The first shot in the tablet wars began with Apple’s release of the iPad, and technology companies have responded. At Computex, a computer and technology show several companies were showing off new devices, some to be available as early as this Fall. The big announcement that everyone is touting is from the creator of the netbook, Asus. They announced three tablets. The Eee Pad will come in two versions. The EP101TC will come with a 10 in screen and the EP121TC will have a 12 in screen. Both devices will be able to playback multimedia, read e-books, browse the web, and with a keyboard can be used as a computer. Asus is promising 10 hours of battery life with these devices. Exact specs or release date haven’t been announced yet. The Eee Tablet is the Asus e-reader. It uses a reflective LCD screen instead of e-ink, and is in grey scale instead of color. It will include a touch screen and style for note taking. It uses Wacom’s pen input technology for more precise and accurate notes. Asus is aiming this device at students. It will include a webcam, microSD slot and USB slot. It will also have a 10…
Just days after Amazon conceded to MacMillian’s demands for an agency model for e-book pricing (ie, variable pricing), Robert Murdoch’s Harper Collins started rattling it’s saber that it wanted the same deal. By the end of the week Hachette had joined Harper Collins. So like dominoes, the major publishers are falling in line to continue their old publishing strategy of initial high price (hardback), price drop 1 (trade paperback) and price drop 2 (mass market paperback for digital books. Since Amazon capitulated to MacMillian, they will have to do the same with the publishers.
Here in the US, we’re all excited about getting more devices to carry around to read books on. In Japan, they’re taking existing devices that people are already carrying and adapting them to not just read books but to also enhance that reading experience. They are letting the content take advantage of the platform instead of making devices to conform to the content.
Late Friday night, reports started coming in about a dispute between Amazon and publisher MacMillian. According to the New York Times, Amazon has “temporarily” pulled all books by MacMillian, including all imprints such as First Second, Seven Seas Entertainment, and Tor, because MacMillian is pushing for a raise in price of their e-book on the Kindle to $15. The grousing between Amazon and publishers has been going on for a while now, so that this has finally happened is no surprise. Nor is it a surprise that it happens right after Apple announced it’s iPad, which MacMillian is one of the publishers that signed on to provide books for. To get a full range of the story, he’s some links to check out. Johanna Draper Carlson posts about it at Comics Worth Reading. Check out the comments for interesting information on the breakdown of who gets what in the publishing pie. Business Insider has a look at the dispute from the Apple side of the equation. Cory Doctorow, a big proponent of e-books, has his own take at BoingBoing. Definitely check out his post for how the whole battle affects consumers. He’s got some really interesting insights. The Los Angeles…
It’s hard to believe, but this week marks Manga Xanadu’s second anniversary. I hope everyone has enjoyed reading my posts from the last year. I set myself a schedule of 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday & Friday, and with the addition of the This Week In Manga, one on the weekends, and have actually kept with it! I’m rather proud of that. It can be hard to be consistent, especially with RL and other commitments. But, I’ve done my best and I hope you’ve been able to take away something from all my random ranting. Over the past year, I think I’ve fallen behind on reviews for this site, concentrating on more commentary. E-books and related technology have gotten a lot of coverage and remain among my most popular hits from search engines. I will continue to cover this ever-evolving topic. There is a definite future in e-books, one we shouldn’t ignore. Searches for All Ages books have also remained high on the list. Hopefully more teachers, librarians and parents are looking at manga as another avenue to get kids reading. Manga is still misunderstood, and people still need to be educated about it. Libraries have been under fire,…
Recently, Amazon quietly announced a price drop for it’s Kindle 2 e-reader. Slashing $60 from the price to $299, the Kindle is now coming closer to the price of other ebook readers. If Amazon wants the Kindle to be competitive in any way, it had too. Sony, not to be out done, not only slashed prices, but also came out with two new devices. The E-Reader Pocket for $199 and the E-Reader Touch for $299 and will be out by the end of August. The older Sony E-Reader 505 is $279, and can be found at Staples stores now. Bebook, another competitor is also $279. Cooler Books has it’s own e-reader now, the Cool Reader, which looks a lot like an iPod and comes in different colors, and is only $249.
What would it take to get you to buy a Kindle? Amazon’s ebook reader seems to be selling okay (not that we’ve seen any numbers), but there are a lot of people who haven’t taken to it, or any other e-book reader device. And why should they? Books work just fine, and buying them is cheaper than the electronic gadget. Amazon boasts to have thousands of ebooks, but very, very few that would interest readers of this blog, namely manga. What if Amazon tried to sweeten the deal? Would you go for it?
Being a wanna-be tech hound, I watch the tech news for interesting posts about the tech subjects I like. I found one over at Channel Web that I’d thought I’d share with all my readers who are interested in E-books. They have a slide show showing all the current and future/possible E-book Readers, with specs. Check it out. At the end they mention a few software programs as well. But there is one that I think anyone considering purchasing an E-book Reader should look at. I found out about it when I was exploring the MobileRead website and forums. It’s an open source free program called Calibre. Calibre is an ebook management program that works on all the major platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X). It works as a library, a format converter, and, best of all, convert news feeds to ebook format! With this program, which hands all the major formats, including Kindle and Sony, it doesn’t matter which reader you get. You can read any ebook on your reader. What I like best about it, is that it can take RSS feeds and make them available to read on the e-reader. The Kindle charges you for the…
Today, Amazon.com had a big press event to unveil the newest generation of its e-book reader, the Kindle. Speculation has been running about for while now that Amazon would release a new reader with leaked photos, increased orders of screens, and a long reorder wait at the Kindle store. So, what’s new about it? Well, not much. There were some cosmetic changes, which many people called for when it first came out in late 2007. It’s lighter and thinner, has an estimated 25% increase in battery power, and more memory that will allow it to hold nearly 6 times more books. What’s in it for manga readers? Again, not much. It does boast a new screen that is capable of showing 16 shades of gray, as opposed to the first generation that could only show 4. This would definitely improve the quality of black and white pictures, which makes up most manga releases. What hasn’t changed? The two most important things that would make the Kindle relevant to manga readers; price and content. The price hasn’t changed, so it’s still $359. But in this economy, that prices the reader out of LOT of people’s range. Prices under $200 seems to…