Apr 18

The iPad is taking away American jobs, Jesse Jackson Junior’s sanity (video)

Posted in: Apple, Books, ebooks, government, ipad, politics, Today's Chili, video

You know how ebooks are gradually taking over paper books as the most popular format for the consumption of the written word? Well, that’s bad, mmkay? Publishers, librarians, and booksellers are losing their jobs and It’s all entirely the iPad’s fault. Forget the Kindle’s millions of sales, the iPad did it. In a technophobic rant to rival all technophobic rants that have come before it, Illinois Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. accuses the iPad’s popularity for the current level of unemployment in his nation, before proceeding to sculpt a rickety argument about how the First Amendment to the US Constitution is being exploited for the benefit of China. See his tirade on video after the break.

Continue reading The iPad is taking away American jobs, Jesse Jackson Junior’s sanity (video)

The iPad is taking away American jobs, Jesse Jackson Junior’s sanity (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 05:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 11

This Sponsored Gadget is the Beginning of the…Look, Free Stuff! [Opinion]

Posted in: ads, ebooks, Gadgets, kindle, Today's Chili, top

Amazon’s new Kindle is really their old one made cheaper by the inclusion of ads. It at first caused me utter outrage. I felt as angry as if if someone took my favorite book (The Silent World by Jacques Cousteau, in case you’re wondering) took some paste, and covered up the dolphins and the last few paragraphs of every chapter with advertisements for Chuck E. Cheese. I felt like shouting, “THESE. ARE. MY. WORDS…MAN.” More »

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Apr 05

Nook matches Kindle by bundling free web access to NYTimes.com with digital edition sub

Posted in: barnes and noble, BarnesAndNoble, content, e reader, e-book, e-books, e-readers, ebooks, nook, Today's Chili

Adhering to strict alphabetical order, where Amazon leads, Barnes & Noble follows. The Kindle was last week announced to include access beyond the New York Times‘ freshly erected online paywall as part of its device subscription to the NYT and now, lo and behold, the Nook family (including the Nook Color) is following suit in identical fashion. If you’re happy to obtain your sub to New York’s finest paper from the Nook Newsstand — which costs $20 per month, same as Amazon’s levy — you’ll get the bonus, complimentary, free-of-charge privilege of being able to access NYTimes.com without any constraints as well. So what if the online edition used to be free for the past eleventy years? The new Times dictates some fealty be paid and we’re happy to see these e-reader purveyors helping to alleviate (mask?) that cost for some of us. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Nook matches Kindle by bundling free web access to NYTimes.com with digital edition sub

Nook matches Kindle by bundling free web access to NYTimes.com with digital edition sub originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 24

Amazon Reinstates Book Swapping Service Lendle’s API Access

Posted in: amazon, ebooks, kindle, Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili

Lendle - Down

Just a few days ago, eBook lending service Lendle saw its API access revoked by Amazon, and a discussion kicked off about the future of eBook lending services in general and whether or not Amazon through that lending eBooks to friends – or building a service that supported or leveraged that feature – would eventually lead to lost eBook sales. 
Yesterday, Lendle reported that Amazon had contacted them with instructions on what they had to do in order to get their API access reinstated: specifically to disable the Book Sync tool that synchronizes a user’s Kindle books with their Lendle account. Lendle disabled the feature, and their API access was restored the same day. 
The Book Sync utilities allowed users to post a list of their book collections to their Lendle accounts, so they could see all of the books they owned and other members could see their books as well. Amazon said they don’t allow the kind of access that Lendle used to gather that information. The end-result? Lendle users will have to manually add the books they own to their Lendle accounts going forward, or at least the books they’re willing to lend. Users with massive eBook libraries will feel the most pain here, but at least Lendle is back in business, and its users still have a way to trade and lend eBooks to one another. 
[via MSNBC]
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Mar 24

Blio e-reading software still alive, will come preloaded on T-Mobile Android devices

Posted in: Android, app, application, ctia, e reader, e-book, e-books, e-readers, ebooks, Software, t-mobile, t-mobile usa, T-mobileUsa, Today's Chili

Remember Blio? Yes, our memories of this colorful ebook-reading software are starting to fade too, but now T-Mobile’s about ready to yank it from the shadows of obscurity with a newly announced partnership. Content provider Baker & Taylor will be responsible for installing the Blio Android app on “select future products from T-Mobile USA” and populating it with compelling content. The Blio store has grown to now encompass a healthy three million titles, both free and paid, and should you have the Windows version of its software, you’ll get the sweet automation of having it sync with your mobile device as well. To get your reading started nice and early, jump past the break for the full press release.

Continue reading Blio e-reading software still alive, will come preloaded on T-Mobile Android devices

Blio e-reading software still alive, will come preloaded on T-Mobile Android devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 07:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 22

Google’s deal for book digitization rejected by judge, Books plans sent back to drawing board

Posted in: amazon, Books, e reader, e-book, e-books, e-readers, ebooks, Google, Law, lawsuit, legal, Today's Chili

It’s taken a long, long time to fully consider Google’s proposed $125 million settlement with publishers and authors of out-of-print works, but now the ruling has been handed down and it’s not the one the Mountain View team wanted. Circuit Judge Chin, who had preliminarily approved the deal back in November 2009, has returned with the new conclusion that actually it goes “too far” in Google’s favor. The origins of this settlement stem from a class action lawsuit filed against El Goog for a book digitization project it began back in 2004, and it’s important to note that terms were agreed way back in 2008, before a bunch of external objections made them revise the document to its current state and refile it with the court in ’09. Since then, the Department of Justice has had a look at antitrust concerns relating to Google potentially having a monopoly on orphan works (those whose author cannot be identified) and Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo have all piped up to say it’s a bunk deal. Now, the one man standing between us and a whole ton of web-accessible reading materials has agreed with them. He does leave a pretty large door open for reconciliation, however, should Google be willing to accede to less favorable terms. Let’s just hope whatever else transpires doesn’t take another year and a half to do so.

Google’s deal for book digitization rejected by judge, Books plans sent back to drawing board originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 19:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 22

Amazon Shuts Down eBook Lending Service Lendle

Posted in: ebooks, Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili

Lendle - Down

One of the major arguments around buying paper books instead of electronic copies is that you can always lend or borrow a paper book to or from your friends when you want to. 
A few months ago, Amazon unveiled a similar feature for books purchased through the Kindle Store, which allowed Kindle book buyers to loan a title to a friend for 14 days. Barnes and Noble has a similar feature for books purchased for the Nook. From that feature, Lendle, a social network and lending service that connects Kindle book owners with people interested in borrowing a title from them, was born. 
Now, Amazon has revoked Lendle’s API access, effectively shutting the service down because – according to Lendle – they don’t “serve the principal purpose of driving sales of products and services on the Amazon site.” Lendle and its users are upset to say the least, but Amazon’s eBook policy makes it clear: when you buy a book from the Kindle store, you’re essentially “renting” the book from Amazon – you don’t entirely “own” the book, and Amazon reserves the right to change how you can use the book when they choose to. 
Still, its unlikely that Lendle, its users, or any other similar services will find much sympathy from Amazon on the matter. The eBook argument is analgous to digital music: as much as customers say that the ability to preview, demo, or try out content makes them more likely to buy it, companies that sell that content see those features as a gateway to lost sales instead. 
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Mar 21

eBook Sales Grow in the US, Paper Books in Decline

Posted in: ebooks, Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili

amazonkindleinhand.jpg

The Association of American Publishers recently released figures for the past year ending in January 2011, and the results are startling: eBooks have taken off in a large way, with sales of eBooks from various book stores doubling year-over-year from January 2010; close to 115%. The report also cast gloom over sales of traditional paper books, which declined approximately 30% over the same period. Hardcover sales were the biggest loss, dropping over 11% from January 2010 to January 2011. 
That all sounds fairly remarkable, but it’s also important to note that while the eBook market is now a $70 million dollar industry, traditional paper books are no slouch, coming in at just under $50 million, even though fewer people are buying them overall and are moving to electronic formats. 
Back in January we noted that eBooks were outselling paperback books, and last summer we noted that eBooks were starting to outsell hardcovers at Amazon. The trend doesn’t appear to be slowing down considering the explosion of tablet devices, stand-alone, and eBook apps and download services on the market. There will likely always be a place to traditional paper books, but you have to wonder where that place will eventually be.
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Mar 20

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

Posted in: e reader, e-book, e-books, e-readers, ebooks, sales, statistics, stats, Today's Chili, us, usa

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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Mar 02

100 million books downloaded from iBooks, Random House titles added

Posted in: Apple, Books, breaking news, e-books, ebooks, ipad 2, Ipad2, Today's Chili

Apple’s kicking off the iPad 2 event with some iBooks announcements. The first thing you need to know is that 100 million books have been downloaded to date from the company’s bookstore. That’s a lot of digital tomes, and there are more coming. Yep, that brings us to the second big piece of news — Random House is bringing its entire US catalog, which includes 17,000 titles, to the store. We had an idea that was going to happen since the publisher just changed up its e-book pricing model, but the store now officially includes bestsellers by John Grisham, Dan Brown, and others. According to PCMag, some of those titles started to pop up in Apple’s store yesterday, so get going and start reading.

Continue reading 100 million books downloaded from iBooks, Random House titles added

100 million books downloaded from iBooks, Random House titles added originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 12:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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