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MobileRead
MobileRead - the resource for mobile geeks seeking information and advice for keeping their gadgets happy.
Updated: 39 min 14 sec ago
Two Weeks With The PRS700
Two Weeks With The PRS700
Once again, the Sony Reader Marketing team has kindly, and generously allowed one of your MobileRead Editors the opportunity to examine and review their latest offering in the PRS line. From the PRS500, through the PRS505, and now the PRS700.
Two weeks ago, when the review unit arrived, I transferred my current reading list over to it, and set aside my trusty PRS500. I figured that at this stage, when others have given the PRS700 a thorough treatment as far as specifications and basic operation go, the best "review" I can offer you is a hands-on "road test," so to speak, and the best way to do that was to commit to using the 700 for as much of that time as I could.
Naturally, I will touch upon some hardware and software specific points, but within a context of how they affect the reading experience on the new device -- you already know the facts and figures, I'd like to try to convey what it's like to use a PRS700.
Which means that the Reading experience is probably a good place to begin. In normal reading conditions, by that I mean without the front light turned on, I found the display on the 700 to actually have less contrast and clarity than that of the 500 (if it needs to be said: keep in mind that the 505's display is more contrasty and clear than the 500's). Just like all e-ink, the contrastiness and clarity improve with brighter lighting conditions.
(I've attached some comparison pictures to illustrate the contrast and clarity differences. In taking the pictures I tried as much as possible to photograph both the 500 and the 700 in as close to exactly the same lighting, position, angle, distance and so on, as I could pull off -- I don't consider them identical, but they're pretty close.)
My impression of the contrast differences is much the same as that of others who have commented on the lower clarity: it seems to result from a combination of the touch-screen membrane, and the plastic involved in the front light. Just like everything else in the world, there's a trade-off for those feature set increases, in this case, it's a decrease in "regular lighting" readability. For all that, I found that after a couple of days, I didn't notice it much any more, and the overall readability is still quite good.
The other aspect (visually speaking) of the display that I'd like to remark on is that it is rather more prone to glare and reflections than the 500 or 505. It's the front light, again: in order to be read through, it has to be pretty transparent, which means more reflective. You can see in the third attached picture that there are some reflections on the display of the 700 that aren't there at all in the 500. Again, these were taken in more or less the same physical position beside a window, with the camera, photographer, and all lighting unmoved between them, and only a few tens of seconds time-space apart.
The glare and reflectance are more noticeable on the 700 than the 500. What this means in practical terms is that the reader (the person, that is) spends a bit more effort finding an angle where the display is free enough of glare and reflections to read from. In the interest of full disclosure, and being as accurate and informative as possible, I should acknowledge that I am a person who's rather sensitive to glare, so that you can consider that factor as well.
Something I'm not particularly bothered by, however, is fingerprints. Sure if they're really bad they bother me, but I'm not a fanatic about it. That being said, the touchscreen on the 700 does show some fingerprinting. This can mostly be seen when catching light on the display. I am in the habit of not handling electronics (especially other people's electronics) unless my hands are fairly clean, but I still see streaking and printing on the screen when I turn it to a light.
Regarding the touch screen operation, and the display operation, since it's hard to really separate the two, I was most pleased. The response of the display refresh is very snappy, noticably faster than even a 505's refresh. The "swipe and hold" motion for rapidly skipping through pages is as fast as could be hoped, not quite too fast to follow with the naked eye. It's really surprising to see e-ink responding so quickly! I used this feature some for navigating Bible chapters, and it worked like a charm. The touch-screen selection of links greatly improved this operation as well, allowing me to reach a particular passage in a few seconds (as fast or faster than I could with paper) where it was a minute or longer operation on the 500. I can see this feature being useful for reference works such as a straight dictionary: links to the start (and maybe middle) of letters, and then skip through to find the page. Most pleasing.
The regular page turning was interesting, if not quite as straightforward. I should comment here about the touchscreen itself. While it will respond to a fingertip, it really responds best to something small and hard, such as the included stylus (which I didn't find a need for, very much) or the tip of a fingernail (which I used a lot). What that means is that when using a fingertip, a firmer pressure was required, and a longer duration touch, to make the command register. Not much pressure, you understand, just more. I did find myself mostly using the hard-buttons to change pages when reading one-handed: when sitting up, the "swipe" worked great, but the buttons seemed to be more convenient for me when lying down, and certainly when doing something else with the other hand.
The menu system is a marked improvement over the 500/505 menus, mostly thanks to the touchscreen control. Navigating between books was simple and straightforward, I even found myself accessing the settings menu to check the time (no in-book time display in the loaner unit, of course), it was so easy to navigate that I mostly did it without thinking about it, once it occurred to me that I could.
Also related to general navigation, I found the buttons to be very well thought out. The functions they access were the ones I found I needed. The Home button is nice, going straight back to the main menu with a single click, much better than the previous click-and-hold approach. The Options button is very useful, offering a set of options that changes based on where you are when you press it. It did take me a few days to really "get" that it was there and start using it, but after I did, I found it quite useful. The page and return buttons are obvious in their functions, and work about as you'd expect them to. From a purely functional/tactile point of view, I found them easy to find with my fingers and the clicks are crisp and definite.
The Bookmarks feature has grown into the Notes feature, and the list of all notes can be accessed directly from the main menu. I only ever had two or three notes running at a time, but I can see that this page might get cluttered pretty quickly for someone who takes lots of notes. However, since the list of notes for each book can be accessed from the book in question, that's probably not a big deal.
That brings us to note entry itself. I found that setting the bookmarks took a bit of getting used to, and removing them a bit more still. They're set and removed by tapping twice at the upper right corner of the display. That tapping has to be done just right, or it launches into a note-entry mode rather than removing the mark. It's not difficult to get the hang of, but it's a bit frustrating until you do. In the interest of fairness, there's some possibility that the fact that this was a loaner may have been responsible for some of the finickiness there.
Note entry and searching worked nicely, though text entry for both is a bit cumbersome, due more to the layout of the on-screen keyboard than the e-ink's refresh rate (which, as I mentioned is quite snappy). Switching key sets to access numbers and symbols is a bit slow, but those wouldn't be used all that much by most folks.
Now on to the front light, and again, in full disclosure, my eyes seem to be more sensitive to light, so I don't require as much light as others often do to see to my satisfaction -- for reference I used the front lighting only on the lower of the two brightnesses. Others have mentioned that the lighting from it is uneven, and I found this to be the case myself. There is a noticeable decrease in illumination from the edges to the center of the page, the edges tend to be a bit brighter than I really preferred, and the center a bit dimmer, but I had no trouble reading any of it. The attached front light picture is blurry, but it represents the fade-off fairly well. One very nice touch on the front light is that it switches itself off when the Reader itself is switched off. An obvious touch, but a very nice one. It's good to see Sony not overlooking such details.
Related to the light, it does seem to have an impact on the battery life. You should understand that I'm hopelessly spoiled by the approximately three weeks per charge I still get from my two-year-old PRS500, and that the unit I reviewed was a passed-around (and perhaps mildly abused) one, but it gave me about four days of use per charge. That's with about two hours of front light usage per day, and several hours of non-lit use besides. That's a fair step back from the earlier models, but still a fair amount of time per charge, particularly compared to non-e-ink devices.
I did try to refrain from using the light for a time to see what effect that would have, but circumstances conspired to interfere, and I found myself using it at night, so I don't really feel I got a good enough measure of non-lighted battery life to offer a meaningful comment on that. I can point out that Sony specifies eight hours of usage with the light turned on, so my approximately two hours of light usage per day for four days, plus some hours of usage each day without the light is actually a good deal better than the official specification.
My conclusions? I very much agree with Sony that the PRS700 is not a replacement for the PRS505: it has some very different strengths. The notation and faster access features ought to lend themselves fairly well to light research and reference functions, and it's still a very usable reading device.
My thought is that for a person who needs or wants those added features, or has a strong need or desire for the built-in front light could be very well pleased with the PRS700, and the person who primarily wants to read, without taking any sort of notes or doing any reference type functions with their reading device might prefer the PRS505.
Attached Thumbnails
Once again, the Sony Reader Marketing team has kindly, and generously allowed one of your MobileRead Editors the opportunity to examine and review their latest offering in the PRS line. From the PRS500, through the PRS505, and now the PRS700.
Two weeks ago, when the review unit arrived, I transferred my current reading list over to it, and set aside my trusty PRS500. I figured that at this stage, when others have given the PRS700 a thorough treatment as far as specifications and basic operation go, the best "review" I can offer you is a hands-on "road test," so to speak, and the best way to do that was to commit to using the 700 for as much of that time as I could.
Naturally, I will touch upon some hardware and software specific points, but within a context of how they affect the reading experience on the new device -- you already know the facts and figures, I'd like to try to convey what it's like to use a PRS700.
Which means that the Reading experience is probably a good place to begin. In normal reading conditions, by that I mean without the front light turned on, I found the display on the 700 to actually have less contrast and clarity than that of the 500 (if it needs to be said: keep in mind that the 505's display is more contrasty and clear than the 500's). Just like all e-ink, the contrastiness and clarity improve with brighter lighting conditions.
(I've attached some comparison pictures to illustrate the contrast and clarity differences. In taking the pictures I tried as much as possible to photograph both the 500 and the 700 in as close to exactly the same lighting, position, angle, distance and so on, as I could pull off -- I don't consider them identical, but they're pretty close.)
My impression of the contrast differences is much the same as that of others who have commented on the lower clarity: it seems to result from a combination of the touch-screen membrane, and the plastic involved in the front light. Just like everything else in the world, there's a trade-off for those feature set increases, in this case, it's a decrease in "regular lighting" readability. For all that, I found that after a couple of days, I didn't notice it much any more, and the overall readability is still quite good.
The other aspect (visually speaking) of the display that I'd like to remark on is that it is rather more prone to glare and reflections than the 500 or 505. It's the front light, again: in order to be read through, it has to be pretty transparent, which means more reflective. You can see in the third attached picture that there are some reflections on the display of the 700 that aren't there at all in the 500. Again, these were taken in more or less the same physical position beside a window, with the camera, photographer, and all lighting unmoved between them, and only a few tens of seconds time-space apart.
The glare and reflectance are more noticeable on the 700 than the 500. What this means in practical terms is that the reader (the person, that is) spends a bit more effort finding an angle where the display is free enough of glare and reflections to read from. In the interest of full disclosure, and being as accurate and informative as possible, I should acknowledge that I am a person who's rather sensitive to glare, so that you can consider that factor as well.
Something I'm not particularly bothered by, however, is fingerprints. Sure if they're really bad they bother me, but I'm not a fanatic about it. That being said, the touchscreen on the 700 does show some fingerprinting. This can mostly be seen when catching light on the display. I am in the habit of not handling electronics (especially other people's electronics) unless my hands are fairly clean, but I still see streaking and printing on the screen when I turn it to a light.
Regarding the touch screen operation, and the display operation, since it's hard to really separate the two, I was most pleased. The response of the display refresh is very snappy, noticably faster than even a 505's refresh. The "swipe and hold" motion for rapidly skipping through pages is as fast as could be hoped, not quite too fast to follow with the naked eye. It's really surprising to see e-ink responding so quickly! I used this feature some for navigating Bible chapters, and it worked like a charm. The touch-screen selection of links greatly improved this operation as well, allowing me to reach a particular passage in a few seconds (as fast or faster than I could with paper) where it was a minute or longer operation on the 500. I can see this feature being useful for reference works such as a straight dictionary: links to the start (and maybe middle) of letters, and then skip through to find the page. Most pleasing.
The regular page turning was interesting, if not quite as straightforward. I should comment here about the touchscreen itself. While it will respond to a fingertip, it really responds best to something small and hard, such as the included stylus (which I didn't find a need for, very much) or the tip of a fingernail (which I used a lot). What that means is that when using a fingertip, a firmer pressure was required, and a longer duration touch, to make the command register. Not much pressure, you understand, just more. I did find myself mostly using the hard-buttons to change pages when reading one-handed: when sitting up, the "swipe" worked great, but the buttons seemed to be more convenient for me when lying down, and certainly when doing something else with the other hand.
The menu system is a marked improvement over the 500/505 menus, mostly thanks to the touchscreen control. Navigating between books was simple and straightforward, I even found myself accessing the settings menu to check the time (no in-book time display in the loaner unit, of course), it was so easy to navigate that I mostly did it without thinking about it, once it occurred to me that I could.
Also related to general navigation, I found the buttons to be very well thought out. The functions they access were the ones I found I needed. The Home button is nice, going straight back to the main menu with a single click, much better than the previous click-and-hold approach. The Options button is very useful, offering a set of options that changes based on where you are when you press it. It did take me a few days to really "get" that it was there and start using it, but after I did, I found it quite useful. The page and return buttons are obvious in their functions, and work about as you'd expect them to. From a purely functional/tactile point of view, I found them easy to find with my fingers and the clicks are crisp and definite.
The Bookmarks feature has grown into the Notes feature, and the list of all notes can be accessed directly from the main menu. I only ever had two or three notes running at a time, but I can see that this page might get cluttered pretty quickly for someone who takes lots of notes. However, since the list of notes for each book can be accessed from the book in question, that's probably not a big deal.
That brings us to note entry itself. I found that setting the bookmarks took a bit of getting used to, and removing them a bit more still. They're set and removed by tapping twice at the upper right corner of the display. That tapping has to be done just right, or it launches into a note-entry mode rather than removing the mark. It's not difficult to get the hang of, but it's a bit frustrating until you do. In the interest of fairness, there's some possibility that the fact that this was a loaner may have been responsible for some of the finickiness there.
Note entry and searching worked nicely, though text entry for both is a bit cumbersome, due more to the layout of the on-screen keyboard than the e-ink's refresh rate (which, as I mentioned is quite snappy). Switching key sets to access numbers and symbols is a bit slow, but those wouldn't be used all that much by most folks.
Now on to the front light, and again, in full disclosure, my eyes seem to be more sensitive to light, so I don't require as much light as others often do to see to my satisfaction -- for reference I used the front lighting only on the lower of the two brightnesses. Others have mentioned that the lighting from it is uneven, and I found this to be the case myself. There is a noticeable decrease in illumination from the edges to the center of the page, the edges tend to be a bit brighter than I really preferred, and the center a bit dimmer, but I had no trouble reading any of it. The attached front light picture is blurry, but it represents the fade-off fairly well. One very nice touch on the front light is that it switches itself off when the Reader itself is switched off. An obvious touch, but a very nice one. It's good to see Sony not overlooking such details.
Related to the light, it does seem to have an impact on the battery life. You should understand that I'm hopelessly spoiled by the approximately three weeks per charge I still get from my two-year-old PRS500, and that the unit I reviewed was a passed-around (and perhaps mildly abused) one, but it gave me about four days of use per charge. That's with about two hours of front light usage per day, and several hours of non-lit use besides. That's a fair step back from the earlier models, but still a fair amount of time per charge, particularly compared to non-e-ink devices.
I did try to refrain from using the light for a time to see what effect that would have, but circumstances conspired to interfere, and I found myself using it at night, so I don't really feel I got a good enough measure of non-lighted battery life to offer a meaningful comment on that. I can point out that Sony specifies eight hours of usage with the light turned on, so my approximately two hours of light usage per day for four days, plus some hours of usage each day without the light is actually a good deal better than the official specification.
My conclusions? I very much agree with Sony that the PRS700 is not a replacement for the PRS505: it has some very different strengths. The notation and faster access features ought to lend themselves fairly well to light research and reference functions, and it's still a very usable reading device.
My thought is that for a person who needs or wants those added features, or has a strong need or desire for the built-in front light could be very well pleased with the PRS700, and the person who primarily wants to read, without taking any sort of notes or doing any reference type functions with their reading device might prefer the PRS505.
Attached Thumbnails
MobileRead Week in Review: 12/27 - 01/03
Welcome to another digest entry of MobileRead, where we transform the profound into the bite-sized.
E-Book General - News and Commentary
E-Book General - News and Commentary
- Should e-Books be Rated (like movies and video games)?
- Apex Books needs your help
- Microsoft Reader News
- Kindle is Amazon's top selling gadget for 2008
How to Do Everything with PDF Files
The following article gives a good overview over what you can do with PDF files (without using the expensive Adobe Acrobat):
http://www.labnol.org/software/adobe...tutorial/6296/
http://www.labnol.org/software/adobe...tutorial/6296/
Kindle is Amazon's top selling gadget for 2008
Amazon has released its "Best of 2008" Lists.
The Kindle was Amazon.com's top selling gadget for 2008, beating out the likes of the Nintendo DS, PSP, and others. The device topped every list it was eligible for, except the most positive comments category, which was topped by the Samsung 46-inch LCD high-definition TV.
This is based on unit sales (not revenue), and no actual sales numbers were released.
The Kindle was Amazon.com's top selling gadget for 2008, beating out the likes of the Nintendo DS, PSP, and others. The device topped every list it was eligible for, except the most positive comments category, which was topped by the Samsung 46-inch LCD high-definition TV.
This is based on unit sales (not revenue), and no actual sales numbers were released.
Microsoft Reader News
There used to be site at the address www.mslit.com. It was owned by Microsoft and used to support Microsoft Reader ebook format. The site wasn't very pretty, but it had an excellent search function that covered all ebooks in MSReader format.
The ugly but functional site is gone. Sometime in the last two weeks Microsoft started redirecting the URL to www.microsoft.com/reader. It looks like Microsoft has noticed the growing ebook market, and has decided to take it seriously.
The ugly but functional site is gone. Sometime in the last two weeks Microsoft started redirecting the URL to www.microsoft.com/reader. It looks like Microsoft has noticed the growing ebook market, and has decided to take it seriously.
Apex Books needs your help
I'm sure they are not the only small publishing house in trouble, but Apex Books is asking its readers to buy more books now from their store. See Brother, can you spare $15.95?, which I came across via MikeCane2008. They report a drop of 75% in revenue in December compared to the August. Apex sells "dark science fiction", which won't be for everyone, but they are almost all available DRM-free at FictionWise.
Should e-Books be Rated (like movies and video games)?
(Almost) no one wants censorship. In the US, we take pride in fighting censorship in the name of free speech. But like any freedom or right, there is always a balance required between that freedom and other rights or goals of society. In the case of free speech, there is a nice article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that points out some of the limits. I am not well enough read to be able to judge how balanced this article is, but it is at least well formatted and addresses topics like harm, offense and pornography.
At any rate, we have ratings systems for movies and for video games, which are probably both enforced to some extent in the U.S. I believe that some music has "adults only" type ratings. I don't know if adult magazines are still sold in stores, but they used to not be available to minors. Certain books are not considered appropriate for school libraries, classes and even bookstores.
Movie ratings are actually somewhat helpful in determining a viewers interest at times. Again in the U.S., a "G" rating is a revenue killer unless the movie is directly targeted at children. Anything worse than an "R" will also kill revenues, will not be welcome in most theaters and will be interpreted as porn or warped. I'd be interested to hear how this all works in other parts of the world.
But now Reuters is reporting that in the U.K. Quote: The kind of ratings used for films could be applied to Web sites in a bid to better police the Internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture has said. What about books and e-books? Would you like to see a rating system? What would be the benefit and how would the ratings be determined? Or is such an effort just a waste of time? How about those of you with children - do you feel differently?
At any rate, we have ratings systems for movies and for video games, which are probably both enforced to some extent in the U.S. I believe that some music has "adults only" type ratings. I don't know if adult magazines are still sold in stores, but they used to not be available to minors. Certain books are not considered appropriate for school libraries, classes and even bookstores.
Movie ratings are actually somewhat helpful in determining a viewers interest at times. Again in the U.S., a "G" rating is a revenue killer unless the movie is directly targeted at children. Anything worse than an "R" will also kill revenues, will not be welcome in most theaters and will be interpreted as porn or warped. I'd be interested to hear how this all works in other parts of the world.
But now Reuters is reporting that in the U.K. Quote: The kind of ratings used for films could be applied to Web sites in a bid to better police the Internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture has said. What about books and e-books? Would you like to see a rating system? What would be the benefit and how would the ratings be determined? Or is such an effort just a waste of time? How about those of you with children - do you feel differently?
Improved ContentLister (with more items on a page)
Hi All,
UPDATED: SEE THE NEW THREAD!
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35374
====== DEPRECATED =====
I have modified contenLister to show more items on a page. I called it newLister so it can coexist with the existing one. It can display anything between 4 and 20 items on a page. I also increased the number of remembered 'recent documents' to 12...
This is a 'developer' version: no installer yet. To run it you have to do the following steps (using ssh):
Of course this is at your own risk :D I've used my improved Iliad without problems for a few days now. I think this is a stable version, but mistakes when editing start.sh can be 'fatal'. Let's be careful out there ;)
Happy new 2009 preview,
Hansel.
Please give some feedback if you try this :o
PS:
Attached Thumbnails Attached Files newLister-1.0.tar.gz (780.4 KB)
UPDATED: SEE THE NEW THREAD!
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35374
====== DEPRECATED =====
I have modified contenLister to show more items on a page. I called it newLister so it can coexist with the existing one. It can display anything between 4 and 20 items on a page. I also increased the number of remembered 'recent documents' to 12...
This is a 'developer' version: no installer yet. To run it you have to do the following steps (using ssh):
- copy newLister somewhere in the flash disk. It cannot be on CF or SD since those devices are not mounted yet when contentLister is started. Personally I use the directory /home/root/my_start/ for this kind of stuff...
- copy newLister.rc and newcursor.png to /usr/share/contentLister
- edit /home/root/start.sh to start newLister instead of contenLister:
Code: old: (/usr/bin/contentLister --sync ; reboot) &
new: (/home/root/my_start/newLister --items 12 --sync ; reboot) & - edit: check that newLister and start.sh are executable (chmod +x)
- reboot
Of course this is at your own risk :D I've used my improved Iliad without problems for a few days now. I think this is a stable version, but mistakes when editing start.sh can be 'fatal'. Let's be careful out there ;)
Happy new 2009 preview,
Hansel.
Please give some feedback if you try this :o
PS:
- you can set the number of items with "--items n". The amount of displayed information for each item depends on n: same as with the current contentLister (4-8), title + subtitle or description (9-12), only title (13-20)
- A safer way to experiment with the start script is described here: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33700
- The attached file contains a file sources.tgz: after unpacking this can be compiled in the same way as the original Irex contentLister (build_from_scratch.sh...)
- Comments and questions are welcome.
Attached Thumbnails Attached Files newLister-1.0.tar.gz (780.4 KB)
MobileRead Week in Review: 12/20 - 12/27
If you've been absent and are keen to find out what MobileRead was up to this week, check out the links below:
E-Book General - News and Commentary
E-Book General - News and Commentary
- RIAA Abandons Song Sharing Lawsuits
- Salon Opened for Kindles in Maryland
- Sony promises Revolutionary Vaio Laptop
Good News Everyone...It's Christmas!
Dear fellow Mobileread.com users,
once again Christmas has arrived. I hope you will all enjoy a peaceful, relaxed and romantic time with your loved ones.
In the name of all members of the Mobileread.com team I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
And to all those who wanted an eBook Reader for Christmas this year, I hope your wish will be fulfilled!
once again Christmas has arrived. I hope you will all enjoy a peaceful, relaxed and romantic time with your loved ones.
In the name of all members of the Mobileread.com team I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
And to all those who wanted an eBook Reader for Christmas this year, I hope your wish will be fulfilled!
Sony promises Revolutionary Vaio Laptop
According to Sony
Quote:
On the 9th of January you will change the way you look at laptops. Forever.
This means to me a new display technology. Maybe an OLED laptop. Maybe display goggles instead of a screen? Maybe a screen with an extra wide viewable angle?
And if we're really lucky, it will be a display that catches on for dedicated e-book devices as well.
Who knows, but my hopeful guess is that they are introducing some of that 3D screen technology we have been hearing about. I suppose we'll find out January 9th...
From Engadget.
And if we're really lucky, it will be a display that catches on for dedicated e-book devices as well.
Who knows, but my hopeful guess is that they are introducing some of that 3D screen technology we have been hearing about. I suppose we'll find out January 9th...
From Engadget.
Salon Opened for Kindles in Maryland
I took this poor, but interesting photo on my Treo while I was in Maryland a couple of months ago. Forgot I even had it, but figured some of you might get a laugh out of it.
Be sure to click through to the article, and display it full size, or you won't be able to read the sign.
A Kindle salon I can imagine and even get excited about. But I can't for the life of me figure out what a Moon Boom Salon would be!
Attached Thumbnails
Be sure to click through to the article, and display it full size, or you won't be able to read the sign.
A Kindle salon I can imagine and even get excited about. But I can't for the life of me figure out what a Moon Boom Salon would be!
Attached Thumbnails
RIAA Abandons Song Sharing Lawsuits
In a move that is long overdue,
Quote:
The group representing the U.S. recording industry said Friday it has abandoned its policy of suing people for sharing songs protected by copyright and will work with Internet service providers to cut abusers' access if they ignore repeated warnings.
This ends a practice that may have only made the situation worse with respect to piracy, and most certainly brought undue hardships to families that were under the RIAA legal guns.
With a new policy of warnings and then loss of internet access, maybe we can all focus on reasonable consumer markets for electronic music sales which are actually a good deal for the consumer.
On the negative side, it is unlikely that anyone will have the money, endurance or desire to fight accusations made by the RIAA. In other words, if someone is unjustly accused of sharing copyrighted music, is there any hope? Probably not. Will this lead to heavy handed and unjust control by the RIAA? One can hope that level heads will prevail, and current file sharers will enticed to become legal purchasers, and innocent file sharers (non-copyrighted music, for example) will be left alone.
Does this matter for e-books? Of course... all content buyers win every time we see DRM usage limited, or we see the consumer enabled to make personal copies of content, or we see heavy handed law enforcement become more balanced. It would be impossible for e-book publishers and sellers to ignore the news of the day for a related industry. Maybe in the book world, some of the pain brought about in the music world will bring perspective that allows everyone to win with e-books - before we make pirates out of every good citizen willing to purchase e-book content fairly.
From Yahoo! Tech.
With a new policy of warnings and then loss of internet access, maybe we can all focus on reasonable consumer markets for electronic music sales which are actually a good deal for the consumer.
On the negative side, it is unlikely that anyone will have the money, endurance or desire to fight accusations made by the RIAA. In other words, if someone is unjustly accused of sharing copyrighted music, is there any hope? Probably not. Will this lead to heavy handed and unjust control by the RIAA? One can hope that level heads will prevail, and current file sharers will enticed to become legal purchasers, and innocent file sharers (non-copyrighted music, for example) will be left alone.
Does this matter for e-books? Of course... all content buyers win every time we see DRM usage limited, or we see the consumer enabled to make personal copies of content, or we see heavy handed law enforcement become more balanced. It would be impossible for e-book publishers and sellers to ignore the news of the day for a related industry. Maybe in the book world, some of the pain brought about in the music world will bring perspective that allows everyone to win with e-books - before we make pirates out of every good citizen willing to purchase e-book content fairly.
From Yahoo! Tech.
MobileRead Week in Review: 12/13 - 12/20
Foxit eSlick, New eInk based reader for $229
As Foxit's first-generation e-book reader, eSlick is specially designed to support multiple formats and enables users to view various documents with ease. With the thickness of 0.4” (9.2 mm), the weight of 6.4 ounces(180g) and the introductory low price of $229.99($259.99 MSRP), the Foxit eSlick will become the ideal e-book reading device for users. This first edition will be available very soon. If you are looking for a high quality and low-cost e-book reader, the eSlick definitely is what you’re looking for. Click here to pre-order eSlick right now!
Quote: Screen:6" E Ink® Vizplex screen 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 166 dpi, 4-level gray scale
Size: 7.4" x 4.7" x 0.4" (188×118×9.2mm)
Weight: 6.4 ounces (180g) battery included
Color: Black/Gray/White
Connectivity: USB2.0
Operating System: Embedded Linux
Supported Formats:
- eBook Formats: PDF, TXT, Any printable document(after converted to PDF using included software)
- Sound Formats: MP3
Internal Memory: 128MB
Storage Memory: SD Card (2GB included. Supports up to 4GB) Included Software:
Foxit Reader Pro Pack ($39 license)
Foxit PDF Creator ($29 license)
From http://www.foxitsoftware.com/ebook/
Quote: Screen:6" E Ink® Vizplex screen 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 166 dpi, 4-level gray scale
Size: 7.4" x 4.7" x 0.4" (188×118×9.2mm)
Weight: 6.4 ounces (180g) battery included
Color: Black/Gray/White
Connectivity: USB2.0
Operating System: Embedded Linux
Supported Formats:
- eBook Formats: PDF, TXT, Any printable document(after converted to PDF using included software)
- Sound Formats: MP3
Internal Memory: 128MB
Storage Memory: SD Card (2GB included. Supports up to 4GB) Included Software:
Foxit Reader Pro Pack ($39 license)
Foxit PDF Creator ($29 license)
From http://www.foxitsoftware.com/ebook/
Sony Reader being marketed on Dear Author
I looked around and didn't see this posted already. Hope it's not a duplicate.
DearAuthor.com is a (mostly romance) book review and discussion site with a large and vocal group of regular visitors.
Sony has donated Sony Readers for all the Dear Author reviewers! They've also donated three additional Readers for the Dear Author folks to offer for contest giveaways.
Jane at Dear Author is a big advocate for ebooks (and reading, in general).
I thought this was exciting, since I love my Sony, but have wondered if they had any chance against Amazon's aggressive marketing strategy.
You can read about it here.
DearAuthor.com is a (mostly romance) book review and discussion site with a large and vocal group of regular visitors.
Sony has donated Sony Readers for all the Dear Author reviewers! They've also donated three additional Readers for the Dear Author folks to offer for contest giveaways.
Jane at Dear Author is a big advocate for ebooks (and reading, in general).
I thought this was exciting, since I love my Sony, but have wondered if they had any chance against Amazon's aggressive marketing strategy.
You can read about it here.
New Sony eLibrary Software Released
Sony has just released a new version of their Windows side software for the Reader. Called version 2.5.00.09170, the major improvements seem to be:
The full writeup is here.
- Adds support for 64-bit versions of Microsoft® Windows Vista® operating systemAdds support for the Sony Reader Digital Book PRS-700
- Adds support for managing Annotations and Highlights
The full writeup is here.
Forum restructuring: Device sections
In anticipation of new e-book readers emerging in 2009 (*fingers crossed*), we're considering reorganizing the forum structure for the e-book devices. The suggestion is that we move "out" of the "E-Book Devices" section and sort the device sections by vendor:
Quote: Sony Devices
* Sony PRS-700
* Sony PRS-505/500 ( merge "Troubleshooting" )
* Accessories
* Content
* Developer Corner
iRex Devices
* iRex Digital Reader
* iRex iLiad ( merge "Troubleshooting" )
* Accessories
* Content
* Software Releases
* Developer Corner
Amazon Devices
* Amazon Kindle ( merge "Troubleshooting" )
* Accessories
* Content
* Developer Corner
Bookeen Devices
* Bookeen Cybook Gen 3 ( merge "Troubleshooting" )
* Accessories
* Content
* Developer Corner
Other Devices
* Apple iPhone
* HanLin eBook
* BeBook ereader
* eREAD STAReBOOK
* Fictionwise eBookwise
* Polymer Vision Readius
* Legacy Devices
* Others Before we do so, I would like get as much feedback as possible. Thank you.
Quote: Sony Devices
* Sony PRS-700
* Sony PRS-505/500 ( merge "Troubleshooting" )
* Accessories
* Content
* Developer Corner
iRex Devices
* iRex Digital Reader
* iRex iLiad ( merge "Troubleshooting" )
* Accessories
* Content
* Software Releases
* Developer Corner
Amazon Devices
* Amazon Kindle ( merge "Troubleshooting" )
* Accessories
* Content
* Developer Corner
Bookeen Devices
* Bookeen Cybook Gen 3 ( merge "Troubleshooting" )
* Accessories
* Content
* Developer Corner
Other Devices
* Apple iPhone
* HanLin eBook
* BeBook ereader
* eREAD STAReBOOK
* Fictionwise eBookwise
* Polymer Vision Readius
* Legacy Devices
* Others Before we do so, I would like get as much feedback as possible. Thank you.
Forum restructuring: Formats sections added
It's long overdue (thank you Harry for your patience), but we've finally added a dedicated section where we can discuss specific e-book formats, their virtues and vices, and the best tools to work with them.
Obviously there is still some overlap with other forum categories. Please bear with us as we're migrating existing threads from other places to their new homes.
Your feedback is - as always - appreciated.
Obviously there is still some overlap with other forum categories. Please bear with us as we're migrating existing threads from other places to their new homes.
Your feedback is - as always - appreciated.
MobileRead wiki now multi-lingual
Our wiki is now multi-lingual. If you set the language entry in your "my preferences" entry at the top of the page in the wiki to your preferred language and a page exists in your language it will be displayed instead of the English page.
If you would like to help with the translation effort be see http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Help:Wiki_Translation for details on how to go about it.
If you have never looked at the wiki before be sure and check it out. It can be reached from the top of the forum page or directly at: http://wiki.mobileread.com/
If you would like to help with the translation effort be see http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Help:Wiki_Translation for details on how to go about it.
If you have never looked at the wiki before be sure and check it out. It can be reached from the top of the forum page or directly at: http://wiki.mobileread.com/
