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Microsoft is testing an ebook store on Windows 10
Microsoft has unveiled an ebook store in the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview, the first time it has dabbled in bookselling since its ill-fated Barnes & Noble Nook partnership. Beta testers will be able to purchase ebooks from the Windows store, then organize and read them in the Edge browser. "Windows Insiders in the US get to try out this experience today starting with this build and we expect to add more content over time," the company said in a blog post.
Kindle e-bookstore and self-publishing platform now available in Mexico
Both readers and writers in Mexico have a reason to rejoice today, as Amazon has just launched the Kindle Store and Kindle Direct Publishing in their country. The e-bookstore will feature over 70,000 Spanish-language titles, as well as e-books in indigenous tongues like Nahuatl. To help fill up those new e-readers, Amazon will also be offering upwards of 1,500 free books among the store's 2 million titles. The availability of KDP is especially significant, as it offers both unknown authors and big name writers like Paulo Coelho (who's using it to release his books El Alquimista and Once Minutos) an alternative path to publishing. Additionally, Gandhi, one of the largest bookstore chains in Mexico, will now sell the basic Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite in its brick and mortar shops for MXN$1,399 (USD$105) and MXN$2,399 (USD$180) respectively. For more info, check out the source links below or the press releases after the break.
iBookstore lines its shelves with paid content in New Zealand, 17 Latin American countries
iDevice owners in New Zealand and 17 Latin American countries are no longer restricted to a diet composed of free content when it comes to their respective iBookstores. A quick search of the storefronts will reveal virtual shelves stocked with paid-content that haven't yet found their way to the shops' homepages. Reside in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru or Venezuela? Head on over to the appropriate store and books with price tags will be available for purchase. If this is any sign of what Apple has up its sleeve for tomorrow, we suspect that "a little more" will involve a bit of reading.
Toshiba announces color e-reader in Japan, hopes people buy more e-books from its store
If you're gonna be late to a party, you should at least be fashionably late. That's the mindset behind Toshiba's entry into the dedicated e-reader space with its new 7-inch BookPlace DB50. Toshiba hopes adding an e-reader alongside its existing AT200 and Thrive tablets will push more eyeballs towards the 100,000 or so titles in its BookPlace online bookstore. The ¥22,000 ($284) BookPlace DB50 sports a TFT-LCD screen with an LED backlight, a 1GHz Freescale i.MX535 processor, 8GB of internal flash memory and a microSD slot. The device also measures 120mm wide, 190mm tall, 11mm thick and weighs 330 grams (11.6 ounces), with battery life rated at up to 7.5 hours. Toshiba did not mention the operating system in its release though the hubbub in the Interwebs is that it will use customized versions of Linux and Android Gingerbread. The Japanese debut is pegged for February 10th and the company is apparently considering a release outside the country, too.
Amazon axes copied content, duplicate Kindle Store ebooks get the boot
If we take a can of Spam and call it "Engadget's precooked pork meat product," you'll still know it's the same mystery meat you ate for lunch, right? Under the idea of "private label rights," authors can do just that: sell their works to others who can rebrand and resell them. This week, Amazon cracked down on duplicate ebooks in its Kindle Store, pulling titles because they "diminish the experience for customers." One copycat who got the smack down called it a "kick in the pants" when his 22 titles got yanked. He did, however, admit he had the swift one coming. Aping authors can expect more book banning Kung Fu as Amazon continues to rid itself of "undifferentiated or barely differentiated versions of e-books." Hi-yah!
Microsoft patents apps that let you buy things, Ballmer to go on licensing spree?
Many of us use apps to buy stuff these days, whether its grabbing the latest e-book from Amazon, or a Groupon for a day of pampering at the local spa. Seems obvious now, but it wasn't (at least according to the USPTO) in 2004, when Microsoft filed a patent application for the idea -- and that application was recently granted. The patent claims a way to make purchases through an network-connected portal with a "streamlined interface" (to "streamline" the process of parting you from your money, no doubt). The portal maintains a list of selling sites and exchanges info as needed to let buyers pick up what the seller's putting down. Now, we aren't intimately familiar with the ways shopping apps work, but the patent language appears broad enough to cover apps that make internet purchases without using a full-on web browser -- though only a federal court can say for sure. The only other question is, what are Ballmer and his boys going to do with these newly granted IP powers?
Amazon's Kindle Store opens digital doors in UK
Amazon has just announced the launch of its UK Kindle Store, furnishing UK netizens with a localized storefront from which to browse and purchase their ebooks. It starts life with an imposing 400,000 book collection, and is claimed by Amazon to offer the lowest prices "of any e-bookstore in the UK." Guess that gives price comparison sites a new avenue to branch out into. More than 170 magazines and newspapers are also available, for one-off purchases or on a subscription basis, while the new lighter, better, cheaper Kindle is up for pre-order and set to ship at the end of the month. Good to see that Amazon isn't neglecting its extra-American markets.
Nook for Android now available to download, offers eBook lending
Well, what do you know? Turns out you don't actually need to invest in a Nook e-reader to enjoy the experience on your existing smartphone. And considering that the average Android smartphone will boast a display larger than your face within 2 years (if current trends continue, anyway), we'd say we could be onto something good here. At any rate, B&N's own eBookstore app is now available for Google's dear mobile OS, landing just weeks after Amazon pushed its Kindle app out into the same marketplace. Of course, B&N's not shying away from the competition, dubbing its app "the only Android e-reader application to offer eBook lending." It's available to download now on devices rocking Android 1.6 or above, and yes, even Android users can pick up on another platform where you leave off on your phone. Fancy.
Borders' Kobo-powered eBook Store now live with 1.5 million titles, Android and BlackBerry apps (update)
Exactly how many eBook stores do we need? Depends. If you own a dedicated e-reader then one is all you get. Own a tablet or smartphone and the world of eBook stores is pretty much yours for the taking through competing apps. Borders looks to be taking a hybrid approach by offering up the $150 Kobo, $120 Aluratek Libre (available July 20th), $170 Sony Touch, and $150 Sony Pocket eReaders and today's launch of a self-branded eBook store powered by Kobo's catalog of more than 1.5 million titles -- "thousands" of which are free and available in a variety of formats including ePub (primarily) and PDF. Borders also has desktop PC and Mac apps ready for download in addition to a few apps listed as "coming soon" for both Android and BlackBerry devices -- these join the apps already released for Apple's iOS. It just went live so why not hit the source and have a browse. P.S. Funny enough, there's not a single mention of Spring Design's Alex on Borders' new site. Funny sad, not ha ha. Update: The Android and BlackBerry apps are now live.
Toshiba Book Place full-color e-book store is powered by Blio, launches soon (video)
And here we go, an honest to goodness book store built around Ray Kurzweil's Blio e-reader software. It's been a long time coming and still it's only a teaser page, but Toshiba is promising to unleash its Book Place store "in the coming weeks" stocked with "thousands" of full-color e-books. The Blio software, you might remember from our video hands-on, offers a fully interactive reading experience rich in multimedia capabilities and should run beautifully on oh, say, Toshiba's new dual-screen Libretto W100. Man, when did Toshiba suddenly become interesting? See it in a cheesy, promotional packaging rager (that hints at an iOS app at the 2.42 mark) after the break.
Pandigital Novel goes on sale, hopes you'll take a look
It may not be the color e-reader that turns Amazon's Kindle and the B&N Nook into relics, but Pandigital's Novel is actually one of the more interesting me-toos to surface. Boasting a 7-inch LCD, 1GB of storage space (not to mention an SD / MMC card slot), integrated WiFi and access to the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, the Novel is now on sale in at least a couple of places. If we were you, though, we'd probably opt for that Kohl's link -- you know, unless you just enjoy paying $50 over the $199.99 MSRP. Update: Whoops! Looks like the Kohl's "sale" is off as well, with the price shooting up to $259.99. No deal.
Pandigital intros 7-inch Novel e-reader, nabs access to B&N eBookstore
Pandigital's best known for its hard, hard work in the game-changing digital photo frame world, but the company's feeling a bit froggy of late. It's latest leap is into the burgeoning e-reader market, and unlike those from Barnes & Noble and Amazon, this one's sporting a 7-inch LCD -- you know, now that Apple has suddenly made that "okay" again. At any rate, the forthcoming Novel boasts a full-color 800 x 600 resolution touchscreen, inbuilt WiFi and dimensions of 5.5- x 7.5- x 0.5-inches. The highlight here is the partnership with B&N, which gives this guy access to the bookseller's eBookstore, not to mention the ability to share content via LendMe. Pandigital also throws in 1GB of internal memory, an SD / MMC card slot, orientation sensor, and the rechargeable battery is said to be good for a mediocre six hours on a full charge. The $199.99 Novel should be out and about next month supporting PDF, ePUB and HTML formats (yeah, there's a web browser), and in case you were wondering, it's based around Android and gets powered by an ARM 11 processor. Did Pandigital -- of all companies -- just out a remotely interesting e-reader? Yes, yes it did.
Reflections: A day and a night with the iPad
Getting an iPad was an unplanned part of my day. My original idea was to wait for version 2, but I found myself at a local Best Buy taking pictures and interviewing people in line, and the manager came out and said there were some available. Bingo. Reality distortion field. Up went my hand. I spent yesterday afternoon and last night getting a pretty good idea of what this baby does and doesn't do. Here are a few preliminary thoughts: Setup is easy, but a bit slow. I plugged it into iTunes, selected what music, movies and apps I wanted to copy to the iPad and I was on my way. It seemed like the sync took forever, and subsequent syncs are VERY slow. Lots of spinning beach balls. Maybe it's my system. Maybe not. The iPad alerted me that there were quite a few app updates that gave direct support to the higher resolution screen, so I was happy for that. How is the iPad to use? In a word, interesting, liberating, sometimes frustrating. It's heavier than I thought it would be. I think for most people, it is not a one-handed device. Sitting on my lap, or on a table, it's just dandy. As others have noted, the iPad is very snappy. Web pages render quickly, graphics are quickly updated. The screen is beautiful, and movies and photos look striking. The screen is very reflective, so you may have to fiddle around with angles if you are in a room with sunlight streaming in.
Barnes & Noble promises B&N eReader app for iPad near launch
Need a bit more evidence that the e-book download business is a whole lot different than the music download business? Then look no further than Barnes & Noble, which has just announced that it plans to make its B&N eReader app available for the Apple iPad "around the time" of the device's launch. Details are otherwise a bit light, but the app will be free, and is apparently "designed specifically" for the iPad, giving you access to all of the books, magazines and newspapers available in Barnes & Noble's eBookstore. Could a Kindle app be far behind?
Foxit busts out ebook store for eSlick owners
It's been a season of e-readers, that's for sure... and while Foxit is a smaller player in the scene as compared to the Nook or the Kindle, it's got some news of its own to boast about today. That's right, Foxit's launching an online bookstore all its own. The aptly named eSlick Store has been launched in partnership with Fictionwise LLC (a company which is rather interestingly owned by Barnes & Noble), and currently contains about 60,000 books. If you haven't forgotten -- Foxit's also recently released a firmware update which enables its support of EPUB. Full press is after the break.
Sony to expand PlayStation Network into Sony Online Service, sell music, books, videos
Sony had a big management meeting in Japan today, where the tech giant announced some extremely vague plans for what's initially being called the Sony Online Service -- a new "iTunes-like" service built on the PlayStation Network that will sell books, music, and movies. That's really all we know for now -- Sony execs didn't set a launch date or provide any specifics -- but the move's been rumored for a while and makes total sense, considering Sony's huge investment in running PSN and vast array of products it could tie into the service, like the Reader e-book line, the PSP, and the various Network Walkmans. Now, whether or not Sony can manage to make good on this massive potential remains to be seen -- we've got high hopes, but this isn't a small challenge.
Google clarifies plans for Google Editions ebook store launching next year
Despite the fact that nobody reads anything anymore, the ebook market sure is hot lately, with Barnes & Noble about to make some sort of big splash and now Google getting in on the action in a new way. After shaking up the industry quite a bit with its Google Books initiative, Google is going to offer paid ebook purchases in its new "Google Editions" store in the first half of next year, which has been bumped back from the 2009 launch originally planned. The store will offer somewhere in the range of 400,000 and 600,000 books (compared to the 100,000ish offered by Sony and the 330,000+ on Kindle), and prices will be set by publishers, with Google collecting 55 percent of the profits and supposedly sharing much of that with "retail partners." The books will be available to any device with a web browser, but will be available offline after they've been accessed the first time -- that sounds like Google Gears to us, but since phones and other devices are mentioned for compatibility, hopefully there's more to it than just a browser-based reader.
Barnes & Noble switches to free WiFi, just the thing for your e-book reader
Barnes & Noble and AT&T already went ahead and offered free WiFi to iPhone users (and everyone else, albeit inadvertently) last year, and it's now finally gone and given up on those pesky subscription fees altogether. As the pair of companies jointly announced today, that new and welcome change is now already in place at all Barnes & Noble stores in the US that offer WiFi, and the bookstore is not-at-all-coincidentally taking advantage of the opportunity to promote its recently launched eBookstore, to say nothing of its forthcoming e-book reader. Last we heard, they still have actual books and stuff there, too.
Barnes & Noble partners with Plastic Logic, becomes "exclusive eBookstore provider" for its e-reader
It's not exactly an e-book reader of its own as previously rumored, but Barnes & Noble's announced an alliance with Plastic Logic in which it'll serve as the "exclusive eBookstore provider" to the long-in-development e-reader, which unless we're playing with semantics here means any and all digital literature you're wanting to purchase on-device will have to come from BN. According to the press release, downloads from Google's public domain archives will also be made available gratis, and as for the enigmatic 8.5 x 11-inch slate, it's still reportedly on track for an early 2010 launch. Much in the vein of Amazon's more recent maneuvers, the ole' brick-and-mortar retailer is taking what it's calling a device-agnostic approach, with apps already available for iPhone and iPod touch, Blackberry, Windows, and OS X. Practice your reading skills with the presser after the break.Update: A few added details from Barnes & Noble's conference call. The company says it'll be announcing support for other products in the future (not Kindle or Sony e-reader) and that it has no announcements at this point as to whether it'll be selling Plastic Logic e-readers in store, exclusive or otherwise.
