Following last week’s agreement with Lexcycle, Adobe announced today at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that their new software development kit will support a full range of mobile smartphones and other devices. Companies already planning to integrate the new capability include Bookeen, iRex Technologies, Lexcycle, Plastic Logic, Polymer Vision, and Spring Design. As of today Sony Reader incorporate the new technology, which will “allow consumers to acquire eBooks from a variety of sources, including public libraries.” General manager of Adobe’s Acrobat products Kevin Lynch says in the announcement, “With Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, Adobe is expanding the reach […]
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The Librarian's Role in the Digital Age
Motoko Rich continues her series on “The Future of Reading” by looking at P.S. 225 librarian Stephanie Rosalia, part of “a growing cadre of 21st-century multimedia specialists who help guide students through the digital ocean of information that confronts them on a daily basis.” These new librarians believe that literacy includes books, but also exceeds them via Powerpoint presentations and social networking sites. “The days of just reshelving a book are over,” Ms. Rosalia said. “Now it is the information age, and that technology has brought out a whole new generation of practices.” Yet school librarians are often the first […]
Does Free Distribution Matter?
Publishers have been experimenting with promotional free downloads of books, and worrying about the risks of electronic piracy but there has been precious little data and analysis to work from. For the past eight months Brian O’Leary at Magellan Media has partnered with Random House and O’Reilly Media to rigorously study the “impact of free distribution on paid content,” which meant examining both giveaways and unauthorized peer-to-peer distribution. The ultimate objective is to develop “a model that describes instances in which free distribution works or may not work,” taking into account the variety of complex influences. The work is still […]
Guild Alerts Authors on Kindle Text-to-Speech
The Authors Guild posted a note that raises their concerns that text-to-speech software will “improve rapidly” and calls the inclusion of the feature on Kindle 2 “a significant challenge to the publishing industry.” They advise: “We’re studying this matter closely and will report back to you. In the meantime, we recommend that if you haven’t yet granted your e-book rights to backlist or other titles, this isn’t the time to start. If you have a new book contract and are negotiating your e-book rights, make sure Amazon’s use of those rights is part of the dialog. Publishers certainly could contractually […]
Stanza to Support Adobe PDF and Protected ePub
As anticipated, Lexcycle’s Stanza Reader for iPhone/iPod Touch will license PDF and EPUB rendering technologies as well as support for Adobe’s eBook content protection technology. The capability will launch “next quarter.” That opens up a significant world of books to the platform, comprising “a wide variety of commercially published eBooks from major publishers.” And it contrasts to Kindle 2, which still does not offer native support for PDF files. In a presentation this morning at TOC, Lexcycle’s Neelan Choksi said “the one thing we’ve focused on from day one is that it’s all about the readers.” A survey of users […]
Grisham Coming Soon to eBooks
Agent David Gernert tells the WSJ that he is close to finalizing an agreement with Random House to make John Grisham’s 22 novels available in electronic form for the first time. “There was a period when John and I felt it was a good idea to watch the world of e-books evolve before diving in. Now that it’s a more mature marketplace, he will be available very soon in all digital formats.”WSJ