Month: August 2020

73 posts

June Bookstore Sales declined by 35.3% in the US

Some bookstores slowly began reopening in the United States, but overall sales have been lacklustre. June bookstore sales fell 35.3% compared to a year ago, according to preliminary estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau. As steep as the June drop was, it was a marked improvement over May, when bookstore sales fell nearly 60%, to $270 million. Bookstore sales in June were $384 million, compared to $504 million last June.

Hisense A5 PRO E INK Smartphone Hands on Review

The Hisense A5 Pro is basically the best black and white E…

Apple is planning on bundling subscription services

Apple is planning on unveiling a new tiered approach to subscriptions, by offering bundles. It is likely they will be announced in October, along with new iPhone and iPad models. The bundles, dubbed “Apple One” are designed to encourage customers to subscribe to more Apple services, which will generate more recurring revenue.

Pocketbook Touch Lux 5 has a new promotional video

The Pocketbook Touch Lux 5 is available now for $129 and many…

Unboxing the 13.3 inch Quirklogic Papyr E-Note

The Quirklogic Papyr is a new 13.3 inch e-note that is using the Sony Digital Paper shell and internals, but using the software in new and innovative ways. They have the standard note taking app, and also Google Chrome to browse the web. The device provides integration into the Inkworks platform by QuirkLogic enabling real-time collaboration with a paper-like writing experience.

Barnes and Noble issues new update for the Nook

Barnes and Noble has just published a rare firmware update for many of their Nook e-readers. Software update 52.0.78 is being pushed out and includes a number of bug fixes and enhancements. One of the most notable is author names always showing as their first and last name. This is useful if you like reading ebooks by the same author, it is easier to sort in your library. There is also a progress bar on your library, letting you know how far you are in various ebooks and also there’s now a line beneath completed books showing completed date. There is likely other aspects of this update, but Barnes and Noble does not publish changelogs anymore.

Microsoft Surface Duo Android 10 Smartphone comes out soon

The Microsoft Surface Duo is one of the most eagerly anticipated smartphones of the year. It features twin 5.6-inch OLED displays with a resolution of 1800 x 1350 with a 4:3 aspect ratio that connect together to form a 8.1-inch overall workspace (2700 x 1800) with a 3:2 aspect ratio.

Penguin Random House to release Audiobook Study Guides

Kids are going to go back to school soon. Some schools are opening their doors to students, while others are going to be doing distance learning. English classes tend to have classic books in their curriculum and Penguin Random House has developed audiobook study guides for titles such as Studying Dracula, Studying The Great Gatsby, Studying Wuthering Heights, and Studying Tess of the D’Urbervilles. They contain unabridged audio narration of the novels and supplementary material written by teachers. The material features in-depth analysis of characters, themes, structure and form, in addition to chapter summaries and useful quotations.

Xiaomi Mi Reader Review

The Xiaomi Mi Reader features a 6 inch E INK capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels at 212 PPI. It has a front-lit display, which has a slider bar in the drop down menu, you can configure how bright you want the display. There is no color temperature system that is available on this model. 

Xiaomi Mijia Hygrometer Thermometer Pro Review

The Xiaomi Digital Thermometer Hygrometer measures both the temperature and humidity of the room and the parameters are displayed on a screen. The device features an 3.7 inch Ink display which ensures it conserves battery power, it will last up to a year on a single charge.

Steve Jobs sabotaged the Amazon Kindle app on iOS

Steve Jobs made it his mission to sabotage Amazon to prevent them from selling ebooks within their app.  According to new emails between between Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, Eddy Cue, and various other senior Apple executives, disclose the exact thinking behind how Apple approached Kindle on iOS. The current precedent was outlined by Steve Jobs, who stated that “I think this is all pretty simple — iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things.”

Scribd vows to cleanup SlideShare piracy

Linkedin Slideshare is a hotbed of piracy, there are thousands of ebooks available on the platform, in a myriad of formats. The repository for documents has been around for 14 years and so far, Linkedin has been ambivalent to the growing epidemic. Over the next several months, Scribd will be integrating their BookID system into the SlideShare platform to scan all uploads for potentially unauthorized content and will be removing anything that violates their TOS.

Onyx Boox is developing a color e-reader based on the Nova 2

Onyx Boox has submitted a letter to the FCC, letting them know that they will be using the same internals as the Nova 2, except they are calling it the Nova 2 Color. The company has just launched the Poke 2 color today, but they only produced 100 units and were sold out in a few hours. They have not submitted any documentation to the FCC for the Poke 2 Color, which leads me to believe this was a test to see if people would respond to a color e-reader, which they did. It looks like Onyx is now taking color seriously.