The press facilities here are the worst I've ever seen at a major show.  There's no WiFi and the Ethernet access doesn't work.  The "press center" has 3 old Pentium 4 computers with floppy disks!  I haven't seen a floppy in years!  Well, once things get started these 3 poor old computers will be swamped so it doesn't look like I'll be able to post until I get home.  No real time updates from this show.  Tomorrow I probably won't even bother to take my computer with me.  Good old pen and paper will work just fine....

That’s the speculation from EuropeVoice.com. “National governments are concerned that books may have been included in breach of copyright, and that the initiative could distort competition.” Related: Google News roundup....

“By popular demand here is the first picture of our new screen. In the above picture, two 3qi screens are shown side-by-side: one of our screens is in full color saturation with its backlight on, the other of our screens is shown in its epaper mode with backlight off. These screens will be available this fall in netbooks and ebook readers. Size: 10.1″ diagonal.” – Mary Lou Jepsen, Pixel Qi. Details: She’s the brain behind the dual-mode display on the XO-1, the OLPC laptop, and her new company could very well end up supplying screens for a...

I’m right across the Potomac from BS City. Oh how I‘d love to be able to annotate the malarkey in so many documents out of Capitol Hill and maybe the White House, too. For now, uppity people can exercise their skills on something else, documents associated with the proposed Google Book Search Settlement. Creator of the markup site is SharedBook, Inc., which is cleverly using the settlement-related docs to demo the annotation aspects of its services. Meanwhile look beyond the GBS app and think about annotated e-books. High time that the IDPF took...

The $250 Cool-er E Ink reader is no stranger to TeleRead community members. We’ll look forward to a hands-on. The Cool-er is extra-slim, comes in eight spiffy-looking colors, and will offer more book choices than the $359 Kindle 2 does. But New York Times gadget columnist  David Progue is underwhelmed so far. Granted, the Cool-er has a memory card slot unlike the Kindle 2, and it uses Adobe-DRMed ePub and PDF instead of the more onerously corseted Kindle format. And yes, the related store already offers as many books as the Kindle, 275,000, with a contract with a distributor expected to boost...

Hardly news to the rest of us, I know, but Ars Technica has a great piece looking at a study by a Cambridge law professor. Patricia Akester spent several years conducting many interviews with people who have been affected by DRM and anticircumvention laws. Akester concludes that Although DRM has not impacted on many acts permitted by law, certain permitted acts are being adversely affected by the use of DRM […] in spite of the existence of technological solutions […] to accommodate those permitted acts. As the head of a...

Here's part of a press release I received from Ingram Digital. It seems that Overdrive isn't the only one going after the Apple market. Ingram Digital, an Ingram Content Group company focused on solutions for digital content management, distribution and promotion, today announced the launch of MyiLibrary Audio, an advanced audiobook offering for libraries. Featuring thousands of titles from more than twenty imprints, MyiLibrary Audio is the first fully iPod, iPod touch and iPhone-compatible solution tailored to the needs of library patrons that is also compatible with both WMA and MP3 devices. Audiobooks available through MyiLibrary Audio...

Yes, there is one and E-Reads discusses it. You can find the full article here. I don't think the leadership of the Reading Rights Coalition is doing its members a favor by attacking publishers, who have been victimized by Amazon/Kindle's audio initiative just as severely as the visually impaired. There is a line between a function intended for the disabled and one designed for fully sighted and literate. Amazon's aggressive step across that line put publishers on the horns of a cruel dilemma: by withholding audio rights from Kindle they deny service to a genuinely needy population; but by...

From College Humor, take a look at this video about the Kindle 3.  It even works with 3D glasses.  I can’t seem to embed it here, but it’s worth going over there to check it out.  Thanks to Erin Biba for the link....

I haven't been to my Amazon Kindle portal for a while, no real need to go there, and it seems that the portal has been updated and I didn't know about it. Gravitational Pull has an article on the experience with the new portal site. Here's an excerpt. You can read the whole thing here: So I was delighted to discover today (via the always excellent Yahoo group KindleKorner) that Amazon has unveiled a new web portal for Kindle users that improves the experience of using your reader and opens the door to a number of side uses...

Received this news release from Random House Group. It looks as if the big guys, or at least some of them, are starting to think outside of the box. By the way, not all of the books mentioned below are available in the US App Store. Territorial rights problems again: The Random House Group today announced the launch of new ebook reader applications available on the Apple App Store. The apps have been developed in partnership with Verlagsgruppe Random House in Germany and allow iPhone and iPod touch users to download digital editions of current bestselling titles. The launch list...

Editor’s Note:  Yesterday I took a comment by Felix Torres and posted it on the front page because I thought it was really important.  After I did that I emailed Felix and asked if he would be willing to write an extended version of his comment for us.  Well he did, and this is the result.  It is, IMHO, the best post we've had this year, and I bet it will take that number one slot for the full year as well. The title, above, is from his email to me.  Thanks, Felix.  PB One of the things that most folks...