e-books

A few weeks ago, CNET's Scott Stein made the case for using a dedicated e-reader instead of a tablet--for book reading, that is.

I'm inclined to agree with him, as I find that when I read on my iPad or Nook Color, I'm frequently distracted from my book. It's hard to resist the siren song of e-mail, Web browsing, Flipboard, and the like when they're just a tap or two away.

With a regular old e-reader, however, all you get is your book--and that's a good thing. Hence I'm seeing the value … Read more

With the boom in e-readers, self-publishing has become big business, and Author Solutions, one of the largest self-publishers in the U.S., has entered the DIY e-book market in a big way with Booktango.

Whether Booktango should be called an "e-book generating app" or "self-publishing platform" is hard to say, but it basically provides a free and simple way to upload your manuscript, edit it for proper formatting, then automatically serve it up to various e-bookstores, including Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and iBooks.

On the surface, Booktango, which bears the "beta" tag, looks fairly slick … Read more

I've griped about e-book prices many times before, and I remain steadfast in my belief that publishers charge way too much for a product that requires no printing, consumables, shipping, storage (in the traditional sense), or other typical print-book expenses.

Fortunately, there's a way to squeeze a bit more value out of the e-books you do buy: lend them to someone else, then get other loaned books in return.

This is possible thanks to the publishers that allow e-book lending. Not all do, and the terms are pretty limited--each book can be loaned out only once, and for … Read more

After years of patiently waiting until the technology matured and pricing dropped, I decided to put the Kindle Touch on my Christmas list this past holiday season.

Overall, the experience has been excellent, but even with all the prepurchase research I did, nothing brings to light imperfections faster than real-world use. There were the disadvantages I knew about before making the jump to an e-book reader (e-book pricing can be steep for a die-hard library patron), but there are also a few nitpicks that turned up that I wasn't expecting.

The following aren't necessarily criticisms of the Kindle Touch, which I still think is a great device, but rather a few of the recurring thoughts I've had during my first month of heavy use of an e-book reader.

1. No 'until end of chapter' meter The overall progress percentage along the bottom of the Kindle is helpful, but I'm generally more interested in how many pages are left in the chapter I'm reading.… Read more

Over the weekend, I drove to a local mall to go see a movie, but got stuck in traffic and missed the showtime--so I visited the mall's Barnes & Noble bookstore instead.

It was the first time I'd been in this particular Barnes & Noble in awhile, and I noticed several changes. For one thing, a large booth selling B&N's Nook e-readers was located so close to the front doors that it was impossible to enter the store without seeing the Nooks and overhearing a staffer explaining them to other shoppers.

Reminders of the Nook'… Read more

The holidays were certainly prosperous for the tablet industry.

The number of U.S. tablet owners just about doubled from 10 percent to 19 percent between the middle of December and the start of January, according to a Pew Internet report out today.

Coming from a period of flat growth since the summer, tablets enjoyed a surge during the holiday season as lower-cost devices such as the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble's Nook tablet reached shoppers just in the nick of time.

But tablet vendors weren't the only ones on a holiday hot streak.

E-book readers … Read more

Whatever Apple announces later this week, it is expected to open a new chapter for tech in the education community.

Though the company is being typically tight-lipped over what it plans to announce, observers expect Apple to unveil a new technology that optimizes textbooks for iPads and allows user interaction with the content. Apple has been working with publisher McGraw-Hill on its announcement since June, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Meanwhile, sources tell Ars Technica that Apple will unveil new tools to help create interactive e-books and will expand its current platform to distribute them. The project was … Read more

The dividing line between writing books and writing programs just got a big step blurrier.

That's because Amazon has now released tools for creating books using Web technologies. Those tools include Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), used to describe Web pages, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), used for formatting.

"Through the use of HTML5 and CSS3, KF8 allows publishers to create great-looking books in all categories, particularly those that require rich formatting and design, such as technical & engineering books and cookbooks," Amazon announced. Other features are well suited to graphic novels, comics, and kids' books, Amazon said. … Read more

For any iPad owner who's seen those spiffy-looking magazines and newspapers on Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet and thought, "Hey, why don't my magazines and newspapers look this spiffy?", here's good news: Amazon just rolled out a Kindle app update that adds rich magazine and newspaper viewing to the iPad, among other things.

Kindle 2.9 for iOS offers several appreciable changes, and not just for the iPad. For example, iPhone and iPod Touch users will also notice a new scrolling menu atop their library; it lets you sort your view between books, magazines, and documents.… Read more