A hugely important article crossed my Twitter stream this morning, thanks to Sacha Heck. It said that Luxembourg plans to apply its reduced 3% VAT to ebooks [fr]. At first glance, you might think it shouldn’t matter a whole lot how the tiny country taxes ebooks, but it turns out that the rule in Europe [...]
Entries from December 14th, 2011
Luxembourg’s low VAT could give Amazon and Apple the edge in Europe
December 14th, 2011 · No Comments · opinion
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First Look at FlexLight (video)
December 14th, 2011 · 1 Comment · hardware news, video
Earlier today I showed you videos of the Kyobo eReader. If you looked carefully you could see that it has a front light on top of the screen. Like E-ink screens, that ebook reader needed a frontlight because it could not use a backlight. Not too long after I posted that, my competition posted a [...]
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eBook Exclusivity — A Good or Bad Idea?
December 14th, 2011 · 2 Comments · opinion
The answer really is “it depends.” It depends on who you are and where you are in the ebook world. Recently, Amazon started a program for its Prime members: they can borrow 1 ebook for free each month, choosing from a list of more than 30,000 titles (and the list is growing). The source of these [...]
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First True Hands On Videos of the Kyobo eReader w\Mirasol Screen
December 14th, 2011 · 7 Comments · Kyobo eReader, video
Qualcomm’s Mirasol screen has finally made it into the hands of a few bloggers, but sadly I am not one of them. Cheryl Goodman, the head of marketing for Mirasol, is in Taipei this week for a conference. A couple of bloggers caught up with her yesterday and they got to shoot videos of the [...]
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Kindle Format 8 Demo Now Available
December 13th, 2011 · 42 Comments · Amazon, Kindle
On Monday I posted about the new Kindle Format 8 and how I was pretty sure that the Kindle Fire could already read it. It looks like I was right. This morning someone left a comment and confirmed my suspicions. Kindle Format 8 is in beta right now and it is being tested by a [...]
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Skytex to Launch Skypad Alpha 2 Android Tablet Later This Month
December 13th, 2011 · 2 Comments · hardware news
CES is just under a month away, but it looks like at least 1 company isn’t waiting to release their next tablet. Skytex has just released some details on their next 7″ Android tablet. PDF The Alpha 2 is keeping the same 7″ screen as on the original Alpha,but it’s upgrading from the resistive touchscreen [...]
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The Developers are Rioting in KindleTown
December 13th, 2011 · 9 Comments · Amazon, opinion
Have you ever wondered what it was like to submit an app to Amazon for the Kindle? I have, but due to Amazon’s insistence on secrecy few developers will talk about it. Until today. There’s a fascinating post over it iReaderReview that offers a behind the scenes look. Amazon’s approval process for games and apps [...]
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Dilbert on Tablets
December 13th, 2011 · 1 Comment · humor
This is so true that it’s not even funny. It’s been quite a while since I posted a comic on this blog, and I couldn’t resist posting the strip from today’s Dilbert comic. via Dilbert
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My eMatic Twig 4.3″ Android PDA is Unreviewable
December 12th, 2011 · 6 Comments · hardware reviews
Yesterday afternoon I picked up a cute little handheld at Walmart, and tomorrow it is going back. The eMatic Twig first caught my eye a couple months back. I’d been wanting to find a cheap small Android tablet to carry around as a pocket media device. So long as it could play music and read [...]
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OverDrive Responds to the Bait & Switch Complaints
December 12th, 2011 · No Comments · overdrive
Late last week I posted about OverDrive’s latest faux pas, and today they posted a response on their blog. They’d been caught offering different selection to different libraries without actually telling the libraries about the differences in availability. Now, it’s important to note that the limitations were publisher imposed and there wasn’t anything OD could [...]
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