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Kobo’s new ereaders include its first with color displays
Rakuten has a trio of new Kobo ereaders, including the company’s first two with color displays. On Wednesday, the company revealed the $220 Kobo Libra Colour and $150 Clara Colour alongside the monochrome $130 Clara BW.
Amazon's updated e-book return policy looks like a big win for authors
In a move that should be a boon to authors, Amazon has updated its e-book return policy to prevent automatic returns on books where more than 10 percent of its content has been read.
J.D. Salinger novels will finally be released as e-books
It's not just musicians giving in to demand to go digital. J.D. Salinger's son Matt has agreed to publish e-book versions of the famed author's novels, including The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey, later this week. Salinger had generally been against technology and was one of the last great 20th-century writers to refuse digital publication, but his son Matt saw this as a matter of keeping his father's work relevant in the modern era. Many people only read on phones and tablets, the younger Salinger told the New York Times -- if there weren't e-book versions, people might not read these classics in the first place.
Pokémon manga e-books are available in schools and libraries worldwide
Pokémon manga e-books are now available to public libraries and schools worldwide through OverDrive, Inc. Students and library patrons can visit overdrive.com to find a participating library. From there, you'll be able to download Pokémon magna titles published by Viz Media, either on a web browser or via the Libby or Sora apps. Borrowed titles will expire at the end of the lending period, so as an added perk, there are no late fees.
Microsoft closes its e-book store (updated)
Did you build your e-book library through the Microsoft Store? You'll need to make a change in plans. Microsoft has not only removed books from its online portal, but plans to remove access to existing purchases and rentals in early July. It's not a complete loss when Microsoft plans to offer refunds in the form of store credit, including $25 extra if you've made annotations before April 2nd. However, that still leaves you paying to re-stock your library through a third-party service -- and any notes you've made will disappear into the ether.
Amazon Kindle finally supports Arabic language books
Arabic language authors don't get many opportunities in the e-book world, whether it's due to a basic lack of support for the language (which reads right-to-left, is written in cursive and includes pronunciation marks) or the complexities of distributing the books in the first place. Amazon may be making it easier, though -- it's launching support for Arabic language books on Kindle devices and apps, including a dedicated section on the Kindle Store. The texts support all the same font adjustment, search and highlighting features you'd expect in other languages, while over 12,000 books are available worldwide.
Kobo's latest waterproof e-reader is sized for poolside reading
Kobo's Aura One e-reader was potentially the dream device for anyone who likes to read in the bath or at the beach, but it had some catches. Its big 7.8-inch screen didn't make it the most portable device around, and that $229 price could be off-putting if you just wanted to read a novel now and then. Enter the just-introduced Aura H2O -- the new e-reader is still as waterproof as the One, and shares the same smart lighting that reduces blue light at night (in theory, to help you sleep). Its 6.8-inch touchscreen is decidedly easier to hold during longer siestas, while the $180 price (£150 in the UK) might simplify your purchasing decision.
Kobo is the next to offer an e-book subscription service
All-you-can-read e-book subscriptions are nothing new (just ask Amazon), but Kobo is just now joining the fray. It's launching Kobo Plus, a service that offers unlimited reading of eligible books (currently 40,000 titles) for a flat monthly fee. While there aren't any surprising attempts to shake up the basic subscription formula, you probably won't complain if you prefer Kobo's e-readers or mobile apps -- you no longer have to buy every single title that piques your interest.
Amazon Japan's manga-ready Kindle has 8 times the storage
Amazon Japan has an unusual challenge with the Kindle: it not only has to cater to your typical bookworm, but to a local fondness for image-heavy (and thus storage-intensive) manga books. What it's going to do? Release a special model just for those readers, apparently. The company has introduced a manga version of the Kindle Paperwhite with 32GB of storage, or eight times as much space as the run-of-the-mill 4GB model. You could cram every single volume of Asari-chan, Kochikame and Naruto into this e-reader, Amazon says. On top of that, a 33 percent faster page turning speed promises to keep you engrossed in your comics.
'Game of Thrones' e-books make it easier to keep up with the action
To properly celebrate the 20th anniversary of George R. R. Martin's best-selling A Game of Thrones, there's a new iBooks edition of the series that offers features to help you keep up with all of the action. The first installment is officially called A Game of Thrones: Enhanced Edition and all of the e-books pack in character maps, annotations, house summaries, a glossary of terms and other handy tools. As books two through five are added to the collection, that glossary will expand alongside developing storylines.
Your iBooks price fixing credit is on its way
Don't fret about your piece of Apple's e-book price fixing settlement -- the check is in the mail, virtually speaking. The attorneys behind the class action lawsuit have revealed that digital credits from the case will start reaching book buyers from various online bookstores (including Apple's iBooks as well as Amazon and Barnes & Noble) as early as June 21st. What you'll get depends on what you bought, mind you, and it's not exactly a windfall.
Waterstones is done selling e-books
Waterstones is well and truly getting back to basics today, as it has dropped e-books and audiobooks from its online store. The digital libraries of Waterstones customers will remain accessible until June 13th, with Kobo taking over the following day. Those affected will be emailed instructions of how they can migrate their e-book collection over to Kobo's platform, where their purchases will live on. Audiobook libraries will also disappear mid-June, but there's no fallback service, so make sure you download the MP3s associated with your Waterstones account before it's too late.
Apple e-book price fixing case won't reach the Supreme Court
Apple's last shot at avoiding a $450 million e-book price fixing settlement just went out the window. The US Supreme Court has declined to hear Apple's challenge of an appeals court decision that left the company on the hook for allegedly conspiring with publishers to raise digital book prices. The decision won't have much of an impact on Apple's day-to-day business (the court-approved antitrust monitor is no longer watching it like a hawk). Still, it's a symbolic loss for a tech giant that maintains it did nothing wrong.
Google experiments with e-books designed for your phone
E-books are just digital recreations of what you can get on paper. Wouldn't it be better if they took advantage of internet-connected mobile devices to tell new stories? Google, at least, wants to give this a shot. It just launched Editions At Play, an experiment in making e-books that rely on the dynamic qualities of the mobile web to do what you can't in print. One book (Reif Larsen's Entrances & Exits, above) sets stories inside Google Street View locations that you can explore. Others create portals full of animation and sound, degrade the text alongside a character's mind or let you flip between two sides of the same tale.
Kindle e-reader update gives quick access to your books
Who said that dedicated e-readers were dead? Certainly not Amazon. It's rolling out a major Kindle reader update that breathes new life into your e-paper experience. The most conspicuous improvement is a brand new home screen that highlights your most recent books, your reading list and personalized recommendations. You also have quick access to common settings like airplane mode, easier sharing (particularly for Goodreads) and an easy way to see the books that aren't on your device.
Amazon brings its white Kindle to the UK
Amazon offers a range of different Kindle e-readers depending on your budget, but they normally always come in black. If you've wanted to stand out from the crowd, the only option has been to buy a colourful case or import a white model from Japan or China. Now, UK customers can enjoy a little bit more variety after the retailer decided to bring the white version east for the first time. It offers all of the same features as its black counterpart, including the 800 x 600 e-paper touchscreen, WiFi, 4GB of storage and the £60 price tag, and will ship from today.
Barnes & Noble unveils a waterproof Nook e-reader
If you're Barnes & Noble, how do you make an e-reader that stands out when Amazon's Kindle all but dominates the market? By making it usable in the bath, that's how. The at-times struggling bookseller has unveiled the Nook GlowLight Plus, whose centerpiece is a waterproof and dustproof aluminum body -- you won't have to panic if it gets wet. This is also the first E Ink-based Nook to support profiles (handy in a literary family), and its 300-dpi screen is twice as sharp as what you saw in the original GlowLight. The Plus probably won't get you to switch readers if you're a Kindle loyalist, but the $130 price is about right if you're a newcomer or want to trade up from one of the earlier Nooks.
Apple's e-book business is no longer under scrutiny
Three years ago, the Department of Justice brought Apple, and major publishers, to book for trying to maintain the prices at which e-books could be sold. As part of its punishment, the firm had to suffer the presence of a court-approved monitor, Michael Bromwich (pictured, left), placed to ensure that Apple cleaned up its act. Now, after many long months of having a third party roaming the halls of One Infinite Loop, the DoJ has concluded that Bromwich has done his job, and will no longer have to stand watch over the iBooks team.
Barnes and Noble's Galaxy Tab E Nook is yet another tablet for readers
If you're a fan of Barnes & Noble's Nook line of e-readers and tablets, there's a new option to tempt you this fall. The Galaxy Tab E Nook is a 9.6-inch slate that offers all of the perks of the bookseller's digital library in a Samsung package. While the front features a familiar-looking Galaxy design, the back is covered in "a non-slip fabric-like material" to ensure you're able to keep a good grip during long reads. Inside, there's 16GB of built-in storage that's expandable to 128GB via mircoSD to store your books and other items. Unfortunately, storage is about the only info on the gadget's internals the announcement reveals. Like previous Nook by Samsung releases, this one is more than just an e-reader, allowing you to watch movies, stream TV shows and browse the web with Android apps.
Waterstones stops selling Amazon Kindles over 'pitiful' sales
Waterstones, the UK's largest book retailer, surprised many when it put plans for its own e-reader on ice to start selling Amazon's range of Kindle readers. It's been more than three years since it began making extra space in stores for one of its biggest rivals, but it won't for much longer. The Bookseller reports that the company will remove Amazon's e-ink Kindles from most of its locations as sales "continue to be pitiful."
