05:06 PM by pdurrant in Miscellaneous | Lounge

It's October, and the 13th seems an appropriate day to start sorting out Halloween avatar costumes.

I've just taken mine out of the cupboard and brushed it down — as good as new.

So: search your wardrobes for an appropriate costume, and post your avatar in this thread.

(Please add your costumed avatar as an attachment to your post, so that it will remain visible even after you take it off after Halloween!)

12:05 PM by Crusader in E-Book General | News

The article [Mail Online] is extremely sensationalist, but I think it does highlight a legitimate problem with self-pubbed porn titles flooding online stores. I've been frustrated countless times by having to wade through some very dubious titles in the SFF category.

WHSmith was last night accused of profiting from the sale of vile books glorifying violent pornography, rape, incest and bestiality.

The high street chain openly advertised titles with disturbingly graphic content on its website, right next to children’s literature.

Typing the word ‘daddy’ into the search box, for instance, brings up disturbing fictional accounts of bondage and sexual humiliation, as well as collections of bedtime stories for youngsters.

After The Mail on Sunday alerted WHSmith to the appalling content freely available on its website, executives took the unprecedented decision to take the whole site offline while the explicit ebooks were removed from sale.

‘We will tighten our processes to ensure that this error can never happen again and sincerely apologise to our customers for any offence caused,’ the company said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz2hcKsMWp3

02:50 PM by afv011 in E-Book General | News

JDI (Japan Display Inc.), a joint venture between Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi, has announced that it will begin to produce Full HD 5-inch “WhiteMagic” LCD displays, which are almost 40% brighter when compared to some of the brightest displays on high-end phones of 2013.

(...)the new displays from JDI utilize an extra white pixel added to the standard RGB (Red-Green-Blue) pixel layout to create a RGBW (Red-Green-Blue-White) pixel layout.

This tweak allows the display to reach a surface luminance of 840cd/m^2, an insanely high brightness when compared to current smartphones (...)

Source

I don't read often on my phone, but any improvements to make the screen more readable in daylight are certainly welcome.

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

If you've been too busy to check out MobileRead this week, check out our usual roundup:

E-Book General - News

• Crowdfunding: E-ink dev board & SDK with screens up to 9.7"
• New Zealand: Book sales down 15% but ebook sales "explode"
• USA TODAY article: 40% of adults own an e-reader or tablet
• ImcoV6L eReader – HD E-ink, Android, & Frontlight f
• And the Nobel prize for literature 2013...

E-Book General - Deals, Freebies, and Resources (No Self-Promotion)

• 65% off Baen's November 2013 Bundle

08:57 AM by owly in E-Book General | News

..goes to Alice Munro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Munro

Press release in English http://nobel.svenskaakademien.se/press_en.html

06:03 AM by jlynton in E-Book General | News

This one looks interesting, especially at €99:

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20.../#.UlQs3bNoZB0

6"-EBook-Reader
E-Ink-Pearl-Display (HD), Multi-Touch + Function buttons on body
Resolution: 1024 x 758; 16 Gray tones
Frontlight
4 GB internal memory
WiFi 802.11 b/g
microSD-Slot (max. 32 GB)
3.5mm-Headphone socket
Incorporated loudspeaker
EPUB, EPUB2, EPUB3, PDF, FB2, MOBI, TXT, RTF, HTML, HTM, CHM, DOC, DOCX, XLS/XLSL, PPT/PPTX, PDB, DJVU, DJV, ZIP, RAR, 7ZIP, MP3, WAV, WMA
Adobe DRM, PDF reflow
DRM10 (WMDRM)
Android OS (Free App Installations)

07:17 AM by DreamWriter in E-Book General | News

An article in USA Today titled "E-books are changing reading habits" discusses results of a poll regarding e-reader/tablet ownership and reading habits:

A poll conducted for USA TODAY and Bookish, a website designed to help people find and buy books, finds that 40% of adults — including 46% of those ages 18 to 39 — own an e-reader or a tablet. That's more than double the numbers less than two years ago.

Reading devices are even more popular among college graduates (60% say they have one) and those with annual household incomes of at least $75,000 (62%).

According to the poll, 35% of those with reading devices say they're reading more books since they got their reading devices.

12:35 PM by GeoffR in E-Book General | News

New Zealand Herald, 6th October 2013

According to industry experts:

* Book sales have dropped 15% in the last 6-9 months

* International publishers including Hachette are pulling out of the New Zealand market

* New Zealand ebook market has gone from nothing to US proportions in 12 months