11:24 AM by zelda_pinwheel in E-Book General | News and Commentary

italica unveiled their new e-book reader at the Frankfurt Book Fair this month. From the photos, we'd say it's using hardware from Netronix similar to the Cybook, Starebook, Ganaxa, Cool-er etc. but with a personalised firmware.

There's not much information available on their site yet however the technical specs reveal that it will support both .epub and .prc formats among others (no mention of drm) and mentions support of various languages including English, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian and Swedish. The photo of the home screen shows an icon labelled dictionary ; it will be very interesting to find out whether the dictionary can be used while reading epub files as well as mobipocket, and whether the dictionary support can use any commercial dictionary of the user's choice. Other icons include "Favorites", "Library" and "File Explorer" which (let's speculate...) seem to suggest a folder-based browsing system, possibly with tags as well.

The price is not disclosed on the site however the home page mentions a promotion running through December 1st, 2009 for 20€ off all orders. We're not sure this is anything revolutionary but it could shape up to be a very nice device with a very respectable feature-set. What do you think? Interested?

Please join the ongoing discussion in this thread.

12:13 PM by kikar in E-Book General | News and Commentary

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/27/b...olor-e-reader/

"Based on a technology Bridgestone calls Quick-response Liquid Powder, the company's all-color touchscreen e-book reader is about 5.8mm thick, features a 13.1-inch touch-sensitive e-paper display (with 4,096 colors and a refresh rate of about 0.8 seconds), and some sort of unspecified mobile phone connectivity."

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

If you missed our frontpage news at any point this week, here is the best way to catch up:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Plastic Logic Reader Name and Date
• Ectaco introduces the Jetbook Lite
• Onyx Boox 60 review
• Entourage Edge "world’s first dualbook"
• Spring Design announces the Alex
• Barnes & Noble 'Nook' color e-reader $259
• AUO Announces 20inch and 6inch flexible ePaper
• Barnes and Noble Nook press conference in NYC (report)
• Kindle Reader for Windows just announced
• Kindle International now $259

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• November 2009 Mobile Read Book Club Vote

E-Book Software - OpenInkpot

• OpenInkpot 0.2-rc3 released (updated)

E-Book Devices - Sony Portable Reader (New Forum)

• NEW Sony Reader Software 3.0.01.10191

Portable Devices - Other Devices

• Cmotech Mangrove

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Reminder: Australian meet-up: Melbourne, Sunday 25 October
• Welcome the nook to our forums!
• Server upgrade 10/23 @ 2pm EST (tomorrow!)

02:59 AM by pilotbob in E-Book General | Reading Recommendations

Help up choose a book as the November 2009 eBook for the Mobile Read Book Club. The poll will be open for 7 days. We will start the discussion thread for this book on November 22nd. Select from the following books.

The Trial by Franz Kafka
The Trial tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Karamazov Brothers (1880) is both a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. The dissolute landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is murdered; his sons--the atheist intellectual Ivan, the hot-blooded Dmitry, and the saintly novice Alyosha--are all involved at some level. Brilliantly bound up with this psychological drama is Dostoevsky's intense and disturbing exploration of many deeply felt ideas about the existence of God, freedom of will, the collective nature of guilt, and the disastrous consequences of rationalism.

Persuasion by Jane Austen
Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne's family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. Al the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Most peoples' knowledge of this probably comes from the 1960s musical, which I'm sure we've all seen innumerable times. The novel, though, is a VERY different beast, and definely written for an "adult" audience. It contains some wonderful writing, and has some unforgettable characters - Oliver himself, of course; Fagin, who runs a gang of child thieves and prostitutes, the professional criminal, Bill Sykes and his girlfriend Nancy, and many more. This is a wonderful, unforgetable book, which everybody should read at least once in their life. I commend it to everybody.

The Picture (or Portrait) of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Spellbound before his own portrait, Dorian Gray utters a fateful wish. In exchange for eternal youth he gives his soul, to be corrupted by the malign influence of his mentor, the aesthete and hedonist Lord Henry Wotton. The novel was met with moral outrage by contemporary critics who, dazzled perhaps by Wilde's brilliant style, may have confused the author with his creation, Lord Henry, to whom even Dorian protests, 'You cut life to pieces with your epigrams.'. Encouraged by Lord Henry to substitute pleasure for goodness and art for reality, Dorian tries to watch impassively as he brings misery and death to those who love him. But the picture is watching him, and, made hideous by the marks of sin, it confronts Dorian with the reflection of his fall from grace, the silent bearer of what is in effect a devastating moral judgement.

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
Phileas Fogg rashly bets his companions £20,000 that he can travel around the entire globe in just eighty days—and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman immediately sets off for Dover, accompanied by his hot- blooded French manservant, Passepartout. Traveling by train, steamship, sailboat, sledge, and even elephant, they must overcome storms, kidnappings, natural disasters, Sioux attacks, and the dogged Inspector Fix of Scotland Yard to win the extraordinary wager. Combining exploration, adventure, and a thrilling race against time, Around the World in Eighty Days gripped audiences upon its publication and remains hugely popular to this day.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edward Abbott
A fascinating science-fiction story with some biting, funny satire of Victorian society, Edwin Abbott's Flatland still has a lot to say about modern life, mathematics, people, philosophy and our perceptions of reality. The story takes us to a two-dimensional world where all the inhabitants are flat geometric shapes, and who are all firmly convinced that "length and width" is all there is. But one enterprising shape discovers the existence of a third physical dimension, which leads to speculation about a fourth dimension - and that changes everything.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf
In her most playful and exuberant novel, Virginia Woolf writes the "historical biography" of Orlando, a young boy of nobility during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. A wild ride through four centuries, the novel shows Orlando aging, magically, only thirty-six years between 1588 and 1928. Even more magically, he also changes from a man to a woman.
Orlando enters the book as an Elizabethan nobleman and leaves the book three centuries later as a liberated woman of the 1920s. Along the way this most rambunctious of Woolf's characters engages in sword fights, trades barbs with 18th century wits, has a baby, and drives a car. As she explores Orlando's life, Woolf also explores the differing roles of men and women in society during various periods.

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Set in the Parisian underworld and plotted like a detective story, Les Miserables follows Jean Valjean, originally an honest peasant, who has been imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family. A hardened criminal upon his release, he eventually reforms, becoming a successful industrialist and town mayor. Despite this, he is haunted by an impulsive former crime and is pursued relentlessly by the police inspector Javert.

02:14 AM by jankovicgood in Portable Devices | Other Devices

http://www.slashgear.com/c-motech-ma...ebuts-2958383/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21YXxGSAjKs

01:26 AM by sononkyo in E-Book Devices | Sony Portable Reader (New Forum)

This utility installs eBook Library software version 3.0.01, and provides the following benefits:

*Adds support for the Microsoft® Windows® 7 operating system
Note: If eBook Library software version 3.0 has been installed on a computer using Windows 7 operating system, it is necessary to uninstall version 3.0 using Windows Control Panel, and then to install version 3.0.01. The eBook Store Library content and account settings are not removed by uninstalling the software.

*Resolves an issue where transferring content to the Reader using eBook
Library version 3.0 may cause the Reader to stop responding

*Resolves an issue where transferring content to the Reader may cause a device detection error

Found @ sony e-support site select your version 300/505/600/700 (might be different, probably not but just in case)
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/sel...IRECTOR=DRIVER

06:26 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

My apology for the short notice, but we weren't able to get a better time slot to perform a mandatory hardware upgrade we've being planning for the past few days. We still need to get the final OK from our commanding officer in the datacenter, but a short downtime is anticipated for tomorrow, October 23rd, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

I'll keep you posted should there be a change of plans.

01:03 PM by pilotbob in E-Book General | News and Commentary

It appears that the Kindle International is now $259. Everyone that bought it at $279 will be getting a $20 refund.

Along with this the US Kindle (Sprint only) seems to be no longer available.

It makes sense to me that they would drop the US only unit since the International unit works in the US as well, and having two production units would cost more to maintain.

via Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/22/a...ith-20-refund/

12:39 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News and Commentary

I just got the email from Amazon PR.

Kindle for PC features Amazon’s Whispersync technology that automatically saves and synchronizes bookmarks and last page read across devices. Whether you read Kindle books on a Kindle, Kindle DX, or one of the free Kindle applications, you can always have your reading with you and never lose your place. With Kindle for PC, you can read some on your PC, read some on your Kindle, and always pick up right where you left off. Whispersync helped make the Kindle for iPhone application the most popular books app in the Apple App Store.

"Kindle for PC is the perfect companion application for folks who own a Kindle or Kindle DX," said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "Kindle for PC is also a great way for people around the world to read the most popular books of today even if they don’t yet have a Kindle."

from:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix....297&highlight=

It hasn't been released yet, but you can check on the status of the software here:
http://www.amazon.com/KindleforPC.

07:23 PM by dottedmag in E-Book Software | OpenInkpot

Update: OpenInkpot rc3 is out, fixing some serious bugs in rc2.

New release candidate with lots of bugfixes.

Since I'm too lazy (and sleepy) to format the changelog text for the forum, please just have a look at it over here.

As usual:

• Installation Guide
• Users' Guide
• Downloads