Did Harry S. Truman really say, "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog?"---a gem picked up by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Bill Clinton and others? Google Book Search led me to The Quote Verifier, which concluded: "An old saw put in Harry Truman's mouth." I promised to contact the Harry S. Truman Library directly. Sure enough, it can't find evidence of such a witticism coming from HST himself. The nearest thing is a line in a 1975 play by the late Samuel Gallu, who, being dead, is unavailable for comment. Gallu's Truman...

Ficbot, a Toronto educator who spends hours and hours each week around kids, has weighed in with a not-so-positive assessment of the XO-1, the One Laptop Per Child machine. And I do mean weighed in, for one of her criticisms is that even at several pounds, it's just plain too heavy. Now, for a different perspective, you can also check out a long, thoughtful post that HeavyG has just made in defense of the XO-1. Excerpt: "I can certainly understand why the XO may not appeal to jaded, wealthy pc users with years of pc experience and ownership. Again, we...

ePub-format books from David Baldacci, Elizabeth Hoyt, James Patterson and other best-selling writers are among the titles now on sale at Books on Board. The catch, of course, is that the books come with Adobe DRM. So this is a long way from a nonproprietary nirvana. Social DRM, anyone---in place of infestation with traditional DRM? Progress anyway Still, Books on Board's ePub tiles are a step forward, probably even the first time that mass-market books are on sale to consumers in ePub. Hachette Group USA, home to the above writers through the Grand Central Publishing imprint, is already using ePub as a standard distribution...

The slick little Nintendo DS Lite has snared plenty of adult fans with games like Brain Age and New York Times Crosswords. But this device has much more to offer than just game play. You may already be aware of the Nintendo DS Browser, which brings textual web-surfing to the DS anywhere a WiFi connection is detected. But you can also listen to music, watch videos and read e-books on your DS Lite. Enjoy thousands of literary classics and Creative Commons titles from sites such as Project Gutenberg and Manybooks.net. From Charles Dickens to Cory...

The debate over e-freebies goes on---in the no-charge blogosphere. Victoria Strauss, a well-regarded fantasy author and Web mistress of the super-informative Writers Beware site, has written a nice summary of some freebie experiments. Mostly the results are positive---not just from Baen, an old hand at this, but also from larger houses such as St. Martin's and Tor. HarperCollins, in fact, says the free online edition of Neil Gaiman's American Gods boosted weekly sales of the p-edition at meatspace stores by 250 percent (not that Harper itself would say "meatspace"). "As difficult as it is to...

"Princeton follows Yale, Oxford, and UC Berkeley in creating textbooks for the Kindle. In the United States, there are about 2,500 four-year universities, so Amazon still has a long way to go." - CNET. The TeleRead take: So do E Ink and the Kindle. The K-machine can't display color or offer high contrast, and the screen size is too small for detailed illustrations. Still, this is progress. Meanwhile perhaps freshmen can get in the mood with a copy of This Side of Paradise, from the Kindle Store (99 cents), Feedbooks.com (free) or Manybooks.net (free). TSOP is the Princeton...

Some in the press love to liken Bill Gates to Andrew Carnegie, Mr. Free Library, who funded more than 2,500 of 'em. Can Gates be Carnegie for real? Now that he is retiring from full-time duties at Microsoft---check out this hoot of a Wired mashup---let me pass on some totally unsolicited advice for Mr. Not-So-Free Software. Three friendly Carnegie tips Here are three e-book-related ways in which he could embrace Carnegie ideals in a modern context. I know. Bill will still have Microsoft ties that could compromise him, but at least his Inner Carnegie can...

Just how to handle ISBN numbers when e-books appear in a bunch of different formats? The more formats, the more hassles for publishers at this difficult time. Conversion hassles and less choice for consumer are just part of the eBabel mess. How many techies and others outside the book industry can grasp the ISBN complications when so many formats are eBabeling on? A master format like the IDPF's ePub standard could at least reduce the confusion, especially without proprietary DRM to  clutter matters up. The best DRM remains no DRM. Meanwhile, to appreciate the extent of the mess, check out ISBN's on...

While Larry Lessig warns that an orphans act might not reduce infringement risks enough, some people feel the opposite. Check out Autumn Wiggin's thoughts at Crafting a Green World, a Web site for indie artists and crafters. My thoughts: As a nonlawyer, I think the act needs to be drafted with sensitivity to all concerned. I wonder if text works might be easier to protect, and spot infringements against, than designs. True? Your thoughts? And should this influence the language of an orphans act? Technorati Tags: Larry Lessig...

Seventy-one percent of 344 people in an Internet survey said they wouldn't buy a digital book reader even without price as a factor. The good news is that this still leaves 29 percent who might. Piper Jaffray & Company conducted the survey. "The most common reasons for not wanting a digital book reader," reports StreetInsider.com, "were: like the experience of reading traditional books, digital books would not be comfortable for the eyes, digital books and device are too costly, unfamiliarity with the item, prefer to borrow books from library or friends." While Piper Jaffray did the survey with...

With Wowio about to go global, perhaps it and other international companies can crack the Chinese e-book market. It and others could offer locally written books supported by advertising, not just the imported variety. No, Wowio's ad-supported model isn't right for many books, perhaps not even most. But the audience for appropriate titles could be huge on a global scale, especially with good blends of local and global content. "Qidian has grown from a small coterie of literature fans to a staff of 70," NPR's Laura Sydell reports in a segment on the popular Chinese book site featuring writers like Fu Tian,...

One of those $130 miBooks with a seven-inch screen is on the way to Nate the Great. In fact, he snagged a $112 miBook from QVC. And read on. You might be able to do even better and pay just $79, although you'd better be prepared for less-than-ideal screen resolution. So when will someone tweak text-to-image software for other machines to create JPGs of books in formats such as PDF and, I hope, ePub and HTML and ASCII? And how about native viewers for the miBook? I see this as a deluxe Juice Box. Oh, and to...