Tag: books
Google makes 1.5 million books available on mobile, free
Over the past couple of years, Google’s been industriously scanning, cataloguing and digitising millions of books whose content has passed into the public domain. These books have been available for a while on Google Book Search, but now they’re available on mobile too.
If you point your iPhone or Android browser towards http://books.google.com/m, then you’ll find mobile-optimised versions of the books which display text, rather than the digital images provided on the non-mobile edition.
I should admit, too, that the headline’s slightly misleading – 1.5 million books are available in the USA, with just half a million of those available outside the US. That’s a shame, but almost certainly due to copyright issues – books in the public domain in the USA may well not be in the rest of the world.
Google Book Search for Mobile (via Inside Google Book Search)
More about books: Vodafone extends entertainment portfolio with exciting new “books” option | British Library making rare books virtually available online
Amazon launches brilliant "WindowShop" website
The value of a great interface is underrated. Many online shops look more like a spreadsheet than a pleasurable retail experience (I’m looking at you, iTunes). That’s why I’m really excited by a new front-end Amazon has created for their site, called WindowShop…
Bookeen CyBook Gen3 – latest epaper reading device
The Bookeen CyBook Gen3 is being described as the thinnet and lightest epaper reading device around. It’s able to store 1000 books, which seems more than enough, but for any exceptionally well-read users, the simple addition of a 2GB memory card allows you to store 10,000, meaning you have a mini-library in your back pocket.
It is able to display PRC, txt, HTML and PDF book formats, and since it copes with JPG, GIF, PNG and MP3 formats as well, it can accurately be described as a rather lightweight multimedia device.
British Library making rare books virtually available online
The British Library has started a monumental project: to put a number of the rare books stored in its archives online, so that anyone can virtually thumb through them from the comfort of their home, and without the worry that they’ll get grubby finger smudges or jam on the delicate, highly valuable pages…
Kindle gets hacked in near record time
It’s the ultimate geek race. A thing comes out and the gloves are off to see who can crack the thing first.
And Kindle has fallen, mere weeks after arriving in the US. A clever man called Igor Skochinsky pulled off the trick, managing to get Kindle…
Nintendo launching DSvision film downloads for DS in Japan
In March next year, the fifty-thousand-billion-billion people who own a Nintendo DS in Japan will be able to use the thing to watch movies on.
The DSvision service is slightly odd, though, and not the forward-thinking digital service you might be expecting. Users need to buy a memory card…
Opinion: Amazon's Kindle won't make E-Books popular but how hard can it be?
Jonathan Weinberg writes…
I don’t read as much as I used to, one look at the amount of books in my house is enough evidence to tell that story. Not that I don’t have many, oh no, I’ve got shelves full of novels and non-fiction. It’s just most of them are bought on a whim, and then a few pages in swapped for something else or put down to play the Xbox 360 or check out the telly.
Children too aren’t reading as much as they should. In fact, David Cameron, the Tory leader, is about to announce plans to try and get every
youngster up to speed with their reading by the age of six. It’s a massive failure in any education system when kids can’t pick out enough words to enjoy a story without it being spoken to them…
HarperCollins to make new book excerpts available on mobiles, including the iPhone!
Leading book publisher HarperCollins has announced a dedicated web site to allow mobile phone users to browse excerpts of more than a dozen new book releases.
Despite the title looking like a vain attempt to cash in on the iPhone craze, the opening line of the press release actually states that “The publishing world is hooking up to the iPhone”. Really.
Though any mobile browser could theoretically access the site, it does seem as if the service has been specifically designed to match the look and feel of the iPhone. Users can view up to 10 pages of any book’s first two chapters, and are able to shrink or enlarge the print size.
Social networking site Piczo and Penguin want teens to design classic novels' covers
Piczo, the social networking site I mentioned the other week who are relying on teens to help big brands in their marketing campaigns, certainly are busy people. They’ve just made an alliance with book publishers Penguin, called the My Penguin Campaign, to help increase teens’ interest in literature…
