Podcast on an eBook Reader's Bill of Rights

This brief podcast on an eBook Reader's Bill of Rights from The Pod Delusion provides a good explanation of this latest proposal from the blogosphere.

CourseSmart offers e-textbooks for iPhone

CourseSmart has confirmed plans to offer 7,000 e-textbooks for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The academic textbooks - free for CourseSmart subscribers - will allow students to access digital notes and search for specific words or phrases.

Frank Lyman, CourseSmart's executive VP told the Wall Street Journal,

"Nobody is going to use their iPhone to do their homework, but this does provide real mobile learning. If you're in a study group and you have a question, you can immediately access your text."

According to Lyman, the digital books will be priced approximately 50 percent less than their physical counterparts.

Although CourseSmart texts are not available on Amazon's Kindle or Kindle DX, Lyman noted that he would like to see the books available "wherever college students want them."

Barnes & Noble launches eBook store

With what the company claims is the world’s largest eBook store, holding more than 700,000 titles, Barnes and Noble has entered the downloadable e-Book market in a big way. Furthermore, Barnes & Noble said that it will have exclusive rights to distribute Plastic Logic’s fantastic reader device, which may be the Kindle’s biggest threat today.

More than 700,000 titles are available, which, according to Barnes & Noble, include “hundreds of new releases and bestsellers at only $9.99.” More than one million titles will be available by next year, “inclusive of every available eBook from every book publisher and every available eBook original,” the company said. The current stock also offers more than a 500,000 public domain books from Google, which can be downloaded for free.

Barnes & Noble uses and upgraded version of its eReader application, which was part of the company's Fictionwise acquisition earlier this year and is available for the iPhone and Blackberry smartphones, as well as regular Mac and Windows computers.

Mobile Learning - Free eBook

Mobile Learning: Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training is for anyone interested in the use of mobile technology for various distance learning applications. Readers will discover how to design learning materials for delivery on mobile technology and become familiar with the best practices of other educators, trainers, and researchers in the field, as well as the most recent initiatives in mobile learning research. Businesses and governments can learn how to deliver timely information to staff using mobile devices. Professors can use this book as a textbook for courses on distance education, mobile learning, and educational technology.

Select "eBook" for the free PDF download.

Samsung launches "Papyrus" e-reader

The Papyrus, a touchscreen e-reader that Samsung introduced at CES earlier this year, is on its way to European and Korean markets, and a U.S. launch may be next. Leaked information suggests it's an A5-sized e-ink device (meaning it's 5.8 x 8.3 inches, a little larger than a typical paperback book, while the entire Kindle 2 measures 5.3 x 8 inches with a 6-inch screen). The "electronic paper display" screen is also a touchscreen, and though there seems to be an aluminum stylus.

The photos suggest that the device is very slim, and that Samsung, of all the e-readers we've seen so far, has nailed the styling. It has an iPhone-like curved metal edge, and the entire remaining face of the unit is plain--there's just the narrow colored bezel and the e-ink screen.

The current rumors say the Papyrus has just 512MB of memory with no memory-card slot, no Wi-Fi and no cellular WAN access. If true, it will severely limit the device's potential--there would be little room for the e-books, let alone PDFs or Word documents, and it probably won't sport an MP3 player with such little space. The lack of wireless connections also contrasts hugely to the other e-readers out there, particularly the Kindle 2 with its cellular content-serving system and associated Amazon purchasing ecosystem. That's why I'm thinking the rumors are wrong--I suspect the final Papyrus will have some or all of those features.