Back in May, eBook Technologies, Inc. quietly demonstrated a prototype of an E Ink machine with a six-inch display at the IDPF's Digital Book 2007. It ran "the first device-based implementation of the new IDPF content standards." As you can see from a photo, ETI might well be sharing vendors with others in the e-book arena---we know this is true of the screen, if nothing else. But that's not the point here. The software's interface might be what ETI is really betting on. In many ways I'm reminded of the interface of the old Gemstar machines, and if that's ETI's strategy,...

IDPF's latest board opening has drawn four candidates: Richard Bellaver, Ball State University, Jon Noring, DigitalPulp Publishing, Matt Shatz, Random House, and Eli Willner, Green Point Technology Services. Voting closes July 10. Other news: --Go here and here for details on LibrieDigital's support of the IDPF standard. This is significant, given LD's work for major publishers. Now, if the IDPF gang can get DRM right, along with shared annotations and other standards-related issues. --An $85 desktop? Details here. --Internet radio stations went silent today---against the outrageous new music royalties that may silence many of them....

"VitalSource Technologies, Inc., a leading developer of digital book solutions, today announced that its state-of-the art e-book format, VitalBook (*.vbk), has been selected as the preferred platform by MBS Textbook Exchange, Inc., the largest used textbook wholesaler, bookstore systems provider and distance learning materials distribution service in the United States." - News release from VitalSource (spotted via the TeleBlog's new e-book-oriented Google News feature). The A question: Will MBS work with VitalSource on technology fit for new business models, such as ads in e-books, which could be especially attractive in the textbook market, where students complain of high costs---even for used...

Text is the main show at the TeleBlog, but who can ignore the news on the RealPlayer 11 beta, given the usefulness of video downloading for legit purposes? Still, I wonder if the accompanying DRM wrinkles will get in the way of fair use. And what about RealPlayer's tendency to inflict bloatware on your? Still, RP 11 might be of interest because of its future ability to convert files from YouTube and other services into an iPod format. Any volunteers? I lack time to test the beta. Anyone want to give it a shot and share the results?...

Amidst all this hype about iPhone, isn't it curious that none that of the technology reporters have mentioned using iPhone as a portable reading device? I realize there's no external memory, and that it's so far a closed platform for application developers. But Apple is selling it as a kind of net-enabled tablet for reading. It won't be long before early adopters tire of using the Edge network to turn a page. (In honor of those who steadfastly resist the Apple hype machine, this blogpost will not contain a graphic of the actual device). See also my post last...

"In the next few weeks OSoft will release two new plug-ins to enable the dotReader to render Project Gutenberg books in both the zipped HTML and Plain Text ASCII formats. Soon, dotReader fans will have access to over 20,000 classic titles that can be browsed, searched, bookmarked, and annotated in the dotReader." - OSoft announcement....

What's the next step after you've found the book you like on the Internet? Of course, you'll download it and convert it if you must get it onto the reading device you're using. But could there be a better approach? Instead of downloading an e-book file, why not bookmark the location where you've found the book---something I've made easier via a new service at DigitalReading.net? Bookmarking has lot of advantage, as I'll show you later in this article, and you can benefit from others' efforts, not just your own (screenshot). But for now the main reason is that you don't have to...

The TeleRead blog is about more than e-book news---it's also about community: people sharing insights and tips on good e-books, reading software, libraries, copyright, DRM, and other topics (ideally in a civil way). But news counts, too. So now, if you click on the Google e-book news link in the upper right of this page or reach the link directly (bookmark fodder?), you'll see e-book topics organized by category. I've also added a link from TeleRead's home page. Reminder: the links you see in the screenshot to the left won't work. Oh, and if you want to initiate a discussion of...

I spent Sunday downloading lots of PG texts and converting things into the e-book format of choice at the moment (Mobipocket). A month ago my eBookwise broke, so I had to redownload everything into a usable format. I encountered some difficulties with manybooks files (see my earlier post about Manybooks vs. Project Gutenberg). Poetry poses unique challenges. Sometimes the ASCII text files of PG destroys the stanzas and indents; sometimes the small size of the PDA breaks lines which shouldn't be broken (This happens even with the more recent html versions being produced by PG). I recently found out...

Planet Maemo has pointed us to Buy.com's offer of new Nokia 770's for $139.99. Free shipping too. The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet runs FBReader, which is a world-class open-source e-reader that accepts books in a large variety of formats, even inside a zip archive: OEB, HTML, FB2, Plucker PDB, CHM and non-DRMed Mobipocket, among others. FBReader runs not only on the Nokia 770 and N800 but also the Linux desktop, Windows, PepperPad, Sharp Zaurus and IRex iLiad. The program is still under development (the most recent version is 0.8.4a) and has not yet implemented bookmarks or annotation. Probably no other device at...

Andy from DT375.com will be contributing tips on the now-$155 tablet to the TeleBlog. Meanwhile, in the wake of a long DT 375 writeup and enthusiastic reader reactions to the DT, I'm pleased to pass on an update from Andy: "I have created a page dedicated to e-book readers [eReader, Mobipocket, MSReader and uBook]. Should make it easier for TeleBlog users to quickly find what they are looking for. I also added uBook. I know of a few other readers out there that can run on the 375. I'll let you know as I add them. "I am also thinking of adding a...

Here's a report from Bookeen about the next generation Cybook: Basically it will have support for one encrypted format and use reusable batteries. Derek from the NAEB/BAEN ebook reader project (which will be a Bookeen next-generation device for sale) comments about how Bookeen's promise to support one DRM format squares with NAEB's project's no DRM policy: "While NAEB does not support the proliferation of DRM'd ebooks---or DRM in general---it is clear that to not support some DRM-encrypted ebook format would exclude many current ebooks from the NAEB device. I cannot say whether a specific DRM-encrypted format will be included, but I...