Why would you want video and animation in a book?

Ever since Apple's iPad was introduced last month everyone has started writing about how magazines and books should now have embedded videos and animations.  The more I've given thought to that I keep getting to the same question: Why?

While I can understand the desire to have user controlled animation in the advertising of a car, so that the user can swivel it around and see what it looks like from all sides, I could not see why I would want anything of the sort in a book.  In non-fiction titles you could add interactive charts, which could prove to be interesting and even animations for the explanations of something like physics.

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Gibraltar series: Three good science fiction books

After eleven years I've finally completed the Gibraltar series by Michael McCollum. I enjoyed all three books and actually read them quickly.  Eleven years was just the interval between the first and last book of the series were published.

Now that you don't have to wait as long to read the last book, I highly recommend this series.  The first book, called Gibraltar Earth tells of humanity's first encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence and of the chilling revelation that one species dominates all others in hundreds of thousands of worlds. Those who won't submit are summarily destroyed.

In Gibraltar Earth the humanity takes its first steps in confirming the information that the have been given is in fact true.  While in the following two books the story plays out in ways which are not totally unexpected and that can sometimes be quite predictable, the reading is light and generally entertaining. 

Gibraltar Earth was one of the very first ebooks I purchased, back in 1999.  I read that first novel in paper form, after printing it out on an HP Laser printer.  Gibraltar Sun, the second book in the series was read on my notebook's screen while the last title, Gibraltar Stars, was read on my iPod.  I guess this progression shows just how far ebooks have come in these eleven years.

Publishers shouldn’t bury their heads in the sand…

I found an  interesting article on how Magazines and Newspapers are responding to the iPad and Apple’s revenue sharing model on Ars Technica. Reading this article got me reconsider how I view what their position on the impact of the iPad should be.

To me it always seemed obvious that publishers of magazines and newspapers should welcome and embrace a device which might help regain relevance to their properties, but it seems that they don’t agree.

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MCGRAW-HILL's CEO confirms iPhoneOS based tablet will be announced tomorrow

In a live TV interview MCGRAW-HILL's CEO confirmed that Apple will introduce an iPhoneOS based tablet device. He also mentioned that MCGRAW-HILL has been working with Apple for quite some time.




UPDATE: I first saw this on Wired and noticed that it was also on MacRumors. In a couple of hours it was all over the net. I guess some people at Apple must be pretty upset by now.

Zinio for the iPhone or an Apple Tablet?

Today I got an email notification of the release of a Zinio application for the iPhone.  For those of you that haven't run across Zinio, it is a visually oriented digital reader software.  It was primarily focused on magazines but has been diversifying into books and textbooks.


Zinio offers a very compelling reading experience with full colored digital magazines that look pretty much the same as they do on paper, including some nice age turning visual effects. While they do seem to offer more than one viewing mode, with a text only mode which seems designed to make it easy to read on a small screen, the whole thing begs for a larger screen.


With the release of this application coming just one week before Apple's media event it might just be that this application is an early release for the iPhone of an application that was already developed for Apple's supposed new Tablet like device.  It would make sense for Apple to seek out a content provider such as Zinio which can bring into the iPhone/iPod platform hundreds of highly regarded titles such as BusinessWeek, Newsweek, Popular Science, MacWorld, PCWorld, PC Magazine, etc.


A quick look at Zinio's website will get you a view of the new Zinio Library software which looks very much like iTunes, though it is probably just a convenient way of having millions of iPhone users familiar with how your software works. 


What do you think?

2010 will be a great year for eBooks

Here we are, 2010!  Last year was a good year for eBooks.  Lots of new readers on the market, lots of new users.  While there was some consolidation on the storefront side, with Barnes & Noble picking up FictionWise, there was  myriad new readers announced, including a very interesting looking one from Barnes & Noble itself. (See my previous post on this...)

Amazon took the Kindle to the world, with international shipping.  Sony introduced new models of its Sony Reader with more size, feature and pricing options. The new Pocket and Touch editions are speacially interesting as they add both a lower price and touch-enabled options.

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Barnes & Noble enters the eBook reader market with the "Nook"

Barnes & Noble has just made its move to enter the eBook reader market with the introduction of its own device.  This device, called "Nook" is proof that there is plenty of chance for innovation in this field.  The Nook adds a small, full color, screen underneath the eInk screen which is used for displaying the content for reading.

By using this separate screen Barnes & Noble elegantly worked around the most inconvenient aspect of the currently available crop of eBook readers: navigating through your content.

The eInk screen used in just about every eBook reader out there is great for displaying black on white content as it does not require energy to maintain the image being displayed.  This allows for incredibly long lasting battery charges which is a great aspect for a device you would want to carry on a long trip.

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