Digital Trends
If you’ve ever dreams of reading literary classics on your iPhone or Android device instead of buying a Kindle or working to shoehorn free etexts onto your phone, Google has some good news for you: the company has launched a mobile version of Google Book Search (point your phones here) that provides mobile access to more than 1.5 million public domain books—at least in the United States. (Outside the U.S., selection is currently limited to half a million titles.)
With Western Digital’s recent entries into the fashion segment of portable hard drives, you might expect a product dubbed the Western Digital My Book Mirror Edition to be a trendy book-shaped drive with a finish you can shave in. Sadly for this writer’s imagination, it’s not. The “mirror” in the new My Book represents the twice redundant way it stores your data, to save your most important files from mishaps.
In a short amount of time the number of hard drive vendors offering 2 TB storage solutions to everyday consumers has grown from “barely any” to a respectable collection. That group is now even larger, as Western Digital announces that all its dual-drive My Book external hard drives are now available in 2 TB capacities. The dual-drive models are handily identified by the Roman numeral II after their name, so the models offering 2 TB of storage are the My Book World Edition II, My Book Pro Edition II, and the My Book Premium Edition II.
Google has expanded its much-debated Google Book Search to enable users to download complete copies of public domain books in PDF format. When using Google Book Search, users can access a complete version via the services’ Full View button; if the book is in the public domain and a complete version is available, a Download button will be shown.
Sony Online Entertainment and Planetwide Games yesterday announced a Web version of the latter’s Comic Book Creator is under development for subscribers of SOE’s Station Players service and should be ready this fall. Also announced was the upcoming summer digital availability of the Comic Book Creator software plus special SOE game-themed art packs for purchase through SOE’s Station.com online store.
Comic Book Creator, for those unfamiliar with it, allows users to take game screenshots, DVD movies, digital photos and art assets and create personalized comic books and comic strips. The upcoming Web based version will initially give SOE Station Players service subscribers the ability to import their EverQuest avatars into personalized digital comic books which can be shared with “fellow guild members and friendsâ€.
Brian Kopp of Bronson, Florida, has filed suit in a California federal court alleging that Blizzard Entertainment has unfairly terminated eBay auctions for his unofficial book, The Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling & Gold Guide.
The 24 year-old Kopp has sold several hundred copies of his book via eBay since August 2005 for roughly $15 apiece. Shortly after his first auctions got underway, Blizzard, Vivendi Universal, and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) began demanding eBay close the auctions, claiming the book violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) as well as copyrights and trademarks held by the companies. In general, eBay takes down auctions and suspends seller accounts when it receives violation complaints from copyright and trademark holder.
Hard drive maker Western Digital yesterday rolled out a stylish line of external FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 hard drives designed to stand vertically on desktops and bookshelves. The new My Book series is available in prices ranging from $179.99 to $349.99.
The My Book hard drive series, said Western Digital, has what the company describes as a “unique, iconic-book shaped enclosureâ€. The drives, which comes in a basic USB 2.0 version as well as a “premium†USB 2.0/FireWire 400 option, is designed to self install after being connected a computer with no necessary CDs or separate software to install. Features include storage capacities ranging in size from 160GB to 500GB, a lighted on/off button, quiet operation, shock protection, included desktop, photo and search engine management software and automatic powering on or off depending upon the attached computer’s power status.
Book publisher HarperCollins today dipped their toe into the Internet waters as they unveiled that they were making the full text of a business book available online for free, on an ad supported basis. The book, “Go It Alone! The Secret to Building a Successful Business on Your Ownâ€, is available at author Bruce Judson’s website.
The posting of the entire contents of this book online for free, said HarperCollins, tests a new advertising based business model the company looks to be considering. Each page of the book’s text will be indexed for search engines and accompanied by contextual ads served by major search companies. Additionally, the site will include a link to an online bookseller where consumers can buy a copy of the book.
Online shopping site Amazon.com today announced plans for two new digital book programs which will enable customers to have greater flexibility in their reading choices. These programs, called Amazon Pages and Amazon Upgrade, are built upon the company’s “Search Inside the Book†technology, which allows consumers to search the interior text of hundreds of thousands of books.
The Amazon Pages program, Amazon.com said, will allow customers to purchase and read online just the pages they want from a specific book. The other program, Amazon Upgrade, will allow users the option of not only purchasing the physical book to be delivered to their doorstep, but also allow for complete access to a fully digitized text version as well which can be viewed on Amazon’s website.
Ever been puzzled by what mobile services are available from which carriers? What phones are available on how much they cost? Seattle’s Mobile Research has announced its Mobile Device Blue Book, a new publication listing all available and recently discontinued mobile devices for all major carriers and MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) in the U.S. market. Along with listing every device offered by every carrier, the blue book tracks prices, lists features offered by devices and carriers, and contains sorted listings by manufacturer, carrier, and feature. Tracked items include
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