Another e-reader presentation, another film of twentysomethings reading in bright sunlight, this time while on a speedboat, racing across some glorious bay in the Caribbean or wherever it was, in glorious sunshine with the spray crashing around them and they want to ignore it and look at their Reader? Oh come on…

Tadamasa Kitsukawa, MD of the Sony Digital Reading Platform

Still, the guys in marketing at Sony are only doing what the guys at Kindle have done, and in fact, it’s unfair to compare the two because the overriding message from the presentation by Tadamasa Kitsukawa, MD of the Sony Digital Reading Platform, was that the Sony Reader Store is different.

He’s right, too. “We don’t believe in walled gardens. We believe in an open format, the EPUB format, so that all our content can be read on future devices. It’s very important for our customers. We believe in giving people open access to our Reader store with different hardware from different manufacturers.”

The Sony Reader store has now gone live in the UK, supported by numerous publishers, among them Penguin, Quercus, Headline, Little, Brown and Canongate. Sony’s latest touch Reader is being sold in 19 countries and although Kitsukawa would not say how many titles were available, this was because “we are adding more everyday.” He added also: “We are not interested in self-publishing and we don’t think a single, dominant player is healthy for the anyone. In fact, we think a single, dominant player can jeopardize the whole industry.”

John Mason of Nokia Reading speaks at the London Book Fair 2013

John Mason, Head of Nokia Reading, is evangelical about the power of mobile to bring reading to communities that have not had access to print, notably Africa and rural China. He noted that the one-child policy in China means that many children have six adults (two parents, four grandparents) all looking out for the educational welfare of their children and grandchildren. “Culturally, reading is very important there. Right now you have around 100 million people reading digitally on very basic phones. Because of the growth of mobile, they’ve leapfrogged from not much access to a whole new digital world.”

Nokia is now in more than 170 territories and sold some 450 million devices last year, many in emerging markets. “Something we often hear is ‘but will people read on their phones?’ But of course, we are all already doing an enormous amount of reading on our phones. And people find reading something longer is better than they expect. People also prefer to read mobiles when they commute because they don’t have the worry of dropping an expensive e-reader.”

Nokia Reading is a touch and color e-reading hub that will combine news, audio and e-books in one place, “with great local content”, Mason says. Several hundred thousand e-books will be available, depending on the market. Pricing models will include agency and wholesale depending on individual territories and publishers. Nokia clearly has plans for the future, too. “We’re looking to enhance the reading experience,” Mason says. “A mobile doesn’t just know who you are, but where you are – context is something we need to make more relevant.”

The French Institute launched its new platform for French books in translation at the Paris Book Fair earlier this month.

The site, IF VERSO, is an institutional database and social network for book professionals who are Francophones and/or Francophiles. Currently in French and English, the French Institute hopes to make the site available in other languages in the near future. Although IF VERSO is ultimately a government-run site, with the mission to promote French books, it is also potentially a very useful tool for anyone working with French books.

Stéphan-Eloise Gras, who set up the site and is head of digital operations at the French Institute, described IF VERSO as a cross between Facebook and Goodreads, without the commercial aspect of the latter. Professionals can find out which books are still available to be translated, where to find translators, communicate amongst each other, locate rights directors and see where rights for a book have been sold.

The English language site still has a few translation problems to be ironed out and some of the links lead to information that is only available in French, but the feature articles, such as an interview with Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe on translation, or a history of Franco-Russian translation, or better yet, an article about translating Proust into Haitian Creole are interesting and well translated reads.

From the press release:

New Haven, Conn. – Yale University Press is pleased to announce the new website for The Cecile and Theodore Margellos World Republic of Letters, at www.worldrepublicofletters.org. The

Adonis is just one of Yale's superb line-up of translated authors

interactive site opens up a vital channel for engagement with literature in translation—a central goal of this major literary translation series since its founding in 2007. The site is part of a new initiative for the series, which has published 19 titles to date and will continue to grow in the seasons to come.

At www.worldrepublicofletters.org, readers will find:

• expanded excerpts of previously published titles, available for free download;
• original content, including Yves Bonnefoy’s interview with translator Hoyt Rogers and statements by Cecile Margellos and John Donatich, director of Yale University Press;
• an essay by acclaimed translator Edith Grossman, excerpted from her book Why Translation Matters (Yale University Press, 2010); and
• other features being developed to foster dialogue among readers, including The Margellos WRL blog, a newsfeed, an events calendar, and more. Twitter users can comment or expand on the discussion via the hashtag #wrlbooks.

Readers will find all titles published in the series to date, including Adonis: Selected Poems, the first career-spanning collection of poems by Adonis, one of the Arab world’s greatest living poets, in an award-winning translation by Khaled Mattawa; The Poetry of Kabbalah, translated and annotated by MacArthur-winning poet and translator Peter Cole; and Hocus Bogus, by Romain Gary writing as Émile Ajar, in a highly praised translation by David Bellos.

Spring 2012 sees the publication, in paperback, of all backlist titles in the series as well as three seminal works by Witold Gombrowicz, including a complete, single-volume edition of his masterpiece Diary (long out of print for English readers), featuring ten never-before-published pages and a preface by Rita Gombrowicz.

Forthcoming titles of works appearing in English for the first time include The Lair, by Norman Manea, the critically acclaimed Romanian-born author’s most recent novel and the first to be set in America (April 2012), and The Brazen Plagiarist: Selected Poems, by Kiki Dimoula, the most highly regarded Greek poet of her generation (November 2012).

READ: “Edith Grossman Frowns: On the Challenges of Translation in America”

Staples — the US office supply chain store — has come up with an intriguing little promotion tool to help sell e-readers. In collaboration with Distilled Creative, the company is offering an online app that tests your reading speed and gives you an idea of how long you could use each e-reader available at the store (the Kindle, NOOK and Sony eReaders) based on their average battery life.

The app has you read a page from one of three classic novels: War of the Worlds, Alice in Wonderland, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and answer some comprehension questions. It then “compares your speed to other people based on age, grade, and even world records” and will tell you how long it would take you to read other famous novels from cover to cover.

Could you finish War and Peace before your battery gives out? Give it a try and see how you rate.

Source: Staples eReader Department

O’Reilly is live streaming the keynote speeches from the Tools of Change Conference in New York City this Tuesday and Wednesday.

When it comes to Las Vegas, opinions vary. You either love or hate this desert city, but with an overabundance of hotel rooms, Vegas is the perfect location for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), an annual gathering of the consumer electronics industry, an ever-growing industry that loves to celebrate itself.

What’s at CES?

On a show floor of around 180,000 square meters, more than 3,000 exhibitors present 20,000 products to journalists and trade visitors.

The top dogs at the show — electronic companies like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic and LG — present hundreds of their newest products at enormous, flahsy stands. Microchip makers like Intel, Marvell and Qualcomm also attend. You’ll also find mobile companies including Nokia and Blackberry, and camera manufacturers including Nikon, Canon and Fuji.

There was a surprising increase in the number of car manufacturers exhibiting at CES this year compared to 2011. In addition to showing off their latest car models, companies like Ford, Mercedes, Audi and Kia also presented telematic (a combination of telecommunciation and information, like navigation systems) and info-tainment systems.

Absent but Everywhere: Apple and Google

Despite not having big stands at CES, Apple and Google dominated this year’s CES. With the launch of their mobile operating systems, Apple and Google have created the two dominant mobile platforms worldwide: iOS and Android. Thousands of companies around the world use these platforms to launch new products and services in a quick and cost-effective manner. Google’s Android platform not only powers smartphones and tablets, but also televisions and cameras.

This post-PC era — a term coined two years ago by Steve Jobs — is quickly taking shape.

This Biggest Trends at CES 2012

Televisions
Televisions were the trend at this year’s CES. New models were bigger (84 inches), flatter (4 millimeters), and available with higher resolutions and better picture quality. The new smart TVs are connected to the internet, and offer integrated apps like Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and Netflix.

Television makers seemed unsettled by the rumor that Apple would release its own television set and, like the iPhone did to the mobile market, disrupt another industry.

Smartphones
Google’s mobile operating system, Android, has a worldwide market penetration rate of 47%, followed by Apple’s iOS (29%), Blackberry (17%) and Windows Phone (5%). It came as no surprise that many of the new smartphones on display at CES were running Android. The most hyped phone at the show, the Samsung Galaxy Note, also uses Android and will ship with a stylus for taking handwritten notes. Despite its massive 5.3-inch display, the Galaxy Note fits astonishingly well in your hand. (You’ll have to get over the awkward feeling that your holding a small tablet PC up to your ear.)

One of the biggest success stories from the show this year belongs to Nokia and its new Lumia 900 smartphone, which uses the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 operating system. This device was awarded numerous prizes during CES and highly praised in the trade press. One disadvantage, however, is the limited number of apps available for Windows Phone 7. The device will likely be available in the USA in March. (Microsoft opted not to exhibit at this year’s CES because the early date of this year’s show did not sync well with Microsoft’s product development cycle, and because CES decided not to give Microsoft an opening keynote slot this year.)

Tablet Computers
Tablet computers are still a hot trend, and are now being marketed for use in schools, stadiums and offices. In 2012, experts predict that approximately 100 million tablet devices will be sold worldwide. Apple is the dominant player with 60% of the tablet market. The starting price for tablet computers is around $250 today. Industry insiders expect Google to release its own tablet sometime this year, but there was no sign of any Google tablet in Las Vegas.

Within two years, tablet computers could become a large part of the personal computing market, with significant growth expected over the next year. As prices of tablets have gone down and potential applications of these devices have increased, E-Ink e-reader devices are seen less and less at CES.

Ultrabooks
No, not books with extra special features. Ultrabooks are extremely thin, lightweight laptop computers. This new market segment grew out of the popularity of Apple’s Macbook Air. The base price for Macbook Air competitors is around $800. Companies exhibiting ultrabooks included Lenovo, Samsung, Dell and HP.

Other CES Trends
Manufacturers of device accessories, so-called “electronic fashion,” were well represented on the show floor. This competitive market segment offers cases, bags, skins, protective covers, especially for iPhones and iPads, but also for smartphones and tablets from other manufacturers.

Overview

CES is not just for the electronics manufacturers and technology companies anymore. In addition to new players in the tech world, like carmakers, CES is a big draw for people working in creative industries like Hollywood, who use the opportunity to exchange thoughts and ideas with hardware and software companies. Many discussions hinged on new types of interactivity between devices found in most living rooms: televisions, tablets, and smartphones. In the future, television programs will offer viewers the option to interact with shows in real time using apps on tablets and smartphones.

On the other end of the spectrum, some of the largest innovators are not at CES. Apple, Google, Amazon, and perhaps also Microsoft are choosing to host their own events. Nevertheless, CES is very much the trend barometer for the tech industry in the United States.

Thomas Minkus is the Vice President of Emerging Media and English Language Markets for the Frankfurt Book Fair and German Book Office New York.

Following its initial launch in the United States almost a year ago, the Google Books platform recently launched in the UK in October, and in Canada on Tuesday.

As of the launch, Google Books Canada has partnerships with major Canadian publishers, including Random House, McClelland & Stewart, Douglas & McIntyre, House of Anansi and Dundurn.

The Winnipeg Free Press quoted Scott Dougal, director of Product Management for Google Books, as saying, “We have every major publisher in Canada and a lot of very small Canadian publishers.”

Google has also partnered with two independent Canadian bookstores, McNally Robinson in Winnipeg and Campus eBookstore in Ontario, to sell Google eBooks through the bookstores’ websites.

Google will now be competing with Canadian e-bookstore Kobo, as well as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which also sell e-books to Canadian readers.

At a press event in New York on Wednesday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled its new Kindle tablet — the Kindle Fire– which confirmed the rumors and hype that have been building for some time.

Photo c Publishing Perspectives

Called the Kindle Fire, the tablet device sells for mere $199 (the Apple iPad starts at $499) and ships on November 15.

The Kindle Fire features a 7-inch touch screen display with 169 pixels per inch and 16 million colors. It weighs in under a pound at a mere 14.6 ounces — the Apple iPad weighs 1.33 pounds (21.3 ounces). The device also ships with Amazon Silk, a new “cloud accelerated” web browser that speeds up page loading time on mobile devices by processing the web pages in the Amazon cloud before delivering the results to the device.

Onstage at the event, Bezos called the Kindle platform an “end-to-end service” and with the “family” of devices and apps, Kindle is also an entire content “ecosystem.”

With the Kindle Fire, Amazon customers can access all of their Amazon content — books, magazines, newspapers, music, movies, television, apps and the web — on the device. Content on the Kindle Fire (and other Kindle devices and apps) is backed up in the Amazon Cloud for free.

Bezos emphasized the automatic syncing and free cloud storage for Kindle content as a solution to the “broken model” of making consumers responsible for backing up their own files.

In addition, Amazon’s recently launched app store will also be available on the Kindle Fire. This extends the Kindle Fire well beyond a device for consuming content, and makes useful for email, games, utilities and more.

Also unveiled at the press event was the Kindle Touch for $99 and Kindle Touch 3G for $149. The 3G service will be free and available in 100 countries. Bezos told the audience, “we’re going to sell millions of these.” In addition, the standard Kindle with Special Offers now sells for $79.

Kindle devices also now come with a new feature called X-Ray, which analyzes and visually dissects keywords, characters and locations within a Kindle book’s pages. X-Ray allows readers to highlight words and see passages throughout the book containing that word, as well as additional information from Wikipedia and Shelfari.

Bezos said that Amazon initially “set out to improve upon the book.” With this new lineup of Kindle devices as well as Amazon’s ever-expanding library of content, the Kindle platform is shaping up to be a serious rival to the iPad.

By Hannah Johnson

Amazon has sent out invitations to a press conference in New York City on Wednesday, September 28 to announce its new tablet device, according to the Guardian UK.

The device, which may be the first to offer serious competition to Apple’s iPad, will run on Google’s mobile operating system, Android.

Like the Kindle before it, many expect the new tablet to be priced aggressively in order to sell more digital books, movies, and cloud services to consumers, reports the Guardian. The recent launch of Amazon’s Android app store also points to its commitment to creating a real competitor to the Apple system.

The Amazon tablet will also compete closely with Barnes & Noble’s NookColor, which is also an Android-powered tablet.

Read the full Guardian article here