Editor's Note: this is very cute, but it is meant for adults, not kids. PB Pee-wee Herman Videos from Funny or Die Pee-wee Herman Videos from Funny or Die ...

Resource Shelf is reporting on Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates, a new book from the University of Chicago Press. The book can be purchased as an ebook outright, or for 30 or 180 days. You might think that prior to the 20th century, “piracy” only referred to nautical shenanigans. But English stationers in the 17th century labelled colleagues who printed unauthorised versions of other people’s work “land-pirats”....

That is the title of an editoral by Edward Nawotka, at Publishing Perspectives, about what Apple may have in mind for the future. Go read it. Apple is, if anything, the master of keeping it simple and, very often, attractive. And this is, I believe, one of the reasons that the launch of iBooks should give pause to many publishers. Now that Apple is in the “book space” with its own branded retailer, it’s only a short leap before they become publishers themselves. Just look at what Amazon has done since the launch of its Kindle, with the company launching a...

A webinar from +Plastic Electronics and IntertechPira, discusses the evolution of e-paper for the e-reader market and will be held on February 18. The webinar will provide an overview of e-readers to date, technology advances in three key areas: flexibility, colour and video and will also discuss future applications for e-paper displays. It will be given by Ian French, a principal scientist at Prime View International (PVI). Taiwan-based PVI is the leading supplier of e-paper displays to the burgeoning e-reader market and recently acquired E Ink,the sole supplier of e-paper frontplanes for e-reader devices. Thanks to E-Ink-Info for the link....

Is the title of an article at ZDnet by Larry Dignan. What gets fuzzy quick is whether the iPad and Kindle are truly on a collision course. You can spin in a circle and hit someone that thinks the iPad will render the Kindle useless. These folks argue that multipurpose devices will trump the Kindle and e-readers. These devices are relics. However, it’s not that simple. After giving the iPad vs. Kindle battle some thought—I basically held my Kindle purchase to scope out the iPad—I’d argue these devices may converge at some point, but for now can coexist. ...

Most of the focus in the ebook world is usually on you and me, the individual person. From the hardware we purchase to the ebooks we buy, vendors and other digital providers are continually working to gain our interest. However, from a library point of view, things are completely flipped. By necessity, we librarians work with multiple users on a daily basis, anywhere from 5 to 500 different individuals. As such, any ebook purchase for the library takes on far more implications. As much I would like, libraries simply don’t have the budget to purchase...

In an interview with Fujio Noguchi, deputy president of Sony's ereader business he said: Readers are the best sellers on their US Sony Style website and sales volume has quadrupled year over year. Sales were so high over Christmas that registrations brought their servers down on Christmas day. The best selling model is the Touch edition which surprised them because they thought the low priced Pocket edition would take that place. Sony wants to use e-ink for its displays, not LCD, so it will wait until color e-ink is available before introducing a color reader. The e-ink displays used by Sony...

Editor's Note: Erik follows up on Dan D'Austino's piece mentioned above. You can find Dan's piece here. PB Many of the issues and concerns that are brought up in Dan D'Augustino's piece are very relevant. When eBooks first arrived it was like eJournals, everyone was trying to figure out what they had and the best way to use it. Dan mentions that buying eJournals was you may only need a few but you have to take the thousand others you don't need. Many of the eBook aggregators out there don't follow that model, that's why...

I met these folks at Book Expo America last year and they told me of this great idea they had for a new ebook store. Why not sell not only whole ebooks, but also provide just the chapters people need. It's a perfect idea for travel books, for example. They have gotten everything up and running and here is part of their email to me: We just sent out a joint-press release with Wiley & Wrox Press, who are helping us kick-start the eChapter program. The store currently has over 235K eBook titles plus about 2500 eChapters. The eChapter catalog, which is...

According to E-Reader-Info.com, Delta of Taiwan will soon start marketing color ereaders suing Bridgestone's color e-ink technology. According to the article Delta is still looking for partners to actually brand and sell the units, which can be equipped with WiFi and 3G modules, and they will also sell the units on there own. This is the first commercialization of Bridgestone's new technology....

In Amazon's fourth quarter financial announcement, Jeff Bezos had a bit more to say about the Kindle than he usually does. Comments made at these times have to be accurate or a company could have SEC problems. Thus, we can be pretty sure that Bezos is not just puffing: “Millions of people now own Kindles,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “And Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books -- free Kindle books would make the...

We all know that a controversial topic today is climate change. Yes, this is about climate change, but no, it isn’t about whether there is global warming or not. Instead, this is the story of what happens when the editor goes missing. The story begins with a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations-affiliated group. Five glaring errors were found in the report, errors serious enough to warrant an apology from the scientists who wrote the particular section under scrutiny. The section dealt with glacier melt in the Himalayas and the prediction that the glaciers could...