Category Archives: e-book ergonomics

Eye doc praises Kindle as gizmo for sight-impaired

“The Amazon Kindle 2, holds a lot of promise for patients that have poor vision as a result of macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, glaucoma or any ocular condition that impairs vision.” – Blog item by Richard Driscoll, owner of Total Eye Care, in the Dallas area.
Related: Damn it, Obama, when are you gonna get [...] Continue reading

Posted in E-books and all that, Uncategorized, e-book, e-book ergonomics, e-book technology, e-books, e-books and other digipubs, ebook, ebook publishing, ebooks | Leave a comment

Damn it, Obama, when are you gonna get this e-book thing? Check out Donalyn Miller’s literacy efforts and connect the dots!

Barack Obama drew a $500,000 advance for a children’s book, a mere five days before swearing a presidential oath. I’m happy for him. Literacy has served The First Reader well. So has technology—as shown by his fondness for BlackBerry-style devices and using the Net to raise campaign money.
Why, then, isn’t the First Reader more [...] Continue reading

Posted in E-books and all that, Education, Libraries, One Laptop Per Child, Uncategorized, e-book, e-book economics, e-book ergonomics, e-book pricing, e-book technology, e-books, e-books and other digipubs, ebook, ebook pricing, ebook publishing, ebooks, librarian, librarians, libraries + schools + tech, library | Leave a comment

Should Jonathan Stone do Twitter?

"Bradley Inman wants to create great fiction, dramatic online video and compelling Twitter stream[s]—and then roll them all into a multimedia hybrid that is tailored to the rapidly growing number of digital reading devices." – New York Times.
The TeleRead take: I’ve got mixed—very mixed—feelings about this.
In The Solomon Scandals, my reporter protagonist can’t bypass [...] Continue reading

Posted in E-books and all that, Uncategorized, e-book, e-book economics, e-book ergonomics, e-book technology, e-books, e-books and other digipubs, ebook, ebook publishing, ebooks | Leave a comment

All Kindled up, Rupert Murdoch might invest in K-rival—ideally with a color screen

Back in 2007 Theresa Horner—then the senior director of eBooks at HarperCollins, Rupert Murdoch’s book publisher—put in a good word for e-readers as displaying newspapers as well as books and other items. I’d said the same thing, too. In fact, Jon Noring and I had tried to interest the Washington Post  in developing OpenReader.
But [...] Continue reading

Posted in Amazon Kindle, E-books and all that, Uncategorized, amazon, e-book, e-book economics, e-book ergonomics, e-book pricing, e-book technology, e-books, ebook, ebook publishing, ebooks, kindle | Leave a comment

The rise of comic books as lit

"’Comics, meanwhile, have profited from the canny coinage ‘graphic novel,’ designed to imply an intellectual and narrative heft greater than that of simple strip cartoons, although most creators and fans disdain the term. When told that he wrote graphic novels rather than comic books, Neil Gaiman wrote bemusedly: ‘I felt like someone who’d been [...] Continue reading

Posted in E-books and all that, Uncategorized, e-book, e-book ergonomics, e-book technology, e-books, e-books and other digipubs, e-ink, ebook, ebook publishing, ebooks | 88 Comments

Paperback-sized mini-netbooks by end of year? E-book possibilities?

"By the end of the year, consumers are likely to see laptops the size of thin paperback books that can run all day on a single charge and are equipped with touch screens or slide-out keyboards." – New York Times. Continue reading

Posted in E-books and all that, Uncategorized, e-book, e-book economics, e-book ergonomics, e-book pricing, e-book technology, e-books, e-books and other digipubs, ebook, ebook pricing, ebook publishing, ebooks | 51 Comments

Famous e-book Luddite won over by Smell of Books—while meantime a patent suit MAY be in the works

Take that, Booksquare!
Maybe you’re ridiculing the Smell of Books breakthrough. But the odor is convincing enough for Sven Berkshire, previously a noted e-book skeptic, to reconsider, given all the progress that has been made in replicating the print experience.
So stunning is the new technology that a patient suit just may be [...] Continue reading

Posted in E-books and all that, Uncategorized, e-book, e-book economics, e-book ergonomics, e-book pricing, e-book technology, e-books, e-books and other digipubs, ebook, ebook pricing, ebook publishing, ebooks | Leave a comment

An e-walk down Howard Street with the Kaiser—and a few more tips for reader-walkers

Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II was a dream patient for his American dentist, during World War I, in at least one way.
He showed a extremely high tolerance of pain, at least if you go by the start of The Kaiser as I Know Him, which I read on my Sony Reader this morning on [...] Continue reading

Posted in E-books and all that, Uncategorized, e-book, e-book economics, e-book ergonomics, e-book pricing, e-book technology, e-books, e-books and other digipubs, eBabel, ebook, ebook pricing, ebook publishing, ebooks | 49 Comments

Opportunity for e-book biz: Polled air travelers vote books as the most essential items

"In a poll hosted on the flight search engine’s site, ‘a good book’ received 24% of the vote, followed by an MP3 player with 22%, perfume or deodorant with 14% and a laptop or PDA with 10%." – TravelDailyNews.com.
The TeleRead take: Just wait until the prices of readers come down, and ideally the costs of [...] Continue reading

Posted in E-books and all that, Sony Reader, Uncategorized, e-book, e-book ergonomics, e-book pricing, e-book technology, e-books, e-books and other digipubs, ebook, ebook pricing, ebook publishing, ebooks, sony | Leave a comment

Why fiction really IS good for you

"Through a series of studies, we have discovered that fiction at its best isn’t just enjoyable. It measurably enhances our abilities to empathize with other people and connect with something larger than ourselves." – Keith Oatley, novelist and psychologist—writing in Greater Good Magazine (via Readerville).
The TeleRead take: So what about distinctions within fiction? Will [...] Continue reading

Posted in E-books and all that, Uncategorized, book publishing, books, e-book, e-book economics, e-book ergonomics, e-book technology, e-books, e-books and other digipubs, ebook, ebook publishing, ebooks | 56 Comments