I previously mentioned the OpenPandora Linux-powered gaming tablet back in April. As an entirely open Linux-powered device with a 4.3” 800x480 screen, it might have the same potential for e-book reading as any other small hand-held, and perhaps even better. Well, the $350 device is now shipping in dribs and drabs, as they become available to those who pre-ordered—but a number of the units have been set aside for immediate sale at the higher price of $500 for those who absolutely can’t wait, guaranteed to ship within 7 days. (As Engadget points out, this can’t make people who...

+ "Taiwan Libraries to Offer 11,000 Titles for E-readers" (via PC World) + Google Books: "Hachette Google agreement to last five years" (via The Bookseller) + "Amazon.com Formally Releases App For Windows Phone 7" (via Amazon.com) + "FBReader Has Encyclopedic Knowledge of E-Book Formats" (via TechNewsWorld) + "Ebooks top print books in USA Today list" (via TeleRead) + UK: Print: "Book sales in 2010 fall by more than 3% (via The Bookseller) Via Resource Shelf...

LinuxInsider has an in-depth review of this program: FBReader is an e-book reading program that makes it quick and simple to access thousands of free literature titles available on the Internet. It runs on the Linux, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows and Free BSD platforms. In addition, it runs on various Linux-based mobile devices such as Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Sharp and Siemens (NYSE: SI) smartphones. ... A recent release makes FBReader very current. FBReaderJ is a Java-based clone of FBReader that runs on the Android platform. Neither version will let you read DRM (Digital Rights Management)-protected e-books, though. But...

Following up to my post about Augen devices last night, I just called the Kmart in Branson and spoke to them, and what they had in stock was the e-book reader, and one remaining unit of an Augen netbook different from the one Engadget found. Engadget’s find was an Android “smartbook” with a 400 MHz processor and 128 megabytes of RAM, but Branson has one clearanced unit of what appears to be this model listed for $75 (currently out of stock) on Geeks.com, or $67.99 + $9.99 shipping at NewEgg (apparently in stock), a Windows CE “smartbook” with...

While it was tempting to grace this post with a picture of blue-skinned aliens, I’m actually talking about a quite different Pandora than the one depicted in James Cameron’s Avatar (though the humans in that movie did use electronic tablets for data display, complete with a very nice user interface for syncing where the image was simply slid off of the desktop and onto a tablet a la Minority Report). After residing in Development Hell for some time, it appears the Pandora open-source Linux-powered hand-held game console is nearly ready to ship. The device will have a 4.3”...

Changes: A Vietnamese interface translation has been added. LitRes integration, which was broken in the previous version, has been fixed. HarperCollinsPublishers announced the launch of its Print on Demand (POD) service which will allow Australian and New Zealand readers the chance to purchase individual copies of books that were previously out of print. See the Google Book Monster attack at Book Patrol along with a mind-boggling chart from the Library Copyright Alliance. ...

From the email notification: FBReader 0.12.6 is released. This release contains 1 important fix against 0.12.5.*. Some ePub files (in particular, a large set of files from http://fictionwise.com) are compressed with some errors. These errors are not significant (in fact, several CRC sums are missing), and other readers (like Adobe Digital Editions) shows these files well. Starting from this version FBReader shows such files without any problems too. I'd like to say thanks to Coran Fisher who found this problem. An updated version is available from the official FBReader site (http://www.fbreader.org/) as usual....

Changes: The ePub format support has been improved: better CSS support has been implemented; the images in an <svg> tag are now visible; a bug in the unzip code has been fixed. Integration with network e-libraries was improved: authorization has been implemented for FeedBooks and Shucang sites. Full localizations for Dutch, Hungarian, and Spanish have been added. More info here....

I'm no true prognosticator, but I think we can see the outline of the next generation of e-readers now. Like Sophie, it can be programmed by an author. Like FBReader and Lector, it will be open platform and accept many formats. And it will be built on a 'prairielight' framework....