e-books and e-readers: post here

[nwoods]

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E-Book Price
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Amazon: $9.99 bestsellers, more for other titles
Apple iBook store: $12.99 and up

Amazon strong-armed publishers into accepting the $9.99 price for
best selling ebooks. But the publishers are not happy with this low
figure. A publishers' revolt is under way to raise the price to $13 or
$14, which, not coincidentally, is the amount Apple says ebooks will cost
in the new iBookstore.

E-Book formats
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Amazon: AZW Amazon proprietary, MOBI, PRC, TXT, TPZ, PDF
Kindle readers for iPod, PC (Mac reader coming)

iPad: EPub, TXT, PDF, others?
E-Pub readers available for iMac, iPod, PC

Sony: ePub, PDF, TXT, Microsoft Word, RTF, Adobe Digital Editions

Okay, personally I really like my Kindle, but I cringe every time a book I want exceeds $6.99. I don't mind paying $7 for it, but when it creeps up to $9.99 or higher, I seriously hesitate, and often don't buy the book. Instead, I go to the excellent little used book store near my house and pay $3.50 for something with more permanence.

If books are going to escalate in price to over $10, I just don't see myself "buying" them in a traditional sense. E-books (the material, not the device) are basically single use products. A solution is going to have to be found where people can rent, exchange, or group buy books under some sort of fractional ownership model.

I suspect the format war is going to be instrumental in all this. I note that they all read PDF. Someone is going to figure out a way to convert these formats to open source PDF's, and pu them on Torrent sites. I don't support music piracy, because its not single use (who listens to a song just once?). But books are different. By raising their prices, I predict ebook piracy will grow exponentially.

I find this all very depressing.

[haven]

Here's an interesting new development: Marvell, the semiconductor manufacturer, has announced a plan to introduce a $99 e-reader for the education market. The tablet, called the Moby, was described to an audience of publishers at the Future of Publishing conference in NYC this week.

The Moby probably won't be sold to the public at first. Instead, the target audience is school districts, colleges, and similar groups that can order large numbers of the devices. Marvell announced a pilot program with the Washington DC public school district, in which Marvell will donate devices to every child in a school.

If a school district were to purchase e-books instead of physical copies of the books, they would save a fortune on the cost of purchasing, storing and distributing the physical books.

Publishers could make money on the deal, too. The production and distribution of physical textbooks is expensive. Publishers also take back and refurbish textbooks for resale. Distribution of the textbook in e-book form will save lots of money, reduce problems in distribution, and be friendly to the environment. In a single file download, a publisher could license a school district to install a fixed number of copies of a textbook onto Moby tablets.

E-books are exciting to authors and editors of textbooks for several reasons. First, color graphics can be used without concern for cost. Adding color to a textbook is expensive. The potential of using multimedia and hypertext to help in the instructional process is practically unlimited. And textbooks in e-book form can be quickly updated to provide access to new research and to correct errors.

According to Marvell, the $99 Moby tablet has a pretty complete set of specifications
-- Marvell ARMADA 600 processor, gigahertz-class processor speed
-- color LCD display with touch capability
-- 1080p full-HD encode and decode, support for Adobe Flash
-- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
-- GPS capability (this might help in the recovery of lost equipment?)
-- support for either Google Android or Windows Mobile operating system

Marvell is one of the original sponsors of One Laptop Pre Child (OLPC) program, Nicholas Negroponte's initiative to reduce the cost of computing in education.

This web page has a photo of the Moby prototype that was shown to the attendees of the Future of Publishing conference
http://armdevices.net/2010/03/18/mar...ize-education/

Here is Marvell's press release
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...-88376967.html

[haven]

Marvell's announcement is interesting in another way. Since the guts of
the Moby is similar to a smart phone, I think this means that other
manufacturers of smart phones could produce similar devices at a similar
price point. I expect other companies that build cell phones to start work
on competitively priced e-book models.

[nwoods]

Nice find Haven. How do you find this stuff, what is your profession? Are you a professional web surfer?

[haven]

It's just one of my interests. I've had a couple of tangential contacts
with academic publishing over the years.

[Root Moose]

I noticed that an Amazon Kindle app is coming to the app store for the iPad. I don't have the URL handy...

[haven]

Kobo is a company that develops e-reader software. They have an online store for e-book purchases, and free books, too. The web site is http://www.kobobooks.com/ Kobo has a partnership with Borders Books to develop their e-book store, and to deliver e-book readers for several mobile platforms, including iPhone, Palm Pre, Google Android and Blackberry.

Kobo recently unveiled a design for an e-book reader. The big news is the price: $150! That's $100 cheaper than most competitors. The Kobo lacks any 3G connection. Instead, you download the e-books via USB from a computer with web access. The Kobo is not a web browsing tool, just an e-reader.

Here are two web pages that offer a few details about the Kobo

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/24/k...-we-thumb-thr/

http://gizmodo.com/5501866/kobo-erea...y-nice-for-150

If the $150 level has fallen, can the $100 price point be far behind?

[haven]

Here's a rumor: Barnes and Noble will introduce a Wi-Fi only version of the Nook e-book reader sometime in June, price $199. Since the original Nook with AT&T 3G and Wifi costs $259 today, I wouldn't be surprised to see the original Nook at $199 this Summer.

Another rumor: There's a firmware upgrade coming soon that will remove any limit on where the web browser can be used. The current WiFi program doesn't play well with WiFi connections that need additional dialog, like a connection in a hotel room that needs to authorize a charge.

[haven]

Paradigm Shift is a Chinese company that wants to get into the business of manufacturing ebook readers. Back in December, they announced they would be producing models with 5 inch and 7 inch screens. (The standard Kindle and Nook have 6 inch displays.)

Today, Paradigm announced specs and pricing for the 5 inch model, which they call the EER-051D. The price is $130, which gets you a 5 inch color LCD screen. (Color is considered important for the education market) The device supports several e-book formats (TXT, DOC, PDF, HTML, and EPUB among them). In addition, the EER-051D offers an MP3 music player, an MP4 video player, built in FM radio, and a photo viewer. The reader has 2 GB flash memory built in, and has an SD slot for memory cards.

No mention was made of WiFi or 3G connectivity. I guess you have to tether the device to a PC via USB and transfer the files you want to display. And no mention was made of projected battery life.

From the press release, I gather that the company sees systems integrators and large companies as its primary market. I can see school districts deciding to buy a $130 color e-reader instead of a $499 iPad for instructional purposes. This device could easily be rebranded for retail sales through an outlet like Sears or Radio Shack.

See photos and the press release here
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/21/p...051d-e-reader/

[haven]

http://jkontherun.com/2010/05/01/fir...e-book-reader/

The Alex reader ($399) has started shipping. The blog post above says the
Alex has a build quality as good as the Kindle, and has the advantage of a
second 5" diagonal color touchscreen below the reader's main display. The
smaller color screen can be used for web browsing via WiFi.

The second screen does draw more power. While the Kindle can run for days,
the Alex is rated to run for only 6 hours while web browsing.