TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics » Japan

Try doing this with a Kindle, say Japan’s book stackers

Paul St John Mackintosh — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:38:50 +0000

That same Japanese craft-based sensibility that brought us origami and ikebana has obviously been at work again—in book stacking. Thanks to Rocket News 24, we can now gaze in wonderment at the awesome creativity and dexterity of bookstore shelf stackers in Japan, as they build book displays that would put their Western peers to shame. [...]

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In Japan, an app that makes newspaper reading an interactive experience for kids

Dan Eldridge — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 21:45:39 +0000

A daily Japanese newspaper, the Tokyo Shimbun, has recently launched an app that allows children to scan specially-marked articles with their smartphone, which then reveals various kid-friendly content related to the article. An anime character, for instance, might pop up on a child’s smartphone screen and explain the article in kid-friendly terms. Various graphics and pop-up [...]

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New 3D-photographic scanner will capture 250 book pages per minute

Chris Meadows — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 02:45:00 +0000

CNet has a report on a new book scanner (Japanese) from Dai Nippon Printing that takes and corrects three-dimensional images of book pages, allowing for them to be scanned at the amazing rate of 250 pages a minute, meaning that the average book could be captured in little more than two to three minutes tops. [...]

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Quick Links: Amazon in the news

Chris Meadows — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 03:15:00 +0000

It’s an Amazon roundup! Here are some Amazon stories from the last few days that might not deserve full pieces by themselves, but are nonetheless interesting tidbits. Wired reports Amazon has released a firmware update for the Paperwhite that will allow readers to enlarge panes in manga novels—undoubtedly aimed mainly at the Japanese market, but [...]

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Rakuten removes all Japanese customer reviews of Kobo Touch from its website

Chris Meadows — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:10:18 +0000

Over at The Digital Reader, Nate Hoffelder has coverage of the Kobo Touch’s launch in Japan, which seems to have turned into something of a debacle. Bad reviews of the device were posted so prevalently to Rakuten’s website that it finally removed all reviews, both good and bad, from its site. Customers reported problems with [...]

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A war against Amazon in Japan

Paul Biba — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:16:11 +0000

From an article by Robin Birtle in Publishing Perspectives: TOKYO: The keynote panel discussion at Tokyo’s E-Book Expo, as part of the Tokyo Book Fair last week, wasn’t expected to get the pulses racing despite the presence of Mikitani-san, whose company Rakuten has acquired Kobo, and Noma-san, the leader of the giant publisher Kodansha. We [...]

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Pottermore in Japan

Paul Biba — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 12:29:03 +0000

From Shelf Awareness: The Pottermore Shop willlaunch in Japan later this summer, featuring Japanese-language e-book editions of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels published in ePub3 format. A Japanese version of the Pottermore Experience will debut at a date yet to be announced, according to the company.Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne said the Harry Potter books “have been phenomenally [...]

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Here’s the official Kobo announcement about their entry into the Japanese market

Paul Biba — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 18:40:05 +0000

From the press release: Kobo Inc., a global leader in eReading, today announced that it will launch its full eReading service in Japan on July 19. The company’s award-winning Kobo Touch™ eReader will be offered to Japanese consumers for ¥7,980 including tax (or $100 USD). Starting today July 2, the Kobo Touch eReader is now [...]

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Japan’s ebook market in 2012

Paul Biba — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 11:52:13 +0000

From an article in Publishing Perspectives by Robin Birtle: In 2011, the only significant e-book revenue in Japan was derived from manga comics. To develop as a mainstream market, a significant push was, and still is, needed from one of the handful of industry players with real clout. One of those players, Rakuten, announced in [...]

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Rakuten (Kobo) to sell ereader in Japan; beats Amazon

Paul Biba — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:46:33 +0000

From The Asahi Shimbun: Rakuten Inc., Japan’s top online retailer, will release its own e-book reader in late July, marking its full-fledged entry into the e-book market. Hiroshi Mikitani, Rakuten chairman and CEO, said the company plans to price the Kobo Touch reader at around 10,000 yen ($126), considerably lower than that for existing similar [...]

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Kobo seeks to beat Amazon to Japanese marketplace with Kobo Touch

Chris Meadows — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 18:15:00 +0000

The Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun reports that Rakuten, the Japanese company that bought Canadian outfit Kobo, is going to try to beat Amazon to market in Japan by introducing the Kobo Touch there in July before Amazon is able to bring out its Kindle Touch there later this year. "As a Japanese company, we cannot [...]

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Kobo-owner Rakuten to sell Japanese e-books to Japanese consumers from Toronto

Chris Meadows — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 02:30:00 +0000

Remember the stories about how Amazon bases its European e-book operations in Luxembourg to avoid having to pay the huge VAT (Value-Added Tax) surcharges that would come from selling e-books out of England? The Bookseller reports this strategy might also make it “big in Japan”. Or, rather, big outside of Japan. Japanese company Rakuten, who [...]

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Amazon inches closer to releasing Kindle in Japan

Chris Meadows — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:19:07 +0000

Tech In Asia reports that, after months of delays, Japanese news sources have reported Amazon is soon to release the Kindle in Japan. This marks the fourth time such reports have surfaced in the last few months. This time, the anticipated date is by the end of the year. A previous prediction had set the [...]

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Manga scanlations hold up digital manga licensing

Chris Meadows — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 07:56:29 +0000

Publishing Trends has an interesting article looking at the problem of manga scanlation, which a number of manga publishers feel is retarding the potential international market for their product. Scanlation, the manga equivalent of fansubbing, has been around for a while, but really kicked into gear around 2007. (I covered this in detail a couple [...]

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E-book initiative in Japan promises ‘1 million e-books’

Chris Meadows — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:26:33 +0000

In an article that showed up complete in my RSS reader but turned out to be behind a paywall when I tried to click through, The Bookseller reports that a group of 180 Japanese publishers are joining forces under an initiative with a goal of creating 1 million e-books. This may be just a bit [...]

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