Poster from the American Memory project.
October is also the favorite month of writer M. Dylan Raskin.
So whether you have print or e — break them out and read!
Modified poster from the American Memory project.
Archive for October 25, 2008
It’s Still October
October 25, 2008Sony Reader: American HQ
October 25, 2008Sony says U.S. sales of Reader are taking off
Sony has consolidated its digital-book efforts at its North American headquarters in San Diego, relocating hardware and software operations for its Reader electronic book device from Japan.
The company declined to say how many employees made the move from Japan.
While consumers in the United States often lag behind their counterparts in Japan in adopting new technologies, in this case it’s the opposite, said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division.
Because the device is selling better in the United States, it made sense to merge operations here, Haber said.
Industry analysts say the Reader is being outsold by upstart competitor the Amazon Kindle, which features a wireless link for e-book purchases from Amazon.com.
But Haber takes exception to recent published reports that said the Reader sales are only a fraction of the 380,000 Kindles expected to be sold by the end of the year.
Neither Sony nor Amazon release sales numbers.
“We’ve sold hundreds of thousands of Readers and millions of electronic books,” Haber said. “We’re happy with the sell-through.”
Emphasis added by me.
And here is the crucial plan-for-the-future bit:
Haber said Sony plans to add wireless at some point, but it will not lock readers in to any one retailer.
“It will be consistent with our open platform,” he said.
Emphasis added by me.
Enjoy your abominable Kindle, Oprah. Until the day comes when you ask these questions (and you will!):
1) Why can’t I get that book for my Kindle?
2) Why can’t my Kindle read that (ePub) book?
3) What do you mean, I’d have to buy my eBooks all again for a Sony Reader?
And as for #3, Oprah, think of all those devoted fans of yours you led into that corner too. How about reimbursing them for your mistake?
— via Medialoper
Medialoper FTW!
October 25, 2008
And when Criswell said it, it didn’t sound creepy! Let’s watch:
I think that says it all, my friends.
eBook Devices: Color, The Final Frontier …
October 25, 2008We are now delivering a service for magazines in the Dazed group which allows users to browse these magazines for free, but not to read them properly. The browsing is limited to the two-page per screen view, at this resolution most text is unreadable but the pictures are fine. As each new issue is published it will be available in this browse mode until the succeeding issue appears. Here is the current issue of AnOtherMan. The site is simply branded for the magazine’s style.
Exact Editions does what its name suggests: digital reproductions of existing print publications (books or magazines).
Click to browse an issue of AnOtherMan.
In my raving advocacy of eBooks, I’m usually tunnel-visioned blinded by what I want to read: digital versions of books. Books of the black type on white background variety.
But there’s lots and lots out there (obviously) that’s in color. Like this screensnap I stole from the above:
Click = big
I’ve raised the issue of color twice before — in eBooks: Game Over When Color Happens and Sony Reader PRS-700: Part Three — but I’d forgotten about the monster effort that’s put into fashion advertisements. That stuff screams for a fast-refresh high-resolution full-color OLED screen.
ABC: No Free Video For You!
October 25, 2008Brad Linder (who runs Liliputing) reminded me of something that happened to me too once when trying to watch something over at ABC TV’s site:
What’s particularly funny is that I’ve seen broadcast TV where malfunctions prevented the insertion of commercials, but it never brought down the rest of the program!
Own It Now On … Book!
October 25, 2008Could Daniel Craig help books?
Do you know the generic campaign the book trade should have? One that stresses book ownership. Why is it only in the film world that we see signs saying: ‘Own it now on DVD?’ Why don’t we ever see that for books? I’m partly playing devil’s advocate here. We all know the reasons. With very few exceptions – Harry Potter, a new Hannibal Lecter title, perhaps – there just isn’t the ‘must have’ quality to books.
Some days I wonder if what I see on the Internet is actually from a different planet than the one I am imprisoned on am trapped on exist on try to live on.
Let me put things in perspective for all of you.
Walking to the store a few weeks ago (when the weather wasn’t miserably cold!), I passed by a guy in his twenties hanging out in front a building. In the hallway was a young girl, perhaps fourteen or so. He saw she had a book in hand. It went like this:
Him: What are you doing with a book?
Her: Reading it.
Him: Reading it?!!?
Her: I like it.
Him: You’re a bookworrrrrm? Is that what you want to be? A bookworrrrrm?
Yeah, so that shit about a ‘must have’ quality to books? Where I am, there isn’t even a ‘must have’ quality to reading.
Welcome to the real world, jack.
Now deal with that first.
UK’s Mills & Boon Goes eBook
October 25, 2008According to a report in The Bookseller, over 200 romance titles are available.
At the Mills & Boon site, here are:
The eBook FAQ — the eBooks are in ePub, but they also mention, confusingly, them being in “Adobe eReader” format. (Behind my back, Acrobat has now become the Acrobat eBook Reader!). Adobe Digital Editions is required. Further confusing things, they say the eBooks can be read on a PalmOS handheld! I’m not aware of any ePub readers for PalmOS. Making things even more confusing, the eBooks home page mentions reading them on a Blackberry!
All 221 (at time of post) available titles (scroll down)
Book browsing is done using a Shockwave interface from LibreDigital. It’s pretty slick.
Aside from being sold at the Mills & Boon site, these are also available from the Waterstone’s eBook store for the Sony Reader.
Sand, Surf, And Infection
October 25, 2008Beaches in U.S. Host Drug-Resistant Bacteria, Researchers Find
Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) — A drug-resistant germ linked to surgical wound and urinary tract infections was found on five U.S. West Coast beaches, according to scientists who said the bacteria isn’t usually seen outside of hospitals.
Samples of sand and water were taken from seven public beaches and a fishing pier in the state of Washington and southern California, according to a study reported today at a meeting of infectious diseases doctors in the nation’s capitol. While the level of public risk is unknown, the beaches may help transmit the germ called enterococci, study authors said.
Though enterococci hasn’t reached the level of methicillin- resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, it’s growing as a public-health threat and the findings suggest the germs may have moved out of hospitals and into the general population, said Marilyn Roberts, a study author,
“I think it’s the tip of the iceberg,” said Roberts, professor of public health at the University of Washington, Seattle, in a telephone interview. The resistant enterococci “have almost always been associated with some kind of health-care facility before.”
OK, how the hell did that happen? How did it get there? Pestilential homeless people ejected from hospitals?
It now makes me wonder what the hell they’d find on the beaches of Cape Cod!
Mike Cane 2008 
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