Oxford English Dictionary a Likely Victim of the Internet
Although Oxford University Press, publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary, has not made any firm decision to end the print publication of what many consider an authoritative guide of the English language, the dictionary's future is in limbo. Oxford University Press CEO Nigel Portwood doubts that a print version will be released in 2020 when the dictionary gets revised.
According to the Associated Press, "the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary (O.E.D.) receives 2 million hits a month from subscribers who pay $295 a year. The current printed edition, which exists in 20 volumes and was published in 1989, has sold about 30,000 sets in total."
For now, though, the publisher isn't making any firm decisions on whether to offer a print version or go completely digital. "At present, we're not saying anything definite. ... It's something we continually revisit to see how cost-effective it might be."
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Developers purchase whole Google Nexus One stock
It is safe to assume that the Google Nexus One is no longer available for purchase for the average consumer - after all, word has gone around that the device is now only available for developers via the Android Developers Program. Two weeks ago was when an arrangement came about, where registered developers can purchase an unlocked Nexus One through their publisher page in Android Market, where this proved to be more popular than Google thought with the entire initial inventory depleted in record time, and are now back-ordered from HTC. For those who are still adamant on getting a Nexus One simply because they can't wait for Android 2.2 Froyo on other smartphones, there is always eBay.
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B&N Rebrands And Updates Its iPad, iPhone, and PC Nook eReading Software
The B&N eReader iPad, iPhone, and PC apps are no more. Instead, B&N now has brand new apps, complete with updated features, but more importantly, new branding. From here on out, it will be called Nook for iPad, Nook for iPhone and lastly, Nook for PC. See what they’re doing there? Replacing the B&N branding with that of the Nook just like on the Nook for Android app. Here’s a pic of the previous iPad version. Clever, eh?
The apps just don’t have new logos. All three of the updated apps come with new features, and perhaps, it’s the iPhone flavor that received the best updates. It now functions a lot like the iPad app offering readers lots of customizable options with themes, day/night reading settings, millions of font and brightness controls. Got an iPhone 4? This version is optimized to display art and text on the Retina display. The iPad app now features in-app content rating along with other unmentioned improvements while the Nook for PC app now features the ability to access the B&N eBookstore and shared content.
All three of the new apps — Nook for iPad, Nook for iPhone, and Nook for PC — are available right now for public consumption in their respective app stores or via B&N.com.
Completely New iPhone Application Delivers The Most Easy-to-Use, Customizable iPhone and iPod touch® Reading Experience
NOOK for iPad Updated with First “Rate” Feature on eReading Software
Only eReading Software and Apps to Offer eBook Lending
New York, New York – August 17, 2010 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today enhanced its offering of popular, free NOOK-branded eReading software with updated versions for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and PC (available at www.bn.com/NOOKapps).
Completely new, the next-generation NOOK for iPhone application delivers the most personalized and easy-to-use eReading experience for iPhone and iPod touch owners. NOOK for iPad adds customer-requested, in-app content rating and other improvements to the company’s popular iPad app, and NOOK for PC brings new branding to the company’s desktop software. “Read what you love, anywhere you like”™ with the entire family of free NOOK eReading software and apps, which enables mobile device and computer users to shop more than one million digital titles in the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, access eBooks from their personal Barnes & Noble digital library and use the company’s breakthrough LendMe™ technology to share eBooks with friends.
Taking a page from the company’s popular, highly customizable NOOK for iPad application, Barnes & Noble gives NOOK for iPhone users the ability to tailor the way they consume content, offering a simple, attractive reading experience from the handheld device. Users can create completely personalized or utilize professionally designed themes, and optimize content for day or night reading, with one-tap options and a preview before settings are changed. With unparalleled customization features, the NOOK for iPhone app offers customers the ability to choose from millions of colors for fonts, backgrounds or links, as well as the option to control screen brightness to make reading on the iPhone easy and comfortable. Barnes & Noble designed the NOOK for iPhone to optimize eBook cover art and text on the new iPhone 4’s Retina display, and it also works well on earlier iPhone and iPod touch models.
The new NOOK for iPhone also offers more choice than ever before in an iPhone eReading app: line spacing, font style and sizes, and justification can be adjusted according to user preference. Customers can also opt to use the publisher’s original setting to view the eBook exactly as the publisher and author intended. NOOK for iPhone offers portrait or landscape viewing; one-touch access to highlight, make notes or bookmark a page; and the ability to easily delete samples from within the application. Learn more or get the new application at www.bn.com/NOOKforiPhone and www.itunes.com/appstore.
“We are committed to offering an easy-to-use, comfortable, and fun NOOK eReading experience across multiple platforms. NOOK for iPhone users can shop Barnes & Noble’s vast catalog of eBooks, while enjoying new, customization features and sharing their favorite eBooks with friends for free,” said Douglas Gottlieb, Vice President, Digital Products for Barnes & Noble.com. “NOOK for iPhone puts thousands of eBooks in your pocket, and the reading experience is fantastic. It’s another way that Barnes & Noble’s NOOK offering makes it truly easy to read what you love, anywhere you like.”
Lend eBooks to Friends
Using Barnes & Noble’s innovative and exclusive LendMe technology, customers can share eligible eBooks, easily identified by the LendMe icon, with other NOOK software users. The lending feature, uniquely offered across the NOOK eReading platform, lets friends and family enjoy the eBook for up to 14 days. LendMe recipients have access to a wide variety of eBooks on both the NOOK eBook Reader and their NOOK software-enabled PC, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, or Android™ smartphone.
Like the iPad application, NOOK for iPhone users can initiate, accept and defer eBook lending right inside the app. The new app also seamlessly integrates LendMe into the device experience, so users can simply send the lend offer by tapping their iPhone or iPod touch contacts for the most streamlined sharing possible. And when NOOK software-enabled iPhone, iPod touch or iPad users receive a LendMe offer, it will appear within the application where they can see the eBook’s cover and the message from their friend.
Get In Sync
NOOK for iPhone users can easily read across multiple devices by syncing the last page read of the last eBook opened on their iPhone or iPod touch with other NOOK software-enabled devices including iPad, Android smartphone (OS 1.6 or higher) or Windows®-based PC desktop, laptop or netbook. NOOK for iPhone also quickly syncs users’ entire library, current reading position, notes, highlights and bookmarks with other NOOK software-enabled devices.
Additional features available in NOOK for iPhone include:
· Shop the expansive Barnes & Noble eBookstore: Search, explore and browse through more than one million eBooks at www.bn.com/ebooks directly by touching Shop from the Library. The vast majority of titles are available for $9.99 or less, there are free samples of all eBooks, and more than a half-million free classics. Learn more from thousands of editorial and customer reviews. Pick a current favorite – Barnes & Noble offers 196 of 205 current New York Times Best Sellers – a classic or anything in between and download it wirelessly in seconds.
· Access your personal Barnes & Noble digital library: All eBooks purchased through the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, including those purchased online, on NOOK eBook Readers and software-enabled devices, are at your fingertips in your Library. Customers with large digital libraries will appreciate the search option that helps them find the desired title quickly.
· Full-featured library: As found on NOOK for iPad, NOOK for iPhone features two library views: Library Grid view for displaying easy-to-read, beautiful covers, and Library List. The Library also provides rich product details for each eBook including the synopsis and easy access to more titles from that author. Users can sort by recently read, author or title, or get to their content faster with an in-book search to locate a particular word or phrase.
· Take notes: Bookmark pages, make highlights and write notes. Simply tap a word or drag your finger across a section to highlight it or make a note. In addition to appearing on your iPhone or iPod touch, your bookmarks, highlights and notes will also appear on an iPad and PC enabled with free NOOK software. Other devices will be added soon.
· Learn more: Touch and hold on a word on the screen and the in-app dictionary looks up the word’s meaning. Want to learn more? Simply tap one of the options to take you to the Google or Wikipedia page on that word or term using the Web browser. Barnes & Noble also makes it easy to get started with a quick start tutorial on first login.
· Follows the standard: Now, iPhone users will read eBooks formatted in ePub, quickly becoming the industry standard.
NOOK for iPad, PC
The NOOK family of devices and software continues to evolve with an update for the iPad app, available at www.bn.com/NOOKforiPad and www.itunes.com/appstore. Complete with a new name, NOOK for iPad continues to differentiate itself from other iPad applications with an industry-first “Rate” feature – a fun and helpful way for users to indicate and easily sort their favorite reads. iPad users can simply tap the stars beneath all of the eBooks in the Library to give each a rating of one to five. NOOK for iPad also includes additional performance enhancements from the previous version.
In addition, today’s announcement also marks the company’s re-introduction of its desktop client as NOOK for PC (available at www.bn.com/NOOKforPC). With the ability to shop the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, access to a customer’s personal Barnes & Noble digital library and share eBooks with friends, NOOK for PC offers customers the ability to enjoy eReading on their Windows-based desktop, laptop or netbook.
As previously noted, the company continues to leverage the strength of its NOOK brand across its entire eReading offerings, including NOOK for Mac®, and more in the coming months, and will continues to update its NOOK software offering with enhanced features in the coming months. For more information on free NOOK software and apps, please visit www.bn.com/NOOKapps.
With Barnes & Noble’s Lifetime Library™, Barnes & Noble customers will always be able to access their digital libraries on BN.com and a variety of devices including dedicated NOOK eBook Readers, previously announced eBook readers powered by the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, and NOOK software-enabled iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry® and Android smartphones, HP computers, PC and Mac.
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CT Attorney General Investigating Apple and Amazon Over eBook Pricing [Ebooks]
Citing "potentially anticompetitive ebook deals," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is investigating the relationship between Apple, Amazon and publishers. Blumenthal claims Apple and Amazon have struck exclusive deals with publishers that would block smaller ebook distributors from offering better prices. [Office of the Attorney General via TechFlash] More
Online course from O’Reilly on Processing and Arduino
O'Reilly Media (the publisher of MAKE), in partnership with creativeLIVE, has just announced a new online course, Processing and Arduino in Tandem: Creating Your Own Digital Art Tools:
Create your own drawing and animation software-and learn basic programming and electronics skills at the same time. This engaging 5-week online course introduces you to two simple tools: Processing, a programming language for visual thinkers, and Arduino, a hardware platform for working with electronics. You'll learn how to use these tools together to build something useful right away.
You don't need programming or electronics experience to get started. Processing is easy to learn, and you'll get to know Arduino with a starter kit. You'll also have direct access to the instructor via online Q&A during the workshop. And here's the best part: the courses are free. It's a fun and inspiring way for designers, artists, and beginning programmers to learn basic graphics programming.
The course is free if you watch it live, and the video of the course is available for purchase ($89 for all five sessions, but the price is reduced to $49 until September 28, 2010). There is a project kit available for sale as well.
Schedule: Tuesdays @ 3 p.m. Pacific Time
August 31 - September 28, 2010
Each session is 90-120 minutes
How-To: Make traditional Hawaiian shark-tooth weapons
OK, so it's not actually a tutorial--it's a chapter from Oakland martial arts instructor Sid Campbell's 2006 Warrior Arts and Weapons of Ancient Hawaii that's freely available in its entirety on Google Books. I found Campbell's book after seeing one of these lei o mano, as I think they are called, in a Discovery channel program. Before hiking to the library to check it out I thought, what the heck, I'll see how much is available on gBooks, and was surprised to find that the chapter on shark-tooth weapons, which goes into great detail about the various traditional methods of preparing the teeth and attaching them to the handle, is all there. Thanks to Mr. Campbell and his publisher. If you're into it, please consider buying the book.
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We won!
Make: television Executive Producer Richard Hudson, Maker Workshop segment host John Edgar Park, and MAKE Editor and Publisher Dale Dougherty, proving that they can clean up well. Note Dale, the rebel, sans bow tie. Shocking!
John Park and his wife Erin Kelly Park (who's contributed to MAKE). Nice dress, Erin!
Okay... ah... technically, we didn't win the daytime Emmy in the "Outstanding Lifestyle Programming" category. We lost to Martha. [Shaking fist in Jon Stewart-like mock indignation:] "Damn you, Martha! Queen of all omnimedia!"
But we still feel like winners. We will, forevermore, get to say "the Emmy-nominated Make: television," and that's pretty darn cool. But really, we think the true winning nature of the show speaks for itself. It's smart, funny, quirky, inspiring, and educational television (and how often does that happen?). We're thrilled to be associated with it and feel so lucky to have hooked up with Richard Hudson and the amazing crew at tpt National Productions and with talented folks like John Park, Bill Gurstelle, and all the featured makers, who made the show so special.
And it looks like the group that went to the event had fun too; one of those rare Cinderella at the ball moments. Congrats to all!
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Activision Hesitant To Support The Kinect Or Move
With many folks looking forward to motion-controlled gaming via Microsoft's Kinect or Sony's PlayStation Move, you'd think that game developers would be scrambling to get motion-sensing games out of the door. But it turns out that Activision Blizzard is quite hesitant to support the new control methods, and its main concern lies with the fairly high prices of the Move and Kinect, thought the Kinect's price hasn't been officially confirmed by Microsoft. With the cost of getting the necessary Move or Kinect hardware likely to be more than $100, the publisher is quite worried about the install base of the games that support these control methods. Of course, Microsoft and Sony are going to promote those controllers quite aggressively, so hopefully the adoption rate of it will be high, and we'll be seeing some cool games over the next few months.
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New Hotmail, Microsoft Office 2010 available now
New Hotmail, Microsoft Office 2010 available now originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Barnes & Noble launches eReader for iPad app, we go hands-on
Barnes & Noble might be pushing the Nook as hard as it can, but the retailer has always said it wants to build a reading platform across devices, and it's making a big step in that direction with the launch of its eReader for iPad app today. The app allows Nook users to download most of their content to the iPad -- the books all work, but some periodicals like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal aren't available yet -- and there's a nice bookshelf view with jacket art and a library search function, which the Kindle app and iBooks don't have. As with the Nook and other B&N clients, the iPad client supports LendMe for certain titles, but there's no in-app purchasing -- selecting "add books" from the bookshelf view kicks you out to the browser, just like the Kindle app. We're not sure if this is an Apple restriction or a design decision, but we were told B&N is looking into adding in-app purchasing in a future release.
As for reading, eReader is actually quite flexible -- you can customize the page, text, highlight, and link colors any which way you want (we made some hideous combinations), and there are some nice presets themes as well, ranging from "The Printed Page" to an inverted setting called "Night Light." You can also set books to display using the publisher's settings, and there are the usual line spacing and justification options as well. The only issues we had were with page turns and rendering -- flipping from portrait to landscape too fast would result in some brief wonkiness, and flipping pages too quickly would eventually stall the app and lead to a brief load time. Neither was a deal breaker, but there's clearly some room for polish here -- we're sure B&N is planning to iterate this rapidly, so we'll see what happens. All in all, though the eReader app is a worthy competitor for your iPad ebook dollar -- as long as iBooks has the only in-app store it'll remain our favorite iPad reader, but if you've already purchased Nook content this is a solid free addition to the ecosystem.
Continue reading Barnes & Noble launches eReader for iPad app, we go hands-on
Barnes & Noble launches eReader for iPad app, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.