11:58 AM by HarryT in E-Book General | News

A bit of a bombshell announced today, as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who's been the visible "face" of Microsoft since the retirement of Bill Gates, announced that he is to retire within the next 12 months.

As BBC News reports the story:

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer is to retire from the technology giant within the next 12 months.

Shares in Microsoft, criticised for its slow response to the booming market for mobile devices, leapt 9% on the news.

Mr Ballmer, who last month unveiled a restructuring to address the criticism, said in a statement: "There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time.

"We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction."

The world's biggest software company has created a special committee to find a replacement. This committee includes Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Mr Ballmer, 57, succeeded Mr Gates in 2000. The two men met in 1973 while studying at Harvard University, and Mr Ballmer joined the company in 1980.
...

Full story at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23815563

Sounds as if the stock market at least thinks that this will be good for Microsoft, especially in the area of mobile devices.

08:31 AM by taming in E-Book General | General Discussions

Salon reports on the experience of a new author who got bad reviews and allegedly nasty comments on Goodreads about her book before it was released.

From the article:

Howard, who describes herself as a woman who was “bullied throughout her entire high school career,” says that “I have NEVER expected this journey to be all sunshine and rainbows, I knew some people would hate my book but I could have handled THOSE reviews. What I cannot handle and what I didn’t expect is being targeted PRIOR TO RELEASE by a group of bullies who have wished horrible things, including rape and death, on me” and that “I will not be a part of a site where it is acceptable to wish rape, sodomy, abuse and death on someone.” Though it’s only her word on this, given the ease with which rape and death threats are tossed around at women online, it’s certainly not difficult to imagine.

06:52 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

Yes, rightsholders are entitled to protect their content from being pirated, but it's a sad fact that many of them are quite trigger-happy when it comes to wiping their content off the face of the Internet. This time it happened to Larry Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School and co-founder of Creative Commons, who has allegedly violated copyright because he used a song by the French band Phoenix in one of his lectures that was subsequently posted on YouTube. Rather than removing the lecture clip, Prof. Lessig is now fighting back by suing Liberation Music. He enlisted EFF to help him take the record company to court:

Earlier this year, Liberation Music, which claims to own the license to the Phoenix song, began the process to block the video through YouTube's copyright infringement system. After the company submitted a DMCA takedown notice, Lessig filed a counter-notice that asserted the clips were fair use. After Liberation Music threatened to sue Lessig, he retracted the notice. But Lessig did not concede this issue. Instead, he enlisted EFF's help to take Liberation Music to court.

"There's a long and sorry history of content owners abusing copyright to take down fair uses, but this one is particularly shocking," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "Based on nothing more than a few clips illustrating Internet creativity, Liberation Music took down an entire lecture by one of the leading experts in the world on copyright and fair use. This kind of abuse has to stop."

Below are two YouTube clips where Lessig talks about copyright.

Q&A with Lawrence Lessig on copyright in the digital age

Larry Lessig: Laws that choke creativity

Related: US Gov seeks to strike a copyright balance, wants your input, Rapidshare loses court battle against German booksellers

[via Boing Boing]

Image: Kristina Alexanderson/Flickr

05:55 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Now, you're not going to see this in stores any time soon. But if you've always liked the idea of mimicking the act of reading a book, take a look at the Twistbook (see attached images). Fabrice Dubuy has created this concept design of a dual-face E Ink reader that allows the user to simulate the feel of flipping through the pages of a book.

Related: So, did companies give up on two page devices?

[via Trendhunter]

04:16 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Lo and behold, today marks the day when calibre has finally reached the all-important 1.0 status. We've to go far back in time - somewhere in late October 2006 to be precise - when MobileReader and calibre brainchild kovidgoyal introduced the libprs500 tool. libprs500 was the predecessor of calibre, and it served as an unofficial solution for accessing the Sony PRS-500 (Sony's first e-reader, long before Amazon introduced the Kindle) from non-Windows hosts. It was then sometime around mid-2008 when libprs500 was renamed to calibre in participation of supporting non-Sony readers as well.

Congrats to everyone who's been involved in the development of calibre, and of course, first and foremost congrats to Kovid! Now that we've reached 1.0 - when can we expect version 2.0?

So what's new in 1.0?

New Features

• A new 'cover grid' view of the books in your calibre library
• A new, faster database backend
• RTF Input: Add option to ignore WMF images iinstead of replacing them with a placeholder
• Content server: Make virtual libraries available as searches from the start page. They work just like saved searches, clicking on a virtual library will show you all the books in that virtual library

Bug Fixes

• Remove extra, useless 'language' entry in metadata download configuration dialog
• Kobo driver: Display device collections even if the driver is configured to not manage shelves on the device
• Fix typo in calibre.desktop file on linux
• Edit metadata dialog: Disable OK button while results are being downloaded
• In OS X 10.8 Apple stopped redirecting stdout/stderr to Console.app for applications launched by launch services. Re-enable the redirection, useful for debugging
• Fix virtual library tabs not being updated when using VL button

New and improved news sources

• News24 and Nuus24 by Nicki de Wet
• Consumerist
• jeuxvideo
• Metro UK
• El Tribuno
• High Country News
• Daily Express
• Providence Journal
• mediapart

The above list only lists changes from the last 0.9 version. For a complete list of changes between 0.9 and 1.0, see this page.

Want to know more about calibre? Head over to the Calibre forums.

03:44 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

According to the latest MobileSTAT reports from Jumptap, Apple is still the dominating force in the tablet market, while Samsung continues to make gains. Unfortunately for Amazon, the Kindle Fire loses ground by a hefty 11.4 percent (from previously 21.5 percent to 10.1 percent).

From the press release:

Apple continues to hold the top spot in tablet market share, but its chief competitor in the smartphone sector, Samsung, is starting to make a run. The Samsung Galaxy Tab jumped 5.8 percentage points in market share year-over-year. Meanwhile, Kindle Fire, which was the hottest challenger to Apple after Christmas 2011, has cooled down, losing 11.4 percentage points in market share. Additionally, Google’s Nexus is finally on the radar after releasing three generations of its first tablet in just one year.

While Amazon is currently selling the Kindle Fire as certified refurbished marked down from $239 to $179, we predict that once the new Fire generation hits the market, its total market share is likely to grow again.

Related: Rumor: Next-gen Kindle Fire HD 8.9" aka KFAPWA benchmark leak, Kindle Fire HD: More leaked benchmarks; codenamed Soho, Thor and Apollo

03:07 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

A UK children's charity, NSPCC, urges parents to monitor the e-books read by their children. The warnings comes after a mother caught her 13-year-old daughter discussing with a friend an X-rated Kindle publication how to make sex tapes to become famous. The Telegraph reports:

The two teenagers had been reading aloud from It’s All About the Sex Face: A Guide to Becoming a Celebrity, a no holds barred manual offering tips on how to achieve instant fame by producing a sex video.

The e-book, which costs £1.02 to download from Amazon, claims you can “actually become famous without even having a talent”.

Jon Brown, head of sexual abuse at the NSPCC, said: “It is really important to talk to your children about the risks that are out there either online or offline, in an age-appropriate way and without frightening them.

It's unfortunate that it goes so far that owning a reading device should require parents to discuss with their children the risks of making sex tapes. Or should online book sellers be required to include warnings on adult literature? What do you think?

12:49 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

We're still getting over Barnes and Noble's less-than-stellar quarterly results, when the company announced today a little freebie that sets our heart aflutter again, at least a little bit. According to the press release, starting tomorrow, Friday, August 23, anyone who downloads a NOOK reading app and sets up a new NOOK account is entitled to the following free bestseller readings:

• Red or Dead by David Pearce
• The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
• City of Bones, The Mortal Instrument Book 1, by Cassandra Clare

In addition, they're going to give out the August edition of T3 and the summer edition of the lifestyle mag The Simple Things.

Update: As pointed out by MobileReader hwlester it's quite possible that this deal is only valid for new NOOK user registrations within the U.K.

Unfortunately it seems this offer is only good for new NOOK user registrations.