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03-19-2009, 12:00 AM | #1 | |||
Gizmologist
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Sony Partners With Google To Bring More Than 500,000 Books To The Reader
Google Book Search and Sony PRS Readers, A Voluminous Combination Sony and Google announced today the launch of a partnership to bring upwards of 500,000 public domain texts from Google's Book Search collections to Sony's line of electronic Readers at no cost to the user. This service went live at 9 PM, PST (a bit earlier, actually) today, March 18th. It's accessible through the Sony eBook Library software, on the main eBook Store page, over to the right about halfway down, by way of a link reading "Unearth a Classic." The books are searchable through a brand new interface by the folks at Google. The interface looks like it includes some downright nifty features to refine the search, including a categorized browsing approach and an "Advanced Search" feature, which presumably somewhat resembles the same named feature on Google's flagship search engine. The advantages of familiarity for Google users would seem obvious, but there are a couple of extra goodies that seem be there from the preview screen shots. The search results appear to include a synopsis of information about the book, including cover pictures, and allow for downloading or previewing directly from those results. It's important to note that all of these texts are in the ePub format, making this not only the first deployment of ePub format through Sony's eBook Store, but also most likely the single largest block deployment of ePub to date. Those interested can find fairly detailed information on how Google went about creating these texts as ePub files on Google's blog post on the matter. The post discusses the deployment of Google's mobile version of their Google Books service, but the details clearly apply to this newest endeavor. This partnership further supports Sony's repeated assertions of great interest in keeping the PRS line open to easily supporting as much content as they can arrange. Quote:
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The full press release should appear on this page shortly. |
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03-19-2009, 12:04 AM | #2 |
I'm Super Kindle-icious
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But it's still a bunch of Public Domain books. Until Sony can up their contemporary content, I'm not sure the current balance of power is in jeopardy. Great for schools though.
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03-19-2009, 12:25 AM | #3 |
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
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The files are DRM free, and imported into calibre just fine. No TOC, but you can't have everything.
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03-19-2009, 12:31 AM | #4 |
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The site looks great, a major improvement from the Sony of a year or so ago. It is easy to get around in and very fast.
I did download a book (yes, I know that I have a PRS-500) and view it in the Sony software. It seemed like standard text/RTF formatting. Not bad, nothing special except that there were no margins of wasted white space as I have found on so many Sony provided books. On the sample I viewed, I did not find any errors including some I remember fixing from the same text in a Project Gutenberg file. While better than the Sony formatted books offered by Manybooks.net, it is still far short of the quality offered by Feedbooks and our own MobileRead download book section. However, the selection offered by Sony/Google is far larger than that offered by Feedbooks and MobileRead. Since I was on a roll I tried to load the file to my Reader. I put the file (along with some regular files for the Reader) on a Memory Stick, put the Memory Stick in the Reader, and the file did not show up in the index. This, more than the better screen, may make me consider changing to the 505 even though I consider the ergonomics of the 500 to be superior to the 505. |
03-19-2009, 12:36 AM | #5 |
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
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Why don't you use calibre to convert epub to lrf?
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03-19-2009, 12:38 AM | #6 | ||
Wizard
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Quote:
By the way, I also downloaded a book -- one I hadn't heard of before, The Facetious Nights of Straparola. Before the title page, I found text explaining the terms and conditions, including this: Quote:
Last edited by Elsi; 03-19-2009 at 12:50 AM. |
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03-19-2009, 12:38 AM | #7 |
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Well, since Google now probably has the largest library of digitized PD books and which probably dwarfs PG, I don't think that's anything to sneeze at. If Google and Sony do it right, then I actually think this is a big deal, especially since in the future Google will also be selling ebooks which are not in the public domain. The big problem is that the formatting of the Google ebooks is terrible and chock full of errors! That is also a big deal.
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03-19-2009, 12:45 AM | #8 |
I'm Super Kindle-icious
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That *will* be a big deal if Google gets into books which are not in the public domain (as I pretty much said in my post). I just don't believe PD books are a big draw for the average reader. I have no evidence to back this, just my feeling (opinion).
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03-19-2009, 12:47 AM | #9 |
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Okay, point well taken.
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03-19-2009, 12:49 AM | #10 |
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03-19-2009, 12:54 AM | #11 |
Wizard
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I don't see this changing the equation between the two big players. Amazon's biggest strength has always been the size of its store, and this does nothing to change that. Is it nice? Sure. Is it a significant draw to prospective buyers? I wouldn't think so.
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03-19-2009, 01:11 AM | #12 |
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Who cares about the "Horse Race"? I think this a big step forward for ebooks and ebook readers. Full stop.
This is another move towards fulfilling the promise of these devices -- easy, cheap (or free) access to copious amounts of quality material that can be stored and read on a small device that is easy to read with a battery life measured in weeks. |
03-19-2009, 01:14 AM | #13 |
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03-19-2009, 01:24 AM | #14 | |
Wizard
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03-19-2009, 01:27 AM | #15 |
Technogeezer
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I went back and downloaded more of the new Sony/Google offerings. They were as bad as Elsi observed. (Luck of the draw, the one text I checked was great.)
My first experiment was to load an ePub on the Memory Stick. My 500 would not even display it as a title in the index. I then converted it to an LRF in Calibre. This worked fine on the 500. My first choice for books for my 500 will stay the MobileRead download section. After that I will look to Project Gutenberg for a convertible text (that will be subsequently posted at MobileRead), and then to the Sony/Google site. |
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google books, sony reader |
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