In case you missed Giz Explains the other day – which lays out the entire ebook format and DRM landscape – the iPad will support DRM-free ePub books, in case you’ve got some on your Sony Reader or B&N Nook. If you’ve got a Kindle on the other hand, you’re SOL, since it uses its very own ebook format. [Apple]
According to ChangeWave, the Kindle is going to have a hard time surviving the incoming iPad wave. In a 3171-people survey of Amazon users looking to buy an ebook reader, 40 per cent said they were planning to buy the iPad.
If this press event invite is any indication, that’s the way things are looking. The date is set for October 2, and it all goes down at the Bookmark Lounge of the Library Hotel here in New York. Hmm, there couldn’t be any book connotation to all of that, could there? On this day of press events, it seems like Sony’s jumping into the fray as well to update their year-old Reader hardware before Xmas. We’ll keep you posted. [Sony Reader]
The mad scientist behind this hack was faced with a problem. His beloved Amazon Kindle had a shattered screen and was all but dead. Distraught, he thought to himself: “what if I could sacrifice a Sony reader and perform and unholy cross species screen transplant? Yeah, it just might work because the e-ink screens on both devices are nearly identical.”
A firmware update scheduled to drop later this week will allow Sony Readers to use the .epub format, an open standard (with DRM support) that has the backing of several major book publishers. This means you’ll be able to get books from sources other than Sony’s own Connect store, which currently only has one third the titles of Amazon’s Kindle store. The Kindle, however, currently uses the Mobipocket format for its Kindle Store books, and does not yet support .epub. [AP]
The international publisher, Penguin, has decided to hop onto the ebook bandwagon, by promising regular book launches to be held in conjunction with their ebook counterparts. Unfortunately, the prices will not be lowered for the ebook varieties, but Penguin will offer direct downloads from their website.
