Nearly a decade after it started, the lawsuit between the Authors’ Guild and Google over its book-scanning program has been thrown out. This means that Google can keep digitizing millions of books for free distribution, and more importantly, that fair use is in the public’s best interest.
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It’s easy to forget that owning something digitally is way different from owning it for real. And if you do forget, it can bite you in the ass. That’s what happened to Jim O’Donnell when he traveled into Singapore and found that Google Play Books app on his iPad had up and deleted all his ebooks.
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With the exception of a brief mention in Google Play for Education, Mountain View’s book platform was all but absent from its Google I/O presentation. Still, the service is getting updated with a significant new feature: user uploads. It hasn’t rolled out to all users yet, but those with access are now able to add up to 1,000 PDF and EPUB files to their Google Play online library. Both the Android and iOS versions of the app will be able to read these files starting today. The update brings a standard assortment of stability and performance improvements too, and Android users will see a few minor visual tweaks. Check out the source link below to see if the feature has rolled out to your account, or click here to peek at Google’s biggest I/O announcements.
Via: Android Police
Source: Google Play, App Store, Google Play online library
Not content at stopping with its recent European tour, Google Play Books has made the trip to Japan and brought back a handful of new features. In addition to support for reading Japanese books in a vertical, right-to left layout, Mountain view now lets users tap on names of geographical spots within text and see them pinned to a Google Map alongside the option to find more information using Larry Page’s favorite search engine or Wikipedia. A freshly added translation feature takes user-highlighted words and phrases and spits them out in the reader’s language of choice. Particularly studious literature lovers can now mark up their digital books with notes and highlights that sync to the web and across their personal fleet of devices. A new sepia tone theme also joined the existing day and night views on their journey abroad. Hit the source links below for more details and the download.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Google Play Books app arrives in Japan, adds translation, place info, highlighting and more originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 20:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Trapped in that post-Google I/O funk of hurry up, pre-order and wait? Maybe this can satiate your desires: a Nexus 7 guidebook detailing the basics of Mountain View’s upcoming slate. The digital tome covers standard Android usage as well as Jelly Bean specific tips — including the OS’ dynamically resizable widgets, using Google Now cards and “blink for face unlock,” a stock Android take on Samsung’s eyelid shuttering identification tweak. Ready to read up? Check it out at the Google Play link below.
Nexus 7 guidebook appears on Google Play, teaches you how to blink, manage Google Now cards originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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