Hasta La Gadget!

Late last year, Kobo went small. The introduction of the 5-inch Mini was no doubt, at least in part, an attempt to offer up a bit of variety in a space whose parameters are largely defined by two Goliaths: Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The device offered a compelling alternative, but ultimately not one enticing enough to recommend it. Announced at roughly the same time, the company’s first take at front-lighting technology, the Glo, suffered a similar fate, coming on the heels of the Kindle Paperwhite and Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight.

Less than half a year later, the company has announced a new reader that once again rethinks the standard 6-inch screen. With the Aura HD, Kobo is going big, extending things to 6.8 inches, putting it closer to tablet size. With that upgrade comes an impressive resolution: 1,440 x 1,080 (compared to the 1,024 x 768 on the Paperwhite and 1,024 by 758 on the Glo). It’s a product focused on hardcore readers. “We got 10,000 customers together across dozens of countries to ask them what we can do for them,” Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis explained. As such, it’s a limited edition offering, one not destined to replace the flagship Glo. “This is something that is designed for this most passionate, voracious reader,” he said, “and as much as I wish everyone was like that — it would make us a lot bigger business right away — that is not the case.” The reader’s priced at $169, and is available for pre-order now, with shipping expected to begin on the 25th. In the meantime, we’ve got more details and some hands-on photos after the break.

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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.

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Via: The Next Web

Source: AAP

Barnes & Noble’s PubIt! self-publishing conduit has been active for well over two years, but you’d be forgiven for overlooking it with that somewhat forgettable (if very emphatic) name. The company might just know what you’re thinking, as it’s giving the service a considerably more memorable title, Nook Press, while upgrading features at the same time. Although the royalty structure remains the same, Nook Press now incorporates a web-based authoring tool: would-be Hemingways can write and preview their work through one online hub, sharing their drafts with others in a secure space. Those who commit should also get more exposure through an upcoming Nook Press channel on Nook HD and Nook HD+ tablets. There’s no guarantee that the rebranding will lure potential bestselling authors away from Amazon, but they may have a better sense of their options.

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Via: PaidContent

Source: Barnes & Noble

The tale of Google and Frommer’s famed travel guides has taken another twist this evening. Associated Press writer Beth Harpaz reports Arthur Frommer confirmed over the phone that he has retaken control of the brand from Google, and plans to continue publishing them in e-book and print formats, as well as maintaining the Frommers.com website. This comes after Google acquired the brand from publisher Wiley in 2012, followed by Skift.com’s revelation last month that it apparently intended to shut production of the books down.

We’re told by a Google spokesperson (check after the break for the full statement) that it has integrated the content acquired from Frommer’s and Wiley into its products including Google+ Local, but returned the brand to the founder and will continue licensing “certain content” to him. Why things took this circuitous route right back to the man who started it all back in 1957 is unknown and terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but we’re sure fans of the budget travel how-tos are happy to see Frommer’s keep going.

[Image credit: Frommer’s, Facebook]

Filed under: Google

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Via: Skift

Source: Associated Press

The Raspberry Pi is all about low-cost computing, which makes this particular hack quite fitting, as it allows you to make a terminal for your lil’ Linux machine out of something you may already have at home: a Kindle Paperwhite. Displeased with the glare from his laptop’s screen on a sunny day, Max Ogden was inspired to find something better and ended up with this Paperwhite hack. It builds on the original “Kindleberry Pi” method for the Kindle Keyboard, although Ogden had to massage it for the newer model and added some extra hardware to make the setup as wireless as possible. You wouldn’t call the end result a monitor, as such — the Paperwhite logs into an SSH session running on the Pi, so it “pretty much only works for terminals.” That’s probably for the best, as Ogden guesses the lag between wireless keyboard and e-ink screen is around 200ms, but at least it has portability, battery life and sunlight readability in the ‘pros’ column. Details of the project can be found at the source below, meaning only time (and probably, a few peripherals) stands between you and the ultimate hipster coffee shop machine.

Filed under: Misc, Software, Amazon

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Via: Raspberry Pi

Source: Max Ogden