Items tagged with Book
It's easy to view the overall decline in the print newspaper business, coupled with the surge in e-reader and tablet ownership, as a death knell for paper books. After all, the printed word has been around for so long, that surely it must be on its way out -- right? Well, perhaps in some instances, but not in others. A new Rasmussen Report suggests that three in four U.S.-based readers "still prefer a traditional book over an electronic book-reading device and continue to reads books that way." The report is based on a telephone survey, and it found that 75% of American Adults would rather read a book in a traditional print format than on an electronic book-reading device like a Kindle. Fifteen...
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The world of online reviews as it pertains to literature just got a little more unclear. To be honest, open-ended reviews from anonymous masses has always been dodgy. Hotels have long since spiked their own ratings, and many authors have recently started to do more than just simple outreach in order to solicit positive reviews for their work. For the longest while, places like Amazon have mostly rested while letting the flood of complaints from both sides go unnoticed. But no more. A new report is suggesting that Amazon is attempting to delete reviews that it believes are faked -- positive ones, anyway. The company isn't commenting on the process itself, but it's opening up a whole new can of...
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Say what you want about Steve Jobs, but whatever your opinion of the man, the guy could sell an iPod. And an iPhone and an iPad and a MacBook, and pretty much anything with an Apple logo and the letter "i" slapped in front. This was part of his genius, the ability to market and sell goods and services to an insatiable public, so is it any surprise that his authorized biography is proving immensely popular too? His biography, written by Walter Isaacson, has sold more than 379,000 copies in the U.S. during the first six days it was made available. To put that in perspective, no book has done as well in its first six week since George W. Bush's Decision Points and Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy...
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One of the Nook's claim to fame when it launched was that you could lend books that you purchased to other Nook users for up to two weeks. In a way, it was just like owning a real book, which you can obviously lend to someone at will. Amazon's Kindle couldn't do that, but a new year represents the turning of a new leaf. The company has just revealed that a new lending feature has become active for Kindle users, and the terms are pretty much the same as what users are familiar with on the Nook. But there's a big catch: not all books are supported. According to Amazon, only select eligible e-books are able to be loaned out, and just once for a period of 14 days. At least the owner doesn't have...
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Well, this was inevitable. It's clear that paper books aren't what they used to be, and it's clear that they'll never be as important and useful as they once were. The information and knowledge within their pages are still just as vital as ever, but the digital age has led to easier ways to consume that very information. The advent of the Internet, and to an extent, e-readers and tablets, has enabled consumers to read and consume text without having to check out an actual book. So, what happens to the biggest stockpiles of books? In the case of Stanford University's massive Engineering Library, most of the paper pages will be vanishing while the hard drives in the archive room will be filling...
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Isn't it ironic? Or maybe that's not even the best term to use here. Isn't it...weird? Wikipedia has quickly become the go-to place for knowledge on the Internet, and while it cannot always be trusted completely, it's usually a great place to start searching for information on pretty much any topic you can think of. It's certainly better than the paper-based encyclopedias of old, which is what makes this whole situation so strange. We've always heard that history repeated itself, but it literally is with this bit of news... Wikipedia is now offering books, as in paper books. There's no mistake or typographical error here. PediaPress is the official print-on-demand partner of Wikipedia,...
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As interest grows in the digital-textbook arena, one of the providers of e-textbook subscriptions has announced plans to make over 7,000 titles accessible via Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. The new applications that enable the eBook access will be free to subscribers of CourseSmart LLC. The apps let students access full electronic textbooks, read digital notes, and search for specific words and phrases. This isn’t the first instance we’ve heard of eBooks and eBook readers targeting college students—not long ago, Amazon announced its $489 large-screen Kindle DX e-reader. In combination with the announcement, Amazon is launching a trial program at seven colleges this fall that will experiment with...
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We're a little rusty on our "old sayings," but we're pretty sure one of them goes: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." With seemingly everyone jumping into the E-reader game these days, we guess it was just a matter of time before the consumer electronics giant known as Samsung jumped into the ring. Following the likes of Amazon, Plastic Logic and BeBook, Samsung Electronics has now announced an E-Book Reader of its own over in South Korea. Initially, at least, the reader will be sold exclusively in the company's home nation, with content provided by a local bookstore chain. The SNE-50K will be priced at around 339,000 won in South Korea, which equates to right around $270 in US dollars. The device...
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Just as the rumors insinuated, Amazon has indeed launched a new Kindle. And yes, you're right in remembering that Amazon just launched a new Kindle right around three months ago -- crazy, right? In a very atypical manner, the e-tailer with a flair for making hardware has issued its second e-reader in three months, with the newest version boasting a larger screen, an unbelievably high price tag and little else. Called the Kindle DX, the device looks and feels almost exactly like the refreshed Kindle 2 from February. The biggest difference (literally) is the panel. Instead of the standard 6" screen, this device includes a 9.7" (diagonal) e-ink display which will supposedly enable newspapers and...
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A censored version of an e-book which had been rejected over "objectionable content" has been allowed to enter the App Store. The book, Knife Music, by C|Net Editor David Carnoy, was submitted using an embedded e-reader. As such, it was subject to a clause of the iPhone SDK, section 3.3.12 which states:"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users."The author now states of the new version of the e-book (available for free):All explicit words or scenes have been...
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NEW YORK (AP) — With e-book sales exploding in an otherwise sleepy market, Random House Inc. announced Monday that it was making thousands of additional books available in digital form, including novels by John Updike and Harlan Coben, as well as several volumes of the Magic Treehouse children's series. Random House CEO Markus Dohle said in a statement that "more people everyday are enjoying reading in the electronic format and Random House wants to extend our reach to them with more of our books." The publisher already has more than 8,000 books in the electronic format and will have a digital library of nearly 15,000. The new round of e-books is expected to be completed within months; excerpts...
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ASUS Receives World's First EU Flower Eco Certification for Computers Awarding of EU Flower Certification to N Series Notebooks Bears Testament to ASUS’ Unwavering Commitment to Preserving the Environment Taipei, Taiwan, November 22, 2008 – ASUS, a company that is as committed to environmental conservation as it is to innovation and quality, yesterday saw its sustainable computing efforts rewarded with the conferring of the world’s first EU Flower Eco Award for computers on its N50, N80, N20, and N10 notebooks. This achievement validates the eco-friendliness of ASUS’ N Series notebooks, which had already been honored with prestigious EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) Gold...
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MSI LAUNCHES COLORFUL NEW VR220 YA EDITION NOTEBOOKAvailable in Denim Blue, Coral Pink, Wasabi Green and Empire Black, the VR220 combines the latest mobile technology with style CITY OF INDUSTRY, CA - November 19, 2008 - MSI Computer, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, is pleased to announce the release of the new VR220 YA Edition Notebook. Available in Denim Blue, Coral Pink, WASABI Green and Empire Black, the VR220 combines the latest in mobile technology with brilliant color and style. Beautiful inside and out, these eye pleasing notebooks also feature Intel® Pentium® Dual-core processors and MSI's exclusive ECO Engine Power...
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Today we take a look at Asus’ N10Jc Netbook – a netbook with a bit more juice going on under the hood versus the standard fare. Based on Intel’s Atom N270 processor and sporting a switchable, discrete NVIDIA graphics engine to bolster multimedia performance and provide some level of gaming capability, the N10Jc is a standout netbook to be sure. ...
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ASUS is one of the key drivers of the netbook arena, at least in the sense that they are often the first to bring new features and platforms to market. Not only did they launch the very first commercially available netbook, the Eee PC 701, they can also lay claim to having the first Intel Atom powered notebook, the Eee PC 900A, as well as the first 10" netbook, the Eee PC 1000. Since the first Eee PC hit the market just over a year ago, we have seen a relatively constant stream of new products flow out of the Eee PC team at ASUS; both a blessing and a curse. Oddly, ASUS has actually been criticized for their massive, burgeoning netbook product line. In a period of about a year, they have released...
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Any of you holding your breath for the possibility of Advanced Micro Devices announcing its own version to Intel's atom processor for use in netbooks better have large lungs. AMD's Chief Executive Dirk Meyer announced Thursday: "We're ignoring the Netbook phenomenon--just thinking about PC form factors above that form factor." That is, AMD is focusing on bigger, and in their opinion, better things. Instead of doing battle with Intel's atom processor, AMD is instead banking on the people wanting more power than that offered by netbooks, and has their sites locked on processors to run notebooks designed similar to the Macbook Air - the ultraportable category. As to the difference between an ultraportable...
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Gaming notebooks and an affordable price tag generally don’t go hand in hand. Today, however, MSI announced its newest GX630-028US gaming notebook with a price tag of just $799.99. So just what do you get for this price? Well, the GX630-028US comes with an AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core Processor, 15.4-inch WXGA display, NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT, a 250GB SATA hard drive, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, Super Multi optical drive, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and a 2 megapixel Web cam. Not a bad deal, it seems. Like other MSI gaming notebooks, the GX630 features MSI Turbo Drive engine technology, which lets you over clock the notebook by as much as 15%. It also has the MSI ECO Engine with five different operating modes...
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Social-networking giant Facebook is continuing to grow like mad. In fact, the company grew its active membership total from 90 million users in early July to 120 million now, according to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer. While speaking at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference, Sandberg also noted, “We got more (members) in the last three months than in the first three years of our existence.”If you consider the current population of the world is estimated to be about 6.7 billion, then almost 2% of the world’s population has a Facebook account. Facebook isn’t calling it quits, either. The company is hoping to continue to grow, and is adding partnerships in the process.Facebook...
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Every sign we've seen thus far leads us to believe that netbooks are going to be very popular this holiday shopping season. With good reason, too – they fill a void which has existed since the dawn of mobile computing. Truly cost efficient, rugged, little notebook computers with enough processing power and screen resolution to get basic tasks done – nothing more, nothing less.Many of the large-scale PC vendors have already developed, or are developing, a netbook product for the end of the year. Dell’s Inspirion Mini 9, along with the Asus Eee PC and MSI’s new Wind netbooks appear to be some of the more popular models. One of the more exciting netbook models which has just begun shipping, however,...
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Every sign we've seen thus far leads us to believe that netbooks are going to be very popular this holiday shopping season. With good reason, too – they fill a void which has existed since the dawn of mobile computing. Truly cost efficient, rugged, little notebook computers with enough processing power and screen resolution to get basic tasks done – nothing more, nothing less. Given that pocketbooks are hurting in the current economic climate, these new low-cost mobile systems become that much more attractive, besides being a downright exciting product category. Many of the large-scale PC vendors have already developed, or are developing a netbook product for the end of the year....
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AMD Powers World’s First ATI CrossFireX High Performance Notebook by Alienware- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series graphics and ATI CrossFireX technology pack an unprecedented 640 stream processors into a single notebook - SUNNYVALE, Calif. - November 4, 2008 - High-performance gaming notebook manufacturer Alienware is putting two powerful ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series graphics processors from AMD (NYSE:AMD) in the Alienware M17 notebook PC. The Alienware M17 is the world’s first notebook from a major manufacturer to include the raw horsepower of AMD’s award-winning ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU technology with Microsoft Direct X 10.1 support.“The M17, loaded with all the capabilities of ATI...
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From pre-paid calling cards to minute plans with so-called "free phones", sometimes it's painfully obvious that, although we hate to admit it here, it's not always completely about the hardware. More than a few industry analyst have predicted that the mainstream PC of tomorrow will be nothing more than a thin client connected to the "grid" for services and applications. Now, Computerworld's Mike Elgan ruminates about what will likely be the new frontier for affordable, mobile computing; the $99 Netbook with a "plan"..."Subnotebooks like the Asus Eee PC, the Dell Mini 9 and the HP 2133 Mini-Note will soon cost as little as $99. The catch? You'll need to commit to a two-year...
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