bite out of Apex Publications. Starting with Bear Stearns dying, you can see an immediate drop in our revenue (September/October/November/December). December has been the worst with a drop of 75% in revenue compared to the August numbers.

The recession hit at the worst time possible. I literally have spent every penny in the coffers doing things like: reimbursing old lifetime subscribers (and yes, there are a couple of you still waiting on money), paying back the Apex Digest printer $12,000 (done, huzzah!), reprinting and reshipping stolen copies of I REMEMBER THE FUTURE (goodbye $600), replacing almost 90 USPS damaged ORGY OF SOULS hardcovers to Horror-Mall (goodbye $2000). I’m not asking for pity. This stuff happens to good people and bad. But stuff happening with the downturn in the economy has the Apex bank account crying for mercy.

What this means is that Apex Publications needs an influx of revenue. Quick.

What this means is that if you’ve ever thought of buying an Apex book, now would be a damn good time to do so.

The most effective, easiest and most fun way to pump some blood into Apex is to buy a book directly from our store. You get damn fine literature (and free media shipping if your order is $25 or more (applies to US orders only)).

If you’re strapped of cash, then blog about our books or authors and try to coerce people into giving us a try.

I figure we need about $2500 in revenue over the next two weeks.

Remember:
We’re taking pre-orders on The Convent of the Pure by Sara M. Harvey, Open Your Eyes by Paul Jessup, and The Monster Within Idea by R. Thomas Riley.

Catacombs and Photographs by Brandy Schwan is now available and all pre-orders have been shipped.

All back issues of Apex Digest are half-priced.

Emphasis added by me.

Apex is a small publisher. The kind of publisher we’ll all count on in the eBook future, so give them some sales love.

Apex Book Company store
Apex Book company eBooks at Fictionwise (which look to be mostly DRM free as well as being in lots of formats — including Sony Reader!)

The Zero-Gravity Toilet Of Adobe DRMed ePub

There’s a classic shot in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey when the main character has to first consult instructions on how to use a zero-gravity toilet:

Imagine having to go through all that!

And yet — there is something actually worse than that.

It’s the instructions on how to go about using Adobe DRMed ePub eBooks!

Here are the Zero-Gravity toilet instructions:

Now contrast the amount of text there to instructions for using Adobe DRMed ePub:

Can you imagine the poor technically unsophisticated schmo having to deal with all that?

“For God’s sake, all I want to do is read eBooks!!!”

Really, it turns out it’s easier to take a shit in space than to deal with Adobe DRMed ePub eBooks!

Micro Fondle 2: ECTACO jetBook eBook Reader

Ever since ECTACO emailed me about upcoming ePub capability for its jetBook eBook reader, I’ve gotten a renewed interest in it.

So yesterday morning, since I was in the area anyway, I made it a point to stop in at J&R to give it yet another fondle. This did not put me in good stead with the hapless salesman, who had to cycle through all four display models (in colors red, black, white, and gray!) to find the one that had a charge on its battery! As it turned out, he had to plug it into AC for a moment to get one to work.

All of what follows is from my memory. I didn’t take notes and I didn’t pull out the crapcam (I was feeling sorry for the salesman!). The above photo is from the original micro fondle.

Again: the hardware is just solid. Even though the case is all plastic, it has a thick, industrial-like feel to it. Not any part of it feels cheap or flimsy. The casing has a pebbled finish, so it’s not likely to easily slip out of the hand. All of the buttons feel solid and do not wobble.

Also again: in direct-lighting conditions, the backlight-less LCD screen can be mistaken for eInk — except, being LCD, there is no flashing when turning pages.

I went through Settings and discovered there are six font sizes, ranging from 12 point all the way to 32. This is one more size than the newest Sony Reader, the 700, offers.

There are, however, only two built-in fonts, and both are sadly sans-serif: Arial and Verdana. I would have liked at least one serifed font, even if it was simply Times or a variant thereof. I don’t know if it’s possible to add fonts.

There’s a built-in dictionary! The Sony Reader still lacks this. I don’t know how extensive the dictionary is, but I’ll give ECTACO the benefit of the doubt here because its main business has been electronic dictionaries and translators. I have to think the dictionary is good. In fact, I just went to look at the User Manual (PDF link; with another PDF version too), and it states:

The English/Russian, English/Polish, and English explanatory dictionaries built into ECTACO jetBook allow you to instantly translate an unfamiliar word.

So, yeah, the dictionary is solid.

Unlike both the Sony Reader and the abominable Kindle, eBooks can be grouped together into folders (the new Sony Reader 700 offers Collections, but it’s not quite the same). There is also access to the filesystem with a directory display. I’m not sure, however, if any file commands can be carried out on the device itself. Again, looking at the User Manual, apparently so:

Files

Select the Books folder, Music folder, or Pictures folder and then press OK. You will see the Files menu which has the following options: Open, Copy, Delete, and Rename. Select the desired option and then press OK.

The jetBook had one image on it. A 600K-plus JPEG that was a flyer for the jetBook itself. It took a few seconds to open but was worth the minor wait because it looked gorgeous. Since it was most likely shrunk down from an 8.5 x 11-inch size to fit the 5-inch diagonal screen, text was very tiny.

The screen can be rotated ninety-degrees. This worked well and was fast.

I had two problems. When moving backward through the menus, I encountered one in Russian. This seemed to be the list of eBooks, which a moment ago had actually been listed in English! I don’t know how that happened.

The other thing was the slider on the left side, which can be used to page forward and page back. It was the one weak link on the device. I couldn’t see how to use it with one hand without threatening to have the jetBook slip out of my hand to the ground. At least, unlike the abominable Kindle, it’s a button that can easily be ignored and I doubt it can be accidentally invoked.

Operation of the unit had an acceptable speed. It didn’t have the horsepower pop I felt with the Sony Reader 700, but it didn’t feel altogether sluggish, either.

I wouldn’t rely on the jetBook for MP3s, however. User reviews over at newegg give MP3 playback a FAIL:

The MP3 player is a joke. It can be suitable for listening some spoken word lower quailty audio, but if you want to play music, expect poor sound quality. It seems like it doesn’t have enough power to play higher bitrate MP3’s.

I don’t see the point of putting MP3s on a reading device, anyway, so this feature is superfluous to me.

It seems the user reviewers at newegg bought the jetBook primarily to deal with PDFs. PDF is the File Format Of The Damned. It’s best for reading on monitors or even perhaps on that upcoming ginormous Plastic Logic reader. I can’t see the sense of trying to deal with a file formatted for 8.5 x 11-inch paper on a 5- or 6-inch screen. PDFs can be optimized for eBook devices — but I don’t think most PDF publishers will do that. They’re likely to figure such problems are a piracy speedbump (and I’d actually tend to agree).

The jetBook doesn’t require a desktop client for eBooks. Simply plug it into a USB port and it appears as a Removable Drive. Drag and drop eBooks, MP3s (bleh!), and graphics onto it.

Two questions I have and don’t know the answers to:

1) What is the CPU and its speed? I’m wondering if the current hardware will have the necessary horsepower to deal with ePub and MobiPocket files. As for non-DRMed MobiPocket, I expect so, because even Palm PDAs could do those. But even non-DRMed ePub? I don’t know.

2) Since no desktop client is being used, does that rule out DRMed ePub and DRMed MobiPocket files? Someone who knows, leave a Comment!

It’s too bad the price of the jetBook is so high. It’s perceived value just isn’t equivalent to that of the Sony Reader. It’s not. I still think slashing the price by a third could excite interest in it — especially if it will actually be able to do DRMed ePub and DRMed MobiPocket files.

I’d like to see a second dedicated eBook reader that can do ePub. That’d put further pressure on Amazon and its abominable Kindle file format lock-in. It’d also offer an alternative for people who foolishly believe they can’t deal with the page-turn flashing of eInk. And if the jetBook underwent a price cut, it could increase the potential audience for eBooks.

Supplemental:

ECTACO jetBook photos on Flickr
MobileRead jetBook review and discussion thread
MobileRead jetBook owner photo

Previously here:

ECTACO jetBook Ups ePub Stakes
ECTACO jetBook At Blowout Price!
More About That ECTACO jetBook eBook Reader
Micro Fondle: ECTACO jetBook eBook Reader

Flickr Slideshow: Sony Reader 505 And 700

Another one found via TwitteRel:

An excellent Flickr slideshow of someone who — via Xmas gift — is upgrading from a silver Sony Reader 505 to the new 700.

Give particular attention to the last photo. It shows the Zoom and Pan options for dealing with images and text/PDF files.

eBook Author Gaps Closing!

When I began The eBook Test blog back in July, one of the writers I searched for was Frank Herbert.

The result was pathetic.

Tonight, via a tweet I saw, I was prompted to go look at The Sony eBook Store for Frank Herbert.

I got this very, very exciting and pleasing result:

Click = big

Prices ranged from You’re Kidding Me! to reasonable (e.g., mass-market paperback).

All of you lucky, lucky people getting a Sony Reader for Christmas are going to have a larger selection of books than was previously available!

Hmmm … maybe after this blog dies on December 31, I should take another pass at The eBook Test blog to update listings.

2009: Dawn Of The eBook

Opinion: Will 2009 be the year of the eBook?

Will 2009 see mass market adoption of electronic book readers such as the wonder that is the Sony Reader?

For those of us on TechRadar that have had the pleasure of living with a Sony Reader in 2008, we can only hope that the coming years will see these wonderful gadgets find their ways into the hands of the millions of avid readers worldwide.

Robert McCrum, respected literary editor of The Observer, is also a huge fan of the e-book, posing the basic (but fundamentally vital) question this week: “will people carry on buying books?”

“Framed like that, it’s a no-brainer,” writes McCrum.

And:

While TechRadar largely agrees with McCrum’s assertion that e-readers are currently “the kind of gizmos the trade will use to lighten its load (literally)” and that “the reading public has yet to make the switch” he is surely bang on the money when he claims that “the iPod moment” for books, while it has not yet occurred, is on the near future horizon.

Emphasis added by me.

Ironically, that “iPod moment” is now very unlikely to have anything to do with book-banning Apple!

The upcoming wireless Sony Reader will be a move towards that.

But I’m also keeping my eye on Palm too.

And who knows what Asus will do, if anything? Let’s not forget the impetus for the original EeePC was to empower kids with an inexpensive computer. Could Asus do a US$99 eInk (or Pixel Qi) ePub-capable eBook reader? (And at $US99, would lack of wireless matter?)

Things aren’t settled hardware-wise yet.

But bring on those ePub eBooks anyway!

Will Mac OS X Have THE ePub Program For Writers?

One of the big frustrations for writers who wish to direct publish eBooks using the industry-standard ePub file format is the complexity of that format and the current expense of the tools. Basically, unless you’re a real techie, you need to be a professional typesetter because what the on-shelf choices currently boil down to is the pricey Adobe InDesign.

Last week I learned of a new desktop publishing package for Mac OS X called iStudio Publisher.

I immediately read the description of it and emailed the publisher to ask them to consider adding ePub file output support. This led to the revelation by that publisher that another program is under development, called iStudio Bookbuilder — which will be specifically for building eBooks and which will also feature ePub file creation!

Without divulging any information about the state of its development, let me quote some of an email I received today:

[I]t will be very similar to iStudio Publisher, which is focussed on drawing / layouts, and turning the focus more to writing. There will be lots of features for writers, such as allowing the writer to make notes and save URLs against certain parts of the text, auto indexing, advanced stylesheets, outputting to ePub and many more features.

We aim to sell Bookbuilder at $149 — however, we will give a discount to early adopters of iStudio Publisher — and the two file types will be compatible with each other.

That sounds wonderful!

The price is affordable and it sounds as if they’re thinking beyond static book-like files, with the ability to tap on URLs to reach out to the Internet. That would be especially helpful for non-fiction eBooks that are tied into timely information.