Hasta La Gadget!

We doubt the world will ever get to a stage where it’ll completely ditch ye olde paper books, but the US consumer market seems to clearly have its heart set on the electronic kind right now. Net ebook sales in January were this week reported to have accumulated $69.9 million in revenue for their publishers, which amounts to a 116 percent jump from last year’s total for the month. During the same period, adult hardcovers were down 11.3 percent to $49.1 million and paperbacks faced a similar reduction in demand and fell to $83.6 million, a precipitous drop of 19.7 percent year-on-year. Educational and children’s books weren’t spared from this cull of the physical tome, either — skip past the break to see the full statistical breakdown.

Continue reading Ebook sales in the US double year-on-year, paper books suffer double-digit losses

Ebook sales in the US double year-on-year, paper books suffer double-digit losses originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Mar 2011 17:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already seen Apple boast that it’s sold 15 million iPads in 2010 and commanded more than a 90 percent market share, but IDC has now come in and provided a broader picture of the tablet market as a whole — and e-readers, too. Not surprisingly, it too found that the tablet industry is basically all about Apple at the moment, although its market share did dip from a whopping 93 percent in the third quarter to 73 percent in Q4, which averages out to 83 percent for the year — all told, there were 18 million tablets sold in 2010. Things are a bit more competitive in the e-reader market — where there were 12 million devices sold — although Amazon is still head and shoulders above everyone else with a 48 percent share. Interestingly, it’s followed not by Barnes & Noble as you might expect but by Pandigital, which just eeked into the number two spot for Q4 (though B&N is slightly ahead for the full year). Hanvon came in fourth based largely on strong sales in China, and Sony rounded out the top five with sales of 800,000 units in 2010. Check out the press release after the break for some additional details

Continue reading IDC: 18 million tablets, 12 million e-readers shipped in 2010

IDC: 18 million tablets, 12 million e-readers shipped in 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Silk Screen. Photo: Steven Depolo / Flickr

Researcher in Taiwan can make flexible e-reader displays out of silk. The material not only allows for bendy e-books, but the material is also cheap compared to existing tech.

The process starts out with “liquid silk”, which is turned into insulating membranes that are then used to make the TFT (thin-film transistor) screens found in e-readers and LCD panels. Professor Hwang Jenn-Chang of the National Tsing Hua University calls the process “quite viable.”

It is also cheap. The silk required to make a screen works out at just three cents per device.

This of course brings some nightmarish scenarios to mind. I imagine a Kindle factory, probably underground, where endless rows of silkworms toil day and night to bring us naturally produced, possibly “organic” bendy e-books. Where will this madness end? What next? Books made out of paper?

Taiwan researchers turn to silk for flexible e-devices [PC World]

See Also:

• Video: Flexible Sony Screen Can Be Wrapped Around a Pencil …
• Samsung's Flexible OLED Screen Goes Under the Hammer
• Flexible Wrist-Mounted OLED Display Excites Dick Tracys Everywhere …
• Flexible Displays Closer to Reality, Thanks to U.S. Army
• Flexible Displays Get Touch Friendly

Well, it looks like the last major holdout from Apple’s iBookstore could soon be joining its rivals on iOS devices — Random House announced today that it’s abandoning its current pricing model for e-books in favor of the so-called “agency pricing” that Apple insists on. That model requires publishers to set the retail prices of their books with the bookseller getting a 30 percent cut of each sale — as opposed to the traditional wholesale model that lets retailers set the price of books and even sell them at a loss (as Amazon has done in the past). As the Wall Street Journal notes, the agency model has been criticized by some (including Random House previously) for effectively eliminating discounting and guaranteeing retailers a profit on each book they sell. Of course, Random House hasn’t yet officially announced that it will be joining the iBookstore ranks, but this news does certainly line up nicely with a little event tomorrow.

Random House switches e-book pricing models, clears way for entrance into iBookstore originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T is adding the first e-reader to its catalog of connected devices and, unsurprisingly, it’s the 3G version of Amazon’s latest-generation Kindle. There’s nothing peculiar about this agreement, the 3G Kindle will cost $189, the same as it does on Amazon’s online portal, and there are no special content or add-on deals in place. It’s just another locale where you’ll be able to “test drive” and purchase Amazon’s all-time best-selling product. Stock should be arriving shortly for a March 6th launch, though if you’re looking for the WiFi-only Kindle, you’ll have to look elsewhere, AT&T will only be selling the 3G-equipped 6-incher.

Continue reading AT&T will start selling Kindle 3G e-reader in its retail stores from March 6th

AT&T will start selling Kindle 3G e-reader in its retail stores from March 6th originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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