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Book criticizes Apple's recycling program, consumers in general
Macworld took a look at a new book by writer Adam Minter today; Junkyard Planet (US$25.99, Bloomsbury Press) explores the business of recycling, and in an excerpt from his book published by the website, Minter takes Apple to task on the effectiveness of its recycling program and attempts to lay guilt on the consuming public as well. Starting off, Minter appears to have an issue with a comment on Apple's FAQ for its recycling program, where the company reassures potential recyclers that, "You are also ensuring that products that have reached the end of their useful life are recycled in an environmentally responsible manner in North America." Rather than taking Apple at its word (the company wouldn't tell him where the items were refurbished in North America), Minter immediately assumed that the work is being done outside the US, but quickly adds that "offering technically oriented employment to people in poor countries is a good thing." After taking the lying corporation to the woodshed, Minter then finds fit to chastise consumers in general. He apparently doesn't realize that by publishing his book, he's killing trees (I seriously doubt if Bloomsbury is using 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper, hemp covers and artisanal soy ink in printing its books...), encouraging people to buy more e-readers and causing the consumption of energy through shipping physical books and recharging batteries. His main problem? The results of some experiments that suggest "that the addition of a recycling option can lead to increased resource usage" and that by offering a recycling option, Apple is encouraging people to buy new products. Minter's next target? "Tight design," particularly aiming at the MacBook Air as an example of a product that is "built to be shredded, not repaired, upgraded and reused" when it is no longer useful. Yes, a lot of MacBook users miss the days when they could add RAM, a larger hard drive and a new battery pack to extend the life of an old device, but the incredible popularity of the MacBook Air's "tight design" seems to indicate that most consumers really don't give a rip about upgrading old devices -- they'd rather have a sleek, lightweight and ultimately refurbishable laptop. I won't go into more detail about the book, the Macworld excerpt or the premise of both, other than to say if Minter and some of his readers are that concerned about the impact of Apple on the planet, they should just not buy its products or any other consumer electronics. Things aren't going to change overnight, and it appears to me (and environmental organizations) that Apple has been making progress that will ultimately lead to very earth-friendly products.
Books come to Google Play in five South American countries
Google Play Books' expansion tour has just made an important stop in South America. As of today, bookworms in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela can browse Google's virtual shelves from Android, iOS or the web. The wider access sadly doesn't include movies, music or periodicals, but locals who want to read up on everything from Machu Picchu to Medellin should be happy.
Tamriel Infinium: Elder Scrolls Online stories inside Elder Scrolls Online stories
I admit it: I've spent hours in Skyrim and Oblivion doing nothing but reading the dusty books on the shelves of some dank dungeon. A lot of those stories repeat themselves, but I'm still amazed at the amount of time the writers put into the legends and lore of the series of games. For instance, if you'd like to know how Tamriel came to be, you can pick up The Annotated Anuad, the genesis story of Nirn, in Skyrim, Oblivion, or Morrowind. The book has little to do with any of those games, and the absolute truth of that book is suspect considering it's a "children's book." But it's a testament to how much time the writers put into developing the lore surrounding the Elder Scrolls. We know that The Elder Scrolls Online will also contain its own share of books and lore-packed tomes. Maybe you even spent time reading some while you were in beta this past weekend. Unfortunately, we can't gab about that, but we did get a taste of some of the stories thanks to the interactive map on the official website. Over the last couple of days, I've read each piece in this map, and surprisingly, I found some completely new stuff. Let me tell you about my top six.
Video Game 2.0 Bundle offers a pile of gaming culture books for $3
It's impossible to constantly play video games, but StoryBundle's Video Game Bundle 2.0 has a collection of ebooks on gaming culture to fill the void. Video Game Bundle 2.0 includes the following ebooks to read in your gaming downtime (at work, in school, while bonding with friends and family), starting at just $3: Dreamcast Worlds by Zoya Street, Vaporware by Richard Dansky, Kill Screen Issue #1: No Fun by Kill Screen Magazine, The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures edited by Kurt Kalata, Kill Screen Issue #7: The Great Outdoors by Kill Screen Magazine and Blue Wizard is About to Die by Seth Barkan. Pay more than $10 and add Replay: The History of Video Games by Tristan Donovan, Rise of the Video Game Zinesters by Anna Anthropy and A Slow Year by Ian Bogost. That last one is an ebook and a game in one. StoryBundle, much like Humble Bundle, allows customers to split their payments among the authors, the site itself and charities Mighty Writers or Girls Write Now.
Judge rules against authors in Google Books copyright infringement case
Google's Books project, which has indexed millions of titles and made them available online, hasn't always been on completely solid legal footing. After all, Books operates without the permission of authors, which has understandably drawn some ire from copyright holders, not to mention other web giants. Well, a federal ruling handed down today gives strong backing to Google's digitizing efforts: U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin dismissed a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by an author group against Google. In his opinion, Chin ruled that showing excerpts of books in search results falls under fair use, and that Books "advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals." Of course, for writers hoping to get paid for access to their works, this decision will come as a disappointment. But considering how deeply ingrained the Google Books project is by now, the ruling is hardly surprising, either.
Amazon intros Kindle First for those who can't wait a month for the new Gloria Gaynor book
Waiting another month for that new inspirational Gloria Gaynor book? You'll survive, most likely -- but just in case, Amazon's debuting a new program called Kindle First. Customers can get early access to new titles for $1.99 - or for free, if they're a member of the exclusive club that is Amazon Prime. New titles will be chosen each month - though judging from the current offerings, it's not exactly a-list material. But hey, what do you want for free? You can check out the current offerings in the source link below.
Oyster's subscription e-book service for iPad open to all
Oyster has a fascinating proposition for avid readers -- unlimited e-books for one low subscription rate of US$9.95. In the past, you had to request an invitation to be added to the service, and the only device you could read your e-books on was an iPhone. Today, the company is announcing that it has not only launched a universal (iPad and iPhone) app to make devouring those e-books a bit easier, but also that the app and service are now open to anyone. The app is free to download, and the company offers access to "more than 100,000 titles" -- that's enough to keep anyone busy during a handful of beach days on vacation. Many of the titles provided by Oyster come from HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and a variety of smaller publishers. Oyster also provides a social component that shows what your friends are reading on the service at any point in time.
France approves law stopping Amazon from shipping discounted books for free
French lawmakers have had it up to "here" with Amazon's book-selling tactics and they're not going to take it any more. In a rare alliance, France's ruling Socialist Party and the opposition UMP Party approved a new bill banning the company and other online retailers from shipping discounted books for free. It comes in the form of an amendment to a 32-year-old law that sets the value of new books at fixed prices. Amazon, you see, heavily discounts books, but also ships them at no extra cost, heavily undercutting aggrieved brick-and-mortar retailers. The restriction forces Amazon to cut free shipping for new books sold at reduced prices, but it won't stop French consumers from getting second-hand titles and music pas cher.
Scribd launches subscription e-book service for Android, iOS and web
Many of us associate Scribd with embedded documents on websites, but the company has been quietly building an e-book platform -- first by selling content and later by soft-launching a subscription service. The company is now making its strategy clear by formally launching the e-book service and introducing content from HarperCollins, its first major publisher. Subscribers worldwide can pay $9 per month for access to both HarperCollins' back catalog and independent releases through apps for Android, iOS and the web. Customers can also buy any books outright, including HarperCollins' newer titles. Like with any Scribd document (and Kindle for the Web), customers can both share what they're reading and embed books into websites. If you like the prospect of all-you-can-read services like Oyster but want broader platform support, you'll want to take a close look at Scribd's new offering.
WoW: The Ultimate Visual Guide now available
We wrote a little while back about the preorders for World of Warcraft: The Ultimate Visual Guide. If you preordered, you should probably have your copy of the book by now, and if you didn't, it is now available for purchase. As far as Blizzard memorabilia goes, this is definitely one of the nicer ones. Coming from DK Publishing, it's a large, hardcover book with dozens of pages of full-color artwork, much of it previously unreleased. There's tons of lore for the story enthusiasts, including -- wait for it -- an official timeline of events, something many of us have been clamoring for for quite a while now. If you're a big WoW geek (like most of the staff here at WoW Insider) it wouldn't be surprising for this book to earn a place of pride on your bookshelves. You can find World of Warcraft: The Ultimate Visual Guide at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Google Play Books lands in eight Asian countries, New Zealand
Turns out Google Play Books' arrival in India was merely the beginning of its burgeoning love affair with Asia. From the land of the Taj Mahal, it has made its way to eight new locations in the region: folks living in Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan and Hong Kong can now buy digital tomes from Mountain View. Play Books' latest journey doesn't stop there, though -- it has also donned its best hobbit garments to travel even more south and go on an adventure in New Zealand. It often takes a long time for services born in the US to land in other locations if they even do, so this counts as a huge victory for potential users living in those countries. Now, if only Google Music could follow suit...
Kobo adds magazines, kids store to its online offerings
Kobo's not quite done with the news tonight. In addition to an e-reader, three tablets and Pocket integration, the Canadian-turned-Japanese company has also got some announcements on the content side of things. First up is the addition of magazines to its store, bringing titles from Conde Nast, Hearst and a number of other publishers to its proprietary tablets and iOS / Android apps. Also on the docket is a brand new kids store that features safe-searching and nearly 100,000 offerings, including the likes of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Hunger Games titles. Magazines are coming to Kobo's mobile app in September and will be available for its new tablets when they launch the following month.
World of Warcraft: Ultimate Visual Guide available for preorder
Today Blizzard announced a new book release in partnership with DK Publishing--the World of Warcraft: Ultimate Visual Guide. The guide features many pages of new and unreleased artwork, in-depth character profiles for famous WoW heroes and villains, location information, famous battles of Azeroth's history, lore references, and even a guide to the different types of magic found in the Azerothian universe. Oh, and there's a glimpse into the creative development process behind WoW, as well, something I don't think has ever before really been explored in a Blizzard publication. The pre-order pages on Amazon and Barnes & Noble cite the release date as September 30th, so mark your calenders. This guide is sure to interest any WoW lore fan or art enthusiast. A full preview is available on the official DK landing page.
Asymco's Horace Dediu measures the iTunes video store
The iTunes video store is a strange market to track. Most of Apple's attention and press these days is going to the App Store, and obviously iTunes wouldn't exist without the music store. But the video store, where you can buy and rent movies and TV shows, is sort of the quiet third pillar of Apple's digital retail service. And Horace Dediu of Asymco has posted that it's doing big numbers indeed. After Apple announced new numbers for both TV show and movie downloads (1 billion and 380 million, respectively), Dediu crunched the numbers, and determined that the rate of spending on iTunes video is about US$1.75 billion per year. That's sizable for sure, though as you can see in Dediu's chart above, video still only makes up a small piece of the amount of money traveling through the various iTunes stores. Dediu also says the picture of what users are spending on iTunes is becoming more clear. He estimates that users spend the most every year on apps, about $16 a year. Furthermore, $12 a year is spent on music, per user, and $9 a year is spent on software (on the Mac App Store or elsewhere). Then, about $2 a year is spent on books, and $4 a year is spent on video. So iTunes video definitely isn't the biggest store that Apple is running, but it does make up a fairly sizable piece of the entire pie.
Editorial: Let Google be a little evil
Google's lawyers visited the Second Circuit Court of Appeals last week for a polite conversation with three judges and attorneys from the Authors Guild. You remember -- the book-scanning thing? Yes, the case is 7 years old and still unresolved. The Circuit Court is just a way station in a longer journey -- at issue is whether the Authors Guild's class action suit should be broken apart, forcing authors and publishers to confront Google individually. Google is going to win this thing eventually. If that makes Google evil, it is a necessary evil. The bigger question is about the lawfulness of Google's digital library quest, and the legitimacy of the Guild's copyright charges and request for damages. There are points of similarity to the music industry's litigation saga. And major differences. Google is going to win this thing eventually. If that makes Google evil, it is a necessary evil.
Apple patent turns in-game choices into a customized comic book
In 2009, Apple filed a patent to transfer players' unique video game story paths, choices and customized characters to book form, available automatically after the game was finished as an e-book, book or graphic novel. The USPTO granted Apple that patent today and made it public, complete with scores of Mass Effect-themed mock-ups demonstrating how the system would work.Today, we can see this program working well with a narrative-driven game such as Telltale's The Walking Dead: At the end of each episode, Apple's system would spit out a single-issue comic populated with each player's individual choices, dialogue trees and screenshots, shown directly on the console or PC and transferrable to tablets or other mobile devices. It's the circle of undead life, according to The Walking Dead – comic to game and back to comic, with some other lucrative multimedia stops along the way.Of course there's no telling if Apple is still interested in its patent, or how it would implement the system if it were. It could, however, prove a nice fit for those iPads people seem so fond of.
Books you should read to better understand WoW
No, this isn't a list of WoW novels. The thing is, World of Warcraft is built on the backs of a lot of fantasy literature, mythology, sword and sorcery epics, and so on. And while attempting to put together a reading list to truly explore all of these subjects would be meaningless, making some recommendations to help you get into the WoW spirit could be fun. If nothing else, you'll get to potentially read some new, interesting books. Now, there's no way I can get every classic of every genre that's influenced World of Warcraft into a list that would fit on this site. There are hundreds of potential books out there. So I'm just going to hit some highlights and let y'all go wild in the comments filling in the blanks. J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings - Tolkien is the 10,000 lb gorilla in modern fantasy. If you're not influenced by him, you're a reaction to him. The reason there are multiple kinds of elves and dwarves running around Azeroth fighting orcs is because of Tolkien's impact on fantasy. If you want to get the tropes, you should probably read this. Robert E. Howard's Conan and other stories - Howard is the other huge gorilla influencing modern fantasy. I mention Conan as his most famous creation, but there's just as much good stuff to be read by Howard that has nothing to do with the Cimmerian. His Solomon Kane, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, and his forays into horror and historical fiction all blazed from an imagination so incandescent that it burned the man himself out in a short amount of time. Be warned - most of this stuff was written for the pulps, and it has all the virtues and all the flaws of pulp fiction written in the 20's and 30's. It's often racist, sexist, and ranges wildly in quality.
Rumor: Amazon's Goodreads purchase cancelled a possible Apple partnership
The Wall Street Journal says that before Amazon's purchase of the Goodreads service earlier this year, Apple was planning to possibly integrate the social reading-recommendation service into its own iBookstore. Apple and Goodreads, says the WSJ, had been talking for a year or more about combining Goodreads' social ratings for books into the iBooks app directly, but of course Amazon's purchase put the kibosh on any such team-up. Amazon purchased Goodreads for what could be close to $200 million, and purportedly plans to use the service and its user reviews to help sell e-books on the Kindle bookstore. As for Apple, it's hard to say just what such a partnership would have looked like. Obviously Apple is willing to integrate partners in certain products, especially on iOS, where both Twitter and Facebook have seen fairly major social integration. But on the other hand, Apple's also very careful about mixing up brands, which is probably why any possible Goodreads partnership took as long as it did to come to light. Apple's seen a lot of success with iBooks, and so the company might be leery about including anyone else's content on that store. Nevertheless, thanks to the Amazon acquisition, integrating Goodreads on the iBookstore is no longer a possibility. Currently, users can review books on iBooks in exactly the same way they can review apps in the App Store, and that solution may be good enough for Apple for now.
Encrypted Text: Swirly Ball and a bag of coins
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. When Blizzard reintroduced Detection via the Glyph of Detection, I was ecstatic. Trap detection had been baked into the class when Detect Traps was originally removed, but that didn't stop rogues from waxing nostalgic about Swirly Ball. Warlocks wanted their green fire, warriors were trying to use Titan's Grip with polearms, and rogues begged for Swirly Ball back. The Glyph of Detection is the perfect minor glyph because it's fun and it's purely cosmetic. Or is it? Balarak, who is unfortunately a hunter, discovered a secret rogue event while infiltrating Ravenholdt Manor. Nobody expected what he found there. Ghosts and spirits, a hidden tribute to the Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, a rogue-only item with amazing capabilities, and the implication that maybe, even in this age of data mining, we haven't found everything WoW has to offer.
AAP reports e-books now account for over 22 percent of US publishers' revenue
It's well off the triple year-over-year growth that e-books saw a few years ago, but the latest report from the Association of American Publishers shows that e-books did inch up even further in 2012 to account for a sizeable chunk of overall book sales. According to its figures, e-books now represent 22.55 percent of US publishers' total revenue -- up from just under 17 percent in 2011 -- an increase that helped push net revenue from all book sales up 6.2 percent to $7.1 billion for the year. As the AAP notes, this report also happens to mark the tenth anniversary of its annual tracking of e-book sales; back at the beginning in 2002, their share of publishers' net revenue clocked in at a mere 0.05 percent. The group does caution that the year-to-year comparison back that far is somewhat anecdotal, however, given changing methodologies and definitions of e-books.
