– Windows 8-nettbrett kommer i november

De første nettbrettene med Windows 8 forventes å komme i november, ifølge det amerikanske nettstedet Cnet. Høstlanseringen vil bli et stort øyeblikk for Microsoft. Windows 8 er forventet å komme i oktober, og mange har lurt på hva som egentlig blir å finne i butikken av Windows-baserte nettbrett og enheter. Nå har de første ryktene om Intel-baserte enheter dukket opp, som vil benytte seg av x86-plattformen, i stedet for ARM-plattformen vi finner i Android- og iOS-nettbrett.

Ifølge kildene til Cnet vil det ikke bare dreie seg om nettbrett, men også såkalte hybridmaskiner.

– Mer enn halvparten av de tolv antatte modellene vil være hybrider, altså enheter som kan kombinerer aspekter til tradisjonelle maskiner med tastatur, og berøringsfølsomme nettbrett, skriver Cnet.

Kilde: Hardware.no

Acer: – Windows 8 er redningen

Acer-sjef JT Wang tror Microsoft endelig har funnet formelen med Windows 8. «Microsoft har allerede begynt å skjønne problemene og implementerer endringer i Windows 8», hevder Wang. Både interessen og tilbakemeldingene etter de første visningene av det nye OSet har vært positive.

Michael Dell har også trua på Microsofts nyeste OS, men ser ikke engang nåværende markedsleder i nettleser-markedet, Apple, som en konkurrent. Dette avslørte han i et intervju i august.

Kilde: ITavisen

Microsoft Reader legges ned

Microsoft Reader, den første ebokstandarden som ble støttet av et stort dataselskap, legges ned neste årkan Teleread melde. På MS Readers side står nå følgende melding:

Microsoft is discontinuing Microsoft Reader effective August 30, 2012, which includes download access of the Microsoft Reader application from the Microsoft Reader website. However, customers may continue to use and access the Microsoft Reader application and any .lit materials on their PCs or devices after the discontinuation on August 30, 2012. New content for purchase from retailers in the .lit format will be discontinued on November 8, 2011.

Eiriks forfatterblogg

The state of the e-book lending market

E-book lending is one such feature that has seen a rise in the past year, thanks to programs from Barnes & Noble, Amazon and other players. The space can be broken into two business models: the consumer model, which serves casual e-book users, and the library model, more geared toward schools, universities and governments.

In the consumer space, noteworthy programs include:

• Lendle
• BookLending  
• LendMe
• EBook Fling

The library model is slightly more complicated, and there are systems in place that work quite well for the consumer market that don’t translate to the library world. For example, in the consumer space, an e-book can generally only be lent to one person at a time. But libraries are in need of multiuser models. Trying to force a one-user model for fiction into a library, for example, is not useful to a library with 30-plus patrons trying to access the same content.

Amazon had partnered with OverDrive, an e-book and audiobook distributor, to deliver an e-book lending service to 11,000 libraries in the U.S.

Gigaom.com

Gore, Ex-Apple Engineers Team Up to Blow Up the Book

Push Pop Press, a digital creation tool designed to blow up the concept of the book. Frictionless self-publishing is a fertile new space but this particular startup got a little help from former Vice President Al Gore, who’s exacting demands an an app version of his book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis gave what would become the company it’s first real boost.



Developed by former Apple employees Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris, Push Pop Press will be a publishing platform for authors, publishers and artists to turn their books into interactive iPad or iPhone apps — no programming skills required.

“The app is the richest form of storytelling,” Matas said. Push Pop Press “opens doors to telling a story with more photos, more videos and interactions.”



Wired.com

Exploring the Narrative Possibilities of the E-Book

Jürgen Neffe has had a lot of crazy ideas. Some of them have become bestsellers, Neffe's journey following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin, for example.
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The new format, which Leffe ended up designing himself, is called Libroid. It is similar to an e-book, but avoids the standard digital book format which involves manually "turning pages" by clicking through. And in just two to four weeks, the program -- which cost a low six-figure sum to develop -- will appear as an iPad application. Last week, Neffe presented the Libroid format to the public for the first time.

The concept of Libroid is easy to grasp: If you hold the tablet vertically, you only see text. If you turn it horizontally, two narrow columns appear on either side of the main central text column. In the example of Neffe's Darwin book, the left hand column is used for photos whereas the right contains a world map with the current location, a list of additional reference sources, and -- importantly for this book -- links to the appropriate places in Darwin's own records of his travels.

SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Connexions

Connexions is an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web. Our Content Commons contains educational materials for everyone — from children to college students to professionals — organized in small modules that are easily connected into larger collections or courses. All content is free to use and reuse under the Creative Commons "attribution" license.

Content should be modular and non-linear

Most textbooks are a mass of information in linear format: one topic follows after another. However, our brains are not linear - we learn by making connections between new concepts and things we already know. Connexions mimics this by breaking down content into smaller chunks, called modules, that can be linked together and arranged in different ways. This lets students see the relationships both within and between topics and helps demonstrate that knowledge is naturally interconnected, not isolated into separate classes or books.

Sharing is good

Why re-invent the wheel? When people share their knowledge, they can select from the best ideas to create the most effective learning materials. The knowledge in Connexions can be shared and built upon by all because it is reusable:

• technologically: we store content in XML, which ensures that it works on multiple computer platforms now and in the future.
• legally: the Creative Commons open-content licenses make it easy for authors to share their work - allowing others to use and reuse it legally - while still getting recognition and attribution for their efforts.
• educationally: we encourage authors to write each module to stand on its own so that others can easily use it in different courses and contexts. Connexions also allows instructors to customize content by overlaying their own set of links and annotations.
  
  

Collaboration is encouraged

Just as knowledge is interconnected, people don't live in a vacuum. Connexions promotes communication between content creators and provides various means of collaboration. Collaboration helps knowledge grow more quickly, advancing the possibilities for new ideas from which we all benefit.

Connexions

Google Docs kommer til iPad

Eier du en iPad eller en Android-enhet vil du snart kunne redigere dokumenter på Google Docs, melder Macworlds internasjonale nyhetstjeneste.

- I dag har vi demonstrert nye mobile funksjoner for Google Docs som har støtte for iPad og Android. I løpet av de kommende ukene kommer brukere på disse plattformene til å kunne redigere dokumenter direkte i nettleseren, opplyser David Girouard, sjef for Googles bedriftsenhet i et blogginnlegg.

Kilde: Macworld

Calibre

calibre is a one stop solution to all your e-book needs. It is free, open source and cross-platform in design and works well on Linux, OS X and Windows. calibre is meant to be a complete e-library solution and thus includes library management, format conversion, news feeds to ebook conversion, as well as e-book reader sync features and an integrated e-book viewer.

• Get calibre
• Features
• Screenshots

calibre

Amazon lover Kindle til Mac

Gratisprogrammet, som slippes i november, vil gjøre det mulig for pc-brukere å laste ned og lese e-bøker fra Amazons nettbutikk, uten å måtte kjøpe selve e-bokleseren.

I første omgang er det kun Windows-brukere som vil kunne ta glede av Kindle-programmet, men Amazon har bekreftet at selskapet også vil komme med en versjon av Kindle til Mac.

Amazon har ikke spesifisert når Mac-versjonen vil bli gjort tilgjengelig. Windows-versjonen kan lastes ned fra Amazons nettsider fra og med november.

PC World

Reading ePub on the XO with FBReader

The XO-1 from the OLPC project has a great potential as an e-book reading device: it is the first device with a dual-mode display and you can turn the screen to use it like a tablet. It can work either like a normal LCD screen, or like an epaper device that you can read in the sunlight, featuring the 1st generation of the technology that Pixel Qi is working on. Unfortunately, the “Read” activity was limited to document formats mostly (like PDF) rather than real e-book formats.

Sayamindu Dasgupta is currently working on a port of FBReader to solve this problem, with full integration into Sugar. The second test version was recently released, and now that the circle/square/cross/tick buttons are mapped to change pages and the size of the font, reading ePub files on the XO is a very nice experience overall. E-books might be the real killer app for the XO, and the XO-2 with its book-like dual display seems to be heading in that direction too.

Feedbooks : Blog

Feedbooks - Self-Publishing

For most authors, we recommend using our Web Interface to edit the contents of your book. If you're a bit geekier, you can use our API.

Once you're done editing your book, just press on publish in the Web interface and your book will be instantly available to everyone.

Keep in mind that you don't need to publish your book if you're editing through several sessions: your content will be saved. You can also edit your book again anytime you want, but make sure that you hit the publish button again, otherwise your content won't be available anymore.

Aside from the main website, any self-published books from Feedbooks can be accessed through:

• Our API: check the softwares & services based on it
• Mobile website: at http://www.feedbooks.mobi
• Kindle: in our dedicated guide

Feedbooks : Help - Self-Publishing