Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has teamed with ScrollMotion to launch a $9.99 CURIOUS GEORGE’S DICTIONARY app. For pre-schoolers and first graders who get their hands on a parent’s iPhone/iPod Touch, it provides a multimedia teaching experience that “concentrates on essential educational development material, including the alphabet, shapes, numbers, colors and the concept of opposites, such as big/small and tall/short, all through the antics of the classic character Curious George.” In other e-news culled via the Automat: * St. Martin’s Read-It-First is a little bit like a house version of DailyLit: they send shorts excerpts of new and forthcoming books by e-mail, […]
eNews
Another eBook Lawsuit–This Time Against Apple
Apple has been sued in a Virginia-based Federal Court for patent infringement over ebook uses of the iPhone and iPod Touch by Swiss company Monec Holding. The company says it has a 2002 patent titled “Electronic device, preferably an electronic book” that covers “a general electronic device with a housing, display, input means, microprocessors, controls and interfaces for data exchange with peripherals” and a “preferably provided” touchscreeen that “has dimensions such that with it approximately one page of a book can be illustrated at normal size.” The filing says that “Apple makes books and book applications accessible through Wi-Fi and […]
University of Michigan Press Shifts to All-Digital Operation
The University of Michigan Press announced today that it will shift its scholarly publishing program, responsible for producing up to 60 monographs a year, from being primarily a traditional print operation to a primarily digital one within two years. Michigan officials tell Inside Higher Ed that the shift reflects their belief that old scholarly publishing models don’t work and it’s time to stop trying. “I have been increasingly convinced that the business model based on printed monograph was not merely failing but broken,” said Phil Pochoda, director of the Michigan press. “Why try to fight your way through this? Why […]
Google to Supply 500k Public Domain Books for Sony Reader
Yesterday Google and Sony reached a deal to distribute half a million titles, all published before 1923 and in the public domain, through the Sony Reader at no cost. “We have focused our efforts on offering an open platform and making it easy to find as much content as possible – from our store or others – whether that content is purchased, borrowed or free,” said Steve Haber, president of the Digital Reading Business Division at Sony Electronics, in the accompanying release. “Working with Google, we can offer book lovers another avenue for free books while still providing a seamless […]
Apple Will Change the Rules for Selling eBooks within Apps
Apple previewed the many changes on the way in the next version of the operating system (version 3.0) for the iPhone and iPod Touch. (Apple says there are now about 30 million devices running this OS). Notably for publishers, Apple will now allow the sale of App Store content from within a paid app. SVP of iPhone software Scott Forstall said at the preview, “We’ve been listening, and some developers say there are other business models they’d like to support, such as subscriptions. Like magazines who would like to have readers renew their subscriptions, or, for instance, an e-book provider, […]
Discovery Sues Amazon, Saying Kindle Infringes Patent
Discovery Communications filed a patent suit against Amazon.com in Federal court in Delaware, alleging that the Kindle and the ways in which Amazon sells and delivers documents to the device infringes a patent filed for in 1999 and awarded in November 2007 for an “Electronic Book Security and Copyright Protection System.” Discovery general counsel Joseph A. LaSala, Jr. says in the announcement, “The Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular content delivery systems. We believe they infringe our intellectual property rights, and that we are entitled to fair compensation.” A Discovery spokesperson underscores that they do not want an […]